Sunday Morning Transitory Links

Well, it’s another goyishe shabbat, so the poor Jew is stuck doing the work. And because news declines in interest even faster than dead fish, there’s an ephemeral vibe. None of this will be remembered a week from now. This elates and depresses me simultaneously.

Ditto today’s birthdays, a delightful mix of heroism and villainy. Starting with hero Ludwig van Beethoven (without whom Schroeder and Alex would be NOTHING!); popular fraud (though some claim dupe) Margaret Mead; one of my great childhood inspirations and favorite novelist Arthur C. Clarke; money-grubber and supreme merchant of dishonesty Morris Dees; darling of baseball card collectors, Billy “Fuck Face” Ripken; and beloved football great William “The Refrigerator” Perry.

The news awaits us. Let’s not disappoint it.


Chipotle comes to India.

Eleven people have died after eating rice that had likely been contaminated with a toxic substance at a Hindu temple ceremony, a health official said Saturday. Another 29 people were critically ill and undergoing emergency treatment across various hospitals in Mysore, a city in the state of Karnataka. The patients were being treated for vomiting, diarrhoea and respiratory distress.

According to the police, devotees had gathered in large numbers at the Kicchukatti Maramma temple for the consecration ceremony on Friday, after which rice was served as a sanctified offering. Murugappa, a devotee who was present at the temple, said they were offered tomato rice and flavoured water. “A foul smell was emanating from the food, but those at the head of the queue consumed the food nonetheless,” he was quoted as saying by the NDTV news network. “A little while later they started vomiting and frothing at the mouth.”

Hmm, I’m thinking of making biryani for dinner tonight. What could go wrong?


In 2019, Congress will be too busy investigating Trump to get anything done. Trump will be too busy dealing with investigations to get anything done. I call this a win.

The mounting inquiries are building into a cascade of legal challenges that threaten to dominate Trump’s third year in the White House. In a few weeks, Democrats will take over in the House and pursue their own investigations into all of the above – and more. House Democrats may eventually seek to impeach Trump. But, for now, removing him from office appears unlikely: It would require the support of two-thirds of the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.

However, there has been one immediate impact on a president accustomed to dictating the country’s news cycles but who now struggles to keep up with them: Trump has been forced to spend his political capital – and that of his party – on his defense. As the bad news has rolled in, the president has cut back his public schedule. He spent more time than usual in his official residence this week, with more than two dozen hours of unstructured “executive time,” said a person familiar with his schedule.

Get my popcorn ready.


A suitable replacement for John Conyers celebrates the legacy of the Adjacent Jew Haters.

[Congresschimp-elect Rashida] Tlaib will fill the seat formerly occupied by Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who left office last year amid accusations of sexual misconduct. She ran unopposed in the general election following her August primary win in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

Following that win, Tlaib appeared at a celebration rally where she was draped in a Palestinian flag and her mother broke out in ululation, a high-pitched vocal sound many Middle Eastern women make in celebration.

Oh man, there may not be enough popcorn.


Chicagoans really do have fun.

[Tinley Park v]illage officials are considering ways to regulate short-term home rentals after a recent wedding party at one such house featured drummers and bagpipers, as well as a horse being paraded down the street, according to a police report.

There were no arrests or charges lodged, but the incident report noted 40 cars in the cul-de-sac parked haphazardly, with some blocking fire hydrants as well as a livestock trailer that was partly obstructing the street. Party attendees left without further incident after police arrived, according to the report.

Two observations: if a woman says she’s been fantasizing about her dream wedding since she was a little girl… RUN. And the sure way to avoid neighbor complaints about loud partiesd is to invite them.


Many people voted against Hillary Clinton because of her Obama-like irresistible urges to mire us in every shit-ass conflict in the Middle East that she can. Trump has done soooo much better.

President Donald Trump indicated in March that the troops would be brought home once the battle is won, and the latest military push to eject the group from its final pocket of territory recently got underway. In September, however, the administration switched course, saying the troops will stay in Syria pending an overall settlement to the Syrian war and with a new mission: to act as a bulwark against Iran’s expanding influence.

The Pentagon does not say how many troops are there. Officially, they number 503, but earlier this year an official let slip that the true number may be closer to 4,000.

Repeat after me: the only difference between Team Red and Team Blue is the color of their ties.


I hope you’re sitting down. This is going to be the most shocking thing you’ve ever heard. Prepared? OK… here goes: Lizzy Warren isn’t an Indian.

“As a country, we need to stop pretending that the same doors open for everyone, because they don’t,” she said during a commencement speech at Morgan State University in Baltimore, according to the Washington Post.

“I’m not a person of color,” she continued. “And I haven’t lived your life or experienced anything like the subtle prejudice, or more overt harm, that you may have experienced just because of the color of your skin.”

Where is my fainting couch? Is there NOTHING a person can count on these days?


Old Guy Music! Normally, dinosaur get-togethers bore and annoy me. And this is probably boring and annoying, but… as a teenager, I loved Jethro Tull and King Crimson. So this pairing, unimaginable at that time, just gave me the flutters.

Comments

226 responses to “Sunday Morning Transitory Links”

  1. Fourscore

    “high-pitched vocal sound many Middle Eastern women make in celebration.”

    Minnesota women cheer or at least some of them !

    1. AlmightyJB

      Skoal!

  2. Fourscore

    “the only difference between Team Red and Team Blue is the color of their ties”

    Obviously I’m politically colorblind

    1. straffinrun

      Red and blue doesn’t suit these parties anymore. Should be yellow for one and green for the other.

    2. AlmightyJB

      Of course their scripts of pandering lies have some differences, depending on which group of gullible idiots they’re pandering to that day.

    3. Fourscore

      Ties may not refer to neck ties. Could it mean their political cronies?

  3. Lachowsky

    “A foul smell was emanating from the food, but those at the head of the queue consumed the food nonetheless,”

    Natural selection at work.

    1. Old Man With Candy

      Hey, Lach, SP told me about your baby last night. I can’t imagine the shit you’re feeling. Glad she’s going to be OK, but what suckage on the way.

      1. Lachowsky

        Thanks OMWC. it was pretty rough there for a few days, but she is much much better and it looks like she will be fine.

        1. Gordilocks

          Man, I am late to the news here; I am to take it kiddo number two is here but it didin’t go smoothly?

          1. Lachowsky

            2 was born Oct. 12 and it went fine. Last week she caught RSV and had to spend the majority of the week in the hospital being treated for pneumonia. It was scary, vut she’s back home now and mostly recovered.

          2. Gordilocks

            Congratulations x 2, and here’s to a healthy recovery.

            Great news.

            Vivian is seven months old now and has been keeping us pretty busy. Many of the parenthood cliches have totally come true and I’m loving every diaper changing minute of it.

          3. Lachowsky

            It wont be long now until she is walking. The game changes again after that.

          4. I’m loving every diaper changing minute of it.

            We don’t need to hear about your kink. :-p

          5. AlmightyJB

            Glad to here she’s on the rebound. That’s scary stuff.

    2. Fourscore

      Maybe it wasn’t the food…

  4. Eleven people have died after eating rice that had likely been contaminated with a toxic substance at a Hindu temple ceremony,

    Why couldn’t it have been at that wedding the Clintons are attending?

    1. AlmightyJB

      Maybe one of their ex-lawyers was attending which could explain the toxin.

  5. [Tinley Park v]illage officials are considering ways to regulate short-term home rentals after a recent wedding party at one such house featured drummers and bagpipers, as well as a horse being paraded down the street, according to a police report.

    To be fair, bagpipes are a violation of the NAP.

    1. Old Man With Candy

      Do NOT desecrate the memories of the late, great Almanian!

      1. One haggi was more than enough. 😉

    2. Lachowsky

      This is why I had very little success living in a subdivision when I was in my early 20s.

      1. You were the partier, or you couldn’t stand the other partiers? 🙂

      1. Chafed

        That is the One True Retort.

    3. I’m Here To Help

      I was learning to play the bagpipes. At my (very low) level of skill, I thought I could make a fortune as a busker – I would go play outside a business until they payed me enough to go away. The musical version of a mugging…

  6. Lachowsky

    “President Donald Trump indicated in March that the troops would be brought home once the battle is won”

    Much like the soviet troops in eastern Europe, american troops will leave the middle east when the American empire can no longer afford to keep them there.

    1. leon

      “troops would be brought home once the battle is won”

      Really nice to say from the comfort of your home in America.

      1. Lachowsky

        I’d be interested to hear what the definition of “win” is.

        I have yet to hear anyone tell me what a win would consist of of and what our prize is for winning.

        1. Bob Boberson

          That’s why you’ll never hear anything but vague platitudes about victory. When you have no tangible objective to begin with its pretty unlikely you’ll have one in the end.

          The more I delve into the shenanigans they pulled in the first days after 9/11the more I am convinced there is a bunch of neocons who should be swinging from lampposts.

          1. Gordilocks

            In this case, I think NeoCons should be thrown from very tall buildings, much like many of the victims of 9/11, in whose memory they continue to desecrate with this nonsense.

          2. Bob Boberson

            Or turned loose in some god-awful desert to be hunted down by murder drones.

          3. Lachowsky

            Post 9/11 Ron Paul floated the idea of issuing letters of marque.

            We really should have gone with that idea.

          4. Bob Boberson

            That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. What I find so infuriating about OEF is that if we had stuck to hunting down Al Qada and not fought on the Northern Alliances behalf in their civil war we probably would have, to a man, killed every singe Al Qada member and been gone from the region for about 17 years now. As it turned out we facilitated the flight of Al Qada to Pakistan and helped spread terrorism to other parts of the Middle East.

          5. Lachowsky

            https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2007/07/ron-paul-brings-back-a-wacky-post-9-11-bill-002425

            Every time our military intervenes in the middle east, the consequences of that intervention provide the justification for the next intervention. This has been going on for as long as America has had a presence there.

            It’s a self licking ice cream cone.

          6. Bob Boberson

            Every time our military intervenes in the middle east, the consequences of that intervention provide the justification for the next intervention.

            I’m start to believe this is a feature rather than a bug.

          7. Lachowsky

            https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/16710-missing-the-marque-the-usefulness-of-a-forgotten-constitutional-clause

            Here is a better article on letters of marque. The politico one sucks, but it was the first I found.

          8. Fourscore

            The more we know the less we learn

        2. AlmightyJB

          “I have yet to hear anyone tell me what a win would consist of”

          When a Walmart can safely open.

    2. I’ve said it before, but I’d think seriously about deploying all those high-ranking officers at the Pentagon to Afghanistan or the Middle East.

      1. Tejicano

        Yeah, but in “boots-on-the-ground” type posts. Hell, I’d give them a year to get in better physical shape and hone some of their soldier skills. But each should do a solid year running operations – as in carrying arms and no-BS closing with the enemy, not running Powerpoint presentations about some abstract information concerning to fight there.

        1. I was thinking that if they were the only ones there, that would be implied.

    3. Gordilocks

      no longer afford to keep them there.

      The Federal Reserve smirks and lets out a laugh.

    4. BakedPenguin

      Much like the soviet troops in eastern Europe, american troops will leave the middle east when the American empire can no longer afford to keep them there.

      That moment should arrive in 2003.

  7. Bob Boberson

    “if a woman says she’s been fantasizing about her dream wedding since she was a little girl… RUN.”

    So you are saying pretty much boycott marriage all together?

    1. Old Man With Candy

      See, that’s the advantage of marrying a little girl- she hasn’t had time to get that fantasy fully developed.

      1. Bob Boberson

        Was your reception at Chucky-Cheese’s? Because their pizza is just god awful.

        1. Lachowsky

          No kidding. You’d think that a place that is raking in cash like they do would have the common courtesy to at least make an edible pizza. It’s not terribly difficult.

        2. Old Man With Candy

          Close! It was a pizza place in Las Vegas now long gone. But excellent pizza, as SP demands as her due.

      2. Gordilocks

        “fully developed”

        hehehehehehmmmm heehehheh huhuhuh hehehehhmmm

    2. Lachowsky

      My wedding cost me $50. That’s the way to go.

      1. Bob Boberson

        At my age chances are, if I ever do get married, I’ll be catching someone on their second time around so I’m hoping the pre-wedding craziness will not be a thing.

        1. Fourscore

          Stick with no kids and no smokers

          1. Bob Boberson

            Sage advise. Smokers are an immediate ‘nope.’ I’m not totally opposed to single mothers but I’ve yet to meet one that isn’t a single mother with good cause.

          2. Bob Boberson

            sigh…..*advice*

        2. prolefeed

          My fiancee is saying she wants to keep it small, despite it being her first wedding. She also wants to rent a wedding hall for $2k or $4k.

          I’m trying to convince her that we have a very nice backyard.

          As usual, words do not always mean the same thing to each of us.

      2. Old Man With Candy

        We spent a bit more. Mostly for the tickets to see Penn and Teller on our wedding night and the bottle of Cedric Bouchard Inflorescence 2003 we drank back at the hotel.

        1. Timeloose

          Vegas is the way to go. Tell your family and friends where and when and let them decide. We go married in Vegas at a little chapel, went for family stay Chinese, then had drinks after at the house of blues.

          Wonderful time and cost us and our best friends and family little.

          1. Old Man With Candy

            We were even cheaper. Just the two of us.

            Man, we had fun.

          2. I’m Here To Help

            You lost me there – when the wife and I got married we didn’t tell anyone. My parents found out the next day when we went to visit them. Best friend also found out the next day when my wife lost a filling and we went to see him to get it fixed (he’s a dentist). That was the first time he even met her, and his eyes bugged when I introduced her as my wife…

            But my wife is not the typical woman – for Valentine’s Day a few years back she asked for an air compressor and a nail gun…

          3. Bob Boberson

            Whatever Tulpa!

          4. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

            Careful that she’s not planning to nail you to something.

      3. ElspethFlashman

        Congrats. Ours was about $100 for the license. My sisters threw the reception, we contributed $0 as far as I recall. The in-laws took us out for post- ceremony celebrating at a local middle eastern restaurant.

      4. We have four daughters. So far two weddings out of the way, and both kids went pretty cheap; one at the Larkspur Ren Festival, one with a Lake of the Ozarks Redneck Yacht Club wedding.

        Two more to go. I’ve made it plain that Dad-funded elopements to Vegas are certainly on the table.

      5. TARDIS

        We visited the courthouse and both went to work that afternoon. My roommate at the time was (and still is) miffed that he wasn’t invited. We just brought 2 of my wife’s friends as witnesses. I told my roommate that if it all goes bad, I will only have to kill 2 witnesses instead of three. He’s still a bachelor. He said he would have helped me hide the bodies.

  8. leon

    “The mounting inquiries are building into a cascade of legal challenges that threaten to dominate Trump’s third year in the White House. In a few weeks, Democrats will take over in the House and pursue their own investigations ”

    Heh, remember when the Republicans investigated all those “Fake Scandals?”. How did that work out? How many people in jail?

    If Democrats keep ginning people up, they are going to have a bad time. It was a good ploy to get power, but you might want to stop.

    1. Republicans didn’t have propagandists puffing up their stories.

      1. leon

        While I agree that’s a factor, I still see limits to the media’s power, and it shrinks the more they are in the tank.

    2. Bob Boberson

      I wonder if voters will get fatigued by all the dust up over nothing regarding the Trump investigations. Although I don’t think it can be objectively measured, I think the literal screeching over the Kavanaugh confirmation hurt Dems more than it helped them in the mid-terms.

      We know the media is just going to double down and ignore real news to keep the outrage turned up to 11. I’m unsure as to whether the will backfire or if its successful because ‘you repeat a lie often enough….’

    3. Timeloose

      We are still fighting wars with no defined victory or mission. Most ignore it even with Trump at the helm.

      Average American people will get burned out on constant scandal claims. This will continue until the next election where interests will ratchet up again. In the mean time partisans on both sides will battle this proxy civil war in social media via with culture as the weapons.

    4. Homple

      We’re now living under the rule of lawfare. Elections mean nothing if the wrong people win.

  9. Gordilocks

    The Great American Tradition of giving agriculture/farmers whatever they want continues apace.

    To be honest, I don’t fault the livestock haulers for doing what they can to avoid this stupidity. HOS rules have never worked for moving live animals, and this exemption proves the point that everyone in the business know, regardless of the freight they haul – the rules themselves are stupid and unworkable, and no amount of invasive monitoring technology is going to change that.

    1. Lachowsky

      I can see how its would be impossible for livestock haulers to follow the same rules as regular freight drivers. Livestock will starve to death if delayed too long. I get that.

      However, the correct answer is not special exemptions for them. The correct answer is to scrap the whole system because it’s stupid.

  10. straffinrun

    Nearly every organization he has led in the past 10 years is under investigation.

    And every one of those investigations is built on a suspicion of a crime, right?

    1. Bob Boberson

      RUSSIA!!11!!1!!!1 is a crime now….or something

    2. leon

      You know who else led organizations under investigation.

      1. Bob Boberson

        John Gotti?

    3. Has Hillary led anything other than the Clinton Foundation?

      1. Bob Boberson

        She was for a short time the most corrupt and incompetent head of Department of State……but at this point, what difference does it make?

  11. leon

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton-writes-letter-to-girl-8-who-ran-for-class-president-against-boy-and-lost

    Sigh. I don’t know if I will laugh, because HRC is a role model for loosers,or to cry because they are willing, with no information to talk about how unfair this is that the boy won.

    1. Bob Boberson

      This is as troubling as it is stupid. I’ve heard plenty of people say BHO ‘deserved’ to be President because he was black, and America ‘needed’ a black President. The same sort of people we the ones saying ‘her turn’ about HRC and that America ‘needed’ a woman president.

      How long can a society last when people this fucking stupid and shallow cast the ballots?

      1. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

        Beto seems to be the leading candidate for the Dems, so we’ll find out.

    2. straffinrun

      People that fall for that type of pandering and obviously contrived publicity stunt should not be allowed to vote. How did the Pantsuit find out about this story in the first place? Politics is one nasty business.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    Republikkkinz are corrupt authoritarian monsters, ch 6,902:

    Republicans have chosen contraction and authoritarianism because, unlike the Democrats, their party isn’t a coalition of interests in search of a majority. Its character is ideological. The Republican Party we know is a product of the modern conservative movement, and that movement is a series of insurgencies against the established order. Several of its intellectual founders—Whittaker Chambers and James Burnham, among others—were shaped early on by Communist ideology and practice, and their Manichean thinking, their conviction that the salvation of Western civilization depended on the devoted work of a small group of illuminati, marked the movement at its birth.

    ————-

    The third insurgency came in reaction to the election of Barack Obama—it was the Tea Party. Eight years later, it culminated in Trump’s victory, an insurgency within the party itself—because revolutions tend to be self-devouring (“I’m not willing to preside over people who are cannibals,” Gingrich declared in 1998 when he quit the House). In the third insurgency, the features of the original movement surfaced again, more grotesque than ever: paranoia and conspiracy thinking; racism and other types of hostility toward entire groups; innuendos and incidents of violence. The new leader is like his authoritarian counterparts abroad: illiberal, demagogic, hostile to institutional checks, demanding and receiving complete acquiescence from the party, and enmeshed in the financial corruption that is integral to the political corruption of these regimes. Once again, liberals failed to see it coming and couldn’t grasp how it happened. Neither could some conservatives who still believed in democracy.

    The corruption of the Republican Party in the Trump era seemed to set in with breathtaking speed. In fact, it took more than a half century to reach the point where faced with a choice between democracy and power, the party chose the latter. Its leaders don’t see a dilemma—democratic principles turn out to be disposable tools, sometimes useful, sometimes inconvenient. The higher cause is conservatism, but the highest is power. After Wisconsin Democrats swept statewide offices last month, Robin Vos, speaker of the assembly, explained why Republicans would have to get rid of the old rules: “We are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in.”

    How can these shrieking hysterics muster the energy to get through the day? I don’t see how, if you really believed all this idiotic hogwash, you could have any possible alternative to suicide.

    1. Gordilocks

      10 years on and they are still grossly misrepresenting what the Tea Party was, originally, and how much actual effect it has had.

    2. The projection is strong with that one.

    3. Raphael

      I’m sure the Dems are doing just fine themselves. Just don’t mind the fire raging between the “moderate” establishment Dems and ye olde regressives.

    4. Rufus the Monocled

      Man has The Atlantic sunk to unsalvageable levels.

    5. Rufus the Monocled

      What I find most astonishing and appalling is their recent shtick of quoting and writing about left-wing commie parties and countries and pretending they’re great metaphors and analogies for the modern GOP.

      It’s the fricken DNC that has pulled far left. Not the GOP.

      It infuriates me now because it’s unacceptable this level of facia di culo lying and the deliberate misrepresentation of history.

      “As Bertolt Brecht wrote of East Germany’s ruling party:

      Would it not be easier

      In that case for the government

      To dissolve the people

      And elect another?”

      Go fuck yourself Packer. This describes more any Democrat including Obama and Warren and Sanders and so on than it ever could a Republican.

    6. Old Man With Candy

      Republikkkinz are corrupt authoritarian monsters

      I wouldn’t argue with that, with the tiny marginal exception of Amash, Massie, and sometimes Paul.

      1. PieInTheSky

        what’s the exception for Democrats?

        1. Old Man With Candy

          Even fewer, but there are some excellent non-interventionists and anti-drug-war over on that side.. It’s 99.99% authoritarian shitheads versus 99.98% authoritarian shitheads. I’d round both of them up to 100%, then start up the woodchipper.

      2. Bob Boberson

        Whats funny though is these republicans worst impulses are the least of the concerns of people like the author.

        Perpetual war….meh
        Drug war…..meh
        bloated, unsustainable spending……meh to faint praise

        Weakly supporting the 2A……ZOMG!!1!!!!!
        Not playing identity politics game……RHEEEEEEE!!!!

        1. Chafed

          Exactly this.

    7. SoberPhobic

      Not agreeing with that article, but Rs had 8 years to enact those rule changes.
      Doing it now is wrong.

      1. CPRM

        If you’re talking the Wisconsin Rs, the changes they made are just protecting the things they enacted in the last 8 years from being changed by fiat from the governor.

    8. CPRM

      demanding and receiving complete acquiescence from the party

      Ah yes, when his party controlled both houses for two years his party gave him anything he asked for. Oh, wait you’re saying that about Trump? You must be from the Berinstein Bears Dimension.

  13. The Late P Brooks

    And every one of those investigations is built on a suspicion of a crime, right?

    “There must be something we can pin on him. Either he’s slippery as an eel, or the sonofabitch is innocent. And that’s just not an answer I’ll accept.”

    1. Lachowsky

      “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”

      -Laventri Beria

  14. Rufus the Monocled

    Wha’s with all this ‘they’re afraid of us’ crap coming from all these Democrats like Tlaib?

    1. Rufus the Monocled

      https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

      Check this out.

      I don’t get Americans who vote for a party that’s basically a left-wing activist organization. Not a political party.

      1. Rufus the Monocled

        You know.

        They truly want to transform America.

        These are the people that will turn it into a shithole.

      2. leon

        In leftists America, you vote for the activist.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          Yeh well, this is a terrible trend and better not hope it becomes a norm.

          1. Rufus the Monocled

            And when people who drape themselves in a Palestinian flag pushing for socialist policies saying stupid things like ‘they’re afraid of us’ you’re Damone straight we are.

            But not for the reasons she thinks.

          2. Rufus the Monocled

            Damn.

            Auto-correct turned my ‘damn’ into Damone.

            As in Vic Damone.

            Apparently.

          3. Fourscore

            …and he would have made it big, were it not for his initials…

  15. Gordilocks

    KDW over at NRO on Brexit.

    The people of the United Kingdom, having been consulted on the matter, voted to leave the European Union. That vote happened on June 23, 2016. Here at the end of 2018, it remains unclear whether the U.K. government and the European Union will actually accept the results of that election. The editorial board of the New York Times complains that the current debate over the particulars of the British departure from the EU “largely exclude any thought of European Union interests.” It takes a special cast of mind to miss that that is precisely the point.

    ….

    Since the Brexit vote, the people of the United Kingdom have been informed by their government that they may not have their own way and get what they voted for because giving it to them is too complicated. Which — again — is precisely the point. The difficulty of leaving the European Union highlights the necessity of doing so if the people of the United Kingdom are to remain the masters of their own lives. The British fought hard and sacrificed much for the principle that Parliament is sovereign — that even the king must answer to the people through their representatives — and the self-satisfied gentlemen in Brussels made a smug show out of pissing on that principle from a great height.

    1. Lachowsky

      Democracy is only for when people vote the right way.

      1. leon

        Democracy dies in wrongthink.

    2. straffinrun

      May wasn’t a Brexit supporter in the first place and so we can blame a lot of the foot dragging on her. My question: Would they have been able to extract themselves quickly if it were, say, Boris running the show from the start?

      1. Gustave Lytton

        Maybe, but probably not? I really don’t know Boris’ position and effectiveness, but there’s a large pro EU takeover segment in British politics and the civil service that would have slow rolled it no matter what I think.

        A real Brexit would look like a unilateral withdrawal announced shortly after the election, followed by announcing EU regulations and directives null and void in the UK. The problem is so much of the nitty gritty details are being issued from Brussels, and the UK civil service, a) has abdicated a lot of that regulatory role, b) wants to recreate EUthoritarism with a British face. Crazy talk to just not recreate EU regulations (or not accept them wholesale).

        1. straffinrun

          They’d basically just be under WTO rules in regard to the EU market. A possible outcome of all this incompetence is, “Well, we just can’t get it done, so I guess we’ll just have to stay.” Insane, but at least it shows who ultimately is the boss.

    3. Homple

      Hey Kev, now do an article about the 2016 US presidential election.

    4. Chafed

      He is one hell of a writer. Even when I disagree with him, he is worth reading. The Atlantic really screwed up by firing him.

    1. Raphael

      I’m surprised sites like The Onion are still online with the amount of satire level shenanigans like that article.

    2. leon

      Will Julius Streicher’s Post change their motto, now that the Democrats have the house?

  16. The Late P Brooks

    “As I know too well, it’s not easy when you stand up and put yourself in contention for a role that’s only been sought by boys,” Clinton wrote in a consoling letter obtained by the Post.

    Yeah, “obtained”.

    Hand-delivered by Huma Abedin to David Weigel, neatly folded atop a stack of hundred dollar bills.

    1. leon

      “role that’s only been sought by boys”

      That boy was the worst. Definitely only won cause of the 3rd grade patriarchy had his back.

      1. This is so much bullshit. Most class officers in my school were girls.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    The plan will be finalized over the coming weeks, but the outlines are becoming clear. Democrats will make the biggest push to fight money in politics since the early 2000s, finally adapting the nation’s rules to the reality ushered in by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. The origins of the dark money sloshing around the political system would have to be disclosed.

    If the early indications hold, there would also be a new public financing system for candidates that would amplify the power of small-value donations. Every dollar donated would be matched at a high rate — perhaps 6 to 1 — by public funds if candidates voluntarily submitted to the small-donor program. Local-level experiments with this sort of public financing program have shown promise. If Democrats are to make a statement on how the political system should be working, this is a crucial element of the bill that must remain in the package.

    I’ll be over here, holding my breath.

    If anything, I think the Republicans were slower to capitalize on the new rules than the Democrats.

    1. leon

      I’m with you, any rule that would do anything would hurt the anointed ones in the left more than on the right, so I doubt anything happens.

      Then again, the masses tend to think that any donation to Republicans is evil so I could see how being forced to disclose everyone who donated could dry up donations for Team Red, when you have evil people getting them fired for their wrong think.

      1. Stinky Wizzleteats

        You’re correct about how the Republican money would dry up. Lots of people on the right won’t even be honest on polls (or refuse to respond to them) because they’re worried about being hassled. This would open up a new frontier of political bullying.

    2. Lachowsky

      “there would also be a new public financing system for candidates”

      Sounds great. There could never be a conflict of interest when the government is financing the campaigns of people running for government.

    3. Rhywun

      Every dollar donated would be matched at a high rate

      This is what they do in NYC. You know– home of the most competitive elections in America.

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Will Julius Streicher’s Post change their motto, now that the Democrats have the house?

    You mean something like from

    “Democracy dies in darkness.”

    to

    “Nothing to see, here.”

    1. straffinrun

      “Democracy dies in darkness” sounds quite racist if you ask me.

    2. Bob Boberson

      I’m thinking “Orange Man Bad”

  19. The Late P Brooks

    The editorial board of the New York Times complains that the current debate over the particulars of the British departure from the EU “largely exclude any thought of European Union interests.” It takes a special cast of mind to miss that that is precisely the point.

    “If you divorce me, who’s going to pay my Tiffany bills?”

  20. Rufus the Monocled

    Re Warren. Just think of the mindset on display here with her.

    She feels the need to tell people she’s not a person of color when literally no one with their heads screwed on right would ever think that she was. Not black. Not brown. Not yellow. Not red.

    She’s just your run of the mill milk white lady.

    She’s every elementary school teacher you’ve had that was nearing retirement.

    1. Stinky Wizzleteats

      She’s the spinster librarian who lives with 20 cats and coughs under her breath when you show up 10 minutes late to church.

    2. AlmightyJB

      She’s trying to memory-hole her fauxcohontist claims.

      1. MikeS

        ^ This ^ It will slowly morph into “I have never claimed to be a POC” and her press protectors will just repeat the lie.

  21. The Late P Brooks

    She feels the need to tell people she’s not a person of color when literally no one with their heads screwed on right would ever think that she was. Not black. Not brown. Not yellow. Not red.

    She has the low political cunning to recognize the folly of pulling that shit in front of that particular audience, anyway.

    1. leon

      Are Native Americans not persons of color?

      1. Bob Boberson

        What I find hilarious is that if gender is a social construct how can any thinking person not also apply that to ethnicity?

        Born with a dick but decide you feel like a woman…..checks

        Born white but decide you feel like a Native American………so problematic.

        1. Rufus the Monocled

          It just shows you the intellectual bankruptcy and untenable position that is ‘social constructs’.

        2. SoberPhobic

          My car identifies as a motorcycle so it gets cheaper plates.

          1. leon

            And insurance!

            Speaking of…

      2. Michael

        I’m kind of surprised that there aren’t (yet) any African-Americans that are righteously pissed at the “people of color” classification. Suddenly everyone that isn’t porcelain white is tossed into one big bucket of rhetorical convenience, as if the problems faced by Mexicans and Pakistanis are no different than those of American blacks.

  22. I’m Here To Help

    OMWC – thanks for that video. I Believe in Father Christmas is one of my favorite “Christmas” songs, along with Fairytale of New York. I hadn’t come across that version before, and it was spectacular.

    1. Old Man With Candy

      I am not a Christmas guy (((obviously))), but still, I loved this performance. I miss Greg Lake, and after seeing Tull on their 50th anniversary tour, I miss Ian Anderson’s ability to sing.

      1. AlmightyJB

        I’ve always liked this version as well by Greg.

        https://youtu.be/uMtteocAA80

  23. leon

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/saudi-arabia-yemen-khashoggi.html

    Nick Kristof has a lot of article about Yemen but they all were written after Jan 20th 2017. And mostly in the last 4 months. Strange for 5 year war, especially since he is supposed to be on the up and up in foreign affairs.

    This is where I get frustrated when libertarians cry whataboutism. It’s not. It’s letting people know that these people are hypocritical douches who don’t give a damn kids starve unless they can use it to score political points

    Bonus Kristof praised Obama for using force in Libya, “to save” people. Those people are probably dead or slaves now.

    1. Bob Boberson

      I have no use for a ‘libertarian’ who uses the term “whataboutism.” Thats just a euphemism for ‘I’m not arguing in good faith.’

      1. Bob Boberson

        /Not directing that comment at you, my intended target is the cosmotarians who love to scream “orange man bad’ but whitewash the foreign policy nightmare that was the Obama years.

    2. PieInTheSky

      I don’t think whataboutism is valid in most cases. its basically ignore hypocrisy and observed behavior

  24. The Late P Brooks

    This song has been stuck in my head all morning. Another reminder of how predictions about the future are risky.

    Maybe the Climatalogical Chicken Littles should give it a listen.

    1. Gordilocks

      That’s a tough one where I want both outcomes – removing statues is stupid, but, Ghandi’s legacy has been mostly purged of his racism, colonialism of convenience, and weird pederasty, so the underlying criticism of the statue is valid.

      1. Rhywun

        It’s almost like people are complicated, and not exclusively “good” or “bad”. I know– crazy.

    2. leon

      I think this updating morals and then using them to wipe history is a good development. Nothing we can learn from the backwards people of yesterday.

    1. leon

      Will the judge also order the state to fund therapy for the rest of their life, after the transition makes it worse?

      1. AlmightyJB

        Prolly not, prison “therapy” is called solitary confinement. But we’ll no doubt have to pay for the funeral when she commits suicide.

    2. MikeS

      Not all transgender people have gender dysphoria, Winmill noted in the ruling, and not all transgender people desire or need surgery to make their physical body match their gender identity. But for some, gender dysphoria — which occurs when the incongruity between a person’s assigned gender and their gender identity is so severe that it impairs their ability to function — can only be fully addressed through surgery.

      Nowhere in any of these stories do they mention whether the person had gone through intensive therapy to get to the root cause of their gender dysphoria. Is it happening and the “journalists” don’t find it newsworthy, or are we just jumping straight to the scalpel with these individuals? I believe the vast majority of people acknowledge that this is a severe mental condition, right? So why isn’t years of therapy the first course of action?

      1. leon

        Because that’s bigoted. These people are just like the gays and lesbians who people tried to ‘fix’. No way that’s offensive to them.

    3. straffinrun

      How many women die of testicular cancer?

    4. DrOtto

      Is this just the IMDB link to Dog Day Afternoon?

  25. Breet Pharara

    Hey let’s look at some sports news for the day. Good old non-political sports news.

    https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/12/14/donald-trump-inaugural-committee-investigation-nfl-owners-donors

    “NFL owners who donated to President Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee are potentially linked to a federal investigation into suspicions of bribery and misappropriated funds. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is investigating whether donors to Trump’s inaugural committee believed they were buying favors from, and influence within, the incoming administration.”

    Wait, so donating to a campaign is now illegal? And this is “Sports” news? What the fuck is happening to the world right now?

    1. MikeS

      …investigating whether donors to Trump’s inaugural committee believed they were buying favors from, and influence within, the incoming administration.”

      Of course they did! Just like previous donors have for as long as there have been inaugural parties so fucking big they needed donations to pay for them. Fuck, people…enough already!

      1. Gordilocks

        ‘There is nothing new under the sun’

        1. Rhywun

          …said no leftist ever.

        2. Breet Pharara

          Except socialism and communism. Those have never been tried (successfully) before.

    2. As I think has been said here before by others, I, too, would like to recommend The Athletic. It’s a paid sub, but in my experience it has 100% been worth it. It’s sports writing and only sports writing, and really good sports writing at that.

    3. BakedPenguin

      We’ve been through this. It’s only illegal when you donate to the wrong person.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    I can’t be 100% sure, but I think Chuck Schumer believes the recent Obamacare ruling was “AWFUL”.

  27. Gordilocks

    These guys are Livin’ the dream.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Did someone mention Father Christmas?

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Thanks for the Krazy Kat, OMWC.

    It’s never the wrong time.

    1. Breet Pharara

      “Nobel Laureate and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman came on for a wide-ranging interview, including his take on monetary policy. Krugman explained why he would hit the pause button on rate hikes if he was the Federal Reserve Chair. “Don’t hike until you see the whites of inflation’s eyes.””

      Let’s inflate that bubble and keep inflating it until it is way too late. Solid Monetary policy right there.

  30. It’s your purveyor of pulchritudinous posteriors and merchant of magnificent mammaries here to save the day!

    http://archive.is/zxE1V

    12, 18 and 26 are all acceptable.

    1. Gordilocks

      18 all day long, 29 appears to be readying herself for rear entry. HAWT

      1. prolefeed

        Downward Facing Dorgstyle

    1. Gordilocks

      Those are some smokin’ self-gotchie pulls.

    1. Rhywun

      Love the stock photos. That really classes up the joint there.

      1. I just used up all my “wtf???” for the day on that one.

        1. TARDIS

          Damn, that is effed up. Here is idea for the man, get someone else pregnant. This will reduce the possibly that your wife’s children will be c*nts or pr*cks. Because you know that has to be genetic too.

          1. TARDIS

            delete “wife’s”

            * gets more covfefe”

      2. BakedPenguin

        Were you expecting photos of the actual people in a story like that?

        1. Count Potato

          Well, since the story is based on how well they look, it would be relevant.

          1. BakedPenguin

            Don’t disagree. But if you were the husband, would you agree?

      3. Count Potato

        LOL

    2. AlmightyJB

      5 minutes later I’m still laughing about this.

    3. straffinrun

      At least now he has a good reason to demand anal.

  31. Re: Trump continuing the proud American tradition of being nosy neighbors with guns:

    One of the bigger disappointments for me about Trump’s time in office thus far has been his penchant for not quite getting it right. He makes all the right noises about reducing America’s military commitment to Europe and so forth and then drops the ball on getting out of the Middle East, for example. “Draining the swamp” is another.

    My sister-in-law was texting back and forth with my wife and said something like, “Bill likes Trump, doesn’t he?” in what I’m sure my wife read as an accusing or mocking tone. To her infinite credit, and proving that she gets endless joy in trolling the shit out of me, she replied to her that I don’t like him, I’m just not upset about him, and that I pretty much just judge him on a per-policy basis. That was good, but I would’ve said that it isn’t that I like Trump, it’s that I’m willing to gamble on the devil I don’t know rather than the devil I do. Also, I don’t hate Trump for the crime of being Trump; I don’t believe that milk curdles when he walks past, or that if he looks at a pregnant cow the calf will be born with two heads. I don’t think about him that much, other than when people who are obsessed with him constantly bring him up and expect everyone in hearing range to be outraged.

    1. CPRM

      My thoughts on the man are this: we ended up in the less bad apocalypse.

    2. Shorter Bill: I’m a white supremacist Nazi who kills kittens in my spare time.

      1. AlmightyJB

        I respect that.

  32. Count Potato

    “Florida lawyer claims to have uncovered Hugh Hefner’s sordid celebrity sex tapes filmed at his star-studded Playboy Mansion parties and will reveal them as part of a civil case against shamed comedian Bill Cosby

    US lawyer Spencer Kuvin has uncovered scores of recordings involving ‘dozens’ of high-profile celebrities at the raunchy events.

    Mr Kuvin said the tapes were handed over by Playboy Enterprises and appeared to have been professionally edited and ‘produced’.

    Mr Kuvin represents 28-year-old dancer Chloe Goins, who claims Cosby drugged and sexually attacked her at a party at the mansion in 2008.

    Ms Goins says the shamed celebrity – one of Hefner’s longtime friends – gave her a drink and that she later awoke to find herself naked with Cosby biting her toes with his pants around his ankles. She would’ve been 18 at the time.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6500783/US-lawyer-uncovers-Hugh-Hefners-sordid-celebrity-sex-tapes-civil-case-against-Bill-Cosby.html

    1. Tres Cool

      Whatever happened to Tom Arnold and his ‘smoking gun’ tape of Trump saying not-presidential shit? Wasnt he in cahoots with Michael Moore over releasing it ?

      1. Tres Cool

        Nevermind. It’s been two years since that bomb was gonna drop.

    2. Bob Boberson

      I refuse to believe any sentient being who also happens to be an attractive woman ever went to the Playboy mansion without the expectation that she was going to be banged in a viagra-fueled old man orgy.

    1. BakedPenguin

      Agreed, but points for honesty.

  33. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Here’s an excellent breakdown of the Uranium One deal and how money was funneled to The Clinton Foundation to facilitate it (and cover it up), starring the usual suspects:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fumgTTejLY0

    This guy’s really good, he also has a Chinacentric channel called China Uncensored that’s half news and half comedy.

  34. Count Potato

    “Gingerbread men banned at Scottish Parliament as part of a new drive to ‘stamp out sexism’

    Gingerbread men have been replaced by gingerbread persons in the Scottish Parliament’s coffee shop in case the traditional name causes offence.

    The move comes as a strategy aimed at stamping out sexual harassment and sexism was introduced at Holyrood this week after a survey found 30 per cent of women working there believed they had been sexually harassed.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6497595/Gingerbread-men-banned-Scottish-Parliament-new-drive-stamp-sexism.html

    I should send them one of these:

    https://www.amazon.com/ecrandal-Bigfoot-Sasquatch-copper-cookie/dp/B06Y58S5PW

    1. straffinrun

      Gingerbread persons is absurd. Gingersnappers.

      1. Tres Cool

        I thought that was only the girls….

    2. If this is the best you can do to “Stamp out sexism” then sexism isn’t a real problem there.

    1. Rhywun

      “uncomfortable number of males”

      How many males is too many?

      1. Not an Economist

        1

    2. The ratio is pretty good, though.

    3. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

      All white guys are the same. That’s totally not racist.

  35. Count Potato

    “UK advertising watchdog to crack down on sexist stereotypes

    Ads will no longer be allowed to depict men and women in gender-stereotypical roles

    Adverts showing a woman struggling to park a car or a man refusing to do housework while his wife cooks dinner will be banned from next year as part of an industry-wide crackdown on sexist stereotypes.

    Under the new rules, British companies will no longer be able to create promotions that depict men and women engaged in gender-stereotypical activities, amid fears that such depictions are contributing to pay inequality and causing psychological harm.

    Adverts will no longer be able to show a person failing to achieve a task specifically because of their gender, such as a man unable to change a nappy or a woman unable to do DIY.

    The rules will also ban adverts that suggest that transforming your body will make you romantically successful, while also clarifying rules on the sexualisation of young women.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/dec/14/uk-advertising-watchdog-to-crack-down-on-sexist-stereotypers

    1. leon

      Like them or not, steryotypes help communicate missing information to an audience. It’s a part of communication.

    2. Rhywun

      A timely reminder that the UK continues to swirl down the drain with or without the rest of Europe hastening the process.

    3. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

      Gee, I hope they can still portray fathers as bumbling doofuses. Or is it doofi?

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Gingerbread men have been replaced by gingerbread persons in the Scottish Parliament’s coffee shop in case the traditional name causes offence.

    What if the gingerperson has a giant erection made of icing?

    1. KSuellington

      Goodthinkful persons know that women are also capable of erections.

    2. BakedPenguin

      Give it to your girlfriend to lick off.

    3. JaimeRoberto, Public Intellectual

      Don’t be so quick to judge. Gingerbread women can have penises too.

    4. Rhywun

      Gingers… sick!

  37. The Late P Brooks

    You’re not gonna believe this.

    One paper out this month, by Marianne Bertrand, Matilde Bombardini, Raymond Fisman, Brad Hackinen, and Francesco Trebbi, showed how corporations often amplify their influence through unaffiliated nonprofits.

    The authors looked at the process by which the government solicits public comments on proposed laws and regulations. They found that when a company donates to a nonprofit, that nonprofit is likely to comment on the same issues the company comments on — and the nonprofit’s comments tend to line up with those of the donor’s. There’s even some evidence of an effect on outcomes: Final legal rules appear more likely to reflect the views of the company when a nonprofit that received a donation also comments.

    ——————

    Of course, it’s possible that corporate and nonprofit interests happen to align just when rules go up for comment, and this alignment explains the concurrent donations. But it would require some pretty extraordinary serend­­ipity for that to occur over and over again; the more likely explanation is that corporate money and influence is shaping, if not driving, the nonprofits’ comments.

    You don’t suppose those “corporations” direct their funds toward organizations which agree with them, do you?

    Nah, that’s just silly.

    1. Breet Pharara

      By God, I think they’ve cracked the code.

  38. Mojeaux

    Hearkening back to a dead and rotting thread, a guilty pleasure movie is Armageddon.

    1. Mojeaux

      Dammit.