SNOW AND ICE HAVE DOWNED ALL LINES EXCEPT TELEGRAPH STOP. USING BACKUP TELEGRAPH SO READERS GET LINKS STOP
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LINKS WILL BE FINEST NEWS AVAILABLE STOP HOPEFULLY INTERWEBZ LINES CAN BE REPAIRED FOR LATER POSTS STOP
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SWISS SERVATOR SENDS
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- STILL WAITING NEWS FROM MICHIGAN STOP UNSURE IF ANYONE ABLE TO GET WORD OUT STOP
- THESE DRUGS BAD SAYS FEDS STOP USE THESE DRUGS TO FIGHT BAD DRUGS STOP DRUGS APPEAR TO BE ANSWER TO DRUGS STOP
- FOUND REAL RAPE CULTURE STOP AWAITING WESTERN FEMINIST OUTCRY STOP ALSO WONDERING IF STEVE SMITH HEADED THERE TO PUNISH AMATEURS STOP
- WOULD BE REMISS IF DID NOT PROVIDE LINK TO TELEGRAPH STOP THIS STORY CAUSED MUCH LAUGHTER STOP
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END
But this is an Opioid CRISIS! that means it’s important.
*EDIT FAIRY HELP, AND BRING COFFEE*
Opioid* damnit
“Option Crisis” sounds like Bernie’s campaign platform.
“Nobody Needs Twenty-seven types of opiods.”
Life would be easier if you only had one choice of breadline to get food from.
I thought an opiod was a fancy new packaging option for my opioid drug of choice. No more messy measuring and prep. Just pop an opiod and you are good to go.
…- . .-. -.– / -.-. .-.. . …- . .-. / -.. . .-.. .. …- . .-. -.– / — ..-. / – …. . / .-.. .. -. -.- … / – — -.. .- -.–
Anyone else seeing what looks like font issues with links?
Reply
The font is Morse.
Are you sure? It seems like it is backwards or reversed. You know remorse.
*Cold, Clint Eastwood stare in Swiss’ absence*
SWISS SENDS STOP
Sheesh…coffee
— — .-. … . / -.-. — -.. . / – .-. .- -. … .-.. .- – — .-.
“His message was just ‘STOP STOP’, Was he trying to send an elipsis?”
“FOUND REAL RAPE CULTURE STOP AWAITING WESTERN FEMINIST OUTCRY STOP ALSO WONDERING IF STEVE SMITH HEADED THERE TO PUNISH AMATEURS STOP”
There you go again, acting like our culture is superior. You have no respect for the culture of others.
Respect is earned, and the more I learn about these other cultures the less chance they have of doing that.
STEVE SMITH NOT UNDERSTAND DASH DOT ONLY KNOW IN AND OUT
… — …
“And the first thing that flashed into my gulliver was that I’d like to have her right down there on the floor with the old in-out, real savage.”
Haven’t you telegraphed enough this morning?…
STEVE SMITH BIG FAN OF CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
STEVE SMITH MINDLESSLY BEAT UP DRUNK HOBOS, TOO?
HIM LIKE MILK BAR.
AND BY BEAT UP MEAN RAPE!!
“Oh bliss, bliss and heaven… Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh… And then, a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now… I knew such lovely pictures…”
Climate Change sure is doing a number of Michigan.
*looks at own mistakes, looks at typoes by other commenters*
Todays theme is less ‘Telegram’ and more ‘Decaffinated Commenting’.
*gets more caffiene*
Weather is not! Climate you buffoon! And this is an effect of climate change, and hurricanes are proof of it!
Weather is not! Climate you buffoon!
There are a lot of Global Warmers shouting about this just being weather this morning. They are getting a lot of flack about all this shitty snow from us knuckle draggers around here. We want our Spring!
Probably doesn’t help the narrative when this is the snowiest start to a year EVAH!
April ientifies as January
Being so wrapped up in work I haven’t had time to even sleep I’ve been blissfully ignorant of the news. I’ve been thinking about leaving Floriduh for some time now, but then one gets reminded how much of the year I’d be trapped inside.
“State Income Tax”
Howz that do to keep ya thinkin’ o’ staying in Florida?
Makes me definitely want to move there or somewhere else than one of the N.E. People’s Republics.
Have you gotten your state-issued flip flops, cut-off Matt Kenseth t-shirt, and accident lawyer-themed beer coozie yet?
Florida Men who have 2 DUIs know to get their lawyers’ name, phone number and DUI stop instructions tattooed on their wrist.
“Fuck you Darlene! Shit. I think I’m supposed the other wrist, occifer”
Leave Florida? Why would you leave Florida??? That’s like giving a winning lottery ticket back to the store!
/Maryland native
The bugs, the humidity, the heat, the gators, the Florida Men, the Florida Women, the hurricanes, etc.
You left out all the good parts, like the primo amphetamines.
He was asking why you would leave Florida.
And boats!!
This guy gets it.
Meh, we’ve got mosquitoes, humidity, heat (not as much, but not too far off from northern FL)… No gators, true, and unusual for hurricanes to get serious, but we’ve got the brown marmorated stink bug, and, far worse, we’ve got the sort of people who live in the DC area. I can think of better places than Florida, but I can think of a hell of a lot worse.
Incredibly flat terrain, poorly designed developments leading to traffic congestion, influx of flashy douches, my parents are here.
Move to North Dakota. You can enjoy this
Trapped inside? There’s cross country skiing, ice fishing, winter camping in the Boundary Waters Wilderness, making snow angels and ice skating. Also snow shoveling and stuck-car-out-of-snowdrift-pushing,
Plenty to do outdoors during a Minnesota winter.
…snowmobiling, snowman/snowfort building, sledding, pond hockey, curling…
Also snow shoveling and stuck-car-out-of-snowdrift-pushing,
If you replace that with pulling-stuck-car-out-of-ditch-with-your-4×4-and-a-giantass-tow-chain then my god is that some good entertainment.
Recovery strap, but yeah.
The chain and a lack of tow points on the undercarriage can make for some fun times as well.
Exactly. A recovery strap sounds like something that might NOT have potential to come undone with truly devastating whiplash potential.
Nah, recovery straps have no hooks and are designed to stretch.
Yes, those sound like fun outdoor activities. But you kind of have to wait for a day off for them. You probably spend a lot less time outside when you include stuff like drinking a beer on your back porch after work, wandering through the garden, taking the dog to the dog park before dinner, etc. At least I would have to balance my stir-craziness with my toleration of the cold and slush to be outside on a daily basis.
Any time the left tries to grab the moral high ground, remind them that they have as their hero, known liar James Comey. Promoting what he has to say with out a thought to his credibility, and pushing the most retarded story with salacioud speculations of “if this is true”!
No no, you see James Comey is a flawed anti-hero, kind of like Han Solo. Everything he did he did because he was hip to the threat posed by Trump. He was one of the founding members of The Resistance, you see. And besides, just because he might not be a saint himself doesn’t mean that Trump isn’t an immoral goon. It actually makes Comey more credible, because…well never mind why. It just does.
Comey fired first!
Nice.
Bravo!
This interview was a couple of old Clinton cronies in a circle-jerk. Sure, let’s speculate if Russia has Trump compromised but not mention the Clintons who took hundreds of $millions in Russian bribes and undoubtedly had her private server hacked by every competent intelligence agency in the world.
I, too, try to point to rank hypocrisy on the part of leftists. But it does not work because they have no shame. Additionally, they believe the ends justify the means.
You Trumpets are just terrified of Comey! Comey is coming for Trump! Comey, and Mueller and Stormy! Be afraid, Trumpets, your orange leader’s time is up! We’ve got him this time!
Grants are awarded to states based on a variety of factors, including overdose deaths and the number of people who can’t find treatment.
Don’t which are the bigger junkies, the state or the addicts.
Doesn’t this just disincentivize actually helping people?
Yes, but it incentivizes looking like they are actually helping people.
What is called for here is a very expensive and ineffective program.
If I drank coffee I’d want this on a coffee mug.
You can still own a coffee mug and not drink coffee. Store some office supplies in it.
And I just bought one.
The Internet is a wonderful place.
Why do you hate the owners of brick-and-mortar stores?! Monster!
I do not know of a single physical location that sells personalized coffee cups, especially not one where I can get there, complete my order, and be back at my desk within fifteen minutes.
Don’t *know*…
And I can’t blame the caffeine low.
I was going to ask whether there’s a rogue edit fairy stealing words from.
At least the addicts recognize their situation. This will also have no perverse effect of states not trying to help in order to get more Grant money.
“Grant money”
Cash money
https://www.google.com/search?q=Johnny+Cash%27s+face+on+a+dollar+bill&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS753US753&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=h4ifux5Uz37IGM%253A%252CHoaxuBgg2fVv6M%252C_&usg=__KzVTrNutdrDL8oyJ1cYEcY5M-8E%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH1M-2-L7aAhVOhOAKHc6KBKsQ9QEILjAB#imgrc=h4ifux5Uz37IGM:
I’m going to prepare some popcorn.
Feds To Audit CA High-Speed Rail Project As Funding Flounders
Giddy clapping
Don’t get excited. A bunch of people will be forced to ‘resign’ to some other state job. Meanwhile the project likely has a handful of team red guys whose other purpose is to serve as an indictment sponge
Absolutely. My Uncle is a lefty, and the County of Santa Barbara had to make some cutbacks to the Water Department. So, the people who were remotely right of my Uncle were fired, the people leftward, were fine.
Accountancy is a right-wing myth and austerity is a conspiracy against the People.
“Feds To Audit CA High-Speed Rail Project As Funding Flounders”
Shut up, denier! Not only will the train run on time, but everyone riding it will have free healthcare that doesn’t cost a dime!
The national outrage has drawn parallels with the massive protests that followed the gang rape and murder of a girl on a Delhi bus in 2012
Surprised our feminists aren’t drawing parallels between this and manspreading.
Manspreading is collective gang rape.
Get your token, don’t cut in line and mind the gap.
I think they try to avoid all comparisons with other countries because it starts to poke holes in their whines about how rough they have it here in Patriarchistan.
My wife and daughter were watching American Idol for a spot last night. Katy Perry was dressed like a flower patterned sofa and was manspreading the whole time. She looks like Hillary Clinton now.
I didn’t know Ireland had a formal plan to commit suicide Swedish-style.
Ireland doesn’t need to import immigrants. It just needs to incentivize impregnation.
It would be a crime against humanity to ruin the reservoir of redheads.
STEVE SMITH ALWAYS UP TO RUIN SOMETHING
Well, abortion is illegal. That’s… something similar.
Unfettered immigration in service of the welfare state, you can’t pay out those sweet benefits if your population isn’t reproducing.
Bingo
Is Germany netting more income from immigrants than outlays for new dependents yet?
There was really no need for civilizational suicide. A guest worker program would have made so much more sense: an invitation to stay after x number of years and y qualifications met (native fluency, cultural aptitude, no criminal record), plus z investment in the local economy (buying a house or starting a business, for example). But, no, the Marxists had to half-ass it because the point wasn’t shoring up the welfare state, it’s burying their cultural heritage under a crush of new bodies.
The migrants are costing Germany huge sums and so few produce anything that it has only made everything worse for those dipshits who think their welfare state can be sustained on immigration. You need workers, but their policies attract moochers and criminals.
Also the Turks invited to Germany were meant as guest workers, but they never left either. Of course that lesson wasn’t learned the first time around.
“The migrants are costing Germany huge sums and so few produce anything that it has only made everything worse for those dipshits who think their welfare state can be sustained on immigration. You need workers, but their policies attract moochers and criminals”
But it has allowed the political class to keep the status quo for now, and that is all that counts…
Japan has had some horrible economic policies but seems to be surviving just fine with a declining population.
Countries and their economies can survive ppulation decline just fine.
Wastrel government spending cannot.
Except “guest workers” don’t actually go home in practice. See Germany’s original guest worker program.
“Is Germany netting more income from immigrants than outlays for new dependents yet?”
I’ve read several times that 80% or more of Germany’s immigrant population are on government assistance and do not have jobs. So I have to guess, the answer is no.
“Ireland 2040 plan,”. I hear 5 year plans do wonders for population.
Does wonders for someone, but not the population usually.
Quite possibly the evilest words I have read from a source linked in the comments.
Fuck this guy.
Mmmm. Yummy yummy essentialism.
When even milquetoast conservative outlets like PJMedia start waxing favorably on the concept of Volksgemeinschaft, it’s time to head to the basement bunker.
You know who else headed to a basement bunker?
Warty?
Ariel Castro?
🙁
Spot in The Munsters?
Winnie the Pooh?
Maynard, Zed, and The Gimp?
Strange. Neither opponents nor supporters seem interested in culture, the one thing that I think could occupy a rational common ground.
Culture is one thing. But when you start talking about a nation as a collective, organic whole in which individual identity is essentially and indelibly shaped by circumstances of origin, then you wander into some really creepy and vile stuff.
I get your point. And I don’t think I disagree. I just think culture is the one factor that would be crucial in whether such an immigration program is sane or insane. Yet, the open borders types don’t want to bring it up because it would raise awkward questions about some of their penchant for exotic third world types. And the restrictionists won’t bring it up because it might mean some of those exotic third world types might be able to be assimilated.
No doubt, but I think the question, from the libertarian perspective, is upon whom is the onus for acculturation placed? I’m uncomfortable with the government pre-screening potential immigrants on the basis of something as abstract as cultural values. Until we master telepathy, we have no way of empirically judging individuals, thus we have to make sweeping collective judgements that border on thought-crime prosecution. On the other hand, when it is left to the immigrants themselves, some choose not to acculturate at all. The secret sauce is to figure out how to incentivize what happened to Little Italy and the Lower East Side to also happen in Flushing.
I think America already “does” a far better job of this than almost anywhere else. If you think Flushing is not acculturated – and I would quibble with that characterization just based on my visits – just give it time. The blocks around me are heavily Egyptian but at no point do I feel it’s anything other than “America”. This isn’t Europe or Asia where we encourage ghettos* and don’t even allow them to become citizens.
*Some of “us” do, sure, but not to the same degree
Not only do we not encourage ghettos, many people’s main complaint about some immigrant communities is that they resist integrating with the rest of America.
I was originally going to expand on that with that same point. 130 to 100 years ago, people were complaining about how they couldn’t read any of the signs in the Lower East Side, just like some people complain about Flushing’s Chinatown and Koreatown now. I suspect in the same period of time, if enough of the current population stays in the area, Flushing will still maintain its character, just like Little Italy and the LES has, but be less distinguishable from the background noise of the city proper.
110% agree. Which is why I feel the Bannon crowd dipping their pens into the inkwell of the Nouvelle Droite and Identitarianism to be so fallacious. Romantic nationalism is one of the most anti-American ideologies ever conceived.
I’m uncomfortable with the government pre-screening potential immigrants on the basis of something as abstract as cultural values.
Valid point. But, I don’t think you necessarily need anything like that to get cultural self-selection. People immigrate to places where they thrive. And not assimilating to the dominant culture of where you live is, absent external intervention, a pretty sure-fire recipe for not thriving. Generally, it takes active support, whether pushed in the name of tolerance, cultural diversity, or cultural integrity, for a group of people to get by while not assimilating. Those folks in the LES and Little Italy became Americans (or at least their kids did) because not assimilating was a losing proposition. If you didn’t assimilate, you were a “greenhorn”. And the broader society wasn’t going to stop to “celebrate your Italianness” or “honor your Jewishness”.
just like some people complain about Flushing’s Chinatown and Koreatown now.
To be fair, Chinatown and Koreatown are a little bit of a special case. Specifically because the residents generally tend not to stay in the area. Generally, what’s happened in those neighborhoods is that successive waves of immigrants come in just as the previous wave moves out to the suburbs.
Serious Question: Does the mandatory service requirements for men 18-35 from 1941-1956ish have any affect on the “Americanization” of these 2nd generation citizens who seem to be the “dangerous generation” in Western acculturation. See the 1900-1940 era where there seems to have been more (I have no actual statistical data for this, just stories about ethnic gangs of the Prohibition era and ethnic anarchist/anti-state/union violence in that pre-1920s era) for a pre-current time similar 2nd generation men as dangerous effect.
According to my mother, one of the worst insults my great-grandmother could muster would to be call someone a “griner“.
Sure, if by “Americanization” you mean…
According to my mother, one of the worst insults my great-grandmother could muster would to be call someone a “griner“.
Wow. She really had that much antipathy to Brittney Griner? I mean, I’m not a WNBA fan, but…
130 to 100 years ago, people were complaining about how they couldn’t read any of the signs in the Lower East Side, just like some people complain about Flushing’s Chinatown and Koreatown now.
I think such complaining is part of why assimilation has been so successful in America: it has been socially required. The complaints are one aspect of social pressure towards assimilation, and reducing such social pressure through embracing multiculturalism will reduce the efficacy of assimilation.
Skirting Godwinism there.
Except some of the arguments themselves invite the comparison. I mean, if someone calls themselves a nationalist and a socialist, is it entirely Godwinning to suggest they might be national socialists?
Yeah, dude, when you actually have a vocal minority openly advocating for völkisch theory and naming-dropping Evola, well, I’m going to call a spade a spade.
I hate it when people choose dibs on me. Not gonna do it to someone else.
Considering the number of off-the-plane Irish in New York City, they could probably more easily resolve the situation by not making immigrating from Ireland so rational a proposition for any enterprising Irishman.
The fucker who wrote the damn article won’t even live in Ireland full time!
You’d think that rampant drunken coitus would help add to the population.
Bariaurs aren’t real.
Satyrs are, however…
Well, the MLB is pulling the Cleveland Indians’ logo starting with the ’19 season. Now, if only the NFL would follow the MLB’s example and rename that horribly offensive Washington team’s name! So unwoke of them. Get woke like the MLB!
It’s inappropriate, but we’re gonna keep selling it until then. Makes sense.
But the Fighting Irish logo is totes cool.
As a non-believer the Saints are the team I have issues with. And I’m sure that there are a shit ton of hard core Atheists who are willing to make that argument seriously.
What about the Padres? If anything they symbolize PATRIARCHY and must be destroyed.
This is because sportsball writers have a soft spot in their heart for Notre Dame.
I don’t feel like looking it up, but I believe the term “Fighting Irish” came about after a bunch of students violently opposed the Klan in South Bend.
Not according to Wikipedia, for what it’s worth.
I cannot wait until these people figure out what “Oklahoma” translates to.
‘How in the world are taxpayers paying for Alfa Romeos and Bentleys?’ Senator pushes Army leaders on Afghan contracts
I heard the military is going to stop working with contractors who sell AR-15’s.
I larfed. It may be true in a few years.
What would the military want with an AR-15, anyway? A .22 semi-automatic.
I’ve thought about this one – where is the profit margin for pharmaceuticals to cure people with a single treatment?
Whatever the market bears?
Next you are going to tell us that our new robot government will bring back working communism
“working communism”
Haha, you made a funny.
The assholes peddling this vile ideology keep telling me they will make it work..
If only we let themgive us the right people in charge..
I’m going to make cold fusion work also, just any minute now…
I see that working correctly before any form of communism ever does…
Hmm, no mention of the expense imposed by the regulatory burden of actually getting anything to the market. Maybe if you reduced the hundreds of millions of dollars required to jump through FDA hoops, some of these might be more viable.
It’s more like billions now to get a single drug on the market.
There probably isn’t one but here is the thing. Who said there has to be?
How much imagination does it take to put together a non profit funded by donations whose sole aim is to work on developing these types of treatments and then giving them to the public domain for free?
Jonas Salk never made a dime off of the Polio vaccine and like him the majority of biomedical researchers are not in the field for the money so you would likely have little problem finding doctors willing to pass up the big money from the for profit drug companies to work for you, especially if you paid off their student loans or even gave scholarships that paid their way through school in return for so many years of service and there would be no shortage of people willing to donate to your organization because they know the good it does
As WTF mentioned, the entire healthcare field – pharmaceuticals included – is a government-protected cartel. There is very little competition, so the big players could conceivably agree to
But another thing worth mentioning is that even in this highly constricted system, there still are permanent cures for all kinds of diseases that get developed. They developed laser eye surgery instead of selling people corrective lenses their entire lives, for example. These cures get developed despite all the artificial barriers to entry, and they would be cranked out even quicker if the government would get the fuck out of the way.
As I was saying…
… Agree to continue selling non-curative medications instead of actually developing a cure.
A neuroscientist explains what could be wrong with Trump supporters’ brains
They still can’t figure out why their annointed one wasn’t elected. Here’s a thought your ideas scare the living shit out of people, so when it came to the election it was the lesser of two evils for most Americans.
Their brains aren’t showing a low enough level of activity to want to vote Hillary?
Admitting they are the ones that are wrong and stupid will never happen, hence these convoluted idiotic pretzel shaped word salads trying to blame the others.
This just further drops the credibility of these “professionals”. It’s also creepy to hear it bandied about so commonly that your opposition is clearly mentally handicapped…
What’s funny is Obama anf Hillary have supporters just like this. This isn’t a new phenomenon.
“Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.”
Who am I to argue with a neuroscientist?
Funny that the writer should generalize it since the D-K effect is specifically about tasks/skills. It’s almost as if this author is to dumb to see that he doesn’t understand that he can’t write accurately.
Meta irony gives me a headache.
Looks like you picked the wrong day to stop sniffin’ glue.
Also, there’s almost no place in the USA where a Democrat can win an election without heavy voting by the lowest-educated and least-successful, especially those in minorities — there just aren’t enough elites to make a difference. How Dems can constantly insult GOP voters as stupid while relying on the least-intelligent to vote as they are told is amazing. Do they just giggle to themselves when they say things like this, or do they truly believe it?
They are attempting to solve that particular quandary by making more dependent on the government.
“Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.”
This sounds like literally every self-described “progressive” I have ever met.
They are happy as long as they are kept entertained.
Unlike the rest of the population?
You know what’s likely pretty entertaining? The endless parade of news segments and articles speculating why not only is The Other a cabal of secret Nazi sympathizers and white nationalists, but they’re hopeless retards to boot.
Wait, I thought they had debunked the theory that criminals had some sort of abnormal brain patterns.
This guy thinks that there is a “criminal brain” and that there aren’t enough to get Hillary elected?
Impossible. We know that there were women who voted for Trump, and they cannot be anything except completely physically identical to men who voted for Hillary.
Women are only strong and feisty and tenacious when the men in their lives let them be, and Trump-voting women are all of them slavishly voting the way their husbands and fathers and brothers demand. QED.
Thinking that women do not have agency is sexist, except when it isn’t.
I hate how “progressives” portray everyone else as being motivated by irrational fear.
Is there no fear on their side of things? How many people on the Left have been literally hyperventilating because they think the planet is going to self-incinerate, the Koch brothers are going to enslave everyone with their incomprehensible wealth, and Drumpf is going to start pushing gays into ovens any second now?
Because the left considers that to be “rational” fear, as opposed to the irrational fear of the right.
That, and they insist positions are driven by fear rather than legitimate concerns. A person on the right might question part of an affirmative action policy, and the Left will insist it’s only because they are afraid of giving minorities a chance.
Ireland… is hell-bent on upsizing its population according to the Ireland 2040 plan, which envisions adding an additional one million people to the current population of 4.8 million people in the Republic — mostly through “immigration.”
I seem to remember a time when they were complaining about all the Poles who were coming to Ireland with their EU passports, looking for work.
I guess it’s different, now.
The people still don’t want more people coming in.
A small group of toxic individuals in positions of power want more people coming in.
I don’t get why Europols don’t suffer more ‘unexplained accidents’
I guess for the same reason America’s pols don’t.
Maybe they are going to try to get the American Irish to immigrate back.
I’d need Absolute Freedom of Speech and no infringement of my right to keep and bear arms before I contemplated moving to a place.
and yet you live in New York?
I was born here. I didn’t chose to move here.
When I move, it will be to an improved locale.
That is a low bar.
It does give me a lot of options, however.
You would, how many New Yorkers share that view?
I don’t know, I avoid broaching the topic.
Almost everyone north of NYC? The rest of the state is basically Pennsyltucky.
Yeah, I stopped at a little gas station convenient store in upstate NY a couple of years ago and the rednecks were so scary they even scared me and I’ve spent time in Appalachia.
Rednecks aren’t scary. As my annoying 1st year roommate might say “they’re good people”.
It’s true that many of them are good people, some of whom are rather scary.
Yes, but in the city where the bulk of the Irish are?
Tell em Ireland has free health care and no guns and you could probably get close to a Million New Yorkers with strong Irish roots to repatriate in that time frame, any shortfall could be made up in Boston.
Not saying they’d be any more useful than the camel jockeys they would otherwise get but there are probably more than a million Irish Americans who would love to return to socialist utopia homeland
Dems: If Trump fires someone he’s got every right to fire that’s an impeachable offense!
It’s sad that (if he gets impeached), the majority of impeachments that have occurred in US History would be because a president exercised his rights and Congress got mad.
Too bad the Republicans are too worthless to retaliate in kind the next time a Dem gets elected President.
Deep state is both team blue AND team red…
Exactly.
So it’s bipartisan! That’s good, right? /average voter
I thought bipartisan meant you did what the democrats wanted?
Dems see ___________ as a red line on impeachment.
I kind of want to see what would happen if they actually for-real managed to impeach Trump. I’m not sure how many Dems & progressives get the extent to which it would completely de-legitimize the federal government. I’m not exactly sure what Red America (as distinct from Republicans) would do in response, but I think it would be unprecedented. I think you might have about a quarter of the country looking for a real way out of the fedgov, in ways that make #theresistance look like kindergarten tantrum that it is. I don’t think actual dissolution of the union is a real possibility, but I think we could see something drastic.
I also want someone to tip me off to this event 6 months in advance so that I can convert my investment portfolio into ammo and canned goods.
The Democrats really need to consider the answer to “What happens next?” before they do that and have multiple plans ready to deal with the fallout.
I think the only good outcome of impeaching Trump might be a ferocious re-assertion of states’ rights that moves the FedGov somewhat closer to its constitutionally authorized limits… But I’m not gonna bet on the Republicans actually pulling that off.
On Friday, Warren took to Twitter to urge Democrats in the Senate to pass a bipartisan bill “to ensure that Mueller can complete a full, independent investigation.”
Uh huh…
“Let’s send a loud, clear message that no one is above the law – not even the President of the United States,” she wrote.
President murder-drone and Candidate Corruption could not be reached for comment.
A neuroscientist explains what could be wrong with Trump supporters’ brains
Conservatism is a mental illness. Everybody knows that.
I honestly do wonder if any of these people look at what happened in the Soviet Union and realize just how similar they are to the “psychiatrists” operating at the behest of Stalin.
I wish I could track down the funny meme I saw this morning. It was a Gary Johnson Aleppo meme, and it said “He bombed Syria? The iPhone girl?”
This isn’t it, but I thought it was pretty funny
This is funny also
Excellent.
It’s on the Being Libertarian page.
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/362/427/1c6.jpg
Weird I posted the link but it disappeared.
About Diane Abbott. What else is new with progressives and socialists?
And.
Holy gambling debts, Bat-Man! Vegas Golden Knights are for damn real!
OK, seriously. I’ve waited and read as much as I could from people supporting the strikes on Syria. Not. One. Person. has offered a reasonable explanation of why Assad would use chlorine/sarin in Douma. I actually want to hear how the possible reasons he would have done that. They just hand wave it away.
Given that he’s effectively broken the rebels with conventional arms, it does strain credulity to think he’d do something like that, especially after the previous strikes. But it does seem probable that the rebels would either conduct a false flag attack, or fabricate an attack to prompt retaliation. I’m reaching the opinions that Assad has used zero chemical weapons in his entire career.
See, that makes a reasonable explanation. I want them to at least concoct some cockamamie narrative so it’s not a total dry hump when we get it.
Renegade battlefield commander would be a good one but we all know this whole thing is bullshit.
Also, that would take responsibility off of Assad. That or it would justify Al Qaeda bombing Abu Ghraib.
Well, because Trump said he was going to leave Syria, so,..wait,…I mean, because the Russians are colluding with Trump, and….umm…hang on, it must be something about Assad was winning, so he needed to,….ummmmmm……….
Why do you support Assad, you apologist for mass murder?
What good are all these missiles if we’re not going to use them?
And we have a winner!
Nobody has even bothered to describe the target he supposedly used the gas on. It sure doesn’t sound like his army was in a pitched battle or they had located the enemy headquarters and took it out. Instead, there was a photo shoot with the gas bomb casing literally on some kid’s bed. That’s when I LOL’ed and assumed the whole thing was bullshit.
The argument I’ve heard, mind you on NPR, is that Assad wants to use chemical weapons on the rebels and civilians sympathetic to the rebels in order to completely demoralize them. The goal, as the argument goes, is to inflict so many casualties and such suffering that once the war is over nobody dares to rebel again. By this reasoning, the reason he waited until now to use it is because he wants to hammer home the point that they’re punitive, not strategic.
Personally, I am very, very skeptical. I tend to believe that in the absence of very convincing proof to the contrary you default to whatever position does not involve military force. That doesn’t seem to be the line of thinking on any of the Sunday talk shows, several of which parroted the line “…but what’s the point of limited airstrikes if they aren’t very effective?” or some variation. They’re beating the drums for war good and hard.
So he gassed some random people he could have just shot or run over with tanks? I fail to see how one is scarier than the other.
Yeah, it still doesn’t make any sense.
Trump: “It’s time to leave Syria, bring our troops home.”
Assad: “What can I do to keep my most powerful opponent engaged in fighting me in my country, and likely invite a retaliatory attack?”
For the explanation to make sense you have to believe that not only is Assad dumb as a bag of hammers but his advisors, Russian and Syrian, are as well. Or that he’s a mad dog and can’t be brought to heel even by Vlad Putin and Co.. Both of those are a farther stretch than I can make. I have no problem believing that Assad is a ruthless dictator and is capable of terrible things in order to retain his position, but I don’t think he’s a stupid man.
I think they have acquired the image of a moustache-twiling villain who is prone to doing things for the Evul. I don’t think he’s a cartoon villain, but you don’t retain control of a middle eastern country as a minority sect leader without being a ruthless bastard. Hell you have be be a ruthless bastard even as a majority sect leader.
That’s the thing. I think he or people around him are smart enough to say, “As much as I’d like to use chemical attacks to get revenge and scare the shit out of potential future rebels, doing so will make it likely that the US and others will attack me, which will threaten my position. If I just continue as-is I’ll win the war, and then I can ‘disappear’ any political dissidents at will without attracting much attention.”
“That just shows how reckless Assad is, see, so it’s totally cool for us to retaliate and protect the Syrian people we’d otherwise call scum and vehemently don’t want coming here.”
/best guess
And a total coincidence that they’ve been openly pining to overthrow Assad since at least 2003. It really is fucked up how easy it is to make a case against D.C.
And the ridiculous part is that so many of the same people just a year or two earlier were lauding Assad as a moderate who could liberalize the regime.
Russian reporters have guts.
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-europe-43781351
Vyacheslav Bashkov described Borodin as a “principled, honest journalist” and said Borodin had contacted him at five o’clock in the morning on 11 April saying there was “someone with a weapon on his balcony and people in camouflage and masks on the staircase landing”.
“He bombed Syria? The iPhone girl?”
Nice.
Oregon man on meth fights off 15 cops while masturbating in bar.
Happy hour?
When you got to rub one out, you got to rub one out..
I was expecting STEVE SMITH’S cousin, STEW SMITH. STEW SMITH NOT RAPE, STEW SMITH GET DRUNK AND MASTURBATE!!
STEVE SMITH HATE INTERRUPTIONS
“Only problem is, he’s got a little bit of Mississippi leg hound in him. If the mood catches him right, he’ll grab your leg, and just go to town. You don’t want him around if you’re wearing short pants if you know what I mean. A word of warning though: If he does lay into you, it’s best to just let him finish.”
I miss semi-sane Randy Quaid.
Star Whackers Quaid is entertaining as well.
Looks like Sean William Scott’s chromosomally challenged brother.
“Oh yeah, zap me again, that almost got it…”
Well all those cops used the old kung fu strategy of attacking one at a time AND they all came at him from his right side. If they would have attacked from the left side, they would have taken him because he has no power on that side.
Was that the hand doing the yanking, and that he was not letting go?
Is that where SF is this morning?
He is interviewing the guy for material.
Joe Biden: Republicans ‘Don’t Want Black Folks Voting’
That’s why the Republicans tried to secede and fought so hard against Abraham Lincoln.
It’s also why the Republicans tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act.
Did his host laugh and say blacks were voting before them “Greek homos ever got around to it”?
Do you all not remember the great ideological switch of 1966? When the Democrats and Republican switched sides (even re-seating themselves in the chamber!)?
Joe Biden: Republicans ‘Don’t Want Black Folks Voting’
Something something put you back in chains
No no, he distinctly said “put y’all back in chains” because he’s totally hip and cool with bla’pipo.
The OIG report has some pretty incredible stuff.
Not gonna lie, this whole thing is kinda over my head.
Basically a team blue guy committed several blatant felonies to cover the wide wrinkly ass of the mammal with the kankles. Words will be said, team red outrage will be faux’d, and as you mammals say “and nothing else happened”
One set of rules for us, another for them…
And the idiots in team red think if they let team blue off the hook this time, the favor will be returned…
Of course, that will NEVER happen…
Team red is not referred to as the stupid ones here without owning it.
Long thread, here’s a TL;DR (as I understand it):
McCabe was in charge of the Clinton investigation (both emails and foundation; aside it says the foundation investigation is still active). The press accurately reports that McCabe’s wife received $700,000 from Clinton associate McCauliffe. McCabe goes into cover your ass mode and leaks (through Page whose name keeps coming up) to the press that someone in the DOJ wants the investigation shut down, so the impetus for the corruption is someone else. This triggers an investigation into where the leaks came from. McCabe then lies, and lies and lies again, under oath twice, about the source of the leaks.
The other thing of note in there is that the Weiner laptop was being sat on, and it was the NYPD who forced the issue. They were being blackmailed by the Garner case (I don’t have detail of that, it’s mentioned in passing) to sit on it, but fought back and Comey had to address the issue. I think that’s interesting in answering why Comey reopened the case days before the election.
McAuliffe is as scummy as they come. He’s been Clinton’s bag man from the beginning.
Yeah, I meant McAuliffe not McCauliffe. I got all the Mc’s mixed up. It’s pretty clear that McCabe was in the bag for Clinton, and when you’re heading up the investigation, that’s an issue. Will the MSM report on this…no. That said nothing new if you’ve been following along, just more confirmation how fucked the entire Clinton scandal was.
Comey has been the Clintons’ get-out-of-jail-free card since he was a deputy special counsel on the Senate Whitewater Committee 22 years ago.
Well having a 22 year career and allying with the Clintons are probably related.
“the Weiner laptop was being sat on”
…there’s a joke in there somewhere.
Hey, remember just weeks ago when Democrats were shedding big, salty crocodile tears over McCabe being denied some tiny fraction of his pension by the mean, evil Trump and his lackey, Sessions? Despite the recommendation for firing coming from the OIG and the FBI’s own internal investigators. Remember how a bunch of morons donated money to the GoFundMe set up by his PR agents? I wonder how many feds were screeching bloody murder at dimwitted Dems for making McCabe of all people a casus belli. Oh, hey, it turns out his crimes were in covering up his own conflicts of interest on behalf of the Clintons, McAuliffe, and his wife? I doubt we’ll be hearing much about our friend McCabe from now until eternity. He’ll be airbrushed out of the picture.
Bask in the glorious light of my virtue
A billionaire hedge fund manager and former major GOP donor is tearing into Republicans, saying he is planning to use money from the GOP tax cuts to elect Democrats.
“I received a tax cut I neither need nor want,” Seth Klarman told The Boston Globe.
“I’m choosing to invest it to fight the administration’s flawed policies and to elect Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives.”
Klarman said Republicans in Congress have failed to hold President Trump accountable. He added that GOP lawmakers have “abandoned their historic beliefs and values.”
“For the good of the country, the Democrats must take back one or both houses of Congress,” he said.
——-
Last year, Klarman ripped Trump at an investment conference, calling him a “threat to democracy.” During the 2016 presidential election, he pledged to support Clinton and called Trump “shockingly unacceptable,” according to Reuters.
I eagerly await the “Get money out of politics!” crowd’s reaction. I’m sure they’ll be on Meet the Press tearing up his campaign checks and denouncing his attempts to buy their loyalty.
Ergo, no one should receive them.
Really, what a cunt.
They is a button on treasury.gov to send it back.
There.
And no I am no posting too quickly, I had an edit to make.
I read it. Nowhere in the article does he say exactly which Republican historic beliefs and values he thinks he’ll be able to re-establish by electing Democrats.
I didn’t read the article, but I’m hoping this “former major GOP donor” wasn’t somehow surprised that the GOP put the tax cuts into place, since that’s one of their major platform pieces.
I’m sure if they did, they could recoup the losses with some extra pocket change from the AFSCME, SEIU, American Federation of Teachers, and other groups that have a financial interest in big government and subsequently donate colossal sums of money to Democrats.
OT and personal: I’ve made no bones about the variety of mental health issues that I deal with (anxiety, depression, substance abuse to try and cope) and these things scare me.
Romantically lonely, a new girl ignited feelings that I haven’t had in a long time. Upon being rebuffed after initial success, an insanely over-reaction took over in my brain. Fun fact: You take two people, one who’s crushing on someone and someone addicted to heroin, ya can’t tell the difference between their brain activity in MRI scans. (Makes sense, really. “Should I call her? Oh, I hope she calls me. I really should call her let’s call her!”)
I think I kinda bounced back from this stupid reaction today, but I’m also terrified at the reality that it can affect my brain so quickly and totally like that. I’m very susceptible to it. Lots of very dangerous thoughts that came out far too quickly in complete disproportion over the events on the field.
Evan no like. Bad medicine.
Birthday is in two weeks and I’m gonna play a drum solo (ugh. Even I hate them.) at a friend’s show that I’ll cameo for. I as always have the pre-show jitters but I think it’s important for me to get up on stage and play for the first time in a while.
Thanks for Get Shit Off Chest rant. This place is great. Onwards and upwards.
Do you have a cite for that? I have a friend who really needs to see this.
I studied psych (mostly memory) at IU and read the research in Abnormal Psych in 2008 or so. I no longer have my JSTORG links, but this is at a brief glance a easily readable write-up, though it’s not the guy’s published scientific article.
When Love Is Like Cocaine
“Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.”
― Aeschylus, Agamemnon
I found for me, the solution is to talk to a handful of women you might be interested in at the same time. That way you avoid the pitfalls of having all your eggs in one basket.
Or all your sperm in just one egg
“Lots of very dangerous thoughts that came out far too quickly in complete disproportion over the events on the field.”
You can always run some of those thoughts and events by us, Evan. If you ever want a second opinion. Glibs seem to be, well, pretty glib actually.
And in spite of our general assholery, there are some very smart and very well-informed people on here.
I turn 31 in a bit and this has been an issue I’ve dealt with since I was at least 15. Aspie father passed on some interesting genes to me, where it seems I got all the shit and my brother got all the good.
Ok, read whole thing first before you freak out: I have very ill-defined suicidal thoughts. For a very long time my internal catch-phrase of “It’s OK, I’m just going to kill myself” has been my go-to to “help” me forget about awkward interactions and situations. Again, pretty much all of these are imagined, but knowing that my brain is blowing it out of proportion makes it worse, rather than better.
I have never actually EVER EVER EVER taken that sentence seriously. No attempts, no cutting, no fucking anything at all. I love life way too much to ever give it up willingly. But it bothers me that that sentence has a calming effect on me. I guess the best way of looking at it is “You know what, Ev, this isn’t a big deal and once everything is done and done (literally probably 10 minutes from the event), no one is going to think about what you’re currently agonizing over. ”
I don’t like that knowing a girl for six weeks or so can seemingly devastate me. I suppose this is why I’ve only been in one long-term relationship. I know I’m a very difficult person to be around. I need to learn how to temper that emotion, because it takes hold really fast when it comes around.
Welcome to free will. Everybody can kill themselves and I think owning up to that fact and consciously choosing “No” is a good thing.
Eh, I’ve never understand the concept of “free will” as is normally talked about.
Standard thing I’d say when I was in HS was “Well, if I have free will then I can drop this pencil at any time”
*Proceeds to drop pencil*
“See!”
But if someone else hadn’t started the conversation, I never would of thought of doing that. I think in some instances you have free will in the moment, but your entire brain state is completely dominated by the circumstances that are constantly prompting you and changing how you would react.
I think the level of blur between choice and external prompts is so large so that I find it a mostly meaningless philosophical circle jerk to consider. I prefer to waste my time on things that I think are important.
There’s a lot of research out there on post hoc rationalization that supports what you’re saying about external prompts. We may or may not believe free will exists, but we all live like we have it.
True.
All the neurons and chemicals that comprise your brain?
They’re nothing but matter, behaving as matter does. But that doesn’t really change your life in any way.
I think of it like this:
1. Your genes set various hard limits, give you various aptitudes and weaknesses and can hardwire tendencies toward various attitudes. They are the most important influence but they don’t actually determine outcomes.
2. Environment encourages some attitudes and discourages others, it limits you further within the limits already in place from genetics, and it can give you a push toward or away from pursuing various goals. It acts as feedback to the genetic ‘machine’.
3. You have free will and can take steps to both change your environment and either double down on the influence your environment has, or go against that influence. There are no guarantees you will succeed, genetic predispositions are powerful and your environment can be overwhelming, but you get to try. This difficulty is why historically proponents of liberty all preached discipline and self reliance.
The older I get the more I believe self discipline is the single most important skill you can develop.
+ 1 Marshmallow.
In the immortal words of David Simms
Moral decay, thy name is facebook
If the congressional hearings featuring Mark Zuckerberg are any indication, Facebook is responsible for the exploitative sharing of our data and catastrophic damage to our democracy — winning and losing elections and threatening our First Amendment freedoms. Not to mention the less obvious ways Facebook feeds us news and tries to influence how we think.
——
Online, we are not unlike the British schoolboys stranded on an island in the 1954 classic novel, “Lord of the Flies,” free from the moral order of society and subject only to the rules they create. We know how the story ends: savagery, children dying, and an ironic and unsatisfying rescue. As on an unnamed Pacific island, online we face a certain freedom from the usual societal and familial roles and relationships that ground our morality. We create our own “moral” communities, organized around the content we love and hate.
These online “relationships” influence our sense of morality and the things we might say and do online and off. They even alter what we believe to be true about ourselves — and not always in a good way.
The question we as a society and as individuals are not addressing is how social media shapes our moral behavior by altering our perceptions of reality, which serve as the basis for our moral behavior. Social networking technologies not only limit our perception but also direct our attention in ways that affect how we see the event, understand it and react to it.
Who can save the simpletons from themselves?
Kind and caring Mommy Government, that’s who.
Wait, wut?! “catastrophic damage to our democracy”? “winning and losing elections”? “threatening our First Amendment freedoms”?
Citations needed.
I wish I could disseminate some fake news that Facebook is really a long con of Russian origin, and Zuckerberg’s real name is Boris Markovitch Zuckeroff.
Hillary didn’t win, a-doy!
our democracy
This is the most egregious part. The US is a REPUBLIC. It really grinds my gears when people harp about “our democracy” when “our democracy” does not exist.
The worst offense that derpbook has committed is getting a whole bunch of dumb boring people together who are collectively convinced that everyone wants to see more pictures of their ugly dogs and ugly kids. The good news is, you don’t have to look at it.
I’m going to have to go with the opinion that Congress is a whole lot more dangerous to all of us than Facebook could ever hope to be.
Congress isn’t nearly as dangerous as the deep state. They’re literally trying to hijack the lawful election of a person who they are afraid might undermine their ability to control the nation.
I have an extremely pretty dog!
catastrophic damage to our democracy
I remain disappointed that phrases like this can be uttered or written without resulting in universal mockery and derision.
“catastrophic damage to our democracy ” = “the wrong candidate won”
I thought a posted a long reply about the Democrats not being aware of the precedent they’re setting and underestimating, as usual, the huge number of people who are deeply opposed to their policies, but it looks like something eated it. Probably for the best.
They don’t realize just how dangerous this shit really is. The whole “peaceful transition of power” thing relies on the losers going away quietly. By refusing to go quietly and actively obstructing and trying to destroy the victors by any means necessary, they are destroying the entire concept of a peaceful transition of power, and will not like where it may ultimately lead.
Maybe we get lucky and get Pinochet. More likely we get Peron.
Remember when they were all in a tizzy because Trump might not accept a loss.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Exactly. It seems very short-sighted to me. I think they imagine that Trump supporters are some tiny contingent who “somehow” managed to hijack their precious fedgov apparatus and that if and when they finally depose him they’ll be welcomed back by the vast majority of the country and the national nightmare will finally be over. I think they’re gravely mistaken.
They’ve moved on from the electoral college, anyway. Probably because addressing that requires real legwork. Punishing Facebook (or whatever ends up being their bete noire when the hammer falls) is much easier.
Let’s regulate social media, then it will be all better.
Unfettered expression threatens our First Amendment rights.
There’s a few folks around these parts who sincerely believe that Russia’s FB ad buy allowed Trump to win the election. The ignorance is truly stunning but also scary. If “regular” people can be so easily influenced, there are only two possible solutions: (1) control all media & the internet; (2) stop “regular” people from voting.
Of all the people I saw on Facebook posting “fake Russian news”, were the people who were already voting Trump. Those articles/ads were nothing but confirmation bias for Trump supporters. Just like occupy Democrats is used by lefties.
WHO THE FUCKING FUCK IS “WE”??????!!!!
OT: Got some decent storms in my neck of the woods last night. Something strange but enlightening happened during one: at one point the combination of rolling, crackling thunder combined with the sound of the cats chasing each other down the hallway sounded like a person walking down my hallway. The only two people in the house were me and the gf. I sat up and put my arm on her and was about to get up and reach for my gun safe when the cats stumbled into the room. This all happened in a matter of seconds and turned out to be nothing (I checked the house anyway bc the gf awoke at the same time as me and thought the same thing and she wanted to be sure…), but it told me that even my quick access biometric safe may not be quick enough when it becomes necessary to pull a gun in self defense. It also was an example of how locking them away makes them useless when you need them and why people who support things like trigger locks and the like don’t know anything and are intent on leaving you helpless. Time to start keeping a pistol on the nightstand, I suppose.
I have a quick access safe in my nightstand with a couple of pistols and a couple of extra mags, but I always unlock it when I go to bed for just that reason, then re-lock it before I leave for work in the morning.
Rebel, when I get a handgun, it will be kept, in a holster, in my nightstand. It has a drawer, and may fall over if I were to try and open it while sleeping, which is plenty secure for me, and if you don’t have kids, should be secure for you.
Our guns are in quick access safes in the bedroom. Yes it adds 60 seconds to getting to the weapons.
We also have two early warning systems (aka shelties) installed in the bedroom to give us ample time to open the safes.
We have a quick access safe and our house has smart cameras covering every entry. Any movement and my phone alerts me. On top of that our dog is pretty alert.
That bedding has seen action. I’d bet my life on it.
Those sheets are quite pimp.
I was going to build a new bed frame this summer . . . . .
He’d be sweeping the person next to him with the muzzle.
Does it look like he has any love for them hos?
Good point.
I fuckin’ love that commercial
Exact same thing happened, exact same place. Need to figure something out for that. Also really need to get a long gun of some kind, but I don’t really want to sell the first gun I ever bought to do it. It’s a nice SW Model 28, I could probably sell it and a buy a decent AR or tactical shotgun, but I don’t want to sell it lol.
I have a safe on my nightstand and can grab my gun in less than five seconds. I’ve never felt it’s not enough time, it’ll take much longer than that for someone to breach my doors or windows. I have small children so guns have to be locked up if not holstered on a body. If I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t lock my primary gun up while I sleep. Also agree trigger locks are just pure evil.
As Kinnath and LJW mentioned, also have have motion alerts at multiple points. Then 3 large GSDs in the house to slow down or eliminate the threat before I engage.
Funnily enough, we had bad storms too last night and a similar experience happened. The alarm on my outer gate went off and I saw in my video feed there was a couple calves and woman standing in my driveway at midnight. Seriously, what the fuck is going on?
Went out there to investigate and it turned out the storm took down her fence and the cows escaped. She had been searching for hours and her cows had found mine. Very strange to wake up to in the middle of the night.
Her cows herd your cows were a hoot.
*narrows graze*
For sure, though the bull was a bit moooody about it all.
These puns are truly beyond the pale. If they don’t beef up moderation around here, I’m gonna move on to greener pastures.
I see you guys are milking this one for all it’s worth.
Anyone else got to go send Uncle Sam a big check to square away their claim on their earnings like I need to do later today?
And all I get for all this money they take is told that they need to spend more to buy votes..
I sent them 26 little checks over the last year, and they sent me back one little check that failed to get me back to parity.
Sending $3K in to the Feds.
Because of Trump’s tax cuts, my withholding was off, so I should be seeing a little back.
Really? Thought those didn’t go into effect until next year’s return.
A little over $1K check from me to the Feds plus $3 fee for underpayment. Sadly getting money back from the state.
Yes. I sent them a check for an amount larger than my wife’s entire earning for the year, a comparison which did not escape her notice.
I’m getting money bac. I need to adjust my withholding… Shitty savings account.
Back*
$6k between the Feds and NJ. After the wife and I got our bonuses, we immediately wrote it out of the checkbook so I don’t really think about it today.
I refuse to let them take out more and I will wait till the absolute last moment to send my check. I wish someone would pass a law forcing people to write their IRS payments every paycheck so people would actually remain aware of how much money they send to this money pit in D.C.
A better law would be require the government to periodically mail a statement declaring how much was taken. Less hassle for the citizen while achieving a similar effect.
Would be pointless, 90% of people would circular file without ever reading them
Private companies would offer escrow like services, and eventually employers would offer it as a fringe benefit, and we’d be back to where we are today. If seeing the numbers on a paystub aren’t enough now, I don’t know how it would change.
How many people pay their property taxes and homeowners’ insurance premiums directly rather than through an escrow account today?
/raises hand
I got around $70 back, but with the $370 in tax prep cost, I’m still in the red for the tax season. I can’t complain compared to some other people around here.
Still upset I can’t deduct my student loan interest while everyone else gets to deduct their mortgage interest.
My student loan interest last year was miniscule. I can’t remember if I was allowed to deduct it or not.
(*re-celebrates having paid off the loan*)
If you made over $80k, you can’t deduct it. Congrats on paying yours off. I still have ~$25k to go.
Whenever anyone complains about the mortgage interest loophole, I like to point out that in the original 1913 income tax form, ALL interest was deductible. There were only a handful of deductions, but interest was one of them. Losses due to shipwreck was another.
I can’t deduct my mortgage interest as of last year. It’s dropped below the point where that and other deductions are more than the standard deduction.
Interesting – I didn’t know that you choose between mortgage interest and the standard deduction. Student loan interest deductions are in addition to the standard deduction, so you don’t have to choose between the two.
There is a short list of deductions you can take on top of standard without itemizing, but mortgage interest isn’t one of them.
The mortgage interest deduction was enough to put me from owing money to getting a small refund.
I got back more than I sent in, because, reasons? I guess.
Actually, the reason is the kid, plus I am still exempt due to past business losses. I was withholding in early 2017 until my taxes from 2016 were filed and I could switch to exempt status.
i will start withholding again in 2019.
I hear that Gunny Hartman died yesterday from pneumonia complications…
But
George WashingtonBarbara Bush is still kicking.EDG: I saw your note on Nap Eyes. Thanks for the heads-up. Really good album.
?
More boobs vs. buns.
http://archive.is/bmc1P
There are no losers.
Strong group, but I’ll choose 29. Because athlete.
I’ll take a number 6 with a side order of number 34.
38. I like 29, but I’ve got to see her face.
I sent them a check for an amount larger than my wife’s entire earning for the year
Eek.
Send them a note and say you’re just going to pay her to stay home, next year. I’m sure they’ll understand.
I almost forgot that today is Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts. That’s the day they ironically celebrate the failed weapons confiscation mission of the British in 1775.
I’d have figured they’d cancel this year’s after the Super Bowl.
Should be April 19th, but I guess 3 day weekends are more important than historical accuracy.
April 19th is a fascinating date. Three historical examples of why it’s so important to be armed, and the evil that government is capable of.
April 19th 1775, the first shots of the American Revolution.
April 19th 1943, the Jews of Warsaw show us that is indeed better to die then be killed.
April 19th 1993, the jackbooted thugs of the FBI and the ATF liquidate a religious minority for daring to defy them.
April 19th, 1995: Oklahoma City Bombing.
Shit stain was executed about an hour an a half north of what used to be hometown.
If the feds don’t want their buildings blown up, they shouldn’t burn people alive in their homes.
Ehhhhhhh. That whole thing was a complete clusterfuck, but it’s pretty obvious that Koresh & Co. were up to some awfully nefarious behavior with regards to kids in the compound.
I think it was absolutely a bungled affair that didn’t need to go down the way it did and I don’t like how the investigation started, but I think there was enough abuse/violence to warrant some sort of police action. (I don’t think it should’ve been federal.)
Ruby Ridge was also such a curious thing. The shotgun business was pure entrapment and the siege was obviously disastrously handled. There were some scary people there and I’ve never got a good bead of how involved the Weaver’s were in the legitimately scary things going on in that community.
Don’t think the gov’t should have gotten involved necessarily, and the way that they did was obviously fucked, but I always find it odd that those are the two of the biggest examples people use to promote the idea of pushing back against the government.
McVeigh killed 68 kids, among the other hundred. He can go get fucked with a stalactite for eternity in hell.
Yes. McVeigh was a mother-fucker to the Nth degree. How does killing a bunch of innocents get even with the government for killing a bunch of innocents?
I remember reading that McVeigh’s justification was that the bombing would kick off a federal government crackdown on any and all dissidents, which would in turn lead to some kind of race war / revolution scenario.
In some writing or another, he compared himself to bomber pilots who had to drop bombs and kill a lot of innocent people in order to hasten the end of a war; sort of a “greater good” argument.
“it’s pretty obvious that Koresh & Co. were up to some awfully nefarious behavior with regards to kids in the compound.”
Bullshit. The siege started over alleged NFA weapons violations. AKA, “you haven’t paid the 200 tax stamps.” It was only after the siege started that Koresh became a pedophile meth cooker, a post facto justification.
“There were some scary people there and I’ve never got a good bead of how involved the Weaver’s were in the legitimately scary things going on in that community.”
When rednecks dislike black people and move to the boonies to get away from them, we call them white supremacists. The feds spy on them, and occasionally murder their families when they refuse to turn stukach.
When college educated white people dislike black people and move to the suburbs to get away from them, we don’t call them white supremacists. No one ever kills their families over it.
Randy Weaver, by the way, is still alive. His wife got shot in the head by an FBI sniper, and his teenage son was also murdered by a fed. No trial for any of them, of course. Idaho tried to file murder charges against Lon Horiuchi (who added to his body count at Waco, BTW) but got slapped down.
“I always find it odd that those are the two of the biggest examples people use to promote the idea of pushing back against the government.”
If the premeditated murder of American citizens by federal agents isn’t a great example of tyranny, I’m really not sure what would be. Quite frankly, if you don’t think Waco is a good example of how far this country has fallen into a police state, then I wonder how in the world you can call yourself liberty friendly.
“McVeigh killed 68 kids, among the other hundred. ”
15 children died in OKC, which is less than were killed by federal agents at Waco.
“He can go get fucked with a stalactite for eternity in hell.”
He is. He was executed by lethal injection nearly 20 years ago for his mass murder.
Janet Reno died of old age, a free woman.
I like that a failed weapons confiscation raid occurred in 1775, and another one came to a head in 1993.
ironically celebrate the failed weapons confiscation mission of the British in 1775
Nice.
And now we have half the country begging someone to come and confiscate our weapons.
It’s not half the country.
Even with the polls that show 50% support for ‘Gun Control’ the questions have this tendency to be “Do you think we shoud [something that’s already a law]?” and then misrepresented as being support for further encroachments.
Yeah, it’s really deceptive. My FIL is a lifetime member of the NRA and frequently wears a shirt that says “What part of ‘Shall Not Be Infringed’ do you not understand?” When asked, he believes that you should undergo a criminal background check before buying a firearm from a dealer, doesn’t believe felons or people with mental illnesses should be allowed to own guns. He is fine with things like grenade launchers being regulated under the NFA and otherwise believes that gun bans and capacity bans are unconstitutional. Hence, he supports gun control and would qualify under those numbers as much as someone who wants to see a complete ban on private ownership.
Somewhat related- Was reading a recent issue of American Rifleman and the columnist was referencing a long ago ad from Colt bragging about being the firearm of winners in matches, and how success on the range translated into sales at the gun shop.
Except that back in that day, there weren’t really gun shops. You could pick up a gun at the local sporting goods or hardware store or a general mercantile. Or just buy it direct from the manufacturer through the mail. All without a waiting period, background check, or other restrictions. Most of which the NRA has supported at various times in the past and present.
How often will the phrase “they meant muskets” be uttered in Massachusetts today?
“Muskets were the assault weapons of their day”.
Reminds me of the “they couldn’t have envisioned automatic weapons” argument. Not only could they have done so, but there were several designs that had been successfully built. So even though they weren’t in common usage, educated gentlemen of means would certainly be aware of them, particularly as the fashion of the time was to be something of a “Renaissance man”, dabbling in invention, science, and letters. I think it would be like claiming that we couldn’t envision nuclear fusion as a power source, or intergalactic space travel, just because we haven’t invented the technology yet and put it into common use.
Not only that, but the weapons the British attempted to confiscate at Concord included cannon – which were quite devastating in their own right and would certainly match if not exceed the firepower of today’s small arms. The founders were well acquainted with the devastating power of weaponry and yet still chose the words “shall not be infringed”.
A cannon was also the trigger of the Texas revolution.
Good point about cannon, particularly if you take into account things like chain shot and canister shot.
“they couldn’t have envisioned automatic weapons”
Someone said something like this to me on derpbook recently: “they couldn’t have envisioned rapid fire semi-auto guns” or somesuch. 1) irrelevant on the grounds that tech changes, rights do not. 2) my response was something along the lines of “they couldn’t have envisioned your rapid fire internet comments either, yet here we are.” I don’t know if they got the point I was making.
Indeed. At the time, citizens owned and carried the same exact firearms as the military. It says “ſhall not be infringed“, not “ſhall not be infringed ſave for a common-ſenſe ban on military-ſtyle aſſault weaponſ, for no man needeth ſuch a weapon for the hunting of wild game“.
Saſſy.
That’s another important point. There’s no “hunting provision”, or capacity limits, or limits on rate of fire, or any other limits. The intent was clearly to ensure that American citizens had the firepower required to form a militia at will and be practiced enough to function effectively. Gun grabbers tacitly admit this interpretation when they make the argument that the militia being referenced in the 2nd refers to the National Guard–a branch of the Army that is equipped with “military-style” weapons.
Yeah that’s the other thing: The National Guard is not a militia. It is a branch of the federal military. It answers to the federal government. An actual state controlled military force would be under the sole authority of the governor of the state.
Here’s a music link loosely in keeping with today’s links theme. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTGNnSgfp5Q
Perfect.
Right on!
Also, if you’re interested in dashes, dots, bleeps, squelches, and weird number codes repeated by people with weird accents, check out the Conet Project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project
Available on youtube, Spotify etc.
Usually my house is the bellwether for power outages in the state: if the power out anywhere, it’s out at my house. Particularly inconvenient since I’m not on city water, so no power, no water. We had the bath tub filled up and ready and shockingly, we did not lose power (yet).
I will give DTE credit for generally being pretty good at recovering from this stuff. Even with a pretty major outage, most people are usually back on line with 24-48 hours.
A freezing rain/ice storm is a thing to behold. Literally everything gets coated with a clear coating of ice — everything individual tree limb, every blade of grass. If you get bright sunlight on it before it all melts away it can be breathtakingly beautiful. If you have power.
When I lived in CT, we had a very early season ice storm. The leaves were still on the trees. The icing caused the sap to freeze and expand rapidly, and all you could hear all day was trees exploding. It was freaky deaky.
That sounds awesome.
Correct placement (now I see why Brooks doesn’t even thread, bro)
I wish it happened during the era of smartphones/portable video (it was ~1988). It was weird as hell. Haven’t experienced anything like it since.
Here it’s just been pouring buckets for the last 15 hours. I’m off work so no word if the subways are shut down from it (again). […] Nah, looks like just flood warnings.
*checked to see if I remembered my umbrella*
I’m good unless it’s windy here.
That doesn’t sound awesome.
Oklahoma has little snow but beaucoup ice storms. Between that and the wind, there is not a single intact tree in the entire state.
Power went out last night stop Before the weather even moved in stop Always goes out in fair weather stop Luckily it wasn’t blisteringly hot outside stop
Pretty clever of them to schedule their power outages during the nice weather. Then you can just go outside and save the power for when you really need it.
I wish it happened during the era of smartphones/portable video (it was ~1988). It was weird as hell. Haven’t experienced anything like it since.
Crap – wrong placement
Guess who never showed up to get his shit and seems to have disappeared altogether?
I am Jack’s…
Sell it on ebay.
complete lack of surprise?
Is he attempting one of George Costanza’s classic moves?
Bag it, tag it, on the doorstep.
Then light it on fire and ring the doorbell?
Jonathon Chait psychoanalyzes David Brooks
What implications might be drawn from the implacable support of the party base for the manifestly incompetent, scandal-ridden party leader? One might entertain the conclusion that no combination of facts and logic can dislodge the Republican base from its tribal loyalties. This interpretation could be supported by such evidence as the fondness of Republicans for birtherism, their distrust of climate science, and so on. Perhaps the Republican base as currently constituted is hopelessly immune to reason and a reasonable person such as Brooks should instead refocus his political energies on curtailing its political power.
But Brooks’s column did not come to that conclusion. Indeed, amazingly enough, he did not even consider the option. Instead, he suggested that critics of Trump must try harder and somehow do a better job of persuading Republicans to stop loving Trump so much. The idea of abandoning the Republican Party because it is authoritarian and toxically anti-intellectual was apparently as unfathomable to him as a fish in a polluted river deciding to live on land.
And then there’s this gleaming jewel of willful obduracy:
The nomination of a candidate who refused in advance to accept defeat, who encouraged violence at his rallies and called for the imprisonment of his opponent, did lead some prominent Republicans — Mitt Romney, John McCain, several Bushes — to withhold endorsements of their party’s nominee. But none of them later supported the only candidate who could have defeated Trump. The only sitting Republican officeholder willing to go so far as to endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016 was a single retiring member of Congress, Richard Hanna of New York. The Republicans who refused to actively support Trump mainly removed themselves from the discussion.
Obviously, Hillary Clinton was the sole qualified, viable candidate, and anyone who did not offer her their unqualified support is some sort of cretinous un-American savage. And- About that “refusal to accept defeat” thing… I’m just not sure it’s a road you want to go down.
It looks like the New Yorker is angling for a spot in the “humor” section of the newsstand. Either that, or “fantasy”.
Projection, it’s all projection on the left.
Seriously, comparing Trump negatively to Clinton right after he repeated her unforced error of attacking a Middle Eastern leader with no regard for the consequences?
Also, what WTF said.
You will submit to the struggle session peasant!
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/43862/
STEVE SMITH’s new pet?
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/696104/Mysterious-beast-leaves-residents-terrified-savaging-two-dogs-Argentina-half-human-video
STEVE SMITH needs work on his Photoshop skills.
Pet cheetah with mange maybe?
OT. Ive heard it mentioned by a few people on here that the FBI was rejected on fisa warrant requests a few times, and only later got approved after the Steele dossier was added to evidence. Is this true? If yes, does anyone have link to a story on this?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/republican-house-releases-fisa-memo-confirms-steele-dossier-suspicions/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/obama-fisa-trump-wiretap/
“In June, an initial FISA affidavit (obviously prepared by the FBI and the Justice Department’s National Security Division) was submitted to the FISA court. It is said to have “named Trump” — but we don’t know whether that means (a) his name merely came up somewhere in the text of the affidavit or (b) he was an actual target whom the government wanted to investigate under FISA (meaning eavesdrop, read e-mail, and the like).
Even though the FISA standard is generally thought to be less demanding than the traditional wiretap standard (it is easier to show that someone may be colluding in some way with a foreign government than that he has committed a crime), the FISA court rejected the application that “named Trump.””
No way. Never happened. Trump claiming the government was spying on him is evidence of his unhinged ranting on the campaign trail. Totally delusional.
Buzzfeed does something good and useful?????
Atop his giant steaming pile of argument-by-assertion, Chait’s coup de grace:
Over the long run, the country needs two small-d-democratic parties that are tethered to empirical reality. The GOP has no ability to be a party like that and no short-term prospects of becoming one. Even restoring the party to its relative sanity of a decade ago — a time when many Republicans agreed that the GOP was in dire need of reform — seems unimaginably ambitious from the standpoint of today. There comes a time when trying to patch things up and hoping for better days ceases to be a responsible choice, and one must conclude that the Republican Party’s straightest path to salvation runs through a cleansing fire of electoral destruction.
Yes, of course. Republikkkins are pure evil, and must be purged from civil society. I’m surprised Krugabe doesn’t have a co-author credit on this excrescence.
Don’t we already have that?
If you spell one of those as “progressive,” sure.
Well it is pretty clear that both parties are filled by guys with small D’s
Ha!
“that are tethered to empirical reality.”
Like minimum wage increases; affirmative action; higher corporate taxes; fed govt. student loan program et al?
97% of scientists agree.
Don’t forget the discarding of all scientific facts regarding gender differences (unless it’s one that is favorable to women).
There may be more to this story, but it is indeed highly unusual for a professor to walk away from tenure.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/27759/
#metoo
Is ‘Boner Monitor’ now an official job title at some Universities?
Oh yeah, they will turn on their own in an instant. It’s like how they are now going to boycott Starbucks because of two black guys getting kicked out after they refused to leave. This is the company who are so woke, they haven’t hired anyone in a decade who you can quickly identify the gender of.
1) ‘decision to allow’ – i swear, this word gives me shivers when i hear it used this way. Its this “everything not mandated is forbidden” mentality.
2) this “gaslighting” stuff gets heavy when you’re deeply embedded in progworld.
“including charges that I ‘had erections while teaching,’
No one ever had a problem when I had erections while learning.
How do you crash off a major highway in a major metro area and not be found for 2 days?!?!?!
This?
Heartwarming tweet and video, ruined by plague of replies
Somehow a plurality of people decided that “video of children being overjoyed by getting handed pucks from hockey player” was a great opportunity to spot-check the inherent sexism of the order in which pucks were distributed.
Oh, and fuck it: lets blame the parents for letting it happen. And hell, why not the entire industry of pro sports, which marginalizes women. And ffs some are making it into a class-issue, where “people who can afford Tix right up against the glass get freebees, while the rest must suffer”
We should all be thankful that i do not have a flamethrower
The player obviously tried to give it to the little girl first. I probably would have pushed the little boy down and taken the puck, though.
“”The player obviously tried to give it to the little girl first.””
PROOF THAT THE FREE MARKET IS INHERENTLY DISADVANTAGEOUS TO WOMEN
(tweets furiously)
Or that older brothers are the same, whether their younger sibling is male or female.
This is what I thought as well — youngest goes last?
She’s kind of tiny for that, though. This is how it should have been dealt with.
Why? You might catch the ability to fail miserably at important moments.
/done with this fucking team
Did they lose to the Bluewhatevers?
The new plan is apparently to avoid getting bounced by the Penguins, by getting bounced by the Blue Jackets.
What they did in both games so far was so so much worse than just lose.
Getting blown our 10 – 1 would have been better than taking 2-0 leads in the first period of both games only to end up losing in OT
GO MUTHAFUCKIN’ JACKETS!!!!!!!
” I probably would have pushed the little boy down and taken the puck, though.”
awakening to possible new fetish
^ Why I don’t twitter.
Well, that and it (FB, too) is cancer.
So glad I never got on those platforms.
Humanity needs a good plague.
Unfortunately, we have a bad plague going around. It’s entirely mental.
I’m mad at both those little boys! They “stole” those pucks from her and should NOT be rewarded for THEIR selfishness!-Stephanie
Why the scare quotes and why THEIR all caps?
Because Stephanie is autistic.
Sarcastic would make sense, too.
Russian troll, obvs.
Now considering building flamethrower from scratch.
I can’t wait for the Pentagon’s solution to the Russian troll “problem”.
Massive bridge-bombing campaign. Although that’s sort of their go-to move anyway.
It is a beautiful beautiful day in southwest Montana, for a change.
North Dakota, too. Well, still below average temps, but sunny and little wind. And we missed all the shit weather this weekend.
60 Minutes Crew Attacked by Immigrants In Sweden
Dude in the motorized scooter at the end is probably the only one that remembers the hell of another culture being forced on Sweden. Dude is a fucking warrior till the end.
I’m really surprised 60 minutes released this footage. It wrecks the narrative…
This is a year old, but I saw it for the first time this weekend so whatever..
Hey, it bleeds, it leads, regardless of the circumstances. The media is usually at least that honest.
That film crew will probably be charged in absentia for hate crimes.
a great opportunity to spot-check the inherent sexism
They see precisely what they’re looking for. And their vision is extraordinarily keen.
How long before banning Indian mascots will be spun as evidence of the racist America’s hundred years attempt to marginalize and ostracize Indians as somehow different from other ethnic groups?
How long before banning Indian mascots will be spun as evidence of the racist America’s hundred years attempt to marginalize and ostracize Indians as somehow different from other ethnic groups?
Whirling, whirling…
Local, but a perfect example of Blue-on-Blue violence.
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2018/04/14/colorado-democrats-overwhelming-reject-democrats-for-education-reform-at-state-assembly/
I’m surprised there were still any Democrats left who supported charter schools and other reforms. Here in NY Cuomo has long since memory-holed his earlier support. Unless Colorado is as thoroughly run by the pubsec unions as NY is, my first instinct would be to guess that this move is not a winning one for Democrats there.
It was a lie they were running on to retake the House and Senate in mid 2000s. Part of the Rahm Emanuel led “Blue Dog” bullshit.
They were gonna get us out of Iraq, bring charter schools, they weren’t gonna have gun grabs, they were gonna balance the budget, there would be some pro life Democrats, etc.
They all got elected, then they all lined up to vote for Obamacare and got kicked out of office. Didn’t matter, because they did what they came to do.
DFER Colorado State Director Jennifer Walmer was clearly emotional as she defended her organizational and personal commitment to the Democratic Party. She was booed throughout her remarks and stopped speaking at one point to ask to be allowed to continue.
“My father used to have precinct caucuses in my home,” she said. “I’ve canvassed for Democrats my entire life. I have only ever supported Democrats. My board, which is a board of elected Democrats, we are simply focused on the idea that every child deserves access to a high-quality education. We are adamantly opposed to the Trump and DeVos privatization.”
“We have looked into your heart, and deem it impure. You are excommunicado.”
I wholeheartedly endorse the principle that every child should have access to a high quality education – therefore I am in favor of abolishing state-run schools, which have the effect of quashing this opportunity for millions.
Seriously. Maybe she might want to reconsider some of her base assumptions. Because it sounds an awful lot like she isn’t thinking beyond “team”.
I wish I could have been there to ask her,
“Everyone with enough money sends their kids to private school because it’s almost always better than government schools. Why don’t you want poor inner city kids to have the same opportunity as rich kids?”
“I’m not actually interested in quality education. I’m only interested in making sure nobody gets a better education than anyone else.”
And don’t forget “protecting profits for the teacher’s unions”.
Speculator
The ex-FBI director, who until his firing in May led an investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, acknowledged that it was “stunning” to think that Russia could have damaging information about a U.S. president. But he said that in Trump’s case, he could not discount the possibility that the president had been compromised.
“These are more words I never thought I’d utter about a president of the United States, but it’s possible,” Comey told ABC News’ chief anchor George Stephanopoulos. He also acknowledged he had no proof that Russia has dirt on Trump: “I think it’s possible. I don’t know.”
“Somebody might have fucked a sheep. I choose to believe that person was Trump.”
But he said that in Trump’s case, he could not discount the possibility that the president had been compromised.
You mean the dossier that was discredited by the very act of its contents being revealed? In that case, you’ve just revealed yourself as woefully incompetent for one of the nation’s top law enforcement officers.
who until his firing in May led an investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign
Call me crazy and dated, but I thought the FBI director was in charge of running the entire organization, not just a single investigation.
acknowledged that it was “stunning” to think that Russia could have damaging information about a U.S. president.
I am at a loss for words. So. Much. Projection.
I agree with him, and suspect that this is one of the reasons Hillary lost. Between her email server, Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation “donations” by Russian oligarchs, Bill’s fees for speaking, and her shilling for investors in Russia’s new (military) research tech center, I suspect some people were concerned about her vulnerability to being blackmailed by the Russians.
Interesting use of Morse code
https://hackaday.com/2018/04/13/another-reason-to-learn-morse-code-kidnapping/