Good morning one and all to another splendid day!
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
Thursday Morning Links
About The Author
Banjos
Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.
whaddup’ doh
Hey Banjos- how YOU doin’ ?
Confused by the new formatting.
I hope the added bullet points helps visually clean it up. What a mess.
All hail the power of the sidebar?
The worst part of the sidebar is it reminds me of Baked Penguin.
I do enjoy that it has both our Family Friendly seal and the cartoon buttocks on screen at the same time.
Private Snafu!
I miss the Down button.
For the children is just an excuse for censorship.
As I asked in the overnight thread, where were the parents?
Parents? Why do the people who are enrolling children in government-run daycare at the age of
543 have anything to do with anything?I think it was the Australian PM who said something like “Now parents know they don’t have to deal with this alone” or something along those lines.
/likely scenario
If that campaign succeeds that’s exactly what will happen. It will kill any communication online and probably bring down the internet.
Yup… all this push in all the countries at the same time? No, I don’t believe it isn’t an agenda to be able to crack down on political opposition.
And OMB has no f’ing authority to do it either. Jesus, would someone tell him the “Imperial Presidency” isn’t supposed to really exist already? Of course… with the Imperial Judiciary trying to set all aspects of policy and executive actions… I suppose no one can blame anyone else for
crossing the Rubiconpushing the limits of their powers… sigh.From what I can see the ‘kids’ are already abandoning the skinner box social media. It’s the young adults that are hooked on internet narcissism.
Made in USA products on market when?
Good morning!
re: Clinton/Epstein, WDATPDIM?
The Clinton Global Initiative was about grifting not pedophilia. That was just a bonus.
Wampum Diddy As The Powers That Do Inject Money
I would pay to see a video of Susan Rice and Obama crying.
Screenshot it and send me. I need for my wallpaper.
We let them down.
Someone has probably AI’ed it already.
If Susan Rice was crying, it was because she was sad she couldn’t bomb any more north African countries.
Everyone in Obama’s “mulatto posse” loved blowing up brown people.
““Using the threat of investigation or prosecution against an organization in order to silence speech the government does not like is retaliation, prohibited by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the American Academy of Pediatrics, which says it represents 67,000 pediatricians, said in its lawsuit. “Moreover, issuing an overbroad subpoena as a tool to compel disclosures in such a retaliatory action violates the Fourth Amendment.””
Threat of investigation?
They were happy to use the government this way during covid.
OK, groomer.
They are running scared. Good.
When you start getting flak, you know you’re getting close to the target.
issuing an overbroad subpoena
Your issue is with the courts you are now begging for relief. Eat shit, this is what you’ve pushed for years.
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that she met Jeffrey Epstein-associate Ghislaine Maxwell “on a few occasions” despite widespread reporting that Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and played a substantial role in the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), one of President Bill Clinton’s signature post-White House endeavors.”
I can’t believe she would lie.
It depends on what the defection of “few” is.
Less than 100
That seems kind of restrictive. Just think of how many times she “met” Chelsea or Bill! Surely 20% of that number counts as few!
“widespread reporting”
A weird way to say “photographs.” There are photos of Maxwell attending the wedding, it’s not in dispute.
The German think tank found that American aid for Ukraine plummeted 99% in 2025. Yet in the last year Europe has “sharply” increased its overall support to “offset much of the reduction in US allocations,” Kiel says. European military aid increased 67% in 2025 compared to the average between 2022 and 2024.
Amazing. So if American taxpayer doesn’t have to pay for everything? I was assured this wasn’t possible by most of the MSM including the WSJ.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ukraine-aid-europe-kiel-institute-russia-vladimir-putin-9fe47d4f?st=88uQ1y&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I hope turning off the sidebar gets figured out before movie night. It takes a third of the screen.
“The troubled, racist son of trans Nazi-loving Rhode Island killer Robert Dorgan was jailed last year for setting a series of fires at a predominantly black church, according to a report.
Kevin Colantonio, one of six children Dorgan had with three different women, is serving a nearly seven-year sentence in a Texas federal prison for using gasoline and a lighter to spark five fires outside Shiloh Gospel Temple Ministries in North Providence in February 2024, WPRI reported.
The church — which the deranged arsonist labeled as a place of worship for “Atheist God mockers” in a text to his family after the blaze — serves a mostly black congregation of 100 and was empty when the flames erupted.”
https://nypost.com/2026/02/18/us-news/rhode-island-trans-shooters-son-37-jailed-for-torching-black-church-year-before-dads-deadly-hockey-rampage/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15572477/Robert-Dorgan-son-Kevin-Colantonio-fire-black-church.html
One generation of assholes is enough.
That family is… something else.
Update from Black Dynamite:
“Actor and martial artist Michael Jai White believes American boys are too soft these days.
“That’s another thing that’s sad about the United States: We’re not making men anymore,” White told Joe Rogan on Rogan’s podcast Wednesday while discussing “rites of passage” for men in countries like Australia and New Zealand.”
https://pagesix.com/2026/02/19/celebrity-news/actor-michael-jai-white-warns-america-isnt-making-men-anymore-on-joe-rogan-podcast/
The first few comments on that are completely off-base and prove Michael’s point.
Australia? Seriously? Rites of passage like learning how to cower in your house until you are allowed to come out? Or maybe the only guns you see let alone touch are on TV?
“A Minneapolis memorial for Renee Good was doused in gasoline and set ablaze in what authorities have deemed a ‘suspicious’ attack.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15571907/memorial-Renee-Good-BURNED-killed-ICE-fire.html
LOLOL
Bono hardest hit.
Hahaha! They have been so hypervigilant that somebody was able to stack several cords of wood against the fence, which probably ignited from a bum’s crack pipe.
Poor guy…
https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1r46tkr/oc_had_my_dash_cam_for_8_years_an_idiot_finally/
Pro tip – there are TWO lanes of traffic you need to worry about.
Bonus – just cleaning out a little carbon!
https://www.reddit.com/r/IdiotsInCars/comments/1r8idnd/oc_the_wild_kia_activates_its_defense_mechanism/
Any thoughts? Head gasket? Something else?
Maybe performing a carbon cleaning? After you induce the cleaner into the intake, it smokes like crazy on initial start up, but then tapers off until you really open it up. I will frequently get on either a higher speed feeder roads or right lane of the freeway and alternate between running it to redline in one or two gears and then slowing back down to start the process over. It looks very much like this and those Kias are known to need the carbon cleaning.
It’s quite the smoke show!
Relevant to the General Problem of Libertarians* and EvilSheldon in particular:
Apparently whatever passes for bigwigs at PCSL are engaging in drama. No idea about particulars but I observed SIG lobbying a USPSA board member to get suppressors added to multigun. They want to switch rulesets (because of unspecified drama) but are required to use suppressors on Sundays by local ordinance.
*The same people most likely to reject conformity, value independence, and trust their own judgement are also the most likely to piss other people off.
I hate drama. Dealing with people is exhausting. Probably why I slowly drift out of any organization I join for recreation.
Oh, I did find the winter steel match. Still debating what I want to bring.
Cool. I did have one person already register and sent the info to Angie to email to the club. I am binging bolt cutters on Sunday in case the lock combo has been changed.
Try bringing steel?
But don’t bring winter, not at this time of year. Everyone is sick of it.
Damn it, I always thought that the General Problem of Libertarians was E.D.. I guess I’ll just have to own that one.
That is why there are no libertarian women.
“That is why there are no libertarian women.”
————–
They are so damned independent. “Pack your penis pump and gadgets in your own suitcase for once!”
I know nothing about this. However, my skills at ignoring drama exceed even my skills at shooting.
I may need to get my multigun endorsement. Though at this point I just want to finally get RM cert and stop tossing all my vacation time on the bonfire.
“The Israeli Foreign Ministry has since responded to the Daily Mail’s report and stated, “Contrary to the reports, Tucker Carlson and his entourage were not detained, delayed, or interrogated.”
“Mr. Carlson and his party were politely asked a few routine questions, in accordance with standard procedures applied to many travelers,” added the Israeli Foreign Ministry.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/02/u-s-ambassador-israel-mike-huckabee-responds-reports/
Who knows?
Here is the Daily Fail’s version.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15571619/Tucker-Carlson-DETAINED-Israel-interrogation.html
They take security serious so Ill err on the side of the Israelis on this one.
The Israelis are above reproach, it is known.
You know who else erred on the side of the Israelis? 😉
Ah I forgot, can’t even make an innocuous statement about Israel 😉
Maybe I should say that I was merely calling for clever punchlines rather than taking a side here.
Desmond Dekker?
Meh. I didn’t get outraged when WNBA player was busted tryinh to smuggle her personal drugs into Russia. I don’t get butthurt when the US questions incoming foreigners, I’m not going to criticize the Israelis do the same thing.
I did find it really hypocritical when Lauren Southern et. al. were denied travel between different parts of the British Commonwealth in contravention of stated principles, and I’d be equally outraged if DFW/IAH refused to let people with NY or CA DLs disembark.
Gdragon: Goliath?
Why not?
It sounds like they were detained, and questioned in a routine manner.
No points to either side!
Today sucks so far.
Now I read the links and see the commies have completely infested our country. Who supports that shit?
In my area I only need to look the person on my and the person on my right an I can guarantee one them does indeed support that.
Likewise. Even now, there is a lot of people upset about what the commies they elected are doing and yet they will go to the polls in November and ask for more.
That is because Donald is a poopy-head.
NJ hiker freezes to death while hiking New York’s highest peak – despite calling 911 for help
And naturally it’s the rescuers’ fault that she got herself into this, right?
“Temperatures in Keene, New York, where the mountain is located, ranged from -8 to 20 degrees that day, according to AccuWeather.”
Perfect weather to get some pics for my Instagram and get those clicks!
https://nypost.com/2026/02/18/us-news/hiker-brianna-mohr-freezes-to-death-while-hiking-nys-mount-marcy/
Well, there’s some good news
Forgive me for being an asshole, but Brianna looks like exactly the kind of hiker who does something stupid and dies from it.
Odds that she was wearing something with cotton content?
Yeah, but cotton is natural. Synthetic fibers stink and wool is scratchy.
Winter 46ers are a thing.
I did not know you could bring your dogs to Marcy. I may need to look into that after mud season is over.
“Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico announced Wednesday that his campaign has raised $2.5 million based on the false claim that Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blocked CBS from airing his interview with Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show.” Colbert first spread the rumor to his studio audience on Monday night, prompting CBS to refute its own host’s allegations.
Critics have since suggested that Colbert made up the claim because he didn’t want to give equal airtime to Talarico’s competitor, Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a FCC requirement CBS cited as the reason for airing the interview on YouTube instead of broadcasting it on TV. FCC rules do not apply to YouTube.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/tex-dem-senate-candidate-james-talarico-fundraises-off-false-claim-trumps-fcc-blocked-cbs-from-airing-his-stephen-colbert-interview-and-jasmine-crockett-is-hopping-mad
Everyone in this story is despicable.
So, criminal prosecution for fraud by deception when?
The real question is why is crap like that being aired on late-nite television?
Remember when late night shows were funny and stayed out of politics?
Late night comedy shows are a zombie genre. If I want left wing drivel I can go almost anywhere else.
DNC doesn’t want Crockett, she’s unelectable. They want whitey, because they can pretend he’s centrist. She’s going against the machine, watch how she crumbles now.
Interesting take…
https://www.sashastone.com/p/the-democrats-throw-jasmine-crockett
I expect nothing less than that kind of fakery from the Democrats.
They can’t kick this asshole out of this country fast enough for me.
But an organization with a name like that has to be on the up and up.
with a trebuchet.
So Ahmed moves to a country that encoded into law the strongest protections for free speech in the history of the world to run an organization specifically dedicated to censorship?
Put his ass on a boat.
Give his ass The Boats.
Put his ass on a boat.
Or dragged behind one.
“Senior British official Chi Onwurah says the push to deport Ahmed is an attack on free speech.”
(I thought I had an English name)
Deporting a foreigner who wants to censor speech is an attack on free speech. The weirdos who have conquered Britain really took to Orwell’s instruction manuals.
That line of argument is just a douchebag intent on using your own principles against you in order to achieve their own ends. I can handle empirical arguments and emotional ones too but that line is blatant manipulation of the most dishonest kind.
They have. And a significant portion of the population believes them. Both here and in Britain.
Digital hate, like when I flip the bird?
Only if flipped at a leftist. Otherwise you are just expressing righteous indignation at Nazi’s.
Let me see here… the democrats are tanking the black lady for the photogenic white guy. They’re trying to flip Texas and don’t think the progressive, enlightened, on the right side of history goodthinker democrat base will vote for the black woman. Now that’s funny.
Hello, misthread comment.
“Twenty-one states, 60 members of Congress, victims of coerced abortion, former abortion providers, medical advocacy groups and researchers dog-piled the Food and Drug Administration in court over the past week, backing a lawsuit by Louisiana and a coercion victim to block the lax regulatory regime for an abortion pill….
The 2023 change to the pill’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy constitutes a prohibited federalization of abortion policy after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs precedent gave primacy to state “prerogatives” on abortion in any form, harming Louisiana, Nebraska Attorney General Michael Hilgers wrote on behalf of the 21 GOP AGs.”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/abortion/gop-states-unite-against-trump-fda-violating-their-pro-life-laws-lax
Attention Retards: Drug prohibition does not work.
Coerced abortion is just another term for buyer’s remorse.
If you were coerced, your bitch isn’t with availability of the pill but with the person who put a gun to your head. Oh wait, it was just a deadbeat dick that didn’t want responsibility for your crotchfruit for 18 years and there wasn’t any coercion at all?
Where can I get some cyanide tablets?
Asking for a friend.
Guardian : Bono lambasts ICE, Putin, Netanyahu and more as U2 release first collection of new songs since 2017
At least he’s consistent.
And?
Just popped in my head: Most famous stupidity uttered by musicians
1. You cant hug your children with nuclear arms
2. No one is illegal on stolen. land
3. A child dies every time I clap my hands
I am sure there are lots more. Those are just the ones off of the top of my head
Unless they are singing keep them away from microphones
Consistently terrible, at least since the late ‘80s.
Where is the condemnation of, say, organ harvesting in China? Or child labor in the Congo?
Instead of the boiler-plate current year obsessions of his AWFUL fans.
Exactly. All he needed to was mix in the environment as well.
If I spent an entire week crafting a reply that would prove the point I was making in my original post, I wouldn’t come up with anything half this good. It takes TALENT to be this ridiculous. “Encouraging writers to read is ableist.” Remarkable. Truly remarkable.
https://x.com/AmericanGwyn/status/2024259769385587051
So writing glibs what say you should a writer read a lot?
Hard to tell parody anymore.
That was a Garth Marenghi joke.
“He’s written more books than he’s read”
Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-plans-online-portal-bypass-content-bans-europe-elsewhere-2026-02-18/
I will chuckle when all of Europe blacklists “freedom.gov”.
Radio Free Europe, but on the internet now.
ROI
Elon should include a VPN for paying euro accounts.
I Tried the Scandinavian Sleep Method for a Month and Won’t Be Doing It Again
https://www.thespruce.com/i-tried-the-scandinavian-sleep-method-for-a-month-11901651
No idea how this ended up in my feed but it is the dumbest thing i read this week. But i do remember seeing in european hotel review complaints by americans about separate covers which i always found amusing. Then again i usually ignore reviews by americans for hotels and restaurants.
You read lots of dumb shit. How do you think more dumb shit would wind up in your feed?
Steal your partners blankets like a normal human being
Americans just sleep in different rooms when we don’t want to be disturbed.
I thought the Scandinavian sleep method was “get drunk until you pass out?”
That is not exclusive to Scandanavians
I know that there is Norway that I would Dane to try that method. No matter how Swede they say it is.
That would be infringing on Irish custom.
Ah, but does Irish/Gaeilge have a word for getting drunk in your underwear (see also: kalsarikännit and hygge) ?
“If you’re also a pet parent like myself”
And I’m done.
I dunno Pie, the ‘encouraging people to read is ableist’ is pretty damned hard to beat.
A quote popped in my head the exact opposite mindset.
Two guys are stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness and have to walk out. They figure it will take two weeks.
One despairs and starts crying about how they are going to die. The other looks him square in the eye and with steady determination says “It has been done before. What one man can do, another can do. We are walking out of here.”
That is the leftist mentality isn’t it? Oppressed/Oppressor? Being helpless and feeble is desirable. My condition is someone elses fault. I can see that creepy twink we had for a president telling people “You are just going to have to lower your expectations.”
That crowd simply cannot understand how Trump got elected. They despise him because he shows everyone what they are.
NBC keeps running this bullshit about “the Norwegian Way” of training kids for sports by just “having fun” and “not keeping score” and it explains their success at the Olympics – not that Norway is a country where everyone cross country skis, is located in the Arctic, and that their medals almost all based on skiing.
But contrast the lovely Norwegian Way with the dude that f’d up his ski jump, threw his poles into the crowd, kicked off his skis and went into the woods to cry.
There are few things more tedious than big-network sports coverage that goes off on a tangent like that.
E.g. I watch a lot of tennis and if I have to hear from the idiot gallery one more time how “wonderful” college tennis is I will go apeshit. (If it’s so wonderful, why is it producing nothing but mediocre, mid-ranking players…?)
My wife started doing this about five months ago. Drives me nuts, now my blankets slide off to the floor while she sleeps half under a twin blanket in the cold like some freak on out cal king.
So writing glibs what say you should a writer read a lot?
From what I can tell most writers today are illiterate.
Now, wate jus’ a-dam minuit, !
The most consequential member of this group is Imran Ahmed, a British Labour Party political operative now living in the U.S., who is the CEO of an influential nonprofit, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
They hate us for our freedom.
Fucking Maoists.
Since the revolution we have been regressing to the mean: herd animals. Maybe it just seems that way to me because things look different in the rearview mirror.
I will tell it again: I saw an interview with a French girl who had immigrated to the US. She said she would never go back. In France there were very rigid expectations about who she should be, what she should do and overall the course of her life. Any variation from that was very strongly disapproved of and she was blocked at every turn.
She came to visit here. She said that was the first time she felt alive. “You cant appreciate the difference here in America if you haven’t experienced what it is like over there.” When she told people what she actually wanted to do with her life people encouraged and helped her.
I think that is true. People here dont know what they have. A desire to be more like Europe? A desire to denigrate and destroy wha we have here? WTF? That could only be born of fear, weakness and ignorance.
For many, many in the US as well, having restricted choices and controlled possibilities is a desired state. That way when your life is filled with stagnant mediocrity you can blame society and not yourself.
This is why I encourage people to live in a different country, especially those who complain about how bad it is in the States. Maybe they’ll find they like it elsewhere better. Maybe they come to appreciate how it is here. Either way, it’s a win.
Today I learned that Greg Brown, the original guitarist for Cake, died the other day. 56.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_HoMkkRHv8&list=RDF_HoMkkRHv8&start_radio=1
Sadly I’m unaware of Cake. From my web search they came on the scene roughly the exact moment I decided to stop listening to new pop music.
Cake has some great songs.
They’re fun. Half-spoken songs about heartbreak and cars, with trumpet and vibraslap.
They were a very solid musical doldrums of the mid ‘90s quirky rock band.
Well, the rest should survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rCUQjmkxU&list=RDf9rCUQjmkxU&start_radio=1
(my son was best friends with the bassist son in grade school and junior high, so I got to know some of the members)
I like them.
Got to see them once.
Good show. Fun stuff.
Off with his head
em>We now know that at about 08:00 police officers arrived at the Sandringham Estate, where Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been staying, to arrest him.
A news agency captured pictures of unmarked police cars arriving and plain clothes officers.
At 09:54, the BBC was the first to confirm that Andrew had been arrested in relation to misconduct in a public office. The news broke on all our platforms moments later.
Shortly after, Thames Valley Police released a statement confirming that a man in his sixties had been arrested and was in custody, and they were carrying out searches at addresses in Norfolk and Berkshire.
He should go with the Family Tradition Defense.
Bonus if they put him in the Tower of London.
And go full Tudor, and lock up Harry and Megan?
“Now, Meggy baby, I admit the beheading thing is inconvenient. But think of it: it’s the role of a lifetime. Of lifetimes, of centuries.” (She’d probably go for it, but does she even know who Anne Boleyn was?)
Age of consent is 16 in jolly ol England.
No more Grand Tour I guess.
What the fuck are they searching for at Andrew’s places? Do they expect to find what they found at John Wayne Gacy’s house?
The hard drives, photos, and journals that anyone who wasn’t an inbred royal, and pretty stupid even in that stupid company, would have had the sense to get rid of long ago.
The way I read the first BBC story is that he’s been charged with passing state secrets to Epstein, rather than any sexual misconduct.
Are they going to paw through Sarah’s underwear drawer too?
(Yes, I know they’ve been divorced for decades.)
Would you be surprised if they did? What we are seeing today looks a lot like I imagine late stage aristocracy looked like a couple hundred years ago. Decadence, depravity, no bounds, no accountability, complete incompetence. I imagine Epstein’s job was like taking candy from a baby.
Cake
I liked that show.
I thought of Mission Hill. Cake wrote the theme song.
Looks like we might have a new war as early as this weekend. USS Abraham Lincoln is in the ME, and USS Ford should be there within days.
I liked the relaxing WSJ headline.
U.S. Gathers the Most Air Power in the Mideast Since the 2003 Iraq Invasion
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-gathers-the-most-air-power-in-the-mideast-since-the-2003-iraq-invasion-98ced89f?st=daSL1K&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Yep, it’s not looking good. A true disaster in the making.
Weird how people just assume we can win a war against Iran. And win it cleanly without massive casualties and significant losses.
Right now it’s just a big stick. A bluff. A warning of what will happen if the ayatollahs don’t back down or leave. The shit only hits the fan when the stick strikes something.
The situation reminds me of the buildup just before the removal of the Taliban. All that was done was air power used to help the so-called Northern Alliance drive the Taliban out. We should have left it at that. A modern-day Roman punitive expeidition. But the US had to nation-build instead.
I doubt an invasion (if strikes do occur) is going to happen, or even a prolonged war. The forces being assembled aren’t designed for it. I think it’s to help the masses overthrow the ayatollahs, period. Once the regime crumbles let the oppressed do their thing to their former oppressors.
Look on the bright side! OMB’s wars tend to be short.
“…tend to be short.”
That is because he is making war, not birthing a decades long money laundering operation.
I have no idea why the fuck this is happening.
Iran is a very bad actor and a misplaced sense of ‘white man’s burden’ ?
There are a lot of very bad actors around the world. Why are we about to attack this one, why now, and what specifically have they done to us that requires this action?
If they know something they’re not telling us, fucking tell us.
If we’re attacking very bad actors we should hammer the Saudis but Trump’s trying to shore up falling polls with a nice war and Netanyahu’s government wants to see it done too so there’s that. There’s too much combat power committed at this point for it to be a bluff though.
Um….
https://insideradvantage.com/trump-approval-exceeds-election-victory-margin-in-new-insideradvantage-national-survey-approve-50-disapprove-46/
An outlier in a sea of disapproval.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
I wouldn’t put stock in any poll concerning OMB. The hate (along with the anti-hate) is just too strong for someone not to put their thumb on the scale.
No worries, Massie and Khanna will introduce a bill next week – after the fact.
If they were serious, they’d demand it now.
Puppy farm
Years before they were convicted sex offenders, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell used his wealth to gain access to a prestigious boarding school for young artists in Michigan, using a rental lodge Epstein donated to the school as a base from which to recruit some of their earliest victims, according to Department of Justice records and former campus administrators.
The idyllic, nearly century-old Interlochen Center for the Arts, tucked between two lakes south of Traverse City, features grade-school- and high-school-level programs in music, theater, dance, and visual arts, among others. It’s famous as an incubator for young artistic talent and boasts alumni such as Josh Groban, Norah Jones, Chappell Roan, Felicity Huffman and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Who?
That school was nothing more than a convent before you know who arrived.
Interlochen was a pretty big deal back when I was in the classical music world (mid ’80s – late ’90s).
A school for young talent often with desperate parents would be a dream inroad for inappropriate tail if one was so inclined I would think.
I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore. This seems likely to be true, but I’m also seeing claims of torture and human sacrifice, and photos of Trump with underage girls. This whole thing is chaotic, and I’m not sure if it’s on purpose of if it’s Bondi being incompetent.
She came to visit here. She said that was the first time she felt alive. “You cant appreciate the difference here in America if you haven’t experienced what it is like over there.” When she told people what she actually wanted to do with her life people encouraged and helped her.
And we should encourage and welcome people like her, not the hordes the UN/NGO vermin dropped on our doorstep.
This. The open borders policies were intended to destroy what we have here. It is as simple as that.
Where did everyone go?
It does seem light.
I have meetings all day, and I have to talk in all of them. I just got a short break.
I’ve been at work.
I’m west coast. You all get up far to early.
History lesson
Then, starting with Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, corporate attacks on unions got turbocharged. Reagan fired the striking air-traffic controllers. Legally, they had no right to strike, but Reagan’s move legitimized a far broader assault on American unions.
Since then, unions have steadily shrunk, and the gap between the rich and everyone else has taken off. I saw it when I was secretary of labor in the 1990s. I was worried then. I’m far more worried now.
Today, the top 10 percent are doing okay, largely because they own 92 percent of the value of all the shares of stock owned by Americans, and the stock market is doing just fine. The real wealth of the nation has now concentrated in the richest one-tenth of 1 percent.
And the bottom 90 percent are barely holding on.
My friends, this is not bad only for the bottom 90 percent. It’s also bad for the economy and dangerous for our democracy. If unaddressed, it could lead to more demagogues like Trump as far as the eye can see.
We need demagogues like Bernie and Mammydammy, not Trump.
It’s funny, but nobody ever mentions wholesale rampant corruption and thievery when they talk about the mysterious decline of the unions.
Of course it’s Robert Reich. Why did I even have to ask?
Jesse Jackson finally died. When does this asshole join him?
I have thoughts. I may or may not enumerate them later. Right now I’m waiting for the foundation guy at Bro2’s property in the ‘hood.
US agency sues Coca-Cola bottler over employee event that excluded men
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-agency-sues-coca-cola-bottler-over-employee-event-that-excluded-men-2026-02-18/
There is a PDF of the complaint in the article. My lunchtime reading.
“Fight Over the California Wealth Tax Shapes Up”
I support a wealth tax on all politicians whose net worth increases by more than one cent from the start of their tenure in office. 100% sounds about right.