I nearly forgot I needed to do the links. Luckily I have a bunch of work to do that I am happy to ignore for a time. Like I want to review credentialing files for Wisconsin? Cmon now…
¡enlaces!
The only good panda, is a dead panda.
Oh good, we might get more rain.
Looks like horse paste is back on the menu, boys!
Wait, he didn’t already have this type of authority?
In the grand scheme of things, $20 billion seems pretty tame for a bailout.
Music today chosen by: Sugarfree.
Before being appointed as the head of Bolivia’s department for controlled substances, Cáceres was a leader in one of the coca-growers’ unions.
That’s about as obvious a setup for naked graft as I’ve ever seen.
If he was in the dept against controlled substances, I think they have a gripe. As it stands, I think he’s in the right here.
“Government harasses small business owner”
C’mon, Shpip, the dude was just double-dipping, as so many government employees do. First they develop contacts and expertise at the taxpayers’ expense, then retire (with pension) from government and go to work for the industry they formerly regulated (by whatever means).
Hey, they are just using the cold equity that they earned with the government!
*scribbles notes furiously* cold equity, keeping that one.
good panda
Relevant
All hail the wonderous gif!
I needed that today. Thanks.
Sure thing
But police said what they found on one of his properties was a laboratory in which coca leaves are turned into cocaine hydrochloride, a drug which is illegal in Bolivia and most other countries worldwide.
Was that wrong?
The Last Panda was a movie in the 80’s wasn’t it?
It probably starred Chuck Norris
Tropical Storm Octave was well off the coast of Mexico
Mariners would prefer the ocean B-flat, but Octave will make the C-sharp.
Ok that one was good, I’m sure the staff will agree.
The scale of it might strike the wrong chord
Dont be so Bassed
Shpip knows the score.
Very clefer.
You’re starting this comment section on a high note.
He knows the bass appreciates it and only Swiss is trebled by it.
It’s not overture until the body positive lady/ladyboy sings.
Bass! How low can you go?
/Chuck D
Dammit. Forgot Low by Testament.
Ah well.
Indeed, the treble you’ve caused’ll spawn a score of minor fretting. A predictable coda to our refrain, it all. Dulcet.
My 7yo nephew had “Army day” at school. His mom was in the Army, and sent him in a full ghillie suit. The picture is hilarious. All the other kids wore camo pants or something lame.
He better have a pen and a notebook with his ghillie suit.
Where’s your PT belt, son?
But the economic lifeline to a foreign country — one which has struggled for decades to pay its international creditors and rein in government spending — also carries some political and financial risks for the White House. Democrats have already seized on the opening to criticize a foreign bailout at U.S. taxpayer expense.
We’re providing financial assistance to a foreign country?
UNPRECEDENTED.
And they’re probably not even going to use it to fund abortions or sex change operations!
Don’t forget censorship and regime change!
That little autist (mean that in the dearest of ways) DataRepublican is single handedly tearing apart that Iowan superintendent and those who knew he was an illegal alien.
Good. That saga is enraging.
And telling as news isnt calling him Iowa Dad or something…even they know this one is toxic
I have heard “beloved superintendent”.
I would imagine that should curious people start looking into former Clinton, Obama, and Biden/Harris flunkies that they’ll find a lot of illegal aliens being protected by the flunkies and the organizations they now run.
It’s going to be a long, arduous, and painful (for some) process to excise this cancer from society; but we must and shall excise it if we are to survive.
So say we all!
That clip someone posted this morning of a younger Moobs railing against illegal immigration should be run on a loop and shoved down every Democrat’s throat, including present-day Moobs.
I used to tell people that Iowa was still relatively sane in a world of crazy around us.
It’s a lot harder to say that today.
It’s institutional. Twenty years of indoctrination in schools and now those same people are in government and corporate roles.
The whole thing is somewhat crazy to me. I want to know if e-Verify failed (plausible), if they didn’t bother to check (likely), or if the knew and didn’t care (unlikely, but not impossible).
Amazing timeline:
Roberts employment authorization card expired in 2020.
Arrested for weapons possession charges Feb 5, 2020.
Roberts was hired on July 1, 2023.
Ordered that he be deported May 22, 2024. The proceedings were held in absentia.
On April 24, 2025, an immigration judge denied a motion to reopen the case.
How the fuck did this guy get hired. Forget the immigration snafu. He has a fucking arrest record for gun charges.
According to DDG, “Iowa does not have a state-level mandate requiring E-Verify for employers, including local governments.”
From what I had read they were aware of the gun charge but felt it wasn’t disqualifying (some story about how it was a hunting related misunderstanding or some bullshit like that).
Arrest records are only relevant if they embarrass the employer like kiddie diddling charges.
Thanks slumbrew. I had not seen that.
I still can’t imagine them overlooking any kind of gun charge. Mind boggling to me.
kinnath:
This goes through some of the other… questionable… claims the guy made.
[…] growing opposition from Democrats, Republicans and farm groups over concerns the deal would hurt farmers and use U.S. taxpayer resources to backstop a flailing foreign economy at U.S. taxpayers’ expense.
USAID v.2.0, NatPop edition.
Best interests
A senior Hamas figure has told the BBC that the group is likely to reject Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, saying it “serves Israel’s interests” and “ignores those of the Palestinian people”.
The figure said that Hamas is unlikely to agree to disarming and handing over their weapons – a key condition of Trump’s plan.
Hamas is also said to object to the deployment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in Gaza, which it views as a new form of occupation.
Hamas is dedicated to doing what’s best for the Palestinian people.
The deal is shit anyway. They get a bunch of terrorists back for every (((hostage))) returned, one of whom is no doubt already plotting the next Oct. 7 just like happened last time. They get time to regroup and prepare that next attack. It’s the same pattern we have seen over and over again.
The only way there will ever a lasting peace is if you the Palestinians are forcibly relocated. Which isn’t happening.
You destroy Hamas? Great. Something just as rotten will take its place because that culture is broken and corrupt.
How many times do they have to say it, to act on it? It doesnt matter I guess because the Palestinians are on the board and everyone is using them for their international gamesmanship.
They dont want a state. They dont want peace. They dont want prosperity. They are a death cult whose singular goal is to murder all Jews and Americans. There is nothing beyond that.
Keep playing games or stamp them out.
Great song.
As I recall, my friend was talking up that whole album at the time.
Within Gaza, Palestinians were broadly supportive of the plan, but only because it would lead to an end to the war.
Resident Khadar Abu Kweik told the BBC: “The American plan has bad clauses, but I support it because it will stop the war and get rid of Hamas. Even if the devil himself brought a plan to end this hell we are living in, I would support it.”
What a fool. Hamas is on the verge of glorious total victory.
And then Khadar Abu Kweik was pulled into the back of a shabby sedan, which sped off.
Whew they are up in arms!
Huffpost: Ominous Speech
Slate: crazy…and terrifying
MJ: Fat-shaming is bad
DU: Its to drive the recruitment numbers in the tank to bring back the draft!
Here’s a comment on the speech from somebody with an opinion worth hearing:
https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/1973094695996887166
I’m perfectly fine subjecting the officer class to the same standards they put on the troops.
I’m just less gung-ho about the importance of the standards in question when it comes to winning wars.
“perfumed princes”
Mic drop moment.
Here we go. My parents watch MSNBC, I can’t wait to see what crazy ass Maddow will tell them.
Tucker Carlson’s 9/11 files, part two
Another victim of Trump’s coup
Adding to the uncertainty, Trump issued an executive order outlining a consolidation of some IT-related work. J. worried his job could be moved from the Midwest to Washington, D.C.
Given this environment, he had started applying for jobs in the private sector, and by April, he had gotten a couple of offers. So right before the deadline for the second round of buyouts, he accepted the Trump administration’s offer, went on paid leave from the government and soon started a new job.
In the months since, things have not unfolded as he had expected. His agency’s office lease was restored. His old team has not been slated for a move. Looking back, he feels he was forced into an impossible decision, threatened with changes that never came to fruition.
Meanwhile, he says, his new job is not nearly as fulfilling as his work for the government. While the pay is roughly the same, he forfeited his good federal government health insurance and other benefits.
“Now that it’s been a couple of months, I very much regret my decision,” he says.
Why are these people not guaranteed a permanent stable idyllic existence at the public trough?
Why aren’t we all?
“All”
Well, not the deplorables.
Boo fuckin’ hoo. You had to make a decision based on incomplete information. Welcome to being a functioning adult.
UBI!
I read this as, “Now I have definable metrics that need to be fulfilled..”
“I can no longer campaign or protest on my employer’s dime.”
You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve WORKED in the private sector. They expect results!
Lemme guess…didnt pocket the free pay he got once he landed the other job?
Has anyone told him “Learn to code” ?
I just watched this Stossel video about how “bad” this generation has it compared to the 50’s. He makes some interesting points:
1. Adjusted for inflation, people make more today
2. Houses today are almost twice as big and are nicer. Almost all have A/C.
3. Cars weren’t as nice and didn’t last as long.
4. Not everyone went to college. About half the workforce didn’t finish high school.
https://x.com/JohnStossel/status/1973134758835265617
I do agree with a lot of that. It’s how you decide to live your life. Instead of blowing your money on expensive coffee and begging somebody to hire you to work in a cube, you can find other ways of adding value to society. Become fulfilled as a person and things like nice houses and cars will follow.
Now if your idea of being fulfilled is laying on a couch playing XBox and taking drugs, that is not going to have the same effect as the high of adding value to society and getting paid for it.
Sometime I wonder if some of the whiney kids never had a sit down with their parents to understand how the world works, and how you eventually get a nice house and a car.
Before that video I did believe younger kids were not better off. Then I remembered how I grew up. 4 kids in a 3 bedroom house (until we remodeled the basement). Drove to Florida on vacation once a year. Never ate out. A handful of presents at Christmas.
We have tons of luxuries these days we take for granted.
I was starving and nigh-homeless for significant periods of time. When I graduated high school in 84 the job market was so bad the high school handed out laminated wallet cards so you could quickly prove you were a high school graduate during job searches, which were done entirely on foot. I did not eat fast food, or have luxury coffee, or even a land line phone, as that would require a residence
What is this “vacation” you speak of, TOK?
Otherwise, yes, very similar.
There have definitely been improvements to quality of life, and most stuff is actually cheaper in terms of percentage of pay devoted to it than in the past though it’s hard to convince people of this.
Housing is the big exception, though even then it’s not as crazy of a disparity as people make it out to be. I think it’s like an average of 35% of income compared to roughly 30% in the 70’s/80’s going off the top of my head. But I grew up with my family living pay check to check. People have this idea in their heads that this was some rarity in the past when it’s really always been the case even for most middle class families.
I think it was easier to find a path to a well paying job in the past, as Gustave notes below. Credentialism is a cancer that needs to die.
Solidly middle class and my old man pinched pennies. Until I left the house.
Ditto on the four kids in a three-bedroom house. Our vacations were camping in state park campgrounds. Rarely ate out.
2. Good luck finding a 50’s size home without A/C. And the construction quality, even for higher end, is atrocious. No small part due to government interference at every stage.
3. Car quality peaked about twenty years ago. Modern cars are built for warranty and comply with government mandates.
4. Without a HS diploma today- good luck. No degree or post HS training and you’ll run into a glass ceiling just about anywhere. Exceptions of course. Again, thanks government.
Seventy years ago, high schools still had standards. Then the incentives changed, and so did the schools.
Now a college degree is the equivalent of a high school diploma from the 50s, and a high school diploma is basically a participation trophy.
Griggs v. Duke Power has a lot to do with that, but so did the “scandal” that some students just weren’t up to snuff academically and were better off entering the workforce early.
Its relative, after all a 1950’s housewife couldn’t make a side business on Etsy or OnlyFans.
Hard for me to judge it personally. I am much better off than my mom but I didn’t spend the last 20 years divorced and raising 4 kids. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trump and RFK made more health announcements today. I hope some of those things work. To me it’s just low hanging fruit, as opposed to the Dems, who will settle for nothing less than universal health care as the solution to everything.
NPR correspondent is unable to process how racist town in racist county is commemorating a massacre of Chinese laborers 140 years ago while also supporting racist policies:
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/28/nx-s1-5519752/wyoming-town-erects-new-monument-to-violent-anti-immigrant-history
“The town’s growing acknowledgement of its past comes at an odd time for a county that voted 76% for the president in 2024, which since being reelected has tried to erase negative depictions of the country’s past.”
________________________
“At the same time, [town mayor] acknowledges the irony of honoring the town’s migrant history while Sweetwater County, home to Rock Springs, cracks down and renews contracts with ICE, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Wyoming’s state highway patrol and National Guard followed suit earlier this summer. “As someone who is a descendant of immigrants that came to this country from Europe, I find it very frustrating that as a country we have decided to take an anti-immigrant stance,” Mickelson said.”
Apparently it’s “ironic” that people can be completely against nasty violence that happened, and observant of it, while also not supporting a policy that anyone on Earth who puts his/her feet on U.S. territory should get to stay forever, like some big game of capture the flag.
And we all know that control of the US government is a game of capture the flag, hence the panic on Jan6!
We are insufferable, miserable twats and you should be too.
/shorter NPR
“As someone who is a descendant of immigrants that came to this country from Europe, I find it very frustrating that as a country we have decided to take an anti-immigrant stance,”
What did the “social safety net” look like when your people landed?
Not much of one in the 1600s.
As a descendant of immigrants that came to this country from Europe, I find it very frustrating that a nice chunk of income is taken from me and handed to ungrateful grifters who snuck in or were ushered in by Democrats just for the free shit.
Ineffectual bitching and moaning?
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration’s effort to deport pro-Palestinian academics is a deliberate attack on free speech meant to “strike fear” into non-citizen students and chill campus protests.
——-
Young, a Reagan appointee based in Boston, did not immediately order changes to administration policies, but said he will hold further proceedings on how to rein in the practices he found to violate First Amendment free-speech rights.
——-
Perhaps more remarkable than the blistering ruling is Young’s assessment of President Donald Trump himself, condemning him as a bully who “ignores everything,” engages in “hollow bragging” and uses his power and gifts of communication to strip away constitutional rights.
“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech,” Young wrote, describing the courts as the most crucial bulwark to this threat.
A “ruling” with no actual effect, apparently.
I know there’s sympathy around here to getting rid of the Palestinian sympathizers and some of those “activists” have crossed lines, the overall thrust of this is true. It is a violation of the First and Trump has been far more authoritarian this go around compared to his first term.
No one on the right really cares because the left spent 4 years crying wolf over nothing from 2016-2020. But he has been blatantly corrupt and a bit tyrannical since coming back. No, not a fascist or a Nazi. And I’m clutching my pearls. But he has been yet another step in the degradation of the Republic.
I can agree with this.
Eh, Trump is asshoe, but I am not seeing the “blatantly corrupt and a bit tyrannical.”
At least, no more than the last 20-30 presidents.
Of course it’s a 1A violation. OMB has been terrible on all of the BoR. Is he worse than the alternatives? Covid indicates no.
The US may be a state, but it’s no longer a nation. It was nice while it lasted.
Non-citizens are guests. They do not have the entitlements that citizens do. And their behavior as guests should absolutely affect future decisions about them.
Mitchell Palmer was right.
He’s done more than just target foreigners for what he has called anti-Semitism. Regardless, I think the implications here turn the Bill of Rights on their head. The First doesn’t grant rights to citizens. It restricts the powers of government to police speech. It’s a universal right that every human has and the government cannot restrict it with few exceptions.
Same thing with due process. Yes, even illegals are entitled to due process of some kind.
Illegals, and other non-citizens, do get due process, but in such cases they are different than that of citizens, and while care must be taken to ensure that they get this, care needs to be taken that ALL laws are followed by the government, not just the ones they like.
Indeed, a failure to follow enacted laws, such as our laws regarding immigration, could be considered a serious civil rights violation, and a constitutional crisis.
“The First doesn’t grant rights to citizens. It restricts the powers of government to police speech.”
Thank you for the reminder.
Shut it down!
Shut it down!
Shut it down!
🍿🍿🍾
It is a violation of the First and Trump has been far more authoritarian this go around compared to his first term.
I don’t believe people should be punished for speech. I also don’t believe foreigners here on student visas have the same ironclad “rights” as natural born citizens.
The first already has exceptions for, among other things, inciting violence. I think it can be argued that many college professors (and Squad members) have been doing exactly that.
I am not trying to pick a fight with you. I simply hate the idea that there is an “exception” to the 1A. 1A recognizes a number of inherent rights. It does not create a list of techniques which if followed immunize you when committing other crimes. Inciting violence is the crime. Whether you do it by inflaming passions or paying some Pinkertons doesn’t matter.