Tuesday Morning Links

by | Feb 4, 2025 | Daily Links | 244 comments

I got nothing for sports since everything being reported is all Super Bowl fluff. But Spring Training is right around the corner, so there’s that. Now moving on…

Bukele’s got our back. This would be very interesting should it come to pass. I’ll be curious to see how many nations become very selective on which migrants they want to bring back home and which ones they will let him take care of.

What a bunch of cowards. Hold it publicly so the American people know what you’re doing.

I really hope this is all just bluster. Because if they actually start doing this, I’d expect the retaliation to be swift and massive. And that won’t be a good thing at all, short term.

Please, please, please let this happen. And once they gut it, get some legislation put together that essentially salts the earth over its ashes.

“Keep cutting those dicks off.” Yeah, that’ll really own the bad orange man! Bunch of fucking butchers.

How stunning and brave. It’s also dumb as shit. And if he thinks he’s gonna win this game of chicken by being so vocal about breaking a law, I suspect this will backfire with Homan at the helm of CBP. Also his phrase “someone in our broader universe whose immigration status is not yet at the point that they are trying to get it to” is pretty clever. What efforts has that person made to get it where they want it? Because we have a process for that, and I’m willing to bet they have not started that actual process.

This is true. In fact, it won’t impact it at all. And neither will the performative actions by the people who agreed to it.

I do feel bad for this lady, in a way. But I fail to see how this was anybody’s responsibility but her own. I did get a kick out of the trigger warning at the beginning if the article, by the way.

It never dawns on them that they can, you know, cut spending. I have no idea why people would stay there.

That’ll teach em! But seriously, if the teachers all stayed home the kids would probably learn more from the subs. And if the kids stay home, they’ll definitely learn more than if they went to those failing schools. Either way, this is inadvertently a win for the kids.

I love the intro to this song so much. Almost as much as the finale. This one is more of an acquired taste. Still love it though. Enjoy them both.

And enjoy this lovely Tuesday, dear friends.

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

244 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    I got nothing for sports

    I’m watching F3 from 2021 to tide me over until the new season starts. One of the big reasons I don’t mind paying for the F1 service — they’re not bad on the archives.

    Morning, all!

    • sloopyinca

      This next round of testing in a couple weeks should be fun, but I really wish March 14 would hurry up and get here. Or March 13th, depending on what time zone you’re watching in, I suppose.

      • The Last American Hero

        No kidding. This season could be the best one ever, with so many teams having a legit shot at a win or at least a podium each week.

  2. Shpip

    President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement. Cue the leftwing meltdown.

    Sorry we’re not throwing taxpayer money at your vanity project.

    • SDF-7

      It does raise the question if you can craft legislation or whatnot to be an “anti-treaty” in our system. Something that ensures that barring a full act of Congress and the Executive, you shall not enter into another climate graft scam. Maybe just a basic law would do — I don’t know if we’ve done it a lot… and I’m sure the DC Circuit would find a way to overturn it regardless, but they need to do something while they can or we’re just going to ping-pong as the inevitable 2 party pendulum swings.

    • AlexinCT

      Like the USAID racket, the green shit is/was a scam to allow evil fucking scumbags to steal massive amounts of US tax payer lucre, and then through various entities, enriching globalists and globalist entities. And when those entities funneled millions – ILLEGALLY – to democrat campaign coffers, everyone turned a blind eye to it. Burn it down.

  3. SDF-7

    This would be very interesting should it come to pass.

    Cuba should step in and point to their years of keeping a population incarcerated.

  4. Rat on a train

    Ms Chou is lending her support to news.com.au’s campaign People Before Profit, calling on the federal government to make it mandatory for banks to compensate scam victims – just like in the UK.
    Banks should compensate people for all their bad decisions.

    • SDF-7

      I await the inevitable scam of setting yourself up to be a scam victim to split the “restoration”.

      Scam turtles all the way down, man….

      • sloopyinca

        Dammit, I should have been more brief.

      • Rat on a train

        Also, “Why are interest rates on loans so high and interest on balances so low?”

    • sloopyinca

      I assume this would create a cottage industry of people scamming others, who willingly fall for the scam just so they can get the forced compensation from the bank and then the scammer and scamee can split the money they scammed the bank out of (with the help of the government).

      • AlexinCT

        Why are you against entrepreneurship, huh?

    • Not Adahn

      That seems like a less bad thing than Bank of America’s policy of having scam victims arrested.

      • AlexinCT

        Somebody has to be coerced into keeping their mouths shut or to foot the bill.. And it ain’t the bank, brah..

    • DrOtto

      If she had done well, I’m sure she would have given the bank some of her investment gains!

  5. Not Adahn

    *waves hello*

    • SDF-7

      Good morning, O impeccably attired rodent!

    • AlexinCT

      The “Don’t feed the animals” sign says I shouldn’t wave back, man…

  6. SDF-7

    I’d expect the retaliation to be swift and massive

    Seems like the sort of thing we’d better be discussing with La Communista now before she gets her promised 10000 troops to the border. Since I don’t really trust they’ll take on the cartels (because of history) and if there’s retaliation from our side that hits an actual Mexican army group… that’s escalation we don’t really need.

    Unless you’re a disciple of James Polk, I suppose.

  7. juris imprudent

    It never dawns on them that they can, you know, cut spending

    Oh, you weren’t talking about USAID.

  8. R.J.

    Speaking of salting the earth, when the Hell is our governor going to pull a Trump on the Houston ISD?

    • sloopyinca

      I’m not sure he can, short of dissolving the teachers union. And from what I can tell, the parents down there are in the side of those so-called educators instead of the superintendent because they don’t want somebody telling them or their kids that they’re generally stupid and not learning a damn thing. They prefer to have a low-pressure babysitting service that doesn’t put them in a position to help their kids with homework or make them accountable in any way.

      • Ted S.

        Have the state schools not accept Houston ISD diplomas for college admission.

  9. SDF-7

    And once they gut it, get some legislation put together that essentially salts the earth over its ashes.

    And that’s how Sloopy gets us to at least hover the link if not read it. Like OMWC birthdays…. there’s just so many options for what that refers to!

    • sloopyinca

      It’s such a target-rich environment for salting of the earth in DC, you really do have to click through and read the articles now.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Salting with some other substance, something with a significantly long half-life.

  10. SDF-7

    How stunning and brave.

    I have to agree with the folks who think this is just to get a “See! The Nazis are coming!” photo op of him being led off in handcuffs or having his garage stormed or something. And he’ll probably get it (assuming he’s telling the truth, which ICE should try to figure out first to be sure) since it is a lose-lose (can’t let him flout the law on national TV after all). Ah well…. they’re going to scream Nazi anyway and assault cops in LA because of the Auschwitz camps or…. something….

    • sloopyinca

      I’m curious if this is some kind of bluff to elicit a reaction for political capital.

      Does Murphy have a presidential campaign exploratory committee set up yet?

      • Sean

        I’d love to see Mr. “above my pay grade” debate VP Vance.

    • DrOtto

      Sounds like he’s involved in human trafficking. Is one of her conditions of being kept in the garage to clean his house. What if she tried to go elsewhere, would there be consequences?

      • Jarflax

        I mean, if she left the house she’d be in New Jersey, that’s kind of a punishment in itself.

  11. Rat on a train

    Local news: Police: Suspect left license plate behind in Stafford hit-and-run

    Police said the intoxicated suspect tried to avoid talking about the accident by asking deputies if they had the wrong house or if they wanted to buy the damaged Nissan. Deputies declined the offer and arrested 46-year-old Kwame Boakya Yiadom.

    misdirection failure

  12. AlexinCT

    Please, please, please let this happen. And once they gut it, get some legislation put together that essentially salts the earth over its ashes.

    From your lips to his ears…

  13. SDF-7

    I have no idea why people would stay there.

    Obviously, neither do I — but I hate cities, so I’m already biased.

    That said — I expect they can’t cut spending because most CA politics are based on reliable union bloc voting. And they pay them back with their public service / teacher / whatnot union contracts. SF transit almost certainly has their spending locked in by those contracts — and they can’t change them without cutting their throat politically… whereas whining for bond/tax measures or deficit spending until the next level up bails them out has worked for them in the past… so guess which they’ll go with?

    • AlexinCT

      That said — I expect they can’t cut spending because most CA politics are based on reliable union bloc voting.

      I am far more inclined to believe cutting funding means the pool of money they can steal would shrink, making it harder to steal as much as they have been stealing forever….

      And they don’t want none of that. They have families to feed, you uncaring and evil bastage!

    • Rat on a train

      They need a dedicated funding source so there is less oversight of their spending.

  14. Not Adahn

    ISTM that there is something fundamentally wrong with having a State Department. That it hearkens back to the idea of The State as a person who has relationships with other such persons.

    I understand that there needs to be some mechanism by which the leadership of a particular country can communicate with their counterparts, and it does seem helpful to have at least a small group of people who know, understand, and can explain to the leadership what exactly is going on in Outer Elbonistan and why they should care.

    But is that really a good enough reason to have a caste of rich people living luxuriously hand having a great time “working” in the “nation’s interests?”

    • Pope Jimbo

      The real problem seems to me that these knobs get Stockholm Syndrome where they identify with the country that they are assigned to more than the US.

      They lose sight of the fact that they represent the US of A and its interests and they are not there to shower the foreign country with taxpayer money.

      That is what happened to Vindman in Ukraine. Trump didn’t listen to him and the other “experts” on what to do. So he tried to get him arrested.

  15. R C Dean

    “Bukele’s got our back.”

    I would say, put ‘em on Alcatraz, but I suspect Bukele can offer us a better deal and no annoying activist lawyers constantly filing lawsuits.

    • sloopyinca

      For them to all fit on Alcatraz, you’d have to stack them like cordwood.

      • R C Dean

        Yes, and?

    • Grummun

      I’m less keen on the idea of offshoring incarceration of US citizens. Seems like that is an invitation for massive abuses. The US prison system already does not have a great record preventing rape, gang violence, etc.

      • Not Adahn

        Yeah, if FJB had the brains for that idea, the J6ers wouldn’t have yet heard about their pardons.

      • AlexinCT

        Look, the love of a square is different than the love of a prison inmate…

    • Ted S.

      The projection is strong in that piece.

    • juris imprudent

      Hahahaha, Mr. End of History?

  16. Drake

    New Jersey will be glad to see the back of Phil Murphy later this year. No more elections to rig or shutdowns to order.

    • AlexinCT

      Yeah Drake, you night be putting the cart before the horse here. Once team blue entrenches itself in government, you are going to have a real though time dislocating that parasite. Like every blue state in the NE, the cheating accounts for a minimum of 30% of the vote count (and that’s the key = the counting) every election towards team blue. Shit like this happens all the time. And I guarantee you that it was far more than 5 changes she made. That is just the number they could quickly prove she did, and they didn’t look any further, because if people understood how much more of that shit happened, nobody would take these elections in the NE blue states seriously anymore.

      • Drake

        The Dem machine will still run NJ despite how anyone votes. But there will a different despicable shithead in charge.

    • Fourscore

      I can see through you, Jimbo. You’re trying to lure me into a nursing home. It’s not going to work cause I’ll just take the bees with me.

  17. rhywun

    Bukele’s got our back.

    My god the left is going to go apeshit.

    • Suthenboy

      Yes, they will even if nothing comes of it. I dont think offshoring Americans to prisons is a good idea…despite the fact that we have been doing it for years.

  18. rhywun

    cartels have also advised illegal immigrants to spit and urinate on ICE agents and defecate in their vehicles

    It’s almost like they want to start shit.

    • AlexinCT

      They need a “gotcha” moment desperately, because they have nothing else…

      See Floyd the saint shit.

    • Drake

      Who takes advice from the cartels? (Other than drug dealers and Arizona politicians)

    • AlexinCT

      I thought that would be the link to the incident of a gang of Somalis hitting the basketball player in the gym with a tire iron…

  19. rhywun

    During the rally, one transgender activist urged protesters to “shut this entire city down.”

    I continue to believe that this shit is intended solely to cause chaos and not to elicit any support. It is almost certainly organized by one of the Soros front groups, not by trannies.

    Oh, and Miss Mengele should be fucking ashamed of herself. This is the result of that Proposition 1 that the voters were tricked into approving. The Party passed it off as some sort of permanent blessing for abortions but now it’s being twisted to require radical medical experimentation on children.

    • PieInTheSky

      chaos is a ladder or some bullshit.

  20. Pope Jimbo

    Too bad you mortals need to cut spending. Our Dear Leader King Walz has super powers that mean we get to do whatever we want.

    In an article about rampant food insecurity that will only get worse if OMB gets his wish to gut Fed spending, King Walz said this:

    In the midst of federal uncertainty, Gov. Tim Walz emphasized the state’s resilience and willingness to tackle the problem of hunger, noting that Minnesota’s “superpower” is how Minnesotans act collaboratively, building ecosystems of support between federal and state governments, local nonprofits and faith-based organizations.
     
    “I’ve been using a phrase I heard somewhere, ‘Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare,’” said Walz. “I think we possess both of those in Minnesota. We are enthusiastic, but we will not back off.”

    The story is typical for a journalo. First trot out a bunch of statistics that make it seem like Minnesoda is a cold Ethiopia. Claim it is just going to get worse because the Feds won’t keep throwing money into the hole. Never question why things are so bad given the fact that the DFL has been in charge for more than a decade.

    Story is only worth it for that blowhard quote from Walz.

    • PieInTheSky

      I for one have no issue is Minnesotans need to pay higher state taxes.

      • Jarflax

        From my limited experience with Minnesota, they love Pie there.

      • AlexinCT

        Pimp’n ain’t easy but it is necessary, so Walz is chasing Minnesoda ho’s (i.e. tax payers) money like Tom chased Jerry…

      • Pope Jimbo

        Minnesoda is one of the places where we like Pie for breakfast.

      • AlexinCT

        Fur pie?

      • PieInTheSky

        Not only should they be first, but first by a good margin. Think Sweden in the 1970s. You keep 10% and the gov gets the rest. And everyone is happy.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      It’s not cold Ethiopia. It’s cold Somalia.

  21. PieInTheSky

    Greater Manchester Police (GMP) have just NAMED the man arrested for burning a Quran in Manchester — including the street and area where he lives. Given the known risks, we believe in this case GMP should have liaised with the CPS to determine whether it was appropriate to release these details at this stage. The failure to do so will almost certainly result in direct threat to his life.

    https://x.com/SpeechUnion/status/1886440513315692836

    shame about the beer and whisky in that area of the world. I should stock up on single malt cause Islam will ban production.

    • UnCivilServant

      Sounds like it’s past time for the GMP to be hanging from lampposts.

      • Jarflax

        Assumes spines not in evidence.

    • EvilSheldon

      I really hope that some of the American scotch makers can get their ducks in a row. Balcones could probably do something interesting.

      • Raven Nation

        If it’s not made in Scotland it’s not Scotch.

        /rant off

    • Homple

      Chesterton sensed something like this coming and wrote “The Flying Inn”. But that ended well this will not.

  22. PieInTheSky

    All Reactionaries R Losers 🔻 📕 🇵🇸
    @Bombard_The_HQ
    Khruschevite revisionism and the departure from the socialist road in 1956, leading the USSR to become a social-imperialist country, resulted in the open restoration of capitalism and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in 1991 and the resulting descent into fascism

    https://x.com/Bombard_The_HQ/status/1886484588639478090

    • The Last American Hero

      Even if true, why would Khruschev change course and end the 40 year paradise that had resulted from the revolution?

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Translated:

        Kruschev thought that murdering by the millions was a bad way to go. I disagree.

  23. R C Dean

    “Electing to refuse services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, is discrimination under New York law,” she added.”

    Sounds like every health care provider in the state is required to offer transition services. Or perhaps transition services aren’t offered to cisgender individuals anyway (much as pregnancy services aren’t offered to men), so her statement is meaningless.

    Hard to say, really.

    • Suthenboy

      It is the ‘Or’.
      Not giving is taking.

    • rhywun

      Or she is just a fucking idiot.

      Speaking of trannies, this development is amazing.

      An Oscar win seemed guaranteed for Gascón. [ed.: the man who was recently nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress]

      But then his old tweets were unearthed by digital excavators. In one tweet, Gascón refers to Islam as a “hotbed of infection for humanity” and “incompatible with Western values.”

      You can practically see the heads exploding from here.

    • AlexinCT

      And no mention of the perp’s identity? That playbook seems to be universal.

    • Suthenboy

      I thought Obama declared that that never happens outside the US.

    • AlexinCT

      Why the fook did they need to bury that whale? The whole exercise is idiotic.

      • Suthenboy

        What a waste…does anyone anywhere have a complete skeletal mount of a whale? That would be awesome.

      • Sensei

        Seriously they normally would have eaten it, right?

      • Sensei

        Suthen one of the DC and/or NYC museums has a blue whale suspended from the ceiling.

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        *Wonders what whale meat tastes like*

      • Sensei

        According to my friend’s husband who ate it as a kid at school – rather fishy tasting.

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        Tastes like chicken of the sea.

    • kinnath

      Needs a link to the exploding whale from back in the day . . . .

    • Suthenboy

      I see now the mounted skeletons. Awesome.
      I did a few skeletal mounts in school for the bio dept mammal skin/skull collection so when I see an interesting species corpse that is the first thing that comes to my mind.
      *LSU bio dept has one of the best skin/skull collections in the world. It really is mind blowing.

    • mock-star

      To be fair though, 14 million yen is like three dollars and 68 cents.

  24. Suthenboy

    I usually peruse the links and condense all of my useless knee-jerk reactions in one comment.

    I screeched to a halt on the Mexican cartel story. That is not real, is it? Are the cartels breaking the cardinal rule of dope….never use your own product? After all of the evil they have been up to I bet Trump is just waiting for an excuse to let the shit hammer of God down on them. I really hope that doesn’t happen but if they start doing that I will have to support their extermination.

    • juris imprudent

      Zeihan has suggested that the cartels spilling their violence over the border would initiate a response exceeding the last Mexican-American war.

    • kinnath

      Because FYTW

    • AlexinCT

      The BBC was one of the biggest leftist propaganda machines out there…

      • DrOtto

        “The BBC was one of the biggest…”

    • Not Adahn

      Racial equity ofc.

    • Suthenboy

      We are funding everyone else, why should they get left out?

    • KK

      Are you sure you want to use past tense?

    • KK

      USAID is totally not going to continue exactly what it has been doing, just buried within an obscure State Dept bureau with the money flowing to a different group of people. Nope indeed.

      • juris imprudent

        With an entire new leadership you might see some change. The best option is to zero out all appropriations to it.

  25. AlexinCT

    Methinks that the idiots that wrote this headline are ignorant of the laws of physics. Even if they managed to put nuclear reactors on a Burke platform, a serious feat if they did, there would not be unlimited power generation to keep a high wattage laser firing forever.

    • Not Adahn

      ‘Expecting sailors who shoot shotguns, rifles, or machine guns twice a year on a range to be able to engage multiple small, fast-moving targets is unreasonable, ‘the report added.

      So what you’re saying is, sailors need more trigger time? Surely you can mount some clay throwers on the deck.

      • R C Dean

        The author sounds like he thinks the laser is manually operated like a WWII vintage twin 40MM.

        This thing is an anti-missile/anti-drone platform. The same training and gear that supports the currently anti-missile/anti-drone platforms should be a good start, with whatever changes optimize this particular weapon.

      • juris imprudent

        Wasn’t that always the role for Marines?

      • Drake

        Maybe we’ll get a new class of nuclear cruiser. That will take a decade?

    • ron73440

      And because the ship’s power source is constantly replenished, the laser has an unlimited supply of power.

      You mean refueling the ship?

      Technically, my truck’s stereo and lights have an unlimited supply of power also.

  26. KK

    Anyone who thinks USAID is, or will be, shut down is super cute and deserves a lolly and a pat on the head.

    • KK

      But hey – I only work there, so you can just go ahead and dismiss my information.

      • Not Adahn

        I’m pretty sure you’re one of the very few trusted sources here.

    • R C Dean

      While I suppose Congress can keep appropriating money for it, it sounds like how that money is spent is pretty discretionary. I don’t suppose you could just spend it on, say, retiring some of the federal debt?

      • KK

        I don’t suppose you could just spend it on, say, retiring some of the federal debt?

        Aren’t you adorable

    • PieInTheSky

      OK here’s a question: how long do you think this can last? forever? how? hyperinflation?

      So I guess not now. But a reckoning must come… When would you say? 10 years? 20?

    • ron73440

      So what is going to happen to it?

      The amount of performance art related to its being exposed makes me think they are worried.

      • KK

        They’re worried because they won’t have control over it. It will be under Rubio and Marocco buried inside the F Bureau at State. When they’re no longer in power, they’ll find somewhere else to bury it.

        The money machine is still working. It’s just flowing to other places now.

        And because I work in public affairs, I’m out of a job. But the ones who press the button to pay Abul bin Abullah in Syria get to keep theirs.

        Enjoy!

      • slumbrew

        KK, ping me at my handle at protonmail.com and I’ll send you the career link for my company – we’re almost entirely WFH at this point.

        That said, mostly tech stuff for US-based stuff, a couple program management roles; worth taking a look, regardless.

      • juris imprudent

        But the ones who press the button to pay Abul bin Abullah in Syria get to keep theirs.

        Names – we need names, and then we can do something about that behavior.

      • KK

        Names – we need names

        M-a-r-c-o R-u-b-i-o

        P-e-t-e M-a-r-o-c-c-o

      • juris imprudent

        No, the downstream people that are approving shit. Nothing goes up that high for execution.

    • Drake

      That depends on how hard Trump, Musk, and team pull those threads and what they expose.

      Could easily be the largest scandal in U.S. history with lots of people going to jail.

      • KK

        LOL

      • Drake

        A year ago would you believed any of this was possible? That a bunch of geeks working for Elon Musk show up at the USAID and download all their data and start exposing their dirty laundry. Their top management is fired, all spending paused… Democrats are in a panic and lib tears are falling like rain.
        https://x.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1886281789167042828

      • KK

        all spending paused

        LOL

    • PieInTheSky

      ehm she is not your girl dude

    • AlexinCT

      So cuck says his wife is a filthy cock hungry whore, but it’s cool?

      • The Other Kevin

        Reminds me of that story, “Actually there is a Deep State and it’s kind of awesome.”

  27. The Late P Brooks

    If mastectomies are performed on cisgender cancer patients, they must be performed on (physically) healthy children. Equal.

    • PieInTheSky

      If at least they went all in on gender is a social construct and you need no medical intervention just identify different it would be easier to fix…

  28. Pope Jimbo

    King Walz wants to zero out funding for light rail operating costs!

    Two years after the Minnesota Legislature passed the first-ever dedicated tax source for transit in the Twin Cities, hailed by advocates as a historic move to expand and support transit, a proposal deep inside Gov. Tim Walz’s budget proposal would use that regional tax to reduce state support for transit.
     
    Transit and environmental advocates who pushed for the three-quarters of a cent sales tax in the seven-county region in 2023 are not pleased.
     
    “This proposal would drastically undermine the promised expansion of bus service and Bus Rapid Transit throughout the metro area which was a centerpiece of the historic 2023 Transportation Bill,” stated a letter from 15 organizations, including the Sierra Club, Our Streets, Move Minnesota and the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota. “The Legislature must defend its historic victory for equity and climate from the Governor’s proposed rollback.”
     
    In presenting the proposal to the Senate Transportation Committee Wednesday, Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle said it was part of budget pruning Walz says is needed to keep the next two budgets balanced. The proposal would cut the transfer of $32 million a year in general funds to Metro Transit for rail operations.

    Things to note:

    1) Just two years ago we had a $17B surplus. Walz and the DFL House and Senate spent every penny of that. Not just on one time projects either, they created all sorts of ongoing stuff.

    2) We are now looking at a deficit.

    3) The Met Council is flush with cash from the new tax (yes even though we had a $17B surplus we created new taxes) that they passed, so losing a bit of state funding isn’t going to hurt them at all.

    4) Metro Transit just said that ridership is still down 40% from pre-pandemic numbers. Is their budget only 60% of what it used to be? Of course not!

    • PieInTheSky

      I mean to be fair you cannot just scale budget with ridership all that easily

    • DrOtto

      Fraudulent spending through USAID is only 1/8 of the deficit, so we shouldn’t even bother cutting that spending!

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They’re pissed that their permanent slush fund and regime/cultural cohesion undermining agency is being destroyed. Good damn riddance and if the Reps were using it in the same manner I’d be saying the same thing. That it was used in this fashion for this long is a crime against the world.

      • juris imprudent

        Repubs: You aren’t denying us our fun with thst!

  29. AlexinCT

    AYUP!

    It was Obama’s doing from the getgo that turned the government abuse in every aspect from a 1-5 out of 100 to 2000 out of a 100, and got us here. That fundamental change shit he talked about. It’s what we are now finding out the government is doing with our money to support the democrat crime syndicates’ political ambitions.

  30. PieInTheSky

    If you’re going to issue billions of dollars in shady redacted foreign grants, it’s imperative to lease the premier $80 million DC office spaces.

    “Start each day with Italian marble floors, barrel vaulted ceilings, and a sunlit atrium with majestic fountains”, a fitness center with golf simulator, and a rooftop terrace!

    https://x.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/1886769568355369309

    Myself I never heard of the Millennium Challenge Corporation

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      That building looks like a supervillain’s lair. Which office is Lex Luthor’s?

      • R C Dean

        “That building looks like a supervillain’s lair.”

        Well, it kind of is.

    • EvilSheldon

      I had a client in that building for a while. It’s very pretty, but a straight nightmare when you build out your space…

    • KK

      Millennium Challenge Corporation

      GWB grift

      • juris imprudent

        I told everyone the Repubs don’t want to end the grift – just put it to their neo-con ends.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    Chicken

    Trump folds under pressure, pauses tariffs on Mexico and Canada

    ——-

    …the president announced that he was, in fact, imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — despite a 2018 trade deal that he helped negotiate, which seemed to prohibit such a move — as well as 10% tariffs on China.

    On Sunday, Trump conceded that American consumers might feel “some pain“ as a result of his agenda, and on Monday morning, the major Wall Street indexes showed sharp and immediate declines. Hours later, as NBC News reported, the president paused much of his policy on tariffs.

    ——-

    All of which leaves us with a fairly obvious conclusion: Trump picked a fight, faced pressure, saw stock market declines, and caved in exchange for effectively nothing, sparking a new round of international headlines about the American president being a “paper tiger.”

    tl;dr- Mexico and Canada stood up to Trump’s bullying and empty threats and forced him to back down. Now Trump looks pathetic.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Well it’s on the internet so that must be what happened.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, never mind the trade deal he previously negotiated.

    • B.P.

      “…saw stock market declines…”

      The Dow dropped 0.3% yesterday, 122 points. It’s back in the green today. The Nasdaq dropped 1.3%.

  32. PieInTheSky

    Benjamin Jones
    @BenBarryJones
    If made law by @AngelaRayner
    , Labour’s definition of Islamophobia would criminalise:

    – anyone who expresses any view that criticises “expressions of Muslimness”

    – ex-Muslims who have escaped Islam and want to talk about why

    – women who criticise the face veil or headscarf

    https://x.com/BenBarryJones/status/1886690043634315696

    maybe a silver lining of all this madness is putting women in their place again… who knows…

    • R C Dean

      At some point, I guess they’ll also have to start picking sides in Muslim doctrinal disputes.

      • PieInTheSky

        Team Ali FTW

  33. PieInTheSky

    My name is Talia, and I’m searching for a life partner to start a loving family 💗
    -I’m a sex worker with a high 6 fig income and 7 fig NW
    -28 and freezing eggs soon! My dream is to be a SAHM for the early years of parenthood

    Interested, or just curious? Take the survey below!

    https://x.com/TaliaGraceSable/status/1885745992789905523

    • Suthenboy

      One glance…..That is not going to age well. She is spending her prime sexual years not being monogamous and when that figure inevitably is gone she wants some dude to be devoted to her past menopause. So, sex years he has to share, afterwards he gets to do all of the heavy lifting and never have to worry about getting laid.

      I dont know how any man could pass that up.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    Springtime for Hitlers

    Experts say the suspension has another, far more serious consequence: emboldening authoritarian strongmen. Wrapped into the billions the U.S. spends annually on foreign aid — more than any other nation — are hundreds of grants for grassroots groups dedicated to fighting for democracy in authoritarian countries around the world.

    Among the groups that won’t be receiving critical funding is an organization that trained poll workers to detect fraud in Venezuela’s recent presidential vote, pro-democracy activists in Cuba and China and a group of Belarusian exiles behind a campaign to block the country’s strongman from winning a sham election.

    “Cutting funding to these essential efforts sends the wrong signal to dictatorships and undermines the brave individuals fighting for freedom,” said Thor Halvorssen, founder of New York-based Human Rights Foundation, which does not receive U.S. government funding. “These particular investments should not just be restored — they should be prioritized.”

    We must meddle in and destabilize foreign countries’ governments. That’s how we lecture the world about democracy.

    • Ted S.

      What makes someone an aid “expert” anyway?

      • Jarflax

        “aid expert” sounds like a bland corporate rebranding of King of Beggars.

    • The Other Kevin

      What the British did with naval power, we are doing with shady NGO’s. The sun never sets on the American Empire.

  35. Suthenboy

    NJ governor has an illegal living in his home as a fuck doll? Interesting. I dont think that is going to turn out like he thinks it will.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    Congress budgeted at least $690 million on pro-democracy programs this year to counter authoritarian rule in eight countries considered by experts among the world’s least free: Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

    Much of the pro-democracy funding is channeled through the U.S. Agency for International Development, where hundreds of employees were laid off amid attempts by billionaire Elon Musk to shut down the decades-old agency as part of his campaign to slash spending.

    We were setting the world free. But President Cartoon Villain hates freedom.

    • PieInTheSky

      OK so if I create Pie’s Fund for Saving Democracy NGO can I finally get some of that sweet sweet USG moneys?

      • R.J.

        Looks like you are too late. If I knew it was that easy I would have done so earlier.

      • KK

        OK so if I create Pie’s Fund for Saving Democracy NGO can I finally get some of that sweet sweet USG moneys?

        Yep – you’ll just need to apply through Rubio and Marocco now.

    • The Other Kevin

      Just like legislation, they pick the most innocuous names. What kind of monster would be against International Development? Isn’t everyone pro-democracy?

      • EvilSheldon

        *raises hand* Nope.

    • KK

      LOL

      • juris imprudent

        Congress is going to rescind that appropriation any second now!

      • KK

        Congress is going to rescind that appropriation any second now!

        They’re definitely not going to bury in the State Dept budget even deeper with vague outlays for “misc expenses”

      • R C Dean

        It’ll be an amendment to the ObamaCare repeal bill.

        Thanks, JI. You and KK are making sure my cynicism module is online and functioning optimally.

    • R.J.

      Well they won’t, but should some miracle occur and they cut programs, I’d be delighted.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    OK so if I create Pie’s Fund for Saving Democracy NGO can I finally get some of that sweet sweet USG moneys?

    How do you look in a dress?

    • Rat on a train

      Good enough for government work (under Biden).

    • PieInTheSky

      given I have fantastic legs, not too shabby

      • Sean

        lol

  38. Common Tater

    “The egg-flation has forced New York Attorney General Letitia James to warn businesses against price gouging.

    “Eggs are an essential grocery staple in households across the state, and New Yorkers should not pay ludicrous amounts just to feed their families,” James said in a statement.”

    https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/us-news/egg-flation-leaves-nyc-eateries-scrambling-i-cant-keep-this-up/

    You can at least admire her consistency. She’s an asshole about everything.

    • R C Dean

      The government: “Kill all the chickens because bird flu!”

      Also the government” “OMG, why are eggs so expensive?”

      • Common Tater

        Meanwhile the price of chicken has gone up.

  39. Sensei

    But are they still serving at the Korova Milkbar? The droogs and I go there making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.

    A Milk Brand Wanted to Tout Its Sustainability Push. Then It Got Swept Up in a Conspiracy Theory.
    Companies want to promote their green credentials, but doing so can sometimes come at an unexpected cost

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-milk-brand-wanted-to-tout-its-sustainability-push-then-it-got-swept-up-in-a-conspiracy-theory-f0c23ee4?st=QkfU6V&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    • Not Adahn

      “fortified with adenochrone!”

      • Ted S.

        It’s what plants crave!

  40. The Late P Brooks

    “Trump is doing the work that Maduro could never accomplish: suffocating civil society,” said one of the activists impacted by the funding freeze and who on Monday started laying off dozens of contractors who’ve played a key role mobilizing opposition to Maduro.

    Nothing says civil society like taking foreign money surreptitiously to fund your “pro democracy” cocktail party circuit.

    • R C Dean

      Umm, if it depends on government money, it’s not “civil” society.

  41. The Other Kevin

    “I really hope this is all just bluster. ”

    On X this morning I saw a sob story by CBS News, about a poor woman from Guatemala whose family borrowed $25k to pay a cartel to get her over the border, and now she’s being deported. People are missing the biggest takeaway: The cartels are making $25k per person. Multiply that by a million or more. The Biden admin helped the most brutal criminals in the world go from a million dollar to a multi-billion dollar industry. They aren’t spending that money on wells for their village. They have the money to buy major weapons, and the incentive to keep those billions flowing. I hope I’m wrong.

    • R.J.

      You are not wrong. Also the dollars go straight to support drug cartels, weapons AND communism. Just a fucking mess. I love Elon’s approach, just shut it all off and see who squeaks.

    • Endless Mike

      The median income in Guatemala is about $1,400 – how did this woman come up wiht $25K for the cartels?

  42. The Late P Brooks

    You think it’s cool now but, how are you going to feel when Democrats take power and do their own cutting of useless programs?

    Whatever you do, don’t throw me in that briar patch!

    • EvilSheldon

      I legit can’t wait to find out what government programs the Democrats think are useless.

      • Sean

        the CMP

      • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

        customs and border patrol?

      • juris imprudent

        Anything that actually contributes to the defense of this nation.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    People are missing the biggest takeaway:

    Biden nd his NGO minions have been directly funneling vast sums of money to the artels?

    • The Other Kevin

      Yes. But people are concentrating on whether or not we should have sympathy for this woman.

      • R C Dean

        She’s just as much a cartel customer as corner street dealer, so no.

  44. Common Tater

    “Washington Democrats, led by an ex-con, are proposing to let convicted felons volunteer in public schools. This after Democratic lawmakers last week rejected an amendment to another bill that would have required schools to inform parents if their child was a victim of sexual assault.

    Currently, anyone wanting to volunteer in a Washington public school must undergo a background check, which will usually flag a criminal conviction. Representative Tarra Simmons (D-Bremerton), an ex-con who served time for theft, drug, and firearm offenses, is the lead sponsor on House Bill 1189, which would require school districts to inform applicants about the option to submit proof of rehabilitation and then possibly be allowed to volunteer in a school, regardless of what crime they committed.”

    https://thepostmillennial.com/washington-dems-push-to-allow-felons-to-volunteer-in-schools

    Including crimes against children?

    • The Other Kevin

      Bremerton is where my kid lives. Thankfully they’ll be in Virginia this time next year.

      • Rat on a train

        Unfortunately, Spanberger will probably governor next year so the Ds in the legislature can continue their quest to enshitify Virginia.

    • Sean

      Fucking psychos…

    • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

      ‘Including crimes against children?’

      Especially those ones.

      Now it’s time for the one on one sessions.

  45. The Late P Brooks

    Starting fires instead of putting them out

    California’s Democratic-dominated Assembly endorsed up to $50 million in funding Monday to defend the state’s progressive policies against challenges by the Trump administration.

    The legislation sets aside $25 million for the state Department of Justice to fight legal battles against the federal government, and another $25 million for legal groups to defend immigrants facing possible deportation.

    The proposals won approval on party-line votes after Assembly Democrats delayed an expected vote last week. They now head to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’ s desk.

    “We do not trust President Donald Trump,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas said before the votes, describing Trump’s administration as “out of control” and a threat to constitutional rights.

    If they have fifty million dollars to pay lawyers with they must not need any “disaster relief aid”. Trump should tell them to fuck off when they ring his doorbell rattling their tin cup.

    • R.J.

      Tin causes cancer in the State of California. It’s a sustainable bamboo cup.

      • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

        Organic fair trade bamboo, crafted by the finest orphan artisans according to traditional techniques.

  46. Sensei

    I called the DEC salesman and told him I wanted a VAX and three 176-megabyte disk drives. He laughed and said, “Who doesn’t?” I mentioned I had a signed purchase order in my hand, but I needed it on our loading dock by Dec. 31 or the deal was off. He stopped laughing. He even started calling me “sir.”

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-to-spend-1-million-in-a-hurry-a-lesson-in-budgeting-and-bureaucracies-makes-me-skeptical-of-doge-1ea97897?st=7JBpog&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

      What makes the author think that these expenditures aren’t easy to see?

      Anyway, his story just proves the need for DOGE. Elon has proven it can be done with the likes of Twitter, he just needs to learn the ropes of FedGov.

      • juris imprudent

        Congress funds spending. Elon can’t do shit about that.

  47. The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

    “I don’t wanna get into too much detail, but there’s someone in our broader universe whose immigration status is not yet at the point that they are trying to get it to. And we said, ‘you know what? Let’s let her live in our house above our garage,” the governor said”

    Wow, dude is letting his house cleaner live in. Nice flex.

    • slumbrew

      ‘course, he’ll have to deduct the rent from her cleaning fees. And maybe it’s a bit short after that but some arrangement can be worked out…

      • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

        Who are you who are so wise in the ways of The Science(tm)?

    • DrOtto

      I’m gonna wait till Schwarzenegger weighs in on what a smart move this is…

  48. Suthenboy

    All of the whining in a nutshell: “He is going to destroy the trough! We cant let him get rid of the trough!”

    • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

      Correct.

      If usaid really gets scrapped, I have just one message for Trump and Musk: please don’t stop.

      My whole life I’d been pretty pessimistic about getting rid of wasteful stuff like that, but who knows now?

      • KK

        LOL

    • KK

      LOL

      • R C Dean

        You know, you’re harshing my mellow, KK.

    • juris imprudent

      Get rid of? We’ve got a whole herd of new pigs to line up at that trough!

    • juris imprudent

      THIS IS FUCKING UP MY RETIREMENT SINECURE!!!

      • Ted S.

        +1 Creech

  49. The Late P Brooks

    Coup

    Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, sent a letter to Trump’s new treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, on Sunday to demand answers for his role in allowing Musk’s team access to the payment system. She warned that such access “puts the country at greater risk of defaulting on our debt, which could trigger a global financial crisis”.

    “It is extraordinarily dangerous to meddle with the critical systems that process trillions of dollars of transactions each year, are essential to preventing a default on federal debt, and ensure that tens of millions of Americans receive their Social Security checks, tax refunds, and Medicare benefits,” Warren wrote. “The American people deserve answers about your role in this mismanagement, which threatens the privacy and economic security of every American.”

    Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York, described the intervention of Musk, who spent more than $290m on the 2024 election, as a “five alarm fire” and a “grave threat to national security”.

    “This is a plutocratic coup. If you want the power, run for office and be chosen by the people,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a social media post. “Short of that, this is an exercise in vigilantism.”

    No more American Dream.

    • Ted S.

      At least AOC is admitting that unelected civil servants shouldn’t have power.

    • The Other Kevin

      Ok Senator, then get off your ass, write some legislation, and convince a veto-proof majority to vote for it.

    • kinnath

      cover story versus operational behavior

    • The Other Kevin

      One of the guys on National Review wrote about how this is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. He’s not getting a lot of favorable comments.

      I guess there’s no way to prevent malaria and provide clean water without tons of money laundering and as you said, toppling foreign governments. And hey, it’s only a few billion, why are we worrying about that when our debt is so much more?

      • R C Dean

        “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”

        Well, incremental reform hasn’t worked. Time for drastic measures. If burning it all down is what it takes, so be it.

        Maybe if you didn’t want the baby thrown out with the bathwater, you should have been riding the government’s ass all along to clean up its act.

      • R C Dean

        What’s the saying?

        Put a spoonful of ice cream in a bowl of shit, and you still have a bowl of shit. Put a spoonful of shit in a bowl of ice cream, and you still wind up with a bowl of shit.

    • juris imprudent

      Why next you’ll be telling me that VOA didn’t come out of the old CIA propaganda arm.