After several days of rain, my back yard is a muddy marsh which the dogs feel duty-bound to track inside. After two days of wrestling with my taxes, my bank account is about to become a muddy marsh that even the dogs will avoid. Where’s that tax relief that OMB was supposed to bring? Oh yeah, that’s right, we’re actually speeding up the spending.
Despite the weather and financial storms, there were birthdays today, including the Man Who Would Be Shakespeare; my greatest musical influence; a pretty decent pianist who took a wrong turn; a very underrated songwriter (For Ladies Only was a masterpiece); the guy who truly was America’s Dad; a talented writer who badly needed an equally talented editor; Flo’s spiritual mother; and someone Team Blue hates almost as much as they hate Trump.
And we all hate Links.
TACO Sunday. Which is not a Mexican dessert.
How many divisions does the Commie Pope have?
Actual free market economics is anathema to modern Team Red.
Cop held responsible for killing a suspect? IT’S OUTRAGEOUS.
Burn down NASA and salt the earth.
ROUS. Just tell the Chinese that they’re delicious, then stand back. Problem solved.
Buh-bye. And non-paywalled.
“Don’t you know who I am???” Actually, no, I don’t.
Conspiracy theories turned up to 11.
When I say “DC-area cult guitarists,” thoughts immediately turn to Roy Buchanan. Which is justified. But oddly, Danny Gatton has become even more obscure, which is an absolute pity. He may have been the best guitarist alive in his day. The Old Guy urges you to check out the amazing range of his playing, including beer bottle and towel. As a bonus, great solos by Bill Holloman who absolutely kicked ass on any instrument he picked up.
Not clear on how the US blockading Hormuz is “chickening out”.
I’ve been reading that there has been some traffic through Hormuz all along with Iranian permission (which would mean either the mullahs got paid off or it was their oil). I don’t know why we have been allowing any of that.
The problem now is mines. The geniuses running our Navy decided we didn’t need minesweepers any more, so I’m not clear how we’re going to deal with that.
Sharks with lasers.
Blockading, maybe. No promises. And quite a few steps down from, “This is your last warning. Bridges and power plants next.”
I got a chuckle at the immediate denial by Iran’s Tehran-Bob that we traversed the Strait with two warships only for AIS and photos to show we did.
What gets me is I was looking at the marine tracking site and a ton of smaller fishing vessels are about….
If it were mined, Id fish elsewhere, unless the mine threat is overblown?
If / when this ceasefire ends, we can’t get close enough to the Strait to blockade it. We could intercept them further out to sea. Countries like India are already escorting tankers with their navy to make sure they end up in India.
It would make the global energy crisis worse and cost us the few friends we have left.
I was given to understand the issue isn’t minesweepers but their inability to guard them.
Apparently mine detection is now done with helicopters. Unsure what they now use to detonate/disable them.
Orphans.
I know kids are dense, but I don’t think even your orphans are dense enough to set off a naval mine.
Look, don’t piss in the Cheerios. It’s a perfect solution. You might have to accelerate their mass a bit (e.g., helicopter drop), but it’s a perfect solution. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to upset their parents.
So, we need more orphans from magnet programs?
Where’s that tax relief that OMB was supposed to bring? Oh yeah, that’s right, we’re actually speeding up the spending.
I got tax relief.
Yeah, the vote-buying carve outs for overtime and tips really pissed me off. Not sure what the right word is for the opposite of “reform”, but that’s what Trump and the Repubs did.
I would have preferred it too if the standard exemption went up by thousands instead of carve-outs.
And I note that it hasn’t gone up in NYS in like ten years now.
Pandering?
That having been said, TEAM BLUE really does hate it when the Republicans come up with tax treatments that soak TEAM BLUE rich, like the SALT cap. The deductions for taxes on OT or tips are things that in theory are designed to help people at the bottom.
OT should not be seen as anything special. No restrictions, no extra taxes.
That $4000 per person didn’t show up on my taxes either.
That showed up but it was me paying them
It’s always me paying them.
Same with the Covid cash.
I got some relief from the enhanced senior deduction, around 2k on a joint return FWIW.
For me it was the OT and the standard deduction increasing.
I thought I might owe tax since our pay schedule had a 27th check on December 31 but all the withholding was done based on 26 biweekly checks.
I still haven’t cashed that vote-buying check for $150 Kathy sent out just before the election.
Cash and donate to her political rivals.
Or an organization that sues the state.
I missed the new bit about no more printed checks or have a long delay. I hope my modest refund shows up in time to pay my school district taxes in July.
my greatest musical influence
Happy birthday Jacques Morali!
the guy who truly was America’s Dad
Happy birthday John Tyler!
Happy b-day Red Forman!
Fred MacMurray?
I didn’t know there were cult guitarists in the direct current area.
Well, according to The Old Man, they are electrifying!
We used to be a proper country where a shoe-salesman at a mall shop could afford a middle class home in the Chicago suburbs
😄
Could afford to commute to the mall in a mighty Dodge.
Best part about that is, it was actually a Plymouth Duster.
I honestly don’t know what to make of this one. Seems like a lot to be not-shenanigans, but the brain does like imposing patterns on the world.
Fearing that a foreign power may be taking aim at America’s nuclear program again, Swecker noted: ’I think we’ve even seen instances where nuclear scientists have been taken out. They’ve been assassinated.’
They might have knowledge leading to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.
It’s a freakin’ nutria. Louisiana has tons of them. It’s not some nail biting moment, or an invasion from China.
California = morons though, so look for some billion dollar environmental program instead of simply paying hunters $6 a nutria.
We had a couple invading our backyard. One good bap from an air rifle took care of that.
It sounds like an artificial sweetener.
Nutria has been found by the state of California to cause cancer in laboratory Nutria.
Yep, and Louisiana has been trying to develop an “Asian” market for these rodents to help solve the problem. I think they have had limited success with Korea, but not enough to really help.
That market has really gone to the dogs lately.
Just tell the Chinese that Nutria bones give you massive erections and they’ll be wiped out in a month.
Or say they’re coypu instead. Voilà, problem solved!
What they need to do here is import some species that preys on nutria, and specifically pick something that would have no predatory pressure to contain it’s own population growth.
Monorail!Mongoose!The pronghorn antelope has no real predator as they died out in the younger dryas.
I suggest we import cheetah to Oregon and southern Idaho.
Cheetahs already have the shortest lifespan and highest cub mortality of any of the great cats. They’d also have a difficult time in the Pacific Northwest winters.
As your mom probably told you, cheetahs never prosper.
The eradication managers name is Valerie Cook, the solution is in her name. Call the other LA to see what they did with their nutria. I think Paul Prudnomme was their eradication manager.
Porcupines, woodchucks, skunks. raccoons, rabbits and gophers are an ongoing problem. The others, turkeys, deer and an occasional bear come and go at their leisure
And the women come and go, speaking of Michelangelo.
Didnt someone here claim the USS Ford would be out of commision for months cause we were not being honest about the fire it had on board?
Its back in theater. Maybe people on the socials want clicks and not to present truthful info.
Yikes! Do the needful, Magyars. You don’t really want to be run from Brussels, do you?
A heaping helping to Slutty Sunday sideboob.
https://archive.is/bqi5J
‘Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell — a frontrunner in the California governor’s race — has been accused of violating immigration and employment law to keep his illegal live-in Brazilian nanny in the country, according to a pair of recently filed complaints.
When his South American babysitter’s temporary work authorization was about to expire in 2022, he and wife Brittany Swalwell lied to the feds to keep Amanda Barbosa working for them, a new complaint filed Tuesday with the Department of Labor claimed.
Another complaint, filed to the Department of Homeland security in February and previously unreported, accuses Swalwell of paying the nanny under the table with campaign funds for a period of two years when she didn’t hold valid work authorization.”
https://nypost.com/2026/04/11/us-news/eric-swalwell-paid-illegal-brazilian-live-in-nanny-under-the-table-with-campaign-funds-complaint-alleges/
He should go to jail just for those t-shirts.
$20 says he banging the nanny on the side.
Probably between the legs actually, but very likely.
I’m not taking that bet.
I wonder if the NYT will go to bat for her. Or if they only care about “internationals” who are here to rant against the current administration.
illegal live-in Brazilian nanny
Descriptor of national origin, or of personal grooming practices? And if the latter, what constitutes an “illegal Brazilian?”
One that includes a happy ending?
Illegal Brazilian? Left to right.
“A Los Angeles-based food delivery driver has gone viral after sharing that she has significantly boosted her daily earnings by including her feet in the delivery confirmation photos sent to customers.
Jade Phoenix shared the unique strategy on the social media platform Threads, claiming the side quest has led to a surge in customers adding extra tips after their food has been dropped off.”
https://nypost.com/2026/04/12/lifestyle/la-uber-eats-driver-jade-phoenix-reveals-unconventional-way-she-boosts-tips/
OFFS!
Jade Phoenix is her OnlyFans name.
It does sound fake.
““Is your rent due? Not in North Korea,” Nodutdol’s April 1 Instagram post boasts to its 42,000 followers, alongside an idyllic picture of children happily playing in the snow in front of a modern, residential apartment building that looks strikingly American-style.
Nodutdol, a Midtown-based group whose name means stepping stone in Korean, has worked to radicalize American leftists into supporting North Korea through their mutual hatred of “US imperialism.””
https://nypost.com/2026/04/11/us-news/extreme-left-nonprofit-pitches-north-korea-as-utopia-to-cash-strapped-new-yorkers/
CWABOA
No way!
“We have nothing to envy in this world!”
I’ll donate to send them one way.
Buck up, The Guardian. One of your own will be in the office sooner or later and the geyser of tax dollars will resume.
Except the cuts are to science programs that are either extremely biased, sunsetting, or useless.
Space travel isnt being cut
Have they cut the Muslim outreach nasa program?!
“Sydney Sweeney shocks fans by dressing up as a BABY with a binky in her mouth for ‘creepy’ Euphoria scene”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tv/article-15725863/sydney-sweeney-shocks-fans-baby-binky-creepy-euphoria-scene.html
No kink shaming?
New leftist thing: humiliate the one non-leftist cast member that the other cast members hate.
I’ve been seeing adds for that show, none of them have her in them.
Not that I would care but one would think that the most recognizable person in the show would be front and center in the adds.
“Astonishing audio of Kristi Noem being humiliated by husband Bryon: His desire to gender transition and chosen girl name… damaging ICE messages… and worst insult imaginable for a wife”
https://archive.is/vL3B3
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15710733/kristi-noem-husband-bryon-audio-transition-bimbo.html
No kink shaming?
How does it damage ICE messaging?
““My ask of humans is quite large,” says the northern bat to a room of reindeer, wolf lichen, bog, and other beings. “It’s a shift of consciousness, and an understanding that … we are a relation.”
The scene could come from a sci-fi novel imagining a more-than-human uprising. In fact, it’s from a recent “interspecies council” in Oppdal, Norway, in which non-humans – spoken for by humans – convened to discuss the region’s future.
In the 1980s, the environmentalists John Seed and Joanna Macy developed the Council of All Beings: a practice in which humans embody and represent other species in a ceremonial council.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/10/im-worried-theres-too-much-of-me-says-a-birch-inside-the-interspecies-council-giving-nature-a-voice
No kink shaming?
I have no words
An Animorph movie prequel?
“As they embarked on their first tour and their record label tried to limit their potential for legal issues, members of the 1990s US boyband 98 Degrees were equipped with a handbook listing the age at which people across the nation can lawfully consent to sex , the group’s lead singer, Nick Lachey, reveals in a new documentary.
“This is going to sound super shady, but … I remember our first tour, someone at the label gave us a book, and it was the age of consent in every state in the country,” Lachey says in Boy Band Confidential, which is premiering on Monday at 9pm ET on the cable network Investigation Discovery. “And like, we kept that book on the tour bus.””
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/12/98-degrees-nick-lachey-documentary-age-of-consent-manual
No kink shaming?
When you’re in a Boy Band jailbait let’s you grab them by the pussy.
And?
A handbook? I would think a wallet-sized card would have sufficed. Hell, those guys had enough scratch to get it printed on custom condom wrappers.
“People”
Nowadays you could do it with an app … just using your location and showing a single number in large font on the screen. Since they’re probably bad at math, you could even add in a function to scan her (his?) driver’s license and do the math for them.
“Are straight male writers scared of writing about sex? If you read modern fiction it’s hard to conclude otherwise. Maybe we’re worried that the very presence of a sex scene in our book would feel somehow exploitative or gratuitous. Or maybe we feel our gender has simply said enough on the subject so we should shut up…..
Nobody wants to emulate Henry Miller’s or Charles Bukowski’s pathological misogyny and coldly itemised conquests. Neither would we want to take John Updike’s waspish, suburban proto-polyamory starter kit as a blueprint. Whether urbane or grotesque, it still feels like the voice of a priapic pub bore. It is good that we know what to avoid, but we don’t really know what to do either….
As Luke Brown wrote in 2020: “Heterosexual male desire has been linked so closely to abuses of power for so long that the two seem inextricable.””
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/apr/12/too-hot-to-handle-why-its-time-for-straight-male-authors-to-rediscover-sex
No kink shaming?
I would rather books not have sex scenes in them.
Most are superfluous, and I would like to share adult books with my kids.
The whole point of allusion is to let the reader’s imagination do the writer’s work for him.
Gratuitous anything is unnecessary if it doesn’t help drive the plot.
Yep Saurman
Job done.
/the left
You could live down there for two hundred years
The new ballroom will be made with missile-resistant steel columns, drone-proof roofing materials and bullet, ballistic and blast-proof glass, according to court filings. It will also house top secret military installations, medical facilities and bomb shelters.
“These upgrades, alterations, and improvements to the dilapidated, infested, and structurally unsound prior East Wing, are essential to protecting the President, his family, and his staff, as well as the White House itself,” Mayers said, “and the entire project flows from them.”
Lay some sod and put up a log cabin.
“INSANE VIDEOS: Vile Degenerate Leftists Turn Anti-ICE Protest into Vulgar Dildo Carnival, Hundreds of Sex Toys Thrown at Police Nationwide as Part of ‘Operation Dildo Blitz’”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/insane-videos-vile-degenerate-leftists-turn-anti-ice/
No kink shaming?
Is the WNBA done for the season? Asking because I really don’t know or care. The dildo throwing was the most entertaining part of the league.
“In yet another devastating blow to the already-imploding campaign of far-left California Rep. Eric Swalwell, American former pharmaceutical executive and hedge fund manager dubbed “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has obtained explosive video footage showing the married Democrat congressman getting intimate with a mystery woman who is clearly not his wife.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/breaking-pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-obtains-shocking-video/
“Conservative activist and Human Events editor Jack Posobiec has released an additional video showing what appears to be Swalwell in bed with an alleged sex worker.
Posobiec announced on X that he obtained the new footage, which was taken moments after the initial shocking video first circulated online earlier today courtesy of “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/04/jack-posobiec-drops-additional-video-eric-swalwell-bed/
No kink shaming?
The democrats are completely obsessed with sexual deviancy and wear it as a badge of pride. This is not going to hurt his campaign.
Damn X. Can’t see the post.
Jillian Snider, a retired NYPD officer and lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said revealing any details about the construction of the PEOC poses risks.
“Every time you publicly disclose the specific materials, methods, and capabilities being used to protect a facility like the White House, you increase the risk that adversaries can study those defenses and look for ways around them,” Snider said. “The President’s own public comments about the ‘massive’ underground military complex added to that exposure.
“From a security standpoint, the less the world knows about how you’re hardening a target of this significance, the better,” she added.
Trump is blabbing more Top Secret stuff just to make himself feel important. Impeach him.
It’s already a massive nuke target.
“In September of 2024, United States District Court for Southern Indiana Judge Richard Young sided with Richardson and the ACLU, saying that Richardson had been a victim of “cruel and unusual punishment” when a sex change surgery was denied. The judge ordered that the Department of Corrections make the surgery available to Richardson as soon as possible. Richardson also filed a lawsuit in 2024 claiming to identify as Muslim and alleging that he was prevented from wearing a hijab….
In the wake of being released, Richardson has created several social media profiles and has also begun posting pornography on OnlyFans. Richardson’s exact location in Vanderburgh County is unknown, though one source who spoke with Reduxx claimed that Richardson has been staying at a women’s shelter.
On social media, Richardson describes being in a relationship with another trans-identified male, who was also convicted of killing a baby. Cory Wallace was sentenced in 2016 to 72 years in prison for setting fire to his house, covering up that he had beaten his 4-month-old son to death.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/trans-baby-killer-released-from-prison-30-years-early-in-indiana
WTF?
The most objectionable part of the tale.
*clicks*
Gah!!
I’m just here as an advocate for genocide.
Killing people for a behavior is not genocide. It may be evil depending on the behavior in question, but it’s not a genocide unless the criteria for the killing is inherent in the victim.
Trans people claim their identity is inherent to them.
They also claim to be a different sex than they are, their delusions don’t change reality. I’m not arguing for killing anyone for being trans. I am simply pointing out that this genocide claim is bullshit on ever possible level including definitionally.
They breathlessly claim there is a genocide of the alphabet madness.
Yet no one has given them one yet, outside of Muslim countries.
“identify as Muslim and alleging that he was prevented from wearing a hijab….”
Some people are truly pathetic. When did this start? I realize that “I can be somebody” was an attempt to try to encourage youngsters to try harder to achieve but to be a lesbian Muslin woman just isn’t in the cards for most people.
What a shithole
Labor policy offers an instructive example. During a decades-long decline in manufacturing jobs — from 32 percent of all jobs in the 1940s to just 8.5 percent now — production plants in the Rust Belt relocated to Southern states, enticed by low wages, tax incentives and right to work laws that prohibit compulsory union membership and payment of dues.
Twenty-eight states today require “open shops,” where union membership is voluntary. The National Labor Relations Board, founded in the 1930s to protect union members against unfair labor practices, has been marginalized. Only 10 percent of U.S. workers are unionized today, most of them in the public sector. Nearly one-third of them work in California or New York. The long-term effect has been suppression of wages and bargaining power.
Tax policy tells a similar story. The top marginal rate for federal income taxes has fallen from 70 percent in 1979 to 37 percent today. The top rate for the capital gains tax, which predominantly affects households earning $100,000 a year or more, is only 20 percent. Corporate taxes have been cut from 35 percent to 21 percent. Many large and profitable corporations pay no federal income tax at all.
Slavery by another name.
Who protects us from unfair union practices?
The union label?
The NLRB and corporate taxes should not exist.
Taxes should not exist.
The vast majority of programs that justify the taxes should not exist and are unconstitutional.
Yes.
I’ll make them a deal. You can work for the government, or have the right to vote. Choose one.
I’m down for that.
If you get a check that says “US Government” on it your vote isn’t counted. Conflicts of interest.
The pattern is clear. Wealth generates political influence, and political influence further concentrates wealth. As a result, the U.S. is no longer a land of opportunity. In the 1940s, 90 percent of young Americans could expect to earn more than their parents. The odds for the current generation are 50-50. The U.S. now ranks 27th in social mobility, behind most developed countries.
Americans are well aware of the damage that has been done to the American dream. Substantial majorities believe the system is skewed in favor of wealthy individuals and corporations. Only 19 percent are “very satisfied” with the size and influence of major corporations; 49 percent are “very dissatisfied.” Seventy-three percent support higher taxes on wealthy Americans. More than half believe that politicians are more responsive to campaign donors than they are to ordinary voters.
Capitalism is a disease. Socialism is the cure.
Gulag is the cure.
Missing from the narrative:
The state is a force multiplier for corporate power (see: Covid).
Big government does not constrain corporate power; it enables it.
Unpopular opinion:
Why are Boomers now so concerned about climate change?
They realize their grandchildren will not have the same standard of living as they did. They caused this, but fixing it will hurt them personally, so they’re not going to.
Instead, they’re going to save their grandchildren from an imaginary problem. Their solutions again directly harm their grandchildren while barely affecting them.
This is evil.
(Yes, I realize not all Boomers. But a significant majority, by my estimation.)
The climate cult has invaded the churches. This started well over a decade ago.
Sure has. I went to a church in Dallas where they prayed to The Lord to save them from climate change.
As a member of the Silent Generation I will not speak out to save my grand/great grand children from the non-ravages of non-climate change.
I don’t think the Boomers are consciously doing that as a replacement to any economic damage. I am not even sure Boomers think what they did is economic damage. It’s also questionable that the next generation will have a lower living standard. As far as I have seen, living standards have improved.
Now if you pick underwater basket weaving as your major in college, your mileage may vary.
I don’t think it’s explicitly conscious, but it’s cynically self-interested, and they’re wilfully blind to the consequences of their choices.
It is hard to get a man to understand something when his
jobretirement depends on it.Living standards have changed in a variety of ways, some are improvements others are not. On balance it’s probably a net plus, but the various areas of the economy most infected with Government subsidies and regulation have definitely become more expensive relative to income, and those tend to be significant areas, energy, housing, medical care, and above all education are all less affordable, less pleasant, and less useful. So of course the solutions everyone proposes are more Government involvement, higher subsidies, or different regulations…
I was thinking about that issue with contamination from plastic gloves while testing for microplastics.
Exactly what were the researchers doing before they discovered sharks were high on cocaine?
There is no science but government science
The proposed cuts to the NSF would be “devastating,” says Leigh Stearns, a glaciologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “We cannot cut the pipeline and expect the output to continue. This is how the US loses its scientific leadership — with a reckless budget line.”
The proposal would eliminate funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. It would also shutter three of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centres – those focusing on minority health and disparities, international research and alternative medicine.
NASA faces a 23% cut to its total budget and a 47% drop in funding for its science division. More than 40 projects would be terminated. “It’s an extinction-level event for science,” says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization in Pasadena, California, that advocates for space exploration. “It would undermine and prevent NASA from being the world leader in space exploration.” NASA declined to comment on Dreier’s statement.
What if scientific researchers were expected to produce useful, practical solutions to real world problems?
That’s the job of engineers, not scientists.
I’d be happy if scientists did actual science instead of fitting data to models with pre-determined outcomes.
“What if scientific researchers were expected to produce useful, practical solutions to real world problems?”
Supply and Demand hardest hit
I believe the “Boomers'” greatest failure was falling for the disastrous fiction that government can solve all of society’s problems.
New Frontier and Great Society hardest hit. While not the beginning (see New Deal) they had the impact that the government was here to help on a personal basis.
I honestly had not heard of New Frontier.
Large gaps in my education, I’m surprised it never got brought up in school. Plenty of focus on FDR as a benevolent God King but all JFK got mentioned for was being shot and for the Presidential Fitness garbage.
https://x.com/Dylan_Housman/status/2043142056592159098
The people who were aghast at ‘grab them by the pussy’ knew all along about Sleazewell and were okay with it because Team Blue.
All the bigwig Democrats who are calling for Swllwell to drop out of the Governors race will also start calling for him to drop out of Congress. I’m sure they will. Any second now.
Commie pope.
A real pope would be advocating for a new Crusade.