Good morning one and all to another beautiful day!
That’s all I got for today. I will 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 growing girls. Perpetually exhausted.
“National Debt Reaches $40 Trillion Milestone”
Sell California?
Or build The Real Wall.
Around California
Sell Californians. Keep the state.
Send three generations of anchor babies back.
I’m convinced it doesn’t matter because it will never actually come due.
I think you’re right. And as long as inflation is just bad enough for people to grumble but not do anything else, that will go on for quite some time.
“Iran’s defiant leaders have considered attacking U.S. military targets in Europe, the Financial Times reported.”
They already attacked a bunch of ME countries that weren’t involved. I’m against the war, but Iran is assho.
That’s just Iran attacking Syria and Northern Africa at this point.
The military equivalence of lashing out like a toddler.
It is a war after all, and the enemy in a war gets to do stuff too.
The health of both states?
https://libcom.org/article/war-health-state-randolph-bourne
It’s an energy and economic war – had been since we destroyed Nordstream. We are trying to choke their economy, so they attack other oil supplies to ruin our economy and those of our allies.
They should be banned everywhere, the data already collected burned, and the operators incarcerated – both the company and the government.
Yeah but see this one time they caught a bad guy. Why are you against catching bad guys?
“Even if it convicts a billion innocents just as a long as it catches one bad guy, it was worth it!”
They put them up in Britain some years ago ostensibly to catch ‘bad guys’. Now they use it to track facecrime.
“The data pertains to the 2020 general election, with California found to have by far the most noncitizen voters, at 4,300, followed by Texas at 2,500.”
WTF, Texas?
You cannot underestimate the degree to which the Republican Party in TX has been controlled by RINOs who hate Republican voters.
Plus, Texas was ground zero for 10 million illegals coming in during Biden. Eagle Pass, population 25k, had 25k illegals per day coming through.
Austin is really nice, but it is turning hard toward being the SanFrancisco of Texas.
R C Dean is right. Bunch of assholes, they is.
*Channels Tonio
Add a zero to that and it’s likely a bit closer to reality.
I remember when they said $3 trillion was unsustainable. In a similar timeframe, they talked about the interest on the debt moving far past all discretionary spending and catching up to entitlements.
Eventually it’ll catch up to us. You can’t run an economy on vibes forever.
It is all fun and games until the currency collapses. Then the dying begins.
We’ve been avoiding the collapse because we set ourselves up as the ‘safe’ harbor for foreign funds, and a massive amount of our debt and currency are held by foreign nationals and nations as a hedge against their own even weaker currencies. That is not, no matter how much our elites want it to be, a permanent protection, it is a very over heated emergency brake that can fail catastrophically at any moment.
“The bad news – nothing lasts forever and the good news – nothing lasts forever”
My nice comment got et up.
Anyway I was wondering why Americans accepted CCTV for decades but now it’s a problem.
ICE, ICE, baby.
The camera run by stores to catch shoplifters is one thing – a swarm of constant data collecting cameras doing excess data analysis which provides information sufficient for constant tracking is another.
We are quickly passing the worst imagining of dystopian fiction sci-fi writers.
Cyto fully agree with your comment. We’re well past 1984 levels of surveillance.
How one law enforcement agency accessing FLOCK to enforce the law is an abuse, but another law enforcement agency accessing FLOCK to enforce the law is a good thing, well, it’s less than clear to me.
Common sense is racist.
Principals, not principles.
RC it is because one LEA is looking for criminals who preyed upon a citizen and the OTHER LEA is looking for wonderful people only seeking a new life in our racist hellhole.
Comments getting eaten again.
Only the good ones, apparently
“A recall effort against Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is heading to court, with petitioners accusing the socialist mayor of being “derelict in her duties for public safety” following a series of controversies involving violent crime, policing, and surveillance cameras, including the fallout from the deadly Bite of Seattle shooting.”
Should they be surprised? Wasn’t she one of those defund the police retards?
But I only voted for the benefits of defunding the police.
Yes, she all but promised more crime. It’s one of the major planks in their platform.
They cheered wildly as she promised to destroy their city.
+ 1 Leopards Eating Faces Party
Aside from our giddy Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff spending, the thing nobody is talking about is Social Security.
Back in the 80s I had plenty of passionate arguments about the stupidity of writing yourself an IOU.
The argument at the time was that if we didnt raise the Social Security tax to build up a trust fund we would face deficits in the 2020s and beyond to pay for retiring Boomers. Debt would soar to $70 trillion by 2050.
I remember those numbers distinctly.
We would never be able to pay that.
Well…..
That $40 trillion debt……
A little less than $3 trillion of that is the Social Security trust fund. It will run out in 2034.
So there we are.
It isnt even the stupid social security. And the trust fund isnt even going to work, even in fiction land.
So here we are. Debt service is over a trillion dollars a year.
A trillion.
No wonder they are desperate to import illegals. They need people for the bottom of the ponzi scheme.
And the really stupid thing is, illegals are so unproductive as a class that they are a net drag on the economy and the public fisc. We will go broke sooner, rather than later, the more illegals we have.
It’s so far beyond fixable that we wouldn’t be able to avoid the consequences even if we wanted to.
We are tap dancing on top of a land mine and it’s a mercy that it hasn’t gone off yet.
Tap dancing on a landmine while continually adding more c-4 to the pile under our feet.
Stupid doesnt even begin to cover it.
The only way to “save” social security is end it. Now. Grandfather in anyone who was receiving the benefits for the rest of their life, and kill it ded.
Grandfather in anyone who was receiving the benefits for the rest of their life
Glad to hear to don’t want to take away the benefits my wife and I started receiving a year and a half ago.
But you can’t kill it and continue to pay out benefits to current enrollees without getting the funds from somewhere. Are you going to continue with FICA collections from people that can’t collect benefits? Or move that burden to general tax receipts?
Are you going to continue with FICA collections from people that can’t collect benefits? Or move that burden to general tax receipts?
We’ll do a general referendum. Yes or no on keeping social security.
Regardless the vote, we kill social security. However, those who voted for keeping social security get a one time bill for their share of the costs of keeping the program funded for current beneficiaries.
Any fix is going to require a majority of Congress to have the spine to make a hard decision about which group or groups are going to bear the unfair burdens required to balance something that is enormously upside down. That means that as a practical matter we are not fixing this until it collapses under its own weight, and that the ‘fix’ will be disastrous.
kinnath:
It would stop the bleeding, you’d need to fold the FICA taxes into general income tax for the time being to avoid adding debt. Hell, most of the people my age never expected to get a dime from social security, we wanted the ability to opt out back then.
Neph, there are a few general solutions for fixing Social Security.
1) Raise the tax burden on all workers (increase the FICA tax rate). Which will fuck me over because I am still working.
2) Raise the tax burden on high-income workers (raise the ceiling on FICA taxes). Which will fuck me over because I am high earner.
3) Reduce benefits across the board. Which will fuck me over because I am aready collecting.
4) Means test benefits. Which will fuck me over because I am still working and a high-earner to boot.
There is no solution that does not fuck me over.
And yet, my kids (and you) get fucked over even worse regardless of what happens.
And we’ve known about this problem my entire working life.
Hell, most of the people my age never expected to get a dime from social security
I’ve been very careful to make sure I have enough money to retire without social security and I think I’m there. It’s a challenge to accept that the $600000 I’d have if I hadn’t had to ‘contribute’ to SS over the years (assuming a VERY conservative 5% return on contributions) is just gone, but since I’ve been assuming that for a couple of decades…
And it’s no different from realizing that a significant fraction of all the taxes I’ve … ‘contributed’… over the years have been for absolutely nothing except for maintenance of the lifestyle of the political class. So if I can mentally ignore that, should be able to do the same with SS. The only difference is the ongoing deception, falsehood, lie, absolute pile of bullshit, that you’re “saving” for your retirement, a lock-box even; even KNOWING that’s not true and never was despite all the propaganda.
If it had been me debating Al Gore back in 2000 and he made that stupid lockbox comment, I would have stopped him right there. I would have challenged him to meet me and the news crews in Philly the next morning so we could go look at the lockbox – which is literally a file cabinet with IOU’s from Congress. When Joe Normy saw that the Trust fund didn’t look like Fort Knox, I wouldn’t have even needed Florida to kick his ass in the election, and maybe the plan to privatize SS could have gotten off the ground.
No offense, but do you really believe the average voter is that bright?
Kinnath – unfortunately, all of your proposed solutions screw the people who worked and contributed the most with the added injury to younger generations by raising the cap (reducing jobs and reducing the amount of money they can save).
When it hits the wall cut all benefits for ANYONE receiving SS by the appropriate percentage (I believe currently that is somewhere in the 20+%). and start cutting payroll taxes for the younger generations based-on models showing how long the funds will continue to facilitate any level of SS payment.
This means-testing BS is already in-place for IRMAA – one of the few examples I can find where those who paid more also pay additional fees for the exact same product. Differentiated from individuals who “can’t pay” receiving a discount or subsidy (which I also hate).
unfortunately, all of your proposed solutions screw the people who worked and contributed the most . . .
Correct!
Which is why nothing has been done for the last 50 years.
There is one block of voters that always votes and that terrorizes politicians . . . . senior citizens. They may die off, but they are constantly replenished by new senior citizens that carry on the tradition.
No one touches the “third rail” of politics for a reason.
Same reason no one retests older drivers.
I hear you. It’s frustrating that the general population and even seniors themselves believe they all “qualified” for social security the same way – allegedly “worked their asses off” when many spouses didn’t qualify at all or only met the minimum quarters (versus dual income couples or worse yet business owners who paid their own payroll taxes).
Even conservative think-tanks calling out Boomer Luxury Communism don’t grasp that most of those at the highest end feel into the latter categories and then DELAYED benefits to 70 – as usual calling out the wrong group versus the societal leeches.
My wife and I both started working when we were 18. She had several years off dealing with young kids at home, but has been fully employed since college (almost 40 years ago). So, 50+ plus years of contributions from me and 45+ years for her.
The original plan was to delay benefits until 70. But they realized were where just putting our start date closer to the 2034 cutback in payments.
So we started early last year. Get as many full payments a possible for the trust fund zeroes out.
The original plan was to delay benefits until 70.
That was sort of my thought, if it was still around. But I’m more of a mind now, if I retire early, just start taking it immediately despite the ‘penalties’, and conserve my savings (and grow them). Of course that means inflation is probably destroying my savings or, at best, maintaining. No good solutions.
“The discussions have focused on U.S. tariffs on Canadian autos and other products, as well as Canadian restrictions on American liquor and dairy.”
We’re shipping them bags of milk?
What’s extra stupid is that we have tariffs on imports we do not produce. Which is one reason coffee has been so expensive lately.
We need to protect Hawaiian coffee …
I know I want my $120 per pound, trellis raised, light roast, peaberry Kona beans direct shipped to be protected.
Hawaii is like Jamaica. Sure, they grow coffee, but so little it’s insignificant.
“City takes prospective vendors for Mamdani’s planned $30M NYC-owned grocery store on tour — of vacant lot”
https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/us-news/city-takes-prospective-vendors-for-mamdanis-planned-30m-nyc-owned-grocery-store-on-tour-of-vacant-lot/
*chef’s kiss*
The bidders wore hardhats on the city Economic Development Corporation-led tour to the under-the-Metro-North viaduct site next to La Marqueta, despite no work actually being done yet.
Did they also keep six feet apart?
You’ll see corporate and pubsec types awkwardly wearing pristine hard hats in nearly every groundbreaking photo.
Even though, by definition, at a groundbreaking there has been, and is no, actual construction work going on.
The construction will progress at the base of the California High-Speed Rail project. The consultation costs on the other hand will leave the stratosphere far behind and enter the Oort cloud sometime in the 2030’s.
Who are you, so wise in the ways of government projects?
“food deserts”
That old chestnut. The site in question has a like a dozen markets including several supermarkets IIRC.
Every grifter knows the magic words that crank up the money printer.
“America’s favorite vegetable under major threat of looming California droughts: new research
Broccoli is the most consumed vegetable in the country”
https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/lifestyle/us-broccoli-supply-under-major-threat-of-california-droughts-study/
You are fake news!
I for one am not going back to eating brassicas ever.
Week one of nearly a carnivore diet so far for my post surgery recuperation.
Been over a year since I last had Brussels sprouts. Cant remember when I last had broccoli. Almost two years maybe?
Maybe I’ll lose that last ten pounds I’ve been wanting to get off.
I do eat a decent amount of broccoli.
Me as well. Everybody is different. It helps me with getting the gut weight off.
We need to hurry up and achieve “nearly free” energy. Then we can bring fresh water to the west and end any threat of food insecurity.
California regulated oil refineries out of their state. No way they would allow a nuclear plant.
This would suck. Broccoli is probably my favorite vegetable, I eat it nearly every day.
In related news. Mrs. TOK was in Idaho last week. She said they are selling us suckers the inferior potatoes. The ones you eat there have great flavor and a delicate skin, the one she ate was the best potato she ever had.
It’s shipping and storage. Same for onions and tomatoes.
The notion that 🥦🤢🤮 is more popular than 🥔🥔👍 is preposterous.
Rejection of broccoli was George H.W. Bush’s principal achievement as president.
So rejecting broccoli wouldn’t be prudent?
I have been told for years now that Putin was doing this.
He’s doing to take Finland next!!
We have always been at war with Eurasia
How considerate of them to take war to Europe since Europe can’t take war to them.
MEMAM are caring in that special boomy way.
??? Even DDG couldn’t help me with that one.
Medium Energy Multi-Angle Modulation?
From deadthread before 504’s
Apparently, Andrew Wilson paid Candy O $300K to debate whether Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk. Not sure why he would do that, unless it got so many views he got his money back. PBD was the moderator. Unsurprisingly, Dave Smith said Candice won.
If Robinson was a patsy for the Jews, then why didn’t some Jack Reuben shoot him?
No idea why people make a big deal about Erika Kirk wearing leather pants??
I listened to that the other day while doing some woodworking. It was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard.
She was *exactly* like arguing with your crazy ex wife. Nothing was responsive, everything was a deflection into semantics about what she did or didnt say literally 15 seconds earlier.
Utterly useless.
Also, her conspiracy theories are beyond crazy.
She has it from someone high up in French government that the French Foreign Legion was on campus when Kirk was killed. She doesnt know how they were involved, but they were involved….
Same goes for Israel. She has it on good authority. Her sources are in a position to know. But she cant say who. .
It is crazy town combined with a grift.
Those sources are voices in her head…
Unsurprisingly, Dave Smith said Candice won.
Mr. I’m a Good Debater himself? I hope he was commenting on the technical aspects of a debate, not the substance. I hope he’s not so far gone that he’s in Candace la-la land.
You have to be either a cultist or mentally ill to think Candace won anything. She came off as a straight kook. Her “technique” was to just keep repeating that she won.
She was so obnoxious that he finally just said “fine, you can say you won this point if we just move on and discuss any evidence you have for Tyler Robinson being a patsy”
She did not, in fact, win the point. She did not, in fact, present a single shred of evidence for her assertion that Robinson is a patsy. It was a shitshow. A complete waste of time.
The counter-argument was not terribly well prepared or presented, but his only point was “please present your best evidence for the assertion that Robinson is not the killer but simply a patsy for the Israeli-French plot to kill Kirk”
Many of his comments on he technical aspects of a debate (which I haven’t watched because three hours) didn’t make much sense. Wilson said Robinson was charged with murder. Candice countered that it was aggravated murder, and that was significant because of the death penalty. Which I find irrelevant in regards to who killed Kirk, but Smith thought that was a huge point in her favor.
Yeah, that was her big win. That he could not name the charges. And aggravated murder is not murder.
Set theory is beyond her.
It was stupid, but it was so stupid that she could not understand how irrelevant and stupid it was.
It was her planned gotcha moment. If you cannot list the charges, you have no credibility.
His point was “the evidence presented at the probable cause hearing as of the moment that he tweeted was overwhelming”. Meaning they easily beat probable cause.
Which is true.
It aint close.
But she claimed the W and refused to talk about anything else until he said she won. So he said “fine, you win that point, now can we please move on to your evidence that he is a patsy.”
It was excruciating. And I had my hands full of stain so I couldnt fast forward or pick something else.
She is full-on crazy, IMHO. One could grift about conspiracy theories…. but her scrambled thinking is impossible to fake.
Jack Reuben — ha!
Sorry to see that some of you wasted time on this.
I didn’t.
Do you want to see my shocked face?
ICE detains captain of boat that capsized in NYC harbor, killing mother and infant
When I read that story a while back it was the first thing that came to mind.
He has been an illegal for 19 years, gallivanting around as a “tour operator”. It defies belief.
We have a crack team over at immigration….
He lives in NJ. Odds he’s a registered NJ voter approach 100%.
“A teenage girl from Tennessee is facing multiple charges after she ran onto the field during a middle school football game and tackled a player on Tuesday night.
The incident occurred during a game between South Middle School and Cornersville Middle School, which was being played at Franklin County High School, located in Winchester, Tenn., WSMV reported.
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office charged the teen with assault and disorderly conduct.”
https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/sports/16-year-old-tennesse-girl-faces-charges-after-tackling-middle-school-football-player/
OFFS!
We have indeed lost our minds.
Antifa and SDA activists assault people, destroy property, etc…. and the police protect them…. but we have time for this.
How about just suspend her for 2 days and be done with it?
That’s the right move.
Last thing you want to do is involve the cops.
Threedoor:
Someone hasn’t been to a major sporting event recently. There’s signs and announcements about the crimes you’ll be prosecuted for if you interfere with the game. Most stadiums have their own lockup area, there was a reality show filmed about the one in Browns stadium.
Thankfully I didn’t see me or any of my friends in any of the episodes I caught.
+1 Günther Parche
She tackled someone during a football game?
Throw the book at her!
Wait until the field is stormed by someone who wants to kill a player.
I don’t see how jailing a teenager who tackled someone at a football game is going to prevent someone trying to kill a player on the field.
The point is that we don’t know what the intentions of the person storming the field are.
So you stop them. And then mete out the appropriate punishment.
Jailing her isn’t going to have the slightest effect on someone with murderous intent.
With all the teen wilding going on everywhere lately this doesn’t surprise me.
Best way to stop this behavior is to end taxpayer funded sports.
“Can she drop into coverage, too?”
-Football coach
Apparently those sticks in the mud have never seen a teen rom-com.
Talk about a meet cute.
Neph, a high school game though?!
Should be played on the most basic field the school owns. Fans in their own lawn chairs.
I went to one actual game back in 07. First and last NFL game I’ll ever go to. Worked it. Was weird.
There’s one going on tonight.
We’re not at Texas level, but high school football is huge here.
Nuh-uh! It was the most secure election evar!
And if they were able to actually find that many….
What does that say about the other elections then?
We are bitching about the uncontrolled debt here, and in no small part the outrage isnt just the debt itself, but the fact that every step of the way we *knew* what the consequences would be.
We had this argument when Reagan was president, and it has only gotten worse.
This is the insanity. As humans, we seem incapable of learning.
We are experiencing an surge of populist socialism and communism reminiscent of the early 20th century. The most murderous political philosophy in history, maybe 100 million dead as a direct result, by intentional acts of communist and socialist governments. We know how this ends.
But they are making TikTok videos about how great socialism is. So we are actually *electing* socialists and even communists.
We are irredeemably stupid.
https://nypost.com/2026/08/19/opinion/miranda-devine-independent-womens-voice-ad-exposes-the-dsas-gap-between-promise-and-reality/
Super cute actress
Sup.
In the AI-generated video, “Take Me Back!”, a young woman falls for the DSA slogans of “free” healthcare and housing, “Defund the police!” and “People over profit!”
It’s going to have its place in production and entertainment but this makes it cringe.
I am disappoint.
“I am disappoint.”
#MeToo
What you mean ‘we’, paleface?
It’s not that we’re stupid (although a lot of us are) – it’s that the government’s role has been winnowed down to ‘getting theirs before everything collapses.’
This is what happens when you have a purposefully uninformed populace, no accountability, and “safe” districts where one party is guaranteed to win. It’s a predictable race to the bottom.
This is what happens when you have universal suffrage in a democracy.
This. It was inevitable the moment people were allowed to vote themselves free shit.
“Karmelo Anthony supporters celebrated Wednesday after the judge who presided over his murder trial was recused.”
https://nypost.com/2026/08/20/us-news/judge-will-consider-new-trial-for-karmelo-anthony-after-teen-killers-legal-victory/
CWABOA
“This is a young man going through puberty and maturing through this process,’ Lee Merritt, who is part of Anthony’s legal team, told the Daily Mail when asked about his evolving appearance.
Anthony, 19, sported a mustache and facial hair on his chin, looking several years older than he did during his June trial.”
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16064955/Karmelo-Anthony-attorney-Lee-Merritt-Austin-Metcalf.html
https://archive.ph/Kymvf
Sure, Jan.
I have a hard time understanding this drive to write an alternative reality in which a young murderer is a victim – they always do this rhetorical shift where they present the killer as younger than he is. They used 6 year old pictures of Treyvon Martin so people would think he was a sweet, small child.
Hands up dont shoot, I am a gentle giant, gunned down for no reason!
And villains are painted as more monstrous than they are. Kyle Rittenhouse was a dangerous racist killer who murdered black people because he hates black people. (Not a group of white pedophiles)
Austin Metcalf was just a young man going through puberty when you murdered him, Karmelo.
And they completely ignored Tamir Rice, which was a really bad police action from an officer who didn’t know what they were doing.
Locally, at least, he’s remembered. The POS who shot Tamir has been offered positions at (at least) three different police departments, which gets reported, shared, and the police department gets all the bad press they deserve.
This is the problem they ignore… incompetence. It is by far the worse problem (as compared to “racism”). Not just incompetence by stupidity, but also by temperament. The asshole roid-boy who enjoys the power trip is super-dangerous… and our system protects that guy *hard*.
All this talk of drought reminds me of my (obvious) plan to fix the problem permanently.
California could do this easily with the money they have (and are) wasted on their high speed rail.
We use Death Valley for a solar powered seawater purification system.
It is below sea level, so seawater can be piped and gravity fed. Simple distillation using glass-covered pools. Concentrated brine could be further evaporated to collect salt and heavy metals.
Resultant fresh water goes to the people and agriculture.
Bonus products such as algae for biofuel could be co-produced in the same facility.
The environmental impact study is: they call it death valley for a reason.
Are you crazy? You actually want to solve problems instead of winning arguments?
Why can’t the mint just produce 40 $1 Trillion dollar coins and pay off the debt instantaneously? Each coin could even have the portrait of a president responsible for at least a trillion dollars of the debt.
It can. This is known as devaluing the currency. It tends to produce minor ripples in the economy, like no one being willing to sell anything for currency.
like no one being willing to sell anything for currency
But muh legal tender!!!’
I am looking forward to buying a package of mints with my last trillion dollar bill, before exchanging my currency for NuevoDollars.
trshmnstr:
Don’t worry, you’ll still need those to pay taxes.
And while we’re at it, the treasury can start printing currency on rolls.
This inflation is on purpose, the end goal is to lead us to controllable digital currency.
*Tightens tinfoil hat
It is hard to argue that the inflation isnt on purpose, particularly after Biden gleefully produced that second “inflation reduction act” stimulus package that was purely a grift and produced a good doubling of prices in many sectors.
Inflation is absolutely on purpose. It’s overtly the main function of the Federal Reserve – to devalue, I mean, inflate, the dollar.
In a controlled fashion, of course.
Do you take Zimbabwe currency?
no, just weimar.
Why stop at 40? Mint one for each president and the government will be ahead a few trillion.
ZimbabWe can do it!
Yes, but the Rhode to hell is paved that way!
I love how those “don’t be rapey” pamphlets in Britain are all printed in English.
https://x.com/an0n_Nic/status/2090111781427355778
Arabic would have been too on the nose?
They couldn’t read those, either, I suspect.
Exactly. Most of them are so stupid they can’t read or write, or barely speak in any language. And yet they are imported by the hundreds of thousands.
The Navy Seal who shot Bin Laden said on Adam Carolla that some of the informants couldn’t count to five.
The Navy Seal who shot Bin Laden
Which one?
But I was under impression Obama personally dispatched Bin Laden, and surely he can count to five?
Robert J. O’Neill
Common Tater:
They can only count to four?
Neph:
Only three
Call me crazy, but I think if you have to tell someone that something like rape isn’t allowed, you probably don’t want that person in your country.
You’re crazy.
But these illiterate savages who will spend their entire lives on welfare are the key to sustaining the British economy and, more important, the government’s tax base!
Somehow.
“Why loyal Trump aide Natalie Harp has only one pair of shoes – and she can even drive a golf cart in them!
…the divisive executive assistant appears to favour a pair of nude, patent leather stilletos, with fashion expert Rochelle White telling the Daily Mail that Harp’s choice ‘does not open up room for criticism’.
Amid intense scrutiny of her closeness to the POTUS, alleged treatment of staffers and claims she ‘starved’ herself while working for Mr Trump, the ‘effortless’ neutral heels are a safe bet because they ‘say a lot without saying anything’….
‘By wearing nude, she is saying “take me seriously, not my shoes”‘, she added.
Further, nude pairs well with colours like navy, red, and green that signal ‘visual authority’ as Harp continues to navigate the minefield that is American politics.”
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16066807/Trump-makes-extraordinary-intervention-glamorous-blonde-aides-dangerous-secret-exposed-astonishing-security-leak.html
https://www.dailymail.com/lifestyle/article-16066339/natalie-harp-secret-weapon-nude-heels-trump.html
So glad that’s settled.
“divisive”
JFC, the media
Somebody gets paid a living to write that stuff.
I love how in one story, he’s losing his mind and bodily functions and is Biden II and in the next he’s bending his hottie secretary over the resolute desk.
It’s so cute when people natter about Federal Reserve interest rate policy while the government engages in completely unrestrained spending.
The institutions have been captured by the enemy class. What do you do?
1. Burn down the institutions and start over.
2. Recapture the institutions from the enemy class.
And I know some of you autists will insist on other options.
I’ll go autistic in the other direction. 2 isn’t a viable option. 1 is the only option available and the only question is whether starting over means a period of suck followed by a better system or a period of suck followed by a new system of suck.
Burn your enemies?
I’m with Ted on this one.
Obviously option #1. It’s much more efficient to dismantle the institution, stand up a new institution that holds the same portfolio, make the previous employees apply for a limited number of new jobs, and use that process to cherry-pick any actual talent.
I see no “step 3. Profit???”
Step 3: Blessed silence and freedom while your enemies burn in stacks.
See, this is where the immigrants come into the picture. You need someone to sell the underpants to!
I think it would have to be both. The equivalent of regulatory capture would guarantee that the unwanted would be over-represented in ‘oversight committees’, ‘planning committees’, etc.
Plus, there’s the non-trivial [understatement of the day] problems of endowments, enabling legislation, etc, etc, ad infinauseum.
The institutions aren’t stand-alones. They exist in a complex enabling web, both state and quasi-private.
Sigh
This right here is why certain influential segments of the ‘New Right’ are so enamored with monarchy. A ruling monarch, especially one with divine authority, can just do things. Cut the Gordian knot with one stroke of the sword. Not gonna lie, I find that ability attractive when compared to the morass of interconnected bureaucracy we suffer under now.
Of course, like everyone else in political theory, they forget about the accountability problem – or, as I like to say it, “A ruler who can just do things, will inevitably do things to you.”
The response is usually something like, “Nuh-uh, you!” or, “Only white people should rule!” which I find uninspiring, to say the least. Curtis Yarvin had some ideas about keeping rulers accountable, but even then they barely rose above the level of magical thinking.
they forget about the accountability problem
The accountability is what it always has been. Revolution. Peaceful if possible, violent otherwise.
The benefit of a monarchy is that the king isn’t a representative of the people per se. it’s much easier to convince people to depose a tyrant than to overthrow a corrupt government “of by and for the people”.
I seem to recall that was one of Yarvin’s arguments, and it’s not wrong as far as it goes.
My criticisms of it are:
– It’s entirely possible for a popular and well-liked monarch to pursue destructive policies. This is a cultural problem, but not one that revolution is likely able to solve.
– It’s even more possible for an evil and corrupt monarch to maintain power for himself and his favored courtiers and enforcers, simply by distributing money and power to them. A popular revolution could resolve this, but popular revolutions in real authoritarian slave states don’t historically go well – Iran is a recent example.
Neither. You sideline the intuitions with new ones, knowing that, in the end the new ones will fail too, and you will need to build more new ones, add infinity.
All this BS about burning old or recapturing ignores the fact that half the country loves them and sees value in them. And as long as you have that problem you will never succed. Right now, Florida and Texas are creating new universitys too compete with the old, in areas that need learnings. Hollywood is dying, so don’t take it over, move onto YouTube and create your own. Online publishing is now a thing, so don’t worry about Random House or any other publishing firm accepting your book, do it yourself. And so on.
Just move around what is there, like the Germans dealing with the Maginot line. Don’t fight on their terms, make your own.
This is a good long-term strategy.
This is sort of a clever reprocessing of Option #1 – and that’s not a criticism, this method is more likely to work versus, ‘Destroy the old organization and then spin up a new one.’
“Long story short … when she finally had a bowel movement, it was so much poop at once that she passed out on the toilet in her house.
Her husband called 911, and she was rushed to the hospital. On the ride there … she noticed she didn’t get everything in the toilet — and there was still plenty of poop left in her pants.
And if the embarrassment wasn’t bad enough … Brie says she had to sit in her own crap for hours afterward … because hospital staff needed to run tests and make sure she was properly hydrated before she could clean up.”
https://www.tmz.com/2026/08/20/brie-bella-pooped-her-pants-health-crisis/
???
Ha! Where does she keep it all?
!!!
I don’t know who that is.
Me neither. But that is hilarious. Almost an Elvis moment.
Female WWE wrestler who has a twin? sister who also wrestles. They were a part of the WWE Divas (now just women’s division) and are not the best wrestlers.
TL;NG
(Too long, not German)
Either she’s lying, or the hospital staff involved need to be fired.
I’m guessing they prioritized doing a blood draw and dropping a bag in her before having someone clean her up.
I have great sympathy – opiate-related constipation absolutely sucks. And it’s cool that she can laugh about something so gross and embarrassing.
It sure does.
She’s full of shit.
Appeasing the howling mob won’t be easy
A Democratic operative who worked on one of the resistance races, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the throughline is that those candidates are “institutionalists” who argued the justice system was going to hold Trump accountable. But voters have lost faith in those institutions after he returned to office, and were sold by other candidates’ messaging that relied more on railing against those very systems.
“The prescription isn’t what they were looking for anymore,” the operative said.
If Democrats retake control of the House, they will have to confront their base’s appetite for holding Trump accountable. Republicans have long warned that Democrats will immediately move to impeach Trump should they regain a House majority in 2027, which Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) — the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — has signaled openness to.
But some Democrats are more careful. “There are certain sections of people that definitely want Democrats to prioritize impeachment of the president. There are also other segments of people that want Democrats to prioritize bringing down the cost of living,” said Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), who lost a runoff in a newly gerrymandered district. “You can’t just focus on one thing at the exclusion of the other.”
The Democratic base is essentially made up of toddlers screaming “Want, want, want!”
😂🤣
“Democrat-aligned election officials have effectively killed a popular citizen-led ballot initiative that would have required proof of U.S. citizenship and a photo ID to vote.
Americans for Citizen Voting–Michigan submitted a staggering 709,841 signatures supporting its proposed constitutional amendment, more than 263,000 above the 446,198-signature requirement.
But the Michigan Bureau of Elections, operating under Democrat Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson, is now recommending that the petition be declared “insufficient.”
The recommendation is based on a statistical review of only 1,000 randomly selected signatures from the more than 709,000 submitted.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/outrage-jocelyn-bensons-election-bureau-kills-michigan-proof/
Those were not randomly selected, as we all know.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rosie-odonnell-trump-natalie-harp-1236677673/
“Then a CNN report revealed that in 2023, Harp got in a screaming match when she was denied a seat in Trump’s motorcade and then jumped into the trunk of an SUV to keep from being left behind.”
SUVs have trunks?
reality > CNN > Hollywood Reporter > bullshit
And then Trump grabbed the steering wheel of The Beast.
“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is demanding a criminal investigation and potential prosecution of James O’Keefe and other journalists over their undercover operation exposing vulnerabilities in Minnesota’s controversial voter-vouching system….
“Using fake Muslim identities, accents and religious stereotypes as part of a political stunt is not a harmless prank or political stunt,” CAIR-Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein said in a statement, without noting First Amendment press protections. “When individuals allegedly impersonate real voters and potentially violate Minnesota election law while portraying Muslims as deceptive or fraudulent, the public deserves accountability and a serious investigation.””
https://thepostmillennial.com/islamic-advocacy-group-demands-james-okeefe-be-prosecuted-after-team-dressed-as-muslims-to-expose-minnesota-elections
But supporting terrorism is OK?
What did they do that was illegal?
They made the ruling class look bad?
EvilSheldon:
The true and ultimate sin.
Walz is on the job. Several prosecutors have announced they are looking at charges.
They desperately want to hang felonies on them.
To be clear… they walked into a polling place, asked questions, and left.
That is all.
They never touched a thing, gave a name, tried to vote, nothing.
“A disturbing video circulating on social media shows drag performers reenacting and mocking the 2025 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. A performer wearing a white, bloodied “Freedom” T-shirt with a fake neck wound gleefully dances to the song “Bulletproof” while images of Kirk appear across the screen behind him.
The clip comes from “Turning Point U.S. Gay,” a touring satirical drag show that mocks major conservative figures. The event took place on August 7 at the San Francisco LGBTQ nightclub “Oasis.” In previous performances, the group mocked Kirk’s widow, Erika, the current CEO of Turning Point USA.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/san-francisco-drag-queen-stuns-audience-with-charlie-kirk-assassination-reenactment-at-lgbtq-nightclub
Classy
OWNING THE CONS
Love triumphing over hate. Or something.
Blip
Bond yields climbed Thursday, erasing most of the pullback they saw the previous day after the Treasury Department announced an intervention aimed at easing pressure on longer-dated government debt.
——-
At The 10- and 30-year yield levels were right around the level they held before the 8:30 a.m. announcement Wednesday that Treasury would be stepping up its bond buyback program.
You’re going to have to Bernanke harder than that.
Channelling my inner John Bogle and staying the course.
Fuck you, cut spending.
The moves underscored the difficulty of market interventions, particularly at a time when U.S. debt faces a slew of factors that have been pressuring yields higher.
In a move announced Wednesday morning, the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Scott Bessent, said it would at least double the size of its government debt buybacks, starting Sept. 9 and running through Nov. 4.
More cash. That should help.
I’m sure we’ve all seen this claim that medieval peasants got 100 days off per year* under the liturgical calendar, usually paired with some claim that modern Americans only get 10 holidays and a couple of weeks vacation. Thus showing that capitalism has mad our lives worse than that of medieval peasants.
It is of course, arrant nonsense that you can raise livestock and engage in little more than subsistence farming while enjoying a life of leisure, but I did the math.
Turns out 100 days off per year averages out to a five day work week. The stolen base, of course, is that the people making this claim aren’t looking at Saturdays and Sundays not being workdays for most people; they are just looking holidays and vacation days. A typical American actually gets around 125 days per year or more of not going to his or her job.