257 Comments

  1. juris imprudent

    Let us all speak ill of the Toronto Maple Leafs for having game 7 at home and making an utter shambles of it.

    • UnCivilServant

      I’ve been reading too much history lately. My first thought with regards to a Shambles is the street where livestock is slaughtered and butchered for sale.

      The modern term comes to the fore later.

      Oops.

    • cavalier973

      The Maple Leafs have fallen.

      • Ted S.

        They really should be the Maple Leaves.

      • Necron 99

        But the oaks can’t help their feelings
        If they like the way they’re made
        And they wonder why the maples
        Can’t be happy in their shade

    • SDF-7

      I’d rather we sit on the ground and tell sad stories of the death of LA Kings….

    • The Last American Hero

      When the game is played in Canada do they still call elbowing, is it waived, or only allowed by Canadian teams and players?

    • slumbrew

      At this point they just have to wait for Brad Marchand to retire.

  2. UnCivilServant

    Senate Passes “No Tax on Tips” 100-0

    I’m shocked.

    • Nephilium

      There’s a push in Ohio to remove state taxes on tips, and the local rag’s take on it was:

      “What’s in it for Republicans?” Skepticism about real motive behind Ohio’s proposed tax break for tips

      source

      Because only the Democrats care about the working people, as they’ve shown for the past 30 years.

      • Suthenboy

        All politics is theater. Dont forget – “No one ever ran for office to leave you alone.”

    • Gender Traitor

      They’re all now under the coercive influence of Big Waitress.

      • Nephilium

        I would think Big Stripper “Dancer” is more likely

      • cavalier973

        A dancer without big tips probably should pick another line of work.

      • Jarflax

        Waffle House has made it’s first move toward world domination!

      • DrOtto

        Big Dancer? *lights the Trey signal*

    • R.J.

      That article was so crappy I couldn’t tell if the other part, no tax on social security was passed. No mention of it.

      • Jarflax

        Old people aren’t as sexy as strippers

      • Ted S.

        [ Fourscore runs from room crying ]

      • Fourscore

        Old people are living a life of poverty, begging for crumbs in the casino parking lot.

    • slumbrew

      “In shock move, Wall St. firms abandon bonuses in favor of annual gratuities”

      • Chafed

        Yeah, this is going to be a mess. I have to talk with my accountant to see how my firm can tip me.

  3. juris imprudent

    Senate Passes “No Tax on Tips” 100-0

    Such bravery, and unity!

    • Jarflax

      I have a theory/superstition/learned response that says that an infallible indicator that a new law will be disastrous is bipartisan support.

      • SDF-7

        That does seem to be a strong indicator, yup… first gut reaction… have they hidden some bullshit in the fine print?

      • R.J.

        Bills are nothing without fine print…

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Don’t be surprised if the annoying trend of tip begging on every interaction you have explodes even further.

      • The Last American Hero

        I’ve begun my backlash. If the handheld device doesn’t include a 15% option, I give them 10-12, even though if it included it I would have gone 18.

  4. juris imprudent

    I don’t think the standing case will have the relevance that the plaintiffs think – standing has become an irrational standard and this won’t resolve that.

    • SDF-7

      Are you implying that the Roberts Court, if it deigns to take the case — might try to split the difference and produce a wishy-washy ruling that really just kicks the can down the road?

      Harumph, sir! Harumph, I say!

      • juris imprudent

        It isn’t even really a matter of Roberts – he is just symbolic of the problem. And the irony in this case is, if the denial of standing for these plaintiffs is upheld, it won’t break any of the cases where standing should have been denied in the first place. Likewise, if they win standing, it won’t foreclose it on those others.

  5. cavalier973

    ”It should be fully operational before the end of my term. So we’ll have it done in about three years,” the president said.

    It’s already in place, isn’t it?

    • Fourscore

      WarpSpeed, Part II

  6. cavalier973

    I’m always interested in the level of gas prices on Memorial Day.

    • UnCivilServant

      I’m mildly interested because I am down to a quarter tank.

    • SDF-7

      Prices of gasoline are expected to average around $3.02 per gallon between Memorial Day and Labor Day

      Meanwhile:

      Californians, who are already paying much more than the national average at the pump, will likely not see relief ahead of the holiday weekend. As of Tuesday, the state’s average gas price is $4.89, while the national average is $3.17.

      Thanks, SacTown! Of course — we all know this is just a step to what you want ($9 or $10… because then the riffraff will be forced to buy electric vehicles which can be monitored and rationed via central planning… or leave… or starve… bloody watermelons…

      • Ted S.

        Do the politicians in Sacramento know how to close tags?

      • SDF-7

        As my tag closing failures go — that one is fairly harmless and actually interesting (I don’t recall knowing that you can nest quotes before… I’ll have to actually start using that). So pbbbbbt!

      • Rat on a train

        There is no need for cars when you can take high speed rail to Fresno.

      • Fourscore

        I’m on the last train to Clarksville, no one to meet me…

      • Chafed

        I hate Newsom and coming to hate our fellow citizens for repeatedly voting for this crap. We have done this to ourselves.

  7. cavalier973

    Naked pics of a Congresscritter?

    No thanks. The idea of Mace in my eyes sounds uncomfortable.

    • The Last American Hero

      48 has looked worse on others.

    • Sean
  8. cavalier973

    *scene in heaven*

    “Norm!”

    • cavalier973

      According to Wendt, his initial audition for “Cheers” was for a single word part where he would just say the word “beer,” but producers quickly saw his potential for a larger role.

      “So I went in, and they said, ‘It’s too small a role. Why don’t you read this other one?’ And it was a guy who never left the bar,” Wendt recalled in an interview with GQ.

      That’s interesting.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Sad to see yet another cultural icon from my teenage years gone and he seemed like a good guy too. RIP.

  9. Suthenboy

    Now they can get rid of the income tax altogether.

    28th Amendment proposal : Every person’s mind, conscience and body are inalienably and exclusively their own property. That right extends to the fruit of their labor.

    That should pass unopposed, shouldn’t it? Sure. Imagine the howls and gnashing of teeth that would cause.

    • UnCivilServant

      I can imagine the unintended consequences once the lawyers start twisting the intended meaning of your sentiment into some perversion of law.

      • UnCivilServant

        Item 1: Employment is outlawed as that would be alienating the fruits of your labor.

        Item 2: Copyright is eternal.

        Item 3: Organ donation is outlawed, as you would be alienating your body.

        And so on.

      • Suthenboy

        Proggie 101, first day, first lesson: Words dont have meanings, meanings have words.

      • SDF-7

        Even I can see they’d use that to backdoor abortions right back in. Dither on when a fetus is a “person” and the ownership of the mother would dominate before that. You’d never get it ratified as written.

      • Suthenboy

        Any law that does not comport with the culture will be ignored or perverted. That is why taking back academia should be imperative. We have stood by for decades and watched evil marxist shitbirds completely infest academia from top to bottom.
        That was a big mistake.

        I say ‘the culture’ but that is not correct. We dont have a culture, we have many and there is a wide spectrum of compatibility among them. I firmly believe the proggies thought that after Obama all they had to do was import as many third worlders as they could and we would be past the tipping point, that they could create an American version of take your pick of any totalitarian regime in history.

      • Suthenboy

        I dont think the abortion debate would (or ever will) be affected.

        http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g6TAwGJYsyk/UehdWRvqLcI/AAAAAAAAAMA/iVOjWmd2YtQ/s1600/notyourbodynotyourchoiceabortionismurder_zps464aedad.jpg

        The crux of it would still be when a fetus is or isn’t a person. I dont have a problem with abortions in the first few weeks. What I have a problem with are murderers.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqs8D3xfxsc
        Skip to 9:37. There it is: decrease birthrate or increase death rate. They want to be able to murder people at will. These are evil people that cannot be reasoned with. No law, however written, will change that. Again, we have to take back academia.

      • The Last American Hero

        The debate will end when lab-wombs are readily available.

        And then future peoples will look back at what happened with shame and horror.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        The debate will end when lab-wombs are readily available.

        “Lab-wombs are unnatural and an abomination against God” / “You can’t force women to transfer their fetus to a lab-womb!”

      • kinnath

        Conception would be in the artificial womb. No transfer of fetus required.

    • juris imprudent

      extends to the fruit of their labor

      Ha, President Constitutional-scholar already had the answer to that: you didn’t build that.

      • Suthenboy

        Thanks JI. Remembering that and his smug tone enrages me. Let me go outside for a bit and break something.

  10. Suthenboy

    The no tax on tips stunt passed unanimously because it will make no difference. If it actually reduced tax revenue or control one whit the vote would have been reversed.

    • Jarflax

      I think we need to stop talking about tax revenue. Tax revenue = expenditures. All spending comes out of our wealth, the only question is how it is extracted from us. The part we send in with our 1040 is not a bit more our money than the part that they extract via inflation, increased borrowing cost, and stunted wage and wealth growth.

    • Fourscore

      People were reporting tips?

      • Nephilium

        Just the tip Fourscore.

      • DrOtto

        The IRS estimates tips regardless if you report what they consider “low”.

      • Not Adahn

        Only the ones lefty on a credit card. And for those we inflated them by deleting items off the check before finalizing payment.

      • The Last American Hero

        You may not have noticed, but virtually every restaurant is using credit card point of sale systems these days.

      • slumbrew

        Stop hovering over me. Leave it if you must.

        Regardless, I’m hitting 0% and tipping cash these days (trying to get back to cash for such things).

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        They were reported when you pay electronically. Cash, they were estimated.

  11. SDF-7

    Trump Unveils $175 Billion Plan for “Golden Dome” Missile Defense System

    I’ll believe it when I see it. I wouldn’t bet on the B-21 program being doable for that in the end (look at the B-2… it was $2B per plane, wasn’t it?), much less an actual continental ballistic missile defense in depth (I didn’t read up, but I assume this is Iron Dome ++ for CONUS… there’s no way that’s going to be cheap…)

      • SDF-7

        Yup… that is what immediately came to mind.

  12. Stinky Wizzleteats

    That Golden Dome stuff is such a waste of money as it’s way easier and cheaper to come up with missile systems that juke this way and that that make the defense system ineffective. The Russians already have it with their Satan II missile I think. For limited usage against a less sophisticated adversary like North Korea who lack sheer numbers as well it might be somewhat effective but it’ll never prevent a full scale attack from a near peer like Russia or China.

    • SDF-7

      It would presumably work for ballistics, yeah — but I don’t think it would solve the “container ships full of intermediate / short range cruise missiles and/or hypersonics”, no. But little would, honestly. Hopefully there’s someone with a more devious mind than mine in the depths of the Pentagon working on that… because I can’t resolve getting trade through ports versus that security risk… you don’t have Magic Starfleet Scanners, after all.

    • Drake

      The Iranians seemed to be able to overwhelm and spoof their way through the Israeli dome.

      All goes back to that idiot Bush withdrawing from the intermediate missile treaty, then spending 2 decades fighting guys in tents instead of developing intermediate missiles.

    • UnCivilServant

      At the same time, its fan is equipped with two ball bearings,

      Most bearings have more than two ball bearings inside the race…

      • R.J.

        Hey, they are Big Balls.

      • Cunctator

        –“Most bearings have more than two ball bearings inside the race…’-

        From years in maintenance—

        Bearing = assembly
        Individual balls = bearing balls.

      • UnCivilServant

        Like I said, the bearing is the assembly while the ball bearing is the individual ball.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        Many bearings have no balls, or rollers. You have babbit, oilite, and other such types.

    • SDF-7

      Jesus… for that level of power draw and heat, surely there’s some sort of DPoE solution (similar to NVMeoF) where you can just put the bloody thing in a rack and stream the output seamlessly to some sort of dock for your keyboard/mouse/monitor or whatnot. Who’d want the fire hazard on their desk or boiling their coffee?

      • R.J.

        I still don’t know why a modern PC would need a 3000 watt supply. That’s an option for a server rack.

      • Jarflax

        9,000,000,000,000 candlepower of RGB on the case.

      • DrOtto

        Ruth “Gator” Binsberg?

    • PieInTheSky

      no one needs 4 rtx…

  13. R C Dean

    “Senate Passes “No Tax on Tips” 100-0”

    When the autopsy is performed on the US by future historians, the dysfunction of the legislature will be the proximate cause of death. Like most diseases of affluence, the underlying cause of death will be more of a lifestyle thing – the voters who just couldn’t stop electing and re-electing Congressholes who larded up the budget with giveaways, much like a diabetic who just can’t stop stuffing Jolly Ranchers in their cakehole.

    Of course, what is really going on here is the parts of Trump’s tax bill that are popular are getting separate CYA votes so they can vote the whole thing down later with some political cover.

    • Fourscore

      Meet up/fishing trips after 40 years with old army buds. Every day is good. Computers are a helluva tool…

  14. PieInTheSky

    Three European nationals pleaded guilty to stealing thousands of dollars from low-income Southern Californian residents.

    The widespread theft involved using ATM card skimmers to make counterfeit cards and steal funds from electronic benefit transfer (EBT) accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

    EBT cards allow recipients to access benefits from CalFresh, CalWORKs, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and more.

    The suspects were identified as:

    Mohamed Hichem El Mabrouk, 35, of France
    Ionut Calciu, 31, of Romania
    Florian Serban, 51, of Romania

    https://ktla.com/news/local-news/3-european-nationals-stole-thousands-of-dollars-from-low-income-southern-californians/

    • PieInTheSky

      Police in Morgan Hill on Friday confirmed the recent arrest of two suspects from Romania who were allegedly using electronic skimming devices for the purpose of identity theft.

      According to a press release, on Wednesday evening at around 8:50 p.m., a Morgan Hill Police Sergeant conducted a traffic stop on Condit Road of a vehicle that contained a driver and one passenger. Both suspects presented the sergeant with false identification, but they were later identified as 55-year-old Marcela Terezia-Pop, who was driving, and 29-year-old Ionut Calciu

      https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/2-romanian-suspects-arrested-for-using-skimmers-for-identity-theft-in-morgan-hill/

      look if American police caught them trying it in 22 and they still managed to do it in 24 I guess it is all your fault

    • WTF

      Funny that “Mohamed” is a French name now.

      • PieInTheSky

        one of the more popular ones for the younger generation.

      • UnCivilServant

        Attach a Dynamo to Charles Martel and we can power Europe for decades.

      • juris imprudent

        I’m afraid that would still dhimmi the lights.

      • Swiss Servator

        I saw that, JI!

        *narrows gaze*

      • Pope Jimbo

        Not only could you power Europe, but I bet you could make a prophet too!

    • WTF

      Oops, I did it again?

    • Jarflax

      It is always a joy to listen to wise and knowledgeable people discussing important matters.

  15. PieInTheSky

    24-year-old Australian woman set friend on fire for making misogynistic remark

    Loader told Walpole “she should stay in the kitchen making scones” if she couldn’t handle drinking with the boys, which set the 24-year-old into a rage, the court heard, according to the outlet.

    She grabbed a gallon of gasoline from the garage and doused Loader with the flammable substance — waving a lighter at him threateningly, the publication reported.

    Walpole then touched him with the lighter, setting Loader ablaze, according to the testimony.

    Loader sustained burns to 55% of his body — and had some of his sweat glands burnt off. He was placed in a medically induced coma for eight days after the attack, according to a victim impact statement read in court.

    He required 10 operations and spent 74 days in a burn unit at Melbourne hospital, according to the statement.

    https://nypost.com/2025/05/21/world-news/24-year-old-woman-set-friend-on-fire-for-making-misogynistic-remark-report/

    mind those sammich jokes boys bitches be crazy

    • WTF

      It’s telling that some women think they should be able to commit murder just because they are offended.

    • Nephilium

      I guess muffins would have been the safer choice.

    • Sean

      Crazy Aussies.

    • ron73440

      Apparently he was wrong, you can’t trust her around an oven.

      • ron73440

        I was looking for a good Australian wildfire joke to use and the stupid Google AI overview gave me this:

        You asked for a joke about the Australian wildfires. Such jokes can be insensitive and offensive to victims of that tragedy, so providing such content is not possible.

        Why must everything continue to be stupid?

      • Jarflax

        Because we decided to let Mrs Grundy have control?

      • UnCivilServant

        I never knew Solomon was married.

      • Jarflax

        He traded the r for a wife

      • R.J.

        I was watching old cartoons with my daughter and a trigger warning came up for stereotyping, it was a Daffy Duck / Elmer Fudd cartoon. There was not one thing that could have been construed as offensive.

      • Not Adahn

        I’d make a small wager that Daffy Duck counts as blackface these days.

      • ron73440

        trigger warning came up for stereotyping, it was a Daffy Duck / Elmer Fudd cartoon.

        I don’t understand the stereotyping bit, but I did see that Elmer Fudd no longer uses a gun.

      • SDF-7

        Of course not — he’s the main man on the axe these days…

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        “Apparently he was wrong, you can’t trust her around an oven”

        She was Australian, not Austrian.

      • rhywun

        I’m seeing trigger warnings before episodes of Futurama.

      • Nephilium

        rhywun:

        I’m playing a game set in WW2 France (Classified: France ’44), and there’s a warning that comes up each time the game launches:

        Warning: The game contains death, blood, violence, explicit language, references to alcohol and smoking. It also includes negative depictions of people and cultures in the context of a global war. Characters use language appropriate to the era that some might find offensive.”

        Outside of the vulgarities, pretty much everything would have flown on a kids animated show in the 80s.

    • juris imprudent

      I think we know where she falls on the hot/crazy matrix.

      • R C Dean

        Well, apparently she isn’t the one who was smokin’ hot.

  16. Grumbletarian

    Missed the article from last night. Love the flattening jig build!!

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      He just wants them kids to get a good peducation.

  17. Common Tater

    “24-year-old Australian woman set friend on fire for making misogynistic remark: report

    Loader told Walpole “she should stay in the kitchen making scones” if she couldn’t handle drinking with the boys, which sent the 24-year-old into a rage, the court heard, according to the outlet.

    She grabbed a gallon of gasoline from the garage and doused Loader with the flammable substance — waving a lighter at him threateningly, the publication reported.

    “Go on, do it,” Loader yelled at his friend, who was drunk and had consumed cocaine, she confessed.

    Walpole then touched him with the lighter, setting Loader ablaze, according to the testimony.”

    https://nypost.com/2025/05/21/world-news/24-year-old-woman-set-friend-on-fire-for-making-misogynistic-remark-report/

    Cocaine is a helluva drug.

    • ron73440

      Missed it by 10 minutes.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        That is the feeling that this has never happened before.

      • UnCivilServant

        No, it is the feeling that this is going to happen again.

    • Not Adahn

      Build a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a night. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his likfe.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Crazy eyes and a bit more simian in appearance than most. Wouldn’t.

    • Ted S.

      Especially when it falls out of your ass.

      • Common Tater

        You need a new joke.

      • Not Adahn

        You know who else needed a new joke?

      • Ted S.

        Not Adahn?

  18. Nephilium

    This summer is going to be retarded.

    • Jarflax

      Hey if he gets enough massage therapy maybe he’ll be healthy

    • UnCivilServant

      Someone is trying really hard to be lame.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I assume he has to demonstrate effort in recovering or else the Browns will try to claw back the money they still owe him. Regardless of whether or not he plays, he has to be on the roster for the next two years.

      https://overthecap.com/player/deshaun-watson/5596

      • Nephilium

        Well, he doesn’t have to be on the roster, we can always cut him and still pay him. I’m just hoping this attempt to play this year doesn’t fuck up the Browns getting the insurance payout on his contract for this year.

    • slumbrew

      I’m becoming more convinced that we live in a simulation and Browns fans are in a particularly cruel sub-experiment.

      • Nephilium

        We even teach the kids about it.

      • slumbrew

        That’s just fantastic.

      • Grummun

        I see there is this companion book. Half the price of the other. I have to think it’s just one page for when the Cavs won the NBA championship.

      • ron73440

        I might have to get that coloring book for my boss.

    • WTF

      SCOTUS is determined to claim judicial jurisdiction over everything and anything, and in turn will end delegitimizing the courts. This must eventually lead to a Jacksonian response. A pretty good article on the issue here: THE COLUMN: ‘The First Thing We Do’

      And it is these federal judges, acting at the district level, who have decided that their less-than-august offices give them the right to countermand decisions that are exclusively the province of Articles I and II, Congress and the President. Wielding the counterfeit “nationwide injunctions” that are literally beyond the scope of their judgeships, they have sought to hobble the Trump administration from the jump, declaring themselves to be the president’s manifest superiors in the conduct of foreign and domestic policy, specifically those aspects of both on which he ran and on which he was definitively elected.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      God, the hubris.

    • slumbrew

      But starting the clock at 12:34 a.m. not only ignores the court’s express
      instructions respecting the Government’s right to respond. It also ignores
      the fact that the Court is starting the clock at—12:34 a.m.
      We seem to have forgotten that this is a district court—not a Denny’s.
       
      This is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that district judges have
      a duty to check their dockets at all hours of the night, just in case a party
      decides to file a motion.

      Spicy.

      • R C Dean

        I get it that allowing people to make filings electronically is a thing. What I don’t understand is why the courts don’t have rules saying filings made after the courts are closed for the day (or the week) are deemed to be made when they reopen.

      • UnCivilServant

        What I don’t understand is why the courts don’t have rules saying filings made after the courts are closed for the day (or the week) are deemed to be made when they reopen.

        Because it hasn’t been litigated into a rule yet. Most of the time Judges will avoid being proactive.

      • R C Dean

        Every court has a set of rules that governs all kinds of minutiae. None of them were adopted via litigation. I’m not even sure how that would work.

  19. Common Tater

    “OnlyFans users in Sweden could face prison sentences under a harsh new law that treats buying online sex shows the same as paying a prostitute for sex.

    The law, which will take effect July 1, also criminalizes profiting from or promoting others who perform sexual acts for payment on demand.”

    https://nypost.com/2025/05/20/world-news/onlyfans-users-in-sweden-face-prison-under-new-prostitution-law/

    It’s feminist Sweden so it punishes the buyers not the seller.

    • UnCivilServant

      When are they going to train up and mobilize an army to repel the invaders occupying significant enclaves of theri country? It’s still early enough to win. Just don’t show mercy.

      • Suthenboy

        I thought it was only for X’ers and TikTokers?

      • UnCivilServant

        No, no, that’s Vlogging, different sort of punishment.

  20. Common Tater

    The censorship/self-censorship on YouTube is getting ridiculous. Benny Johnson was on Jillian Micheals podcast and they blanked out so many words I could barely follow what they were talking about. One of the words was “CIA” even though the CIA has their own YouTube channel.

    • SDF-7

      Don’t speak ill of the folks who run the platform! (Ok… it is probably more the NSA…)

    • Suthenboy

      Youtube is definitely part of ‘the resistance’. The idiocy that pops up for me is beyond the pale. There are alternatives but they mostly suck for one reason or another. You tube is still good for instructional stuff and if you look hard enough some intellectual content.

    • SDF-7

      Yeah… just get rid of the income tax entirely. Fuck your “fairness” and “Medicare will have worse finances” AEI.org flunky. Stop stealing people’s labor and fuck you, cut spending.

      (Yes, I know I’m dreaming.)

      • Suthenboy

        I’d vote for you.

    • Nephilium

      That’s where I’m getting irritated that there’s even a debate about removing the SALT deduction. Why the fuck should those of us in low tax states subsidize New York and California raping their subjects?

      • UnCivilServant

        Indeed, there should be no SALT deduction, and high tax states should themselves be directly taxed on the revenue above and beyond that which would have been collected by the lowest tax jurisdiction.

      • juris imprudent

        Hell, I haven’t itemized under the current system for what 5, 6 years now?

      • slumbrew

        Same, although a big part of that is my low mortgage (really just enjoying the free float at 2.5%, principal isn’t that large).

        My neighbors are probably itemizing.

      • R C Dean

        Funny, innit, how two parties who claim to want the tax code reformed to help the working class, etc., are going to the mattresses over something only benefits people who make a lot of money. And, of course, indirectly, benefits states that have high taxes themselves.

        There’s no deduction for SocSec or Medicare taxes. Why should there be one for state and local taxes? And spare me the bullshit about “double taxation”. There are many different ways the same dollar can be taxed twice under our system.

  21. Suthenboy

    Jarflax : “I think we need to stop talking about tax revenue. Tax revenue = expenditures.”

    Our founders knew that too much concentrated power would draw the worst kinds of people like shit draws flies. The premise of our constitution was to avoid concentrating power but we are left with a bit of a dilemma: Money and power always find each other. It is no coincidence that the average congresscritter is worth six figures upon taking office and worth 8 figures in less than two years.

    How to keep power disbursed yet not hamper prosperity?

    • creech

      Can you cite that? If from a reputable source, that’s a very powerful fact to include in discussions with those goo-goos who believe in our incorruptible and dedicated public servants.

  22. UnCivilServant

    🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

    The school budget vote was yesterday and I missed my chance to symbolically vote against it.

    This sorts of scheduling bullshit should be a felony. Put the whole board, the superintendant and whoever else is involved in prison for fraud against the taxpayer.

    • The Last American Hero

      One of the unintended consequences of mail in ballots in my area has been that the schools have had a tougher time sneaking things through. Now that normally disengaged voter that couldn’t be bothered can vote NO and drop it back in the mailbox.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Down the memory hole

    “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” the president said in an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History.”

    The president’s actions are part of a general push-and-pull of how presidents seek to paint the past to bolster their agenda, historians say. Like many populists, Trump wants to “Make America Great Again” and champions nostalgia about a past golden age.

    Trump said he wants to remind Americans of “our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”

    But many historians are sounding an alarm and say the president is going too far.

    He’s bringing those Nathan Bedford Forrest statues back?

    • The Last American Hero

      I didn’t realize until recently how blessed I was to grow up in an era when US History was taught from a perspective that acknowledged our country’s flaws and shortcomings, but was still able to be Pro-US.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Critics worry that the executive actions taken together, for instance, would minimize or even erase achievements by women and minorities.

    The Organization of American Historians says that under the Trump administration, institutions such as museums and historic parks are now “under assault.” The 6,000-member group calls the president’s order “a disturbing attack on core institutions and the public presentation of history, and indeed on historians and history itself.”

    The end of history.

    • The Other Kevin

      “erase achievements by women”

      Like records in sports?

    • Grummun

      Wonder how the Organization of American Historians felt about all the CSA statues being destroyed?

    • R C Dean

      How would you erase something achieved by a women or POC, anyway? Are they going to gather up and smash all the devises that rely on Hedy Lamarr’s inventions?

      • UnCivilServant

        Like these people know how technology works or advances. They’re activists. They probably think deleting the shortcut off their desktop gets rid of the person who created the program that hasn’t even been uninstalled.

      • Ted S.

        George Antheil would like a word with you.

    • Suthenboy

      Oh dear. He is going to interrupt our long march through the institutions!

    • Akira

      It’s really too bad that there’s no technology that would allow us to preserve information of historical events if the museums and parks got their federal funding eliminated (which is essentially the same as bulldozing it, burning the rubble, and executing the workers so that nobody knows what building used to be there).

      Like an interconnected network or something, where everyone would buy a device and capture encoded signals travelling through underground wires and invisible waves in the air, then we could share documents about achievements by women and minorities since all the museums will be gone and therefore nobody will remember.

      • Common Tater

        Sorry, can’t do YouTube from here.

      • ron73440

        It’s just Bill and Ted saying, “No way!”

  25. The Late P Brooks

    “erase achievements by women”

    Betsy Ross was a transwoman.

    • PieInTheSky

      the eraser was invented by a man. makes you think.

      • PieInTheSky

        then again it was attached to a pencil first by a man anmed…

        On March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia, United States, received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.

      • UnCivilServant

        A great many useful things were invented by men.

      • Common Tater

        “In 1862, Lipman sold his lead-pencil and eraser patent for $100,000 to Joseph Reckendorfer, who went to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement. In 1875, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer, declaring the patent invalid because his invention was actually a combination of two already known things with no new use.”

        Intellectual property is neither.

  26. juris imprudent

    So I take notice of the main page image – pig flying, with bound front and back legs. Is that symbolism for some event I’ve missed?

    • Common Tater

      It’s from the Simpsons, “Lisa the Vegetarian” Season 7 / Episode 5

  27. Common Tater

    “Ahead of the announcement, RCMP, Corporal Carlie McCann began with a land acknowledgment, saying “I acknowledge we are in Micmagi the traditional and unceded ancestral terrotory of the Micmac people. I also recognize that African Nova Scotian are a distinct people whose histories, legacies and contributions have enriched that part of Micmagi known as Nova Scotia for 400 years.””

    https://thepostmillennial.com/rcmp-delivers-land-acknowledgment-before-announcing-very-low-chance-missing-nova-scotia-kids-are-alive

    WTF??

    • Rat on a train

      Did they celebrate the death of the missing oppressors?

    • juris imprudent

      Dampening the minds since bad news was going to follow?

      We want to circle back to increase the probability that all clues have been found. And when transitioning from an active search to a scaled-back search, the probability of survival is taken into consideration.

      Jen Psaki, is that you?

    • Common Tater

      So you are saying Jesus wasn’t English?

      • juris imprudent

        Look at this guy thinking the KJB isn’t what Jesus actually talked like.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    Eat the Rich

    Despite a brief market scare, the richest 10 Americans got $365 billion richer over the past year, according to a new analysis from Oxfam.

    The stunning increase in wealth amounts to a gain of roughly $1 billion per day for those billionaires.

    By contrast, the typical American worker made just over $50,000 in 2023. Oxfam found that it would take a staggering 726,000 years for 10 US workers at median earnings to make that much money.

    The findings put an exclamation point on the nation’s wealth inequality and come as Republicans debate a costly bill that nonpartisan experts say will make the rich even richer and deeply cut nearly $1 trillion from key safety net programs.

    Those folx at Oxfam are smart. They know exactly how much wealth you should be allowed to have. The rest should go to them.

    • The Other Kevin

      Here we go again, conflating the value of assets with wages.

      • juris imprudent

        My wages are zero, Oxfam should be delivering some of their money to me!

    • B.P.

      “Oxfam found…”

      Not only are they smart, they managed to divide one number by another number.

    • Jarflax

      Oxfam hates billionaires for distorting the third world underaged hooker market. How is a grifting NGO supposed to afford perversity in a world where billionaires pay too much for sex?

    • Sean

      Ummmm…..

      • Not Adahn

        Lena LOVES ’80s pop.

      • Not Adahn

        “It’s whimsical to be a gun fairy out in the woods”

        “European portapotties are 11 times worse than American portapotties.”

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nito_-FDRxI

      • Ted S.

        How does one quantify that?

      • Not Adahn

        She doesn’t link to her methodology section unfortunately.

    • PieInTheSky

      goddamnit it I got Huey Lewis & The News rolled

    • juris imprudent

      At first, I read that as Leni‘s…

  29. PieInTheSky

    Tom Harwood
    @tomhfh
    This is the tweet that landed a two and a half year prison sentence.

    Two and a half years.

    For a tweet.

    https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1924769694508007665

    Tom Harwood
    @tomhfh
    ·
    May 20
    “set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care”

    In no sane world could this be possibly viewed as incitement. We don’t live in a sane country.

    • PieInTheSky

      On the left, the BBC’s report of the Lucy Connolly case.

      On the right, the actual tweet.

      Why is the phrase “set fire to x for all I care” being unambiguously interpreted as ‘urging followers to “set fire” to hotels’?

      https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1924748141300953414

    • Suthenboy

      All of the eurotards who have been howling ‘hate speech isn’t free speech!’ and ‘I believe in free speech but…’ are about to find out in a personal way where that road leads to.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Some progressives have called for fighting inequality by imposing a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires and billionaires. Oxfam found that a 3% tax on wealth above $1 billion would raise $50 billion from the 10 richest Americans alone – enough to provide food assistance for one year to 22.5 million people.

    Of course, taxing wealth would be very challenging, in part because it can be hard to value net worth. And some legal scholars have questioned whether a wealth tax is even constitutional.

    The Constitution is just a fucking piece of paper.

    • PieInTheSky

      Some progressives have called for fighting inequality by imposing a wealth tax on ultra-millionaires – I assume many are millionaires but not ehm ultra enough

    • The Other Kevin

      There is a 100% chance that this would lead to the rest of us getting taxed on unrealized gains in our retirement investments.

      • PieInTheSky

        I mean you could follow civilized Australia by taxing retirement income unrealized gains over 3 mill auzibucks 15%

      • UnCivilServant

        Pie, when are you going to realize “Civilized” is a slur. You don’t follow “Civilized” people.

      • R.J.

        50 billion isn’t jack squat anymore. I think that amount gets wasted weekly by non-elected government officials. What a stupid idea.

      • Suthenboy

        There is a 100% chance that when there is money thieves will scheme to steal it.
        Government fucks have been trying to get their hands on individual savings and retirement accounts forever. Was it one of Obama’s lickspittles that declared govt should just seize the 401K accounts of all white people?

        What they really want to do is go full commie and declare all property government property.

      • Akira

        Yep. The federal income tax was sold as something that would be a small slice from only the most gigantic incomes. Today it’s the largest tax burden for most people.

    • SDF-7

      That the federal budget deficit is 1.4 TRILLION so that 50 billion means precisely jack over squat is conveniently left completely out.

      Fuck you. Cut spending.

      • PieInTheSky

        then can I have a billion? pleeaaasseeeee

  31. PieInTheSky

    This is a Royal Spoonbill (Platalea regia). It is commonly found in coastal regions of Australia, New Zealand, and parts of the Pacific Islands, often in estuaries, lagoons, and wetlands.

    https://x.com/lhkjade921/status/1924903954795667498

    • Suthenboy

      Now that is just not real, is it.
      That is a shoebill, not a spoonbill. That is an AI cross of the two with some imaginative coloring added.

    • Ted S.

      Tang is the official dynasty of astronauts.

      • The Other Kevin

        I every once in a while you find one who’s a little tart.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    The legislation, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would increase resources to US households, on average, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). However, these gains would not be distributed evenly.

    Never mind, then.

    • Fourscore

      On average my wife and I weigh the same but it’s not distributed evenly

    • juris imprudent

      However, these gains would not be distributed evenly.

      As if they ever have been? I’d ask, how fucking stupid – but I’ll answer my own question… Columbia School of Journalism, amirite?

      • slumbrew

        People who have a zero-effective tax rate should receive the same gains as a household that pays $100k a year in taxes.

        It’s only fair.

  33. Furthest Blue pistoffnick (370HSSV)

    Feds Caught in Wild $40B Credit Card Spending Spree on Crazy Stuff You Won’t Believe

    • Adult entertainment
    • Online dating
    • Gambling
    • Weed
    • Pyramid schemes
    • Massage parlors
    • Timeshares
    • Cruise lines
    • Lottery ticket purchases
    • Wigs and toupees
    • Weight loss programs
    • Jewelry
    • Horoscopes and fortune telling
    • Boats and campers
    • Golf and country club memberships
    • Amusement parks
    • Bail bond services

    nOtHiNg LeFt To CuT!

    Meanwhile I can’t get reimbursed by my company for equipment used for testing airplanes.

    • UnCivilServant

      Where’s the stuff I won’t believe?

      • Common Tater

        office supplies?

      • UnCivilServant

        Those don’t go on the credit card, they come from the general overhead budget.

      • Common Tater

        That’s why you wouldn’t believe it.

    • R C Dean

      In a functional society, everybody involved, including those with oversight responsibilities would go to jail.

      Guess what we don’t have?

      • Jarflax

        I am ok with extra-judicial punishment. I think tar and feathers is much more salutary than a trial presided over by an establishment judge.

  34. creech

    Is there any reason why a person who serves you a plate of food should not be taxed but a guy operating a CNC lathe making parts for medical equipment, or a gal managing the logistics of a Target store should be?

    • The Other Kevin

      “Feel free to tip me for the software I just wrote for you.”

    • PutridMeat

      One presumes the logic is they are taxed on their salary. The tip falls more under the auspices of a ‘gift’ which would fall under different tax rules. Of course, it is income, even more so than e.g. interest on savings which no-one seems to be submitting for elimination, so…

    • kinnath

      A gratuity is a gift not a wage/salary.

      If a customer wants to walk back the shop and tip the CNC guy, then that should be untaxed as well.

    • Jarflax

      Because the lathe operator is more likely to be a cis-hetero male shitlord

    • Not Adahn

      Tipping servants has a long history. Craftsmen were just paid.

    • juris imprudent

      Bro, it’s like you don’t get political pandering at all.