Thursday Morning Links

by | Mar 13, 2025 | Daily Links | 214 comments

The Buckeyes crashed out of the Big Ten tournament early, and now have no hope of getting into the big dance. The Jets officially cut Rodgers. And across the pond, Real Madrid pulled a rabbit out of their ass in the CL and advanced on penalties. Sounds like an annual occurrence. Oh, and F1 is back this weekend!!! That’s all I’ve got.

I feel bad for these people. Bad that they have no desire whatsoever to fend for themselves and bad because nobody else in the world is capable of helping them except for the NGOs funded by the US government. What a tough spot to be in.

Good. Because I’m pretty sure that the claims are bullshit. It’s what you expect when the government funds research with the goal of finding a predetermined conclusion.

I find this case fascinating. Every time they show a new angle, I change my mind on what happened. Also, that girl needs to get a lawyer, and that lawyer needs to tell her about “shut the fuck up Friday.”

In before they get called racist and sexist. Because I can assure you, that’s coming.

Wait, this is an advisory panel? Looks more like the waiting room to get admitted to the loony bin. But that’s how they capture the institutions: put the craziest true believers in charge of them.

You finally get it! You are disposable. Now get the fuck out of your office and go find a real job.

Oh boy. Here we go. This is going to be fantastic.

Let’s wrap this up, for crying out loud. Stop all the death just to placate the egos of Trump-hating Eurotards and the guy running the other corruptocracy involved in the fighting.

This ageism must not be allowed! I’ll be kind of shocked if it is eventually permitted, if I’m being honest.

This is a bunch of bullshit. Now where will I find my TeTas ands AsHos hats?

This song doesn’t get enough love. It deserves more. This one does as well. Even though it already gets a good bit of it. Enjoy them both.

And enjoy this lovely Thursday, dear friends.

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

214 Comments

  1. AlexinCT

    Good. Because I’m pretty sure that the claims are bullshit. It’s what you expect when the government funds research with the goal of finding a predetermined conclusion.

    One of the greatest scams ever. So much money has been stolen and so much waste has been forced upon us by the people peddling this shit, that we should label it a crime against humanity, and hold them all accountable for that shit.

    • sloopyinca

      We’d have to cut down half the trees in the rainforest to erect enough gibbets for this plan to work.

      I’m all for it.

      • AlexinCT

        Woodchippers, man…

    • Rat on a train

      Only private funding corrupts SCIENCE. Public funding is pure.

      • AlexinCT

        That there was the argument made in the 70s and 80s to dismiss everything the left hated, whether it was true or not, and now, 3 or 4 decades later, we have government throwing orders of magnitude larger funds at projects that blatantly tell lies to further government’s agenda to fuck over citizens without even giving them the courtesy of a reach around.

      • Suthenboy

        This all started with cigarettes and the attempts to loot the tobacco companies.

      • juris imprudent

        Yeah, with cigarettes, don’t forget that they were packaged up as part of standard rations for soldiers. So the govt had a hand in that.

      • The Last American Hero

        Isn’t it customary to offer a man a cigarette before sending him off to his death?

    • rhywun

      I hope Donald’s minions have some plan in place to stop the next Dem president from simply restoring Obama’s scam.

      • Rat on a train

        We get the instability of government by EO.

      • UnCivilServant

        Without congress, that’s not possible.

        The best case would be doing so much damage to their funding mechanism that their fraud machine is less effective and that electoral flip is delayed.

      • juris imprudent

        Of course not, Congress must be sidelined so the caudillo can rule unimpeded. It’s worked so well in Venezuela!

      • Jarflax

        Congress sidelined itself so it could collect maximum graft with minimum accountability. Unless we figure out 1. how to prevent that from reoccurring and 2. how to implement the change over congressional opposition there is no path to reducing the power of the Imperial Presidency. I agree that government by EO is a disaster, but it’s what the system has evolved into more because of Congress than any President.

      • Rat on a train

        You either need Congress micromanaging or reasonable people in the executive. Unfortunately reasonable people are in short supply, especially in Congress.
        It’s all part of our low trust culture.

  2. AlexinCT

    I find this case fascinating. Every time they show a new angle, I change my mind on what happened. Also, that girl needs to get a lawyer, and that lawyer needs to tell her about “shut the fuck up Friday.”

    I think everyone is missing the point. We should actually make whopping opponents on the track a thing. I would watch that shit then.

    • sloopyinca

      Before every person in the world had a videocamera attached to their hand, there would be a lot of jostling/punching in track events. The 800 and mile used to be especially brutal.

      • Ted S.

        +1 Zola Budd

      • AlexinCT

        Every runner should have a hocky stick, length of metal pipe, brick, or chain!

    • Rat on a train

      That was slashing. A cross check would have been fine.

    • Not Adahn

      Discus, shotput, javelin, hammer throw etc. should be bracket-based with two competitors facing each other.

      • AlexinCT

        Arm them all and let them really do the needful!

    • SDF-7

      ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?

      • AlexinCT

        You get it!

    • The Last American Hero

      Defense wins fucking championships.

  3. AlexinCT

    In before they get called racist and sexist. Because I can assure you, that’s coming.

    The people that want to use the military to force societal decline sure are pissed that effort is now going down in flames.

    • AlexinCT

      I also heard some low level team blue judge just put a hold on the efforts to end the stupidity of mentally deranged people using the military to pay for the costly idiocy of mutilating their bodies so they can pretend to be something other than brain damaged members of their sex. This shit needs to stop, and the people pulling these stunts need to be crushed. I can’t believe that the left thinks they are doing anything but proving they see government as a criminal enterprise they can use to fleece the productive as they loot everything they can before they crash society.

      • WTF

        Where in the constitution does the judiciary have any authority over the military? Can a judge order troops to be removed or sent somewhere, or put a TRO on deployments or air strikes, or prohibit or require practices in boot camp?

        Why, no, no they can not.

      • SDF-7

        You say that — but judges think they can force the Executive to not revoke security clearances… so it is pretty clear that they think they’re in charge of everything — if only someone brings it to their attention.

        Was it Sloopy that a while back pitched the idea of “giving them what they want” and literally swamping them with every single decision until they realize they’re not in charge or someone else here? It is going to take either that or the Supremes finally managing the Branch they’re supposed to be in charge of and making the boundaries clear. (He says as if these sub-Nazgul activists won’t just pull a New York State of Bruen….)

      • Fourscore

        Need more drums

        “Being “drummed out of the army” refers to the historical practice of dishonorably dismissing a soldier from military service, often accompanied by the sound of a drum, specifically the “Rogue’s March.” This act served as a public humiliation and warning to others about the consequences of misconduct.”

      • Homple

        “I also heard some low level team blue judge just put a hold on….”

        Hey! Where’s my Imperial Presidency?

      • juris imprudent

        As some of the Founders feared, captured by Judicial Tyranny.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        Someone on a Discord I frequent had been begging for money for bottom surgery. Does it make me a bad person, while most were good-lucking him, that I secretly hoped the surgery was botched?

    • rhywun

      Fear of accusations of racism is also why our schools suck and crime soared after 2020, so of course the same will apply to any attempt at raising the physical and grooming standards in the military.

  4. AlexinCT

    You finally get it! You are disposable. Now get the fuck out of your office and go find a real job.

    Was the idiot trying to make the case they were not worthless fucks ruining education and pissing away billions of tax payer dollars?

    • Nephilium

      From local news:

      Cropper is concerned that plans to send states block grants and give state departments of education broad discretion to spend the money, instead of funding specific programs, will remove accountability from how tax dollars are spent.

      Because there’s been so much accountability so far.

      • SDF-7

        In other words — “We won’t be able to coerce the states to push our agendas!” Laboratories of Democracy be damned… we have a totalitarian Uniparty State to build!

      • juris imprudent

        It isn’t even as overtly power-obsessed as that. It is logical. When you have expertise, you should be in charge, and since no one has knowledge equal or superior to your own, then no one has a basis to hold you accountable.

        You are a philosopher-king, and Plato was the underpinning for the Enlightenment. This isn’t some crazed concept from left field – it even goes back to Jefferson and his “natural aristocracy”.

      • Suthenboy

        Wut?
        I think the point of handing it back to the states is that it will increase accountability because….it will increase accountability.

      • rhywun

        I guess the idea of just not laundering that money through Washington in the first place didn’t occur to that person.

      • AlexinCT

        I guess the idea of just not laundering that money through Washington in the first place didn’t occur to that person.

        Oh, I am sure this is precisely what went through their heads. They realized since it was not going through Washington, the ability to steal the money just decreased by orders of magnitude…

      • Grummun

        Hey maybe, and I’m spitballing here, the Feds just don’t collect the tax money that is being re-distributed to the states, let the states set and collect taxes according to their own educational spending priorities.

    • Drake

      Disposable is too nice a word. You’re parasites now being removed by the host.

      • rhywun

        Yeah to be fair, most of us are “disposable” in our jobs (i.e. “replaceable”). Most government workers are actively harmful.

      • juris imprudent

        All of us are disposable, or at the least replaceable. This is just rampant narcissism.

    • Homple

      I can’t even guess what Trump and his people thought they could accomplish with that Saudi performance.

      A peace conference with only one belligerent and his proxy excluding the other belligerent?

      WTF?

      • R.J.

        He tried. I think that was last step to show due diligence before telling him to fuck off.

  5. Not Adahn

    Everett also said that while she caused physical pain for Tucker, there is not enough empathy for Everett’s own “mental” impact.

    “Everybody has feelings, so you’re physically hurt, but you’re not thinking of my mental,” Everett said.

    I see what you mean when you say “shut up Friday

    • SDF-7

      Oh… let me guess — another one of the “words are violence but actual violence pales next to my emotional butthurt” types they’ve done their damnedest to convert the younger generation too. Yay….

      This will end well.

    • juris imprudent

      Everyone understands you’re mental.

  6. AlexinCT

    This ageism must not be allowed! I’ll be kind of shocked if it is eventually permitted, if I’m being honest.

    Have you seen some of these kids today that basically are little monsters because their parents are idiots that think any kind of disciplining is abuse? I would fucking ban those parents too.

    • Rat on a train

      You can’t be your child’s best friend if you discipline them …

    • sloopyinca

      It should be legal to discriminate however they want. Let the public pass judgment on them.

      • SDF-7

        Yup… like probably everyone else here “Free Association”. The problem is the government(s) picking and choosing when it applies (as we all know).

      • Fourscore

        Now do mandatory education.

        A lot of kids don’t merit forced baby sitting.

  7. rhywun

    Real Madrid pulled a rabbit out of their ass in the CL and advanced on penalties.

    *puke*

    I misread the results yesterday and thought the one I don’t hate advanced.

    • SDF-7

      The Lemmiwinks League?

      Y’all watch some weird sports, I have to say….

    • Certified Public Asshat

      At least PSG beat Liverpool 😏

      • rhywun

        I don’t care if you hate Liverpool but supporting PSG is a crime against nature.

  8. rhywun

    nobody else in the world is capable of helping them except for the NGOs funded by the US government

    You’d think all those European countries who claim to hate the US so much would be falling over themselves to spray money across the region in our place.

    • AlexinCT

      The scam becoming obvious is that every entity on the planet has been robbing the US tax payer, directly or indirectly, to fund efforts and things to hurt US tax payers the most. We need to start nuking some people..

      • Suthenboy

        Nuke? Nah, just STOP GIVING MONEY TO GRIFTERS.

      • The Other Kevin

        I knew this was happening, but to me the extent is shocking. It seems like everything, everywhere, was funded by the US because “we can afford it”, and yet we have $36T in debt.

      • Nephilium

        TOK:

        Team America – World Police Piggy Bank.

      • rhywun

        It seems like everything, everywhere, was funded by the US because “we can afford it”, and yet we have $36T in debt.

        My town is blowing money on a “reparations study” while the streets are literally falling apart.

        It’s just what we do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • AlexinCT

        My town is blowing money on a “reparations study” while the streets are literally falling apart.

        You just captured the essence of what has changed. While inefficient and ineffective, government of yore knew they had to fix roads, keep water clean and running, have your sewage work, the bridges not collapse, airplanes not fall out of the sky, the trains running, and so on. There was very little money to scam off that stuff. Then their various rackets – in particular the green/climate movement and the whole racialism thing – allowed a whole industry around useless legal and paperwork shoveling shit to come to life. And man, that racket is rife for cheating. Trillions of tax payer dollars have been pissed away over the last 3 or more decades because of this overreach by government and their private sector army of lawyers and “experts”. This allows them to never have to be held accountable. In the mean time infrastructure falls apart, because money allocated to that is harder to steal. But the ones involved in the rackets are making bank from start to finish.

    • Nephilium

      They’re trying. Which hashtag will do the most good for Ethiopia?

      • rhywun

        #knockyourselvesout

    • sloopyinca

      Apparently “soft power” is only a thing if the US is the one garnering it through spending hundreds of billions of dollars on every single area in need of these programs. It wouldn’t benefit European nations. It would only benefit the US or China.

      The mental contortions world leaders perform to reach that conclusion, as they decry our spending cuts but refuse to step up themselves, are astounding.

      • rhywun

        They’ve been feeding off us so long the idea doesn’t even occur to them.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Where is the greatest philanthropist of our time, MacKenzie Bezos?

    • WTF

      Was Minnesota a slave state? I must have missed that day in history class.

      • AlexinCT

        The places where this reparations Kabuki shit is done the most, all were not even part of the union back when.

      • Nephilium

        There are people who have flown the confederate flag up here in Ohio (outside of the high school that had it in blue and grey as a symbol), I remember being quite surprised the first time I was driving through Indiana and saw a bunch of confederate flag stuff for sale in a rest stop off the freeway.

      • Fourscore

        My family didn’t arrive in the US ’til 1905 so I’ll be exempt, right?

        Mrs F came even later, 1965, so we’ll be doubly exempt.

        Seems like a good way to push more people to TX

      • UnCivilServant

        (-.-)

        I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War.

      • Fourscore

        In the early ’50s there was a fad in Mpls, kids were wearing Civil War style caps, blue or grey. Of course I had one, mine was grey. I can imagine the brouhaha that would cause today, if little Johnny showed up for 7th grade dressed inappropriately

      • WTF

        I can’t remember who wrote it, but someone did a take that they already got their “reparations” and more through decades of affirmative action.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        The only person in my family who fought for the south was Jewish.

        So, under the Dems, I pay double?

      • Jarflax

        (-.-)

        I had ancestors on both sides of the Civil War.

        Caesar and Pompey?

      • UnCivilServant

        I can’t even get mad at that.

      • Gender Traitor

        Not even at the suggestion that you have Italian ancestry?

    • rhywun

      All the blue utopias are wasting money on this nonsense. It’s just a fart-sniffing exercise.

      I would like to think that SCOTUS would put a stop to explicitly racist handouts fast enough to make their heads spin.

    • CatchTheCarp

      I clicked on the links of the DFL members who sponsored this bill….. it confirms my suspician there no longer any normal people in the Twin cities.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      This bill, authored by Sens. Pappas (DFL), Maye Quade (DFL), Pha (DFL), Boldon (DFL), and Fateh (DFL)

      3 liberal metropolitan white women, a liberal metropolitan Asian woman, and liberal metropolitan black dude.

      metros stickin’ it to the racist rurals

  9. AlexinCT

    I saw this article pointing out the Biden admin cooked the books to hide the actual scope of the foreign invasion they encouraged and paid for, and asked myself why this is news. Is it not obvious by now that all government statistics of the 2020-2024 third Obama term were fake as shit. They literally kept telling people they were being stupid for seeing the effects of the government abuses and subsequent inflationary effects for 2 plus years. All while claiming the economy was great and there was no recession as they printed $2.5 trillion dollar and pushed it out in government spending & expansion to hide the fact they had wrecked the economy.

    Now these crooks are all screaming bloody murder – accusing the people exposing them of wanting to kill grandma & grumpy, the chillrun, minorities, and sexual deviants – because the current government, elected to do this, is exposing and rolling back the massive criminality that was put into overdrive by the Obama people.

    • juris imprudent

      Just like the Dems saying that Biden couldn’t do anything, they needed Congress to act and the Republicans obstructed that.

      They were lying then and lying now. Why would anyone trust proven liars? [In fairness, the Repubs lie about other shit – like cutting spending.]

      • Fourscore

        What? The Repubs aren’t cutting spending? But Trump said…

      • AlexinCT
      • juris imprudent

        Remington never made a side-by-side. [old pedants never die…]

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!
      • juris imprudent

        [grumbles] Fine, haven’t made one in more than a century.

    • The Last American Hero

      When the fuck have they rolled back shit?

  10. SDF-7

    Oh, and F1 is back this weekend!!!

    I watched just the daily highlights of pre-season testing a week or so back… nothing majorly stood out (which is unsurprising… as I remember testing, even if one team looks more dominant, it often flips by real race day because the other teams may not really be pushing).

    So I fully expect to be watching for two things this season — 1) Is Maclaren going to carry over their momentum from the end of last season and challenge Red Bull? Hope so… like to see a real battle this season… plus Norris seemed to get tired of Max’s tricks and started pushing back… which Max f’ing needs in my admittedly bias opinion.

    and

    2) Is Hamilton going to look like he should have just retired as I expect? I suppose it is nice he gets to race for Ferrari if he always wanted to… but I really get the impression he’s been past his prime for at least 3 years now. I don’t seriously expect him to do all that much better with the new team. We’ll see.

    • sloopyinca

      I’m guessing McLaren and Ferrari will be battling it out. Max will win some races and be competitive for a bunch of podiums but that’ll be it. They’re focused on the new package in 2026 and aren’t gonna spend much time and energy upgrading this season’s car as the year goes by.

    • The Last American Hero

      What Sloopy said, plus this is the last year before the next reg change, so there are usually not radical car improvements going on like there are in the first year or two.

      Don’t sleep on Mercedes. As far as competitiveness goes, this could be the best season ever with 4 teams legit competing for podiums every week. I wouldn’t be surprised with a Norris driver championship and Ferrari team championship.

  11. AlexinCT

    Saw a meme saying: “The job of the mainstream media today is to make you think that the views of 10% of the country are actually the views of 90% of the country.

    That’s pretty much it.

  12. Strange Brew

    “You are disposable. Now get the fuck out of your office and go find a real job.”

    I’m constantly running a cost benefit analysis in my head when making decisions, in my personal life and at work. Sometimes it’s hard to walk away from something because the value isn’t there. It requires you to be honest with yourself, put aside wants and desires, and objectively evaluate reality. It’s sad but many people are incapable of doing this. They can’t distinguish between wants and needs, and add a ton of narcissism to the equation, you get delusional entitlement. Everything that benefits them personally is justified, anything that threatens this narrative is unacceptable. And it’s never about them of course, it’s always about harming the children, elderly, society, education, climate. The fact that they profit from their narrative is just a meaningless coincidence.

    • Fourscore

      I had an old El Camino, dumping more and more money into it. Always had “just more problem fixed and it’ll be a reliable driver, right?” Finally had to recognize reality, I gave it away. The new owner quickly junked it and got some value back.

  13. UnCivilServant

    I don’t have to attend the change control meeting today…

    🥳

    • Not Adahn

      But… uncontrolled change?!?

      • UnCivilServant

        *Pushes update to production*

        I’m sorry, what was that?

    • SDF-7

      So you can git out of the office?

      • UnCivilServant

        Thursdays are remote days, so I am in my house.

        I won’t have to check out anything.

      • Seguin

        You need someone more committed to punning.

  14. Suthenboy

    Morning all.

    Ethiopian story: Their misery is self-inflicted. Always was, is now and always will be. I have zero sympathy.

    Climate scam collapsing – long overdue.

    The racistsexistmisogynisthomophobe thing has lost it’s sting, hasn’t it? I never should have had one.

    Putting the insane in charge is an old tactic for demoralization. All too often today I want to ask “In what way did you think this would turn out well?”
    More than a little ‘foreseeable consequences are not unintended’ applies here.

    That sign actually does say ‘Trumputin’. *rubs eyes, looks again*
    Yep, that is what it says.

    The CR always turns out to be tempest in a teacup kind of stuff and yet every time it comes up again people lose their shit. Whatever.

    Are we really going to bumblefuck our way into another world war? WTF guys? My Utoob feed is cluttered with “Ukraine is whipping the shit out of the Russians!” propaganda. Why? I never searched for anything like that.
    It is a wildly profitable money laundering operation so no one wants it to end.
    Stop. The. Money. Stop it now.

    Every morning I resolve to show more respect to my fellow man. Every evening I go to sleep completely defeated. *Sigh*

    I notice Old Blighty seems to be falling further and further into ‘Third World Shithole’ territory at an increasing rate. Have fun with that.

    • Fourscore

      “Every morning I resolve to show more respect to my fellow man. Every evening I go to sleep completely defeated.”

      Cheer up, things could be worse. I cheered up, sure enough, things got worse

      • Rat on a train

        Ukraine is whipping the shit out of the Russians!
        You know who else inflicted heavier casualties against the Russians but still lost the war?

  15. UnCivilServant

    Supposedly the EPA is relaxing the fuel efficiency standards on automobiles. Will the 2026 Maverick:

    A: Be able to tow its own curb weight (unlike the 2025)
    B: Not exist because they can make real cars again
    C: Stay the same to save on engineering costs
    D: Be an EV

  16. Suthenboy

    Re: throwing gold bars overboard strategy and limited growth theory.
    Years ago a man I greatly respect told me he had read the justification for govt squandering huge amounts of resources and it made sense to him. He couldn’t remember the exact argument but….(yeah, that’s a clue dude)
    I looked it up and the best I could find was all arguments boiled down to ‘People are too stupid to figure out what to do with the fruit of their own labor so we have to destroy it’
    Nice.

    • WTF

      Which really boils down to “we have a higher moral claim on your labor than you do”.

    • AlexinCT

      Rule be expertise should be dead after the whole Kung Flu debacle.

    • Fourscore

      At least the village was saved

    • WTF

      “But some women have penises and some men have vaginas”.
      “No, they don’t, that’s a harmful delusion.”

    • Suthenboy

      I am still not getting X.
      Yep. I checked and it is true, women dont have peckers.

    • rhywun

      Not only that, they gave up. But you can hardly blame them with California law supposedly on their side.

      This doesn’t stop until SCOTUS says it stops.

  17. rhywun

    the other corruptocracy involved in the fighting

  18. rhywun

    the other corruptocracy involved in the fighting

    It feels like there are at least three, probably more.

    • R C Dean

      I get 5: The EU, the US, the UK, Ukraine, and Russia.

      • juris imprudent

        Poor North Korea, left out again.

  19. juris imprudent

    Yeah, that’s a problem alright. Take your time figuring it out.

    The Democrats have become and remain today a “Brahmin Left” party. “Brahmin Left” is a term coined by economist Thomas Piketty and colleagues to characterize Western left parties increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites, including of course our own Democratic Party. The Brahmin Left character of the party has evolved over many decades but spiked in the 21st century.

    So am I confident the Democratic Party can de-Brahminize? I am not. But I am confident that the party will fall short of both its electoral and policy goals if it can’t.

    • Rat on a train

      They have become the standard socialist vanguard of overeducated busybodies pushing for at dictatorship of the proletariat.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Well ya but oligargy or something!

      • Ed Wuncler

        And they all think they’ll be the ones holding the clipboards.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Most of my friends who are Democrats are in the laptop class and have no desire to understand why there has been so much pushback towards their agenda. And they are the biggest believers of having a misinformation board or something like that because they are convinced that the general populace (except them of course) are too dumb to make decisions for themselves or to decipher what is or isn’t bullshit.

      • Rat on a train

        The watch The Daily Show, so they know the truth.

      • The Other Kevin

        That sums it up nicely. Look at the disdain for any Trump voter – they are called idiots, mouth-breathers, etc. What’s left of the Democrat party is a core group that sees themselves as morally and intellectually superior.

      • Suthenboy

        I am reminded of someone here describing professional ‘Ethicists’ as people who specialize in justifying the greatest of evils, and that makes a name come to mind: Jeremy Bentham.

    • Suthenboy

      Perhaps we should be asking more ‘Why?’
      How does this happen? Culture or economics? It might be hard to separate those two or pin down exact causes.
      Over-specialization? Maybe it all just comes down to ‘the less you know about something the easier it looks’.

      • juris imprudent

        Mostly it is human behavior that’s pretty well wired into us, so mostly culture, abetted by economic success (prosperity allows all kinds of non-productive sideshows). But the biggest factor IMO – politics as substitute for religion.

      • Suthenboy

        ….and we are left with the same old problem: human nature.
        When religion held solid sway over western culture the same kinds of people skin-suited religion to do the exact same evil shit we are dealing with today. Wolf in sheep skin yesterday, today he wears a white coat.

    • rhywun

      But I am confident that the party will fall short of both its electoral and policy goals if it can’t.

      No kidding.

      The problem is they let the lunatics run the asylum and that coalition of perpetual Dem voters they’ve relied on for decades is falling away. The solution is obviously to kick out the lunatics and I don’t see them doing that.

      • Nephilium

        There’s also the distinct leftward lurch of the Democrat party over the past several election cycles. The entire Republican party leadership now appears to be 90’s Democrats.

  20. Common Tater

    Sorry, I have some sad news. My mom passed away yesterday morning. She seemed peaceful.

    Thanks to all of of you for all of your thoughts, prayers, and well-wished. It was much appreciated.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Sad to hear tater.

    • Gender Traitor

      I’m sorry, Tater! 🙁

    • WTF

      Sorry for your loss.

    • Suthenboy

      I am very sorry for your loss .

    • The Other Kevin

      The prayers aren’t stopping. Sorry for your loss, I hope you’re feeling peaceful soon as well.

    • Mojeaux

      Oh, I am so sorry. Please take care of yourself.

    • Beau Knott

      Very sorry for your loss

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      I am sorry to hear that, tater.

      All my best to you.

    • Sensei

      I’m sorry for your loss.

    • Sean

      My condolences.

    • Fourscore

      We know certain things, CT, but they are still hard to understand.

      We’re here…

    • rhywun

      Sorry 🙁

    • Common Tater

      Thanks everyone. I’m OK, by Friday night I knew her chances were slim. So it wasn’t a shock. They wanted to turn off the meds keeping her alive, but I fought against that, and my mom kept fighting. I stayed over night on Tuesday, so I was with her when she passed.

      I’m trying to keep busy with this long things to do list.

      • AlexinCT

        Contrary to the assertion time will make it better, I will tell you the loss will always sting, but life will keep you busy enough that as time progresses you will have less time to feel the sting. Sorry for your loss.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Sorry for your loss Mr. Potato. Glad to hear you were able to be with her.

    • DEG

      Sorry.

    • Seguin

      Sorry Tater, my condolences

  21. The Late P Brooks

    “In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court,” said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

    Around and around we go.

    Not overwhelming evidence, just overwhelming “science”. That statement provides a useful insight into their cult mentality.

    • WTF

      In terms of actual science, i.e. the scientific method, their hypothesis that manmade CO2 causes global warming has been falsified so many times it’s ridiculous.

    • juris imprudent

      The MODELS!!! Forsooth, the doom they foretell.

      • Rat on a train

        assuming a spherical cow …

      • Jarflax

        The spherical cow was just simplification of the modelling, it would produce an approximation. The hockey-stick is pure falsification, you can’t even get an approximation from it.

    • Suthenboy

      Yes, very telling.
      It is hard to tell sometimes the true believers (cult members) from the grifters (cult leaders).

    • R C Dean

      Oh, there’s lots of evidence/science that can be cited to support a new finding that CO2 isn’t a pollutant, and plenty that has come out since the original finding. I don’t recall the exact standard the courts will (should?) apply, but its pretty deferential.

      • Ted S.

        It’s only deferential when the right people are in the White House.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    “Brahmin Left” is a term coined by economist Thomas Piketty and colleagues to characterize Western left parties increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites, including of course our own Democratic Party.

    If you replace “working-class voters” with “ideas” you might really be onto something.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    The other day, conditions were apparently just right to enable me to spot a big mass of sticks high in one of the trees at the edge of my property. The tree has not yet leafed out. After keeping my eye on it for a while (in spite of my crappy binoculars and crappier eyesight), my suspicions were confirmed. That jumble of sticks is the domicile of a pair of large predatory birds. I have been hearing them, but I only just spotted the nest. I’m pretty sure it is a red tailed hawk, and a big one.

    • Suthenboy

      If you have the ultimate truth, are completely without error, you cannot be questioned. You are not open to new ideas. You cannot be criticized when you make mistakes. You cannot improve with regards to anything. This is why the Muslim world, sans some kind of reformation, is doomed to stay a barbaric culture on par with the Stone Age.
      I am tempted but not mentally energetic enough right now to draw a clear parallel with western leftists.

      • Suthenboy

        Ugh. Right response to wrong comment.

      • AlexinCT

        Must be why the always yell out the name of that Admiral Akbar dude from Star Wars that told them “IT’S A TRAP!”

    • Mojeaux

      corvids > raptors

    • Rat on a train

      There’s an owl somewhere nearby and a fox. I’ve heard them both at night.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    How on earth does some sort of foul in a high school track meet become national news?

    Don’t answer that.

    • Suthenboy

      Squirrel!

    • WTF

      You’re not my supervisor!

      I guess because it wasn’t just a foul, it was a beating on the head with a baton.

    • R C Dean

      Based on the angle in that story, the head bash sure looked intentional.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    corvids > raptors

    Heckle and Jeckle will be pleased to hear that (there is a vast throng of magpies here, as well).

  26. PieInTheSky

    Absolutely stunning demands by the German Social Democrats on migration. The nominally center-right Friedrich Merz, who’s categorically rejected any collaboration with the AfD, might cave on a number of these issues. Indeed, has already massively softened his stance on migration since the election. Some highlights from the SPD demands:

    – “We call for the introduction of a federal skilled workers program for 500,000 people annually to manage demographic change and meet the demand for skilled labor.”

    – People who do not have the right to stay in Germany, meaning they are in an irregular legal situation, should not have to leave but instead receive a “perspective” in Germany.

    – “We want to advocate for ensuring that even people who are legally required to leave Germany under certain conditions receive a real perspective in Germany. The ‘involuntary departure’ from German territory is often neither feasible nor sensible, as practice shows.”

    – Deportations should “only be used as an absolute last resort in clearly defined cases.”

    – “We demand voting rights for all those who have been living in Germany long-term, regardless of their citizenship.”

    – People who have lived in Germany for 25 years should “automatically receive German citizenship—unless they actively object.”

    – To better integrate immigrants, a “Ministry for Migration and Social Participation” should be established at the federal level.

    https://x.com/gregorbas1/status/1899941361748500849

    solid policies for a modern Germany.

    • juris imprudent

      Over playing their cards even more than Zelensky?

    • rhywun

      People who do not have the right to stay in Germany, meaning they are in an irregular legal situation, should not have to leave but instead receive a “perspective” in Germany

      Träumer!

    • rhywun

      Notable, too, that this means the SPD has none of its former blue-collar constituencies left, just do-gooder urban-academic NGO types.

      Gee, that sounds familiar.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Coup!

    For decades, conservatives in Congress have talked about the need to cut government deeply, but they have always pulled back from mandating specific reductions, fearful of voter backlash.

    Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is trying to make major cuts in government through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, run by billionaire Elon Musk — an initiative led by an unelected businessman who’s unlikely to ever run for office and was appointed by a termed-out president who no longer needs to face voters again.

    The dynamic of cutting government while also cutting out those who answer to voters has alarmed even some fiscal conservatives who have long pushed for Congress to reduce spending through the means laid out in the Constitution: a system of checks and balances that includes lawmakers elected across the country working with the president.

    “Some members of the Trump administration got frustrated that Congress won’t cut spending and decided to go around them,” said Jessica Reidl of the conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute. Now, she said, “no one who has to face voters again is determining spending levels.”

    The government exists to buy electoral success for Congressmen and Senators. Effective governance doesn’t enter into it.

    • juris imprudent

      Truth is this is what voters vote for – hypocritical Republicans in Congress. We need a better class of voters.

      • Mojeaux

        Hey! You can’t gore MY ox!

      • AlexinCT

        We need a better class of voters.

        Isn’t that what the democrats and the D.C. machine have been telling us for some time now as they imported a few tens of millions of people coming here for free shit?

    • Fourscore

      “Effective governance” is a contradiction of terms

    • rhywun

      Episode XXIII of “Conservative Hypocrites in the Mist”… “We Got Another One Here!”

    • Suthenboy

      So….”Dont cut spending”

      Fucking republicans.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    A corporate-style approach to government has long been the goal of conservatives, especially one segment that has recently called for a more CEO-style leader who is less tied down by democratic commitments to voters. Musk has embodied that, bringing the same disruptive, cost-cutting zeal he brought to his private companies. Some of his DOGE moves mirrored steps he took to slash the social media site Twitter, including the email offering buyouts, both times called “Fork in the Road.”

    Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, said the effort seems more destructive than just an attempt to shrink government in ways conservatives have long advocated.

    “It is usurping the role of Congress on spending and program design, using cuts as a backdoor way to impound and close agencies created by Congress,” Moynihan said. “It is implementing an unprecedented scale of disruption.”

    What if we examined these gargantuan spending programs one by one in terms of their Constitutional legitimacy? Crazy, right?

    • rhywun

      using cuts as a backdoor way to impound and close agencies created by Congress

      Now you’re getting it.

  29. Sensei

    From our conversation yesterday afternoon into the evening.

    In October 2024, CUAD formalized its support for Hamas and again celebrated the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre. In a statement revoking an apology the group had made for the remark of member Khymani James that “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” the group said that apology didn’t represent “CUAD’s values or political lines.” The group added, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/mahmoud-khalil-green-card-trump-administration-cuad-columbia-israel-hamas-ecdc4424?st=qFXMjz&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    • rhywun

      In that sense, the Trump Administration’s decision to withhold $400 million in grants and contracts to Columbia for failing to protect Jewish students is important discipline. But the case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.

      And frankly, losing that money is far more consequential.

      There are dozens of nice Jew-haters waiting to take that guy’s place but not many people willing to cough up $400 million.

    • Not Adahn

      Eh, unless you can get a notarized selfie of the dude holding his HAMAS ID card with today’s date written on his hand, grzz will say it’s insufficient.

      • Sensei

        Well, I want something other than the Sec of State doesn’t like you. From the WP article yesterday it didn’t provide this level of detail. Just allegations. I don’t want people deported on allegations. Well, now we have the group he lead has written things that aren’t “free speech”.

        I still don’t like that the Sec of State has this unchecked power, but this seems much less arbitrary in it usage.

      • Not Adahn

        I’ll agree that this might be the first article to put everything into one easy-to-link-to package, but the CUAD protests and statements aren’t new. It’s possible that grzz ignore all of it when it happened, I guess.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    “I don’t think previous presidents have had the same animus towards the federal government this one has,” Holtz-Eakin said.

    That might be the root of the problem.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Obama had a certain nose-up attitude to anyone outside HQs

  31. Sean

    Heh

    • R.J.

      Oh God. Why did I click on that?

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Are there no workhouses?

    The Trump administration is facing backlash from Democrats and school nutrition advocates over its recent decision to kill two federal programs that provided more than $1 billion in funding for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farms.

    The decision, which comes as Republicans are pushing for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, underscores the MAGA movement’s antipathy toward food aid programs benefiting millions of poor Americans, including many children.

    He hates the poors and wants them to starve in the streets!

    • rhywun

      Who will feed them if the federal government stops doing it, you heartless bastard??

  33. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, no. The rain has turned to snow. This never would have happened if President Cartoon Villain hadn’t gutted the weather service.

    • Fourscore

      Why were we not warned about Global Cooling?

      • rhywun

        I dunno about you but I’m getting served some UN propaganda with that.

        United Nations • Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

      • UnCivilServant

        I saw and ignored the Google Propaganda box.

      • Rat on a train

        Only CO2 from North America and Europe is dangerous. It’s probably the toxic masculinity.

  34. Rat on a train

    Maryland faces greatest risk among states from federal job cuts and policy changes

    Federal wages account for more than a fifth of gross income in the state’s
    counties closest to the District of Columbia (Aaa review for downgrade), which of course
    bears more risk to the unfolding changes than any state. On March 6, Maryland lowered its
    revenue forecast to start accounting for expected federal job reductions and policy shifts.

    • Ted S.

      Oh boo hoo hoo.

      • Rat on a train

        The DMV may drop to less than half of the top 10 highest median household income counties in the US.

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Trump, Destroyer of Worlds

    Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly plans to welcome her G7 counterparts to Charlevoix, Quebec, with a warning: “If the U.S. can do this to us, their closest friend, then nobody is safe.”

    On the official agenda this week as Canada hosts the G7 foreign ministers: Ukraine, the Middle East, Haiti and Venezuela, but nothing about President Donald Trump’s trade war or sovereignty threats. Yet Joly told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday that she plans to raise the issue with the European and British members, while advising them that “Canada is the canary in the coal mine.”

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive fresh from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he was negotiating the terms of a 30-day Russia-Ukraine truce.

    Speaking to reporters from Ireland on Wednesday, he pointed out that G7 leaders will have plenty to talk about when they assemble. “It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.”

    And then we all jump out of the rabbit…

    • Rat on a train

      next up on Family Feud

  36. The Late P Brooks

    This week Trump reiterated that the U.S.-Canada border is an “artificial line” that looks like it was drawn “with a ruler.”

    Well, now that you mention it…