F*** Around and Find Out Cafe

—Ace

World Trade Center under construction, 1970

This appears to be a very large monitor lizard.

Setting a grateful rehabilitated chimpanzee (or bonobo?) free into nature.

A little hard to watch: Birds won't stop biting poor dogs on the butts and on the pee-pees!

Training.

Union of the Snake.

Berlin, 1920 -- fashion.

Giving water to a swallow who fainted during a heat wave.

Just three dogs, hanging out.

Don't wear so much lipstick. It makes you look cheap.

Making friends.

A lunch guest.

High-steppin'.

Posted by Ace at 07:36 PM Comments

Quick Hits

—Ace

Twitter permits radical congresswoman Jayapal to push the race-hatred disinformation that Michael Brown was "murdered" without being forced to delete it, and without a "disinformation" warning -- despite the fact that this racist lie provoked riots and murders, and an attempted assassination of the innocent policeman forced to kill Brown in self-defense.

I reported her to Twitter. I suggest everyone else do likewise.

We need to begin building a case for why s.230 needs to be revoked for the social media monopolies.

And when Twitter permits this lying whore to spread racially-toxic lies without penalty while speech-patrolling every conservative within an inch of his life -- that's proof they are not "moderating" speech "in good faith," as the Communications Decency Act requires, but that they are acting as publishers pushing an editorial line and are not entitled to immunity to lawsuit.

The Jeffrey Epstein Lawyer should have recused himself -- but instead jumped at the chance to sign a warrant to get Trump:

In a status (emphasis added and archived here for posterity) sharing a Dan Rather post taking issue with President Trump's tweets, Reinhart popped off and quoted degenerate Clinton administration official Robert Reich:

I generally ignore the President-elect's tweets, but not this one. John Lewis arguably has done more to "make America great" than any living citizen. Last August, I took my son to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma so he could understand the kind of courage and sacrifice required to live in a democratic society. John Lewis embodies that spirit. Although I've never met him, he is one of my heroes.

Thank you, Robert Reich, for saying what many of us feel, "John Lewis is the conscience of America. Donald Trump doesn't have the moral stature to kiss John Lewis's feet."

Or, as Joseph Welch said to Joseph McCarthy, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

In related news, Jeff Sessions recused himself from overseeing anything having to do with Russia because he once met, as a Senator, with a Russian Ambassador, while Merrick Garland continues insisting he should be the overseeing prosecutor of his boss's son's investigation.

And of his boss's political opponent.

NeverTrump demanded special prosecutors for Trump -- but the demand none for Hunter Biden, and demand none for Trump now. That is, they refuse to call for an independent and politically-neutral prosecutor to take this matter out of the hands of sleazy partisans like Joe Biden and Merrick Garland.

Regime flack is asked -- why do you claim Biden has nothing to do with skyrocketing gas prices, and then when they fall ten cents, you claim Biden should get the credit?

From last week: Paul Krugman claims he overheard a butcher in the supermarket saying that beef prices aren't going up.

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Conversation overheard at supermarket meat counter:

Customer:"Meat just keeps getting more expensive"

Butcher: "Actually, prices have been coming down"

Paul Krugman is not a scientist; he's a political hack. If he were a scientist, he wouldn't pass off an anecdote as data. (An anecdote he almost certainly made up, of course!)

It would have been easy enough to look up the actual data, of course.

But Kruguman didn't want the actual data -- he wanted to make up an anecdon't (see what I did there, I'm a fucking genius like Walt Disney or Tesla) and put it in the mouth of a safely anonymous, and purely fictional, butcher.

Via Instapundit, Domino's exits the pizza market in Italy. I don't know how good the pizza is in Italy and I suspect a lot of the people laughing don't know, either. I do know that what we think of as pizza is an Italian-American dish, not Italian. "Pizza" in Naples used to be flattend dough fried in oil and dipped in a little sauce with dry cheese like parmesan sprinkled on it.

Sophia Loren serves it up, there, in L'Oro di Napoli. *

Sounds tasty -- the pizza fritta, I mean -- but that's obviously not what we've come to know as "pizza."

So I have no idea if Italian pizza is good or not.

Here's something you wouldn't expect: Coffee in Paris was bad until... Starbucks came. Paris cafes were for sitting and smoking and people-watching, not for quality coffee. They had old machines and prepared it indifferently. But Starbucks forced the country to up its coffee quality.

Anyway, that's why I'm not necessarily laughing at the idea that an American pizza company could make a splash in Italy. Even Domino's. (They offered a different "authentic" recipe in Italy.)

Domino's Pizza Inc.'s footprint in the home of Pizza proved to be short lived with Italians favoring local restaurants over the American version.

The last of Domino's 29 branches have closed after the company started operations in the country seven years ago. It borrowed heavily for plans to open 880 stores, but faced tough competition from local restaurants expanding delivery services during the pandemic and sought protection from creditors after running out of cash and falling behind on its debt obligations.

The US chain entered Italy in 2015 through a franchising agreement with ePizza SpA and planned to distinguish itself by providing a structured national delivery service along with American-style toppings including pineapple.

Okay 880 stores sounds like a lot, man. And I don't know if delivery is as big a thing in Europe, where it's easier to get around.

And come on, pineapple is a gimmick, not a mainstay.

Alex Stein #99 embarrasses a Fake "Journalist" from Vice at CPAC.

From Andy Ngo: Antifa threatening violence to shut down LA Council meeting, to stop them from voting to ban homeless encampments from the vicinity of elementary schools and day cares.

Legal Insurrection: This is a Provocation. Don't Take the Bait.

—Ace

I don't know if this is right, but... maybe:

This is a provocation. They are trying to get a reaction that allows a further crackdown.

Don't take the bait.

My overall sense of what happened at Mar-a-Lago is that this is a provocation.

If New York Times reporting is right -- and they never err on the side of being soft on Trump -- then this raid was over documents the National Archives thinks Trump should not have, or perhaps classified documents in his possession. That is not something the FBI raids major political candidates over -- See, In Re Hillary Rodham Clinton.

This is a provocation. They are trying to get a reaction that allows a further crackdown. See, In Re J6.

There's more, but it's a short post and I can't quote it all.

Certainly The Regime has defined virtually anything that a conservative might say as a "sign of domestic terrorism" now.

If you mention Waco or Ruby Ridge, you're a domestic terrorist.

If you post the Gadsden flag, you're a domestic terrorist.

If you cite the spirit of 1776, you're a domestic terrorist.

If you complain about the government's killing of Ashli Babbit, you're a terrorist.

No really. See below.

You are allowed to put out the racial-hatred stirring false claim that Michael Brown was "murdered" -- a false claim that caused violent riots, and which was proven false by Eric Holder's own racialized DOJ -- but if you say that Ashli Babbit was murdered by a cop who killed an unarmed woman, then you're a "terrorist."

You know who aren't domestic terrorists, according to the FBI and DOJ, right?

Antifa. They don't even exist.

See, they're anti-government, but The Regime approves of leftwing anti-government groups, because leftwing anti-government groups burning down cities, looting stores, and murdering people give The Regime cover to move to the leftwing.

Which is what The Regime wants.

But right-leaning groups expressing criticism of government?

Those are terrorists.

Project Veritas was leaked the FBI's guide to "Violent Extremists'" language and symbology. Ted Cruz cited this in his interrogation of a DOJ thug.

FBI Whistleblower LEAKS Bureau's 'Domestic Terrorism Symbols Guide' on 'Militia Violent Extremists' Citing Ashli Babbitt as MVE Martyr

Leaked document is labelled as "Unclassified/Law Enforcement Sensitive" that is for "FBI Internal Use Only."

Under the "Symbols" category of the document, "2A" is listed with the following explanation: "MVEs justify their existence with the Second Amendment, due to the mention of a 'well regulated Militia,' as well as the right to bear arms."

"Revolutionary War imagery" such as the "Gadsden Flag" and the "Betsy Ross Flag" are cited in the document under "Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery or Quotes."

In the document, the FBI cites symbols, images, phrases, events, and individuals that agents should look out for when identifying alleged
...

Right below that, under the "Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery and Quotes" section, Revolutionary War images such as the Gadsden Flag and the Betsy Ross Flag are listed. Each flag displayed in the document comes with a brief description of what it means.

Under the "Common Phrases and References" section of the leaked document, Ashli Babbitt is cited as a person that MVEs consider to be a Martyr.

As Viva Frei points out: It was the criminal Obama's habit of claiming that he only found out about every sleazy thing he did "from the newspapers, same as you did."

DOJ Source Calls Trump Raid a "Spectacular Backfire;" DOJ Distances Itself from Raid, Claiming Merrick Garland Never Signed Off On It

—Ace

Via John Sexton at Hot Air -- I guess AllahPundit didn't jump to claim this story, for some reason! -- the "Justice" Department is trying to claim this was all the decision of the local US Attorney for, I think, the Southern District of Florida.

Sexton notes a leak put out by someone claiming that there was evidence -- of the walls closing in variety -- that someone had spilled the beans on where Trump was keeping the precious national security documents.

But that doesn't make much sense, Sexton notes, because everyone knew where the documents were -- Trump allowed the DOJ and National Archives people to go through the boxes in June. They could have taken what they wanted.

So this story -- We had to act fast, we knew where the documents were! -- seems shaky.

There seems to have been an orderly and amiable process in place to vet and return the documents:

In February, Archivist David Ferriero testified before Congress that his agency began talking with Trump's people right after they left office and that the Trump camp had already returned 15 boxes of documents to the Archives. Ferriero said that in those materials, the Archives discovered items "marked as classified national security information," unleashing further inquiries as to whether Trump continued to possess classified material.

The basic outlines of the facts surrounding this timeline have been confirmed by the former president. He has previously said that he was returning any official records to the Archives, labeling any confusion in the matter as "an ordinary and routine process to ensure the preservation of my legacy and in accordance with the Presidential Records Act." He also claimed the Archives "did not 'find' anything" in what he had already been returned, suggesting that there was nothing sensitive. He said the documents had inadvertently shipped to Florida during the six-hour transition period in which his belongings were moved.

According to the Justice Department source, the Archives saw things differently, believing that the former White House was stonewalling and continued to possess unauthorized material. Earlier this year, they asked the Justice Department to investigate.

So you... raid a president's home for the first time in American history?!

Sexton points out that this cover story about having to act fast based on this tip omits the detail about everyone already knowing where all the documents were stored:

The story points to the FBI's focus on a few specific areas as proof they knew where to look. But curiously this story doesn’t mention the June meeting between investigators and Trump's lawyers when they looked through some of the documents kept in a basement storage room. In other words, the DOJ didn't need a secret source to know the documents were kept in that particular room because they'd seen them there themselves and, at the time, not taken them.

And adding to its shakiness is the fact that, according to this story, Merrick Garland is claiming he wasn't in the loop on this.

But Criminal Wray was.

In the past week, the prosecutor in the case and local Assistant U.S. Attorney went to Florida magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in West Palm Beach to seek approval for the search of Donald Trump's private residence. The affidavit to obtain the search warrant, the intelligence source says, contained abundant and persuasive detail that Trump continued to possess the relevant records in violation of federal law, and that investigators had sufficient information to prove that those records were located at Mar-a-Lago--including the detail that they were contained in a specific safe in a specific room.

We have a hot tip, we have a hot tip!

You know those sensitive records we're working with Trump to get back...?

Well get this: They're in the room we already know he's keeping them in. But wait -- specifically, he keeps some of the most sensitive ones... in his safe.

A SAFE, huh?! Who'd've thunk it?!

I KNOW, right?!! That's some top-grade Direct-From-Danchenko Steele-Level Russian-Sourced intel, huh? NOW LET'S RAID THE PRESIDENT'S FUCKING PERSONAL RESIDENCE BASED ON THIS INCREDIBLE HUMINT!!!

You mean: Like Hillary Clinton continued to possess classified US intelligence on her servers, until she defied government demands for those emails and used BleachBit to destroy them?

I don't remember any raids being ordered to recover those emails. I remember her being allowed to keep the emails as long as she liked, and then to destroy them, without any consequences.

This sounds like the faked-up FISA warrant again. People knew where these documents were already-- but the warrant is written breathlessly, hiding from the Epstein Lawyer Magistrate that this information was not new but already well-known.

...

The senior Justice Department source says that Garland was regularly briefed on the Records Act investigation, and that he knew about the grand jury and what material federal prosecutors were seeking. He insists, though, that Garland had no prior knowledge of the date and time of the specific raid, nor was he asked to approve it. "I know it's hard for people to believe," says the official, "but this was a matter for the U.S. Attorney and the FBI."

FBI director Christopher Wray ultimately gave his go-ahead to conduct the raid, the senior Justice official says. "It really is a case of the Bureau misreading the impact."

Disband. Impeach. Defund his pension.

Sexton has another story, which, again, somehow the Always Online AllahPundit failed to claim for his own -- even CNN's legal analyst says that the DOJ and FBI will have to offer compelling explanations as to why this extraordinarily invasive measure was chosen, instead of far less invasive measures, such as... simply continuing to work with Trump to get the documents back.

Murderer of Four Muslim Men Arrested;
Either a "White Shi'ite" or a "MAGA Muslim" Or Possibly a Trumpislamist Of Some Kind

—Ace

Donaldah Akbar!

The FBI will not be classifying this as any kind of "Domestic Violent Extremism," which they would, of course, if the criminals were white. Gotta get those white "DVE" quota numbers up, and restrict the number of incidents you call "Islamic terrorism" to keep those numbers down.

Lord Obama Wills It.

The left, the media, and NeverTrump -- but I repeat myself thrice -- have covered themselves in shame-bukake again.

The ambush killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico, shook the community but inspired a flood of information, including a tip that led to the arrest of a local Muslim man originally from Afghanistan who knew the victims, authorities said.

Muhammad Syed, 51, was arrested on Monday after a traffic stop more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away from his home in Albuquerque. He was charged with killing two victims and was identified as the prime suspect in the other two slayings, authorities announced Tuesday.

The Muslim community is breathing "an incredible sigh of relief," said Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico. "Lives have been turned upside down."

It wasn't immediately clear whether Syed had an attorney to speak on his behalf.

The first killing last November was followed by three more between July 26 and Aug. 5.

Police Chief Harold Medina said it was not clear yet whether the deaths should be classified as hate crimes or serial killings or both.

"President" Biden of course pushed the "White Supremacist" line by declaring a motive, anti-Muslim "hate" -- before there was any evidence for that.

Just as he branded Kyle Rittenhouse a "white supremacist" with no evidence.

There was no "anti-Muslim hate." This was a family feud between Muslims.

But they will never correct this, ever.

Despite the killer being captured and identified as Muslim and not a "White Supremacist," the New York Times still strains to Rescue the Narrative and talk up the the threat posed to "immigrants" from hostile whites -- Because of Trump!

NPR: Illegal Aliens in NYC and DC are the Responsibility of the Governors of Texas and Arizona, You Know

—Ace

Texas Governor Greg Abbott wasn't sending illegals to New York City -- but after Eric Adams accused him of sending them, he's sending them now.

From last week:

Greg Abbott @GregAbbott_TX

Governor candidate, TX

The 1st bus of migrants has arrived in NYC.

Biden refuses to do his job, so Texas continues to take unprecedented action to secure our border.

NYC is the ideal destination for these migrants.

They can receive the services Mayor Adams has boasted about w/in the sanctuary city.

This might be TMI but I'm literally hard enough to crack walnuts.

Meanwhile, NPR believes that it's Abbott's and Ducey's job to greet illegal aliens at the borders of DC and NYC, and to have a "plan" for them once they get there.

Isn't that Joe Biden's job?

Isn't that the job of the leftwing mayors of these sanctuary cities?

GOP governors sent buses of migrants to D.C. and NYC -- with no plan for what's next

NPR @NPR

Texas and Arizona governors continue to send buses full of migrants and refugees to Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, just a few blocks from the Capitol building.

Upon arrival no government officials are there to meet them.

NPR is picking up that complaint from NYC Mayor Eric Adams, who is looking for any excuse to say "stop sending me illegal aliens" without quite saying it.

Here was Eric Adams in October, 2021:

Eric Adams @ericadamsfornyc

"We should protect our immigrants." Period.

Yes, New York City will remain a sanctuary city under an Adams administration. #EricOnNBC

And now?

"Horrific!"

Remember the gasps and outrage when Trump said "they're not sending their best"!

And now -- "Horrific!"

My parody from last week was dead-balls accurate! (Don't comment on old posts or you'll get autobanned.)

NYC Mayor Eric Adams is hopping mad about these "horrific" illegals!

Chron @chron

"It is unimaginable what the governor of Texas has done."

@GregAbbott_TX's ongoing practice of bussing migrants detained near Texas' southern border to metropolises in other states has touched a new nerve with
@NYCMayor

...

Adams says that more than 4,000 asylum seekers have attempted to seek refuge at the city's homeless shelters since May.

"This is horrific, when you think about what the governor is doing," Adams said while meeting a bus of arriving migrants at the Port Authority bus terminal.

Buh buh... buh what about the poem on the Statute of Liberty, Eric?

That didn't say that immigrants were "horrific"!

I guess it did call them "wretched refuse," though.

New Yorkers seem to understand that this is Biden's crisis, not Abbott's or Ducey's:

New Yorkers react to Biden’s border crisis

pic.twitter.com/4xqfWma3ca

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 8, 2022

Meanwhile, Eric Adams has a super-plan for stopping these "horrific" illegals from coming to his formerly sanctuary city: He's going to fill up a bus with obnoxious New York leftwingers to bring them to Texas, to campaign for Robert Francis O'Rourke.

Yeah... Texans will love that.

Is Eric Adams... retarded?

Eric Adams says he is "deeply contemplating taking a busload of New Yorkers to Texas" to campaign against Greg Abbott in response to him busing 4,000 illegal migrants to his city. pic.twitter.com/0VqmQkREfM

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 9, 2022

It should be remembered that Biden was covertly flying immigrants all over the country on secret night-flights -- including to New York.

But that was to little town in more conservative areas of upstate New York, not New York City.

So that was okay.

Note that, while Eric Adams is claiming that Governor Abbott's Friendship Buses (that's their new name, tell a friend!) are bad because no one called him in advance to tell him when they're coming -- Joe Biden's secret nightflights were all unannounced, too. The small towns who were the Sudden Beneficiaries of hundreds of New Undocumented Citizens weren't even told they were on the list of this unexpected bounty of new, needy humanity.

Close it up

AP: Weird, There Are Fewer Cops and People Are Having to Wait for Life-Saving Assistance.
There Can Only Be One Explanation: The Shortages in Police Must be Due to... COVID

—Ace

Nailed it, AP. It's covid -- not your own campaigning to "Defund the Police," and painting targets on cops' backs so that anyone who can retire, has retired.

Oh, I forgot: It's not just covid.

It's also due to the "tight labor market" caused by Biden's Miracle Economy. See, cops left policing to pursue career opportunities in Green Technologies, I guess.

The AP briefly alludes to "disillusionment" following George Floyd's murder. For some reason -- I'll leave it to you to figure out why -- they refuse to mention the "Defund the Police" movement, and instead use the bizarre word-replacement, "calls to divest from policing."

They just can't bear to say "Defund the Police" caused this, so they come up with other words to euphemize it.

And then they turn to blaming the lack of cops on covid and Biden's Super Economy instead of themselves.

The AP then also denies that the George Floyd riots and the police pullback demanded by the AP and their leftwing pals had anything to do with the soaring crime rates.

Those, too, are caused by... covid.

Five years after Brian Spaulding's parents found him fatally shot in the home he shared with roommates, his slaying remains a mystery that seems increasingly unlikely to be solved as Portland, Oregon, police confront a spike in killings and more than 100 officer vacancies.

The detective assigned to investigate the death of Spaulding -- a chiropractic assistant who didn't do drugs, wasn't in a gang and lived close to the house where he was born -- left in 2020 in a wave of retirements and the detective assigned to it now is swamped with fresh cases after Portland's homicide rate surged 207% since 2019.

"To us, it's not a cold case," said George Spaulding, who has his son's signature tattooed on his arm. "We're not dissatisfied with the Police Bureau because I think they're doing the best they can," he said. "They are just overwhelmed. It's insane."

From Philadelphia to Portland to Los Angeles, killings and gun violence are rising at the same time officers worn out by the pandemic and disillusioned over the calls to divest from policing that followed George Floyd's murder are quitting or retiring faster than they can be replaced.

Departments are scrambling to recruit in a tight labor market and also rethinking what services they can provide and what role police should play in their communities. Many have shifted veteran officers to patrol, breaking up specialized teams built over decades in order to keep up with 911 calls.

Wow, so many reasons for the huge decline in police! With so many reasons to choose from, it would be irresponsible to single any one of them out as the main cause of blame!

"We're getting more calls for service and there are fewer people to answer them," said Philadelphia Police spokesperson Eric Gripp, whose department has been rotating employees from specialty units for short assignments to increase patrols. "This isn't just an issue in Philadelphia. Departments all over are down and recruitment has been difficult."

Why would recruitment be difficult? It used to be very hard to get a job as a cop, because there were so many applicants.

Why is it so hard now?

Just... covid and Biden's Miracle Non-Recessionary Economy, huh?

Los Angeles, which is down more than 650 officers from its pre-pandemic staffing level, shuttered its animal cruelty unit and downsized its human trafficking, narcotics and gun details and reduced its homeless outreach teams by 80%. Seattle recently announced $2 million in hiring bonuses and benefits to lure recruits amid a critical officer shortage that has hampered the investigation of serious crimes.

The pinch has led some cities to experiment to reduce strain on patrol officers.

Portland recently added unarmed "public support specialists" to take reports on things like vehicle break-ins and bike thefts, and in San Diego, licensed psychiatric clinicians go to mental health calls with officers.

"For me, I wonder, what the profession is going to be 20 years from now if we're having these challenges on a nationwide scale. Are we going to be able to recruit enough people to serve our cities?" asked Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell, whose force has lost 237 sworn officers through retirements or resignations since 2020.

Well, covid won't be a problem in 20 years, and one assumes Biden's Miracle Economy will have abated, so presumably, recruiting will be back up.

Right?

Portland logged a record 89 homicides last year -- roughly three times its historical average -- and is on pace to top that this year after already tallying more than 50.

Hey that's another possible factor -- now that leftwing mayors and Soros prosecutors have decriminalized crime and set all the criminals free, crime i soaring, and cops can't make a difference, even if they were staffed at their previous levels.

Maybe that accounts for the death-spiral causing them to quit: Their jobs consist of nothing but arresting the same people only to see them put back out on the street by a leftwing mayor and Soros DA within hours.

Nah. Probably just "worn out from the pandemic" and getting great jobs building Tesla charging stations.

A report completed for the city last month by the California Partnership for Safe Communities found it had the largest homicide rate increase among similarly sized cities and 75% of homicides in 2020 were by gun. The city has seen nearly 800 shootings this year.

That follows a national trend. While non-violent crime decreased during the pandemic, the murder rate increased nearly 30% in 2020 and the rate of assaults went up 10%, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Ah, that's bullshit. Non-violent crime increased even more -- people just stopped reporting it, because cops stopped doing anything about it.

Crime has been decriminalized. You have to bother the police to even get them to take an interest in major crimes, let alone thefts.

It's unclear what's driving the surge...

It's "unclear." It's obviously due to the agenda we've been pushing for years and the leftwing Soros government we promote, so we'll say "it's unclear."

But, that said, all this crime is due to covid and guns.

...but COVID-19 created huge social disruption and upended government and community support systems. Gun sales also spiked during the pandemic.

Legal gun sales spiked? Oh, and it's... legal guns being used in these gangbanger murders, huh?

Experts say widely cited theories that violent crime is worse in places that changed policing tactics in the wake of protests over Floyd's murder don't bear out. Violent crime has increased in red and blue communities alike, regardless of their approach.

What about the experts who say those theories are accurate? Are they going to get any press, or just the leftwing hacks who push your Soros Ideology?

It goes on for a bit, claiming that crime rose because of covid and then... remained high even post covid because of covid.

And, I guess-- also because of Biden's Miracle Economy? Shouldn't a Miracle Economy result in lower crime, as every other hot economy in history has resulted?

Scott Alexander took a look at the "experts" denying the obvious -- that the reason crime and especially murder spiked just after the George Floyd riots was, get this, because of the George Floyd riots, and the left's rush to decriminalize crime and demonize police for policing -- and found these "Experts" to be Reality Deniers.

What Caused The 2020 Homicide Spike?

In my review of San Fransicko, I mentioned that it was hard to separate the effect of San Francisco’s local policies from the general 2020 spike in homicides, which I attributed to the Black Lives Matter protests and subsequent police pullback.

Note right there, in that chart, the debunking of the claim by "experts" in the AP article that small towns were experiencing the same increase in crime as large cities -- um, no.

Is "double" the same? It's also a sharper increase in cities of 250,000 or more.

Several people in the comments questioned my attribution, saying that they'd read news articles saying the homicide spike was because of the pandemic, or that nobody knew what was causing the spike.

Huh, isn't that strange, the AP just claimed all that -- it's because of 1, covid, or 2, "no one knows."

I agree there are many articles like that, but I disagree with them. Here's why:

Timing

When exactly did the spike start? The nation shut down for the pandemic in mid-March 2020, but the BLM protests didn't start until after George Floyd's death in late May 2020. So did the homicide spike start in March, or May?

Let's check in with the Council on Criminal Justice:

It very clearly started in late May, not mid-March. The months of March, April, and early May had the same number of homicides as usual.

The only "source" which dissents with this is a chart from the Intercept, which cherry-picks which cities to count and which to exclude - certainly to produce the numbers their Soros Ideology dictates.

Alexander notes that in the cities which bought in hardest to the George Floyd Martyr narrative, the spike in May -- not March, May -- crimes in the most pronounced.

In NYC, for example:

Same for Chicago.
So if you want to cherry-pick cities, Intercept...

Read the whole thing. It's a great piece.

But the AP cites "the experts" who say that a crime spike that clearly started in late May, 2020 -- just after the George Floyd riots and police pullback -- actually started in March or earlier.

Disgusting. Disgusting.

If this is the response of the city dwellers -- to deny their own responsibility for the crime they've unleashed on themselves -- then let the cities die.

Close it up

NeverTrump Smugly Repeats the Coordinated Message of the Day: Trump Has the Warrant, He Should Release It.
Except... Does He Have the Warrant?
CLAIM: The FBI "Showed" the Lawyer the Warrant... FROM TEN FEET AWAY

—Ace

The left, the media, and NeverTrump -- but, as is so common, I repeat myself thrice -- is yet again on the exact same messaging page, repeating the same Misinformation: To wit, that Trump has the warrant, and if there's something faulty in it, he should release it.

Implication: He hasn't released it, so it's perfect.

Here are some of the usual Misinformation Specialists pushing the claim that he has the warrant... without any evidence that he has the warrant, apart from seeing assholes on Twitter speculate he has it.

This "conservative" works for Politico now, and The Dispatch:

Sarah Isgur @whignewtons

Just another reminder: Trump has a copy of the warrant, which will include what they searched for and what crimes they believe were broken. He can release it whenever he wants.

She's yet another example of the Establishment grabbing up every woman or gay warm body who claims to be even slightly "conservative" so we can "do outreach" to liberals, and then, surprise surprise, she turns out to be a liberal herself.

Can we stop doing that now? (I myself may have sinned...)

Although, to be honest, the Fat Short Bald Pudgy Redneck White Guys aren't sending their best, either:

Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson

Why hasn't Trump released a copy of the warrant that was served at Mar A Lago?

"Professor of Journalism" as usual assumes facts without actually doing any reportage or fact checking to determine the facts:

Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu

Free lede for any newsroom that needs it.

WASHINGTON, August 9. Former president Donald Trump has so far refused to release the warrant served on him Monday, keeping voters in the dark, and creating an information vacuum that supporters have filled with threats and accusations.

Unemployed rando loser on Twitter:

Joe Walsh
@WalshFreedom

Trump has the warrant. He could release it.

Hillary Clinton's corrupt lawyer:

Noted Easily-Duped Bumpkin Ed Morrissey assumed Trump had the warrant because all of the c*cks and liberals he follows on Twitter told him he did and that was good enough for Ed!

And now he updates: Wait, did he have the warrant?

Well, it turns out, Trump does not have the warrant that all of these Very Well-Informed Smart Set Patriots Who Are Reliable Sources and Never Spread Partisan Misinformation insisted he did.

Or, at least: There is no evidence he has it, and Eric Trump specifically denies he has it.

The Daily Mail:

EXCLUSIVE: Eric Trump reveals what REALLY happened in the FBI raid: President's son says agents REFUSED to hand over warrant, kicked lawyer off the property, searched Melania's clothes - and how Mar-a-Lago staff refused to turn off security cameras

Eric Trump revealed FBI agents refused to hand over the search warrant for their raid on Mar-a-Lago and kicked an attorney off the property in a new, incisive account of the Monday operation at the Florida estate.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, the former president's son said the 30 agents who arrived at the property asked staff to turn security cameras off -- but they refused.

The bureau, he said, also brought safe crackers in to break into his father's safe, and he slammed the investigators for rummaging former first lady Melania's wardrobe and searching through clothing.

He called the raid another 'coordinated attack' on his father Donald Trump and insisted there is no way President Joe Biden was kept in the dark about the search.

CBS News reports that Trump's attorney confirms that the warrant is "sealed." Meaning, he was not allowed to see examine it.

[Trump attorney Lindsey] Halligan said the search warrant was sealed, and because she had not been party to this aspect of Trump's legal portfolio until Monday, did not know what kinds of documents the FBI might be looking for nor what kinds of documents the former president keeps with him at Mar-a-Lago.

Now one can say, "Well that's not proof, those are two interested parties making that claim."

Well, one's a lawyer, though. There are professional consequences to lying. (Are you done laughing? I mean, there are consequences if you're opposed to The Regime.)

And also: If they're lying, where's the denial from the FBI and DOJ?

Are the FBI and DOJ going to allow them to spread this Dangerous Malinformation without rebuttal?

I guess so. I guess so.

I'm really tired of the alleged "Smart Set" on Twitter. Every single day you see them popping off their perfectly-ignorant, uninformed opinions. They do not read cases, they do not read original documents. They just read twitter.

Their "informed opinions" come from other perfect imbeciles on Twitter, who also know nothing.

But they just keep repeating the same uninformed, unsourced guesses and speculations -- no one bothering to track down any citations or authorities for the claims -- and they take comfort in the fact that Everyone On Twitter is Saying It, So It Must Be True.

By the way, none of them will delete their tweets or apologize for having spread misinformation with such perfect confidence. The perfect confidence that only the shallowest of ignorant imbeciles can possess. The people who are so stupid and so incapable of critical thought that the most basic, fundamental self-check -- wait, how do I know I "know" this??! -- never occurs to them, ever.

Not even once.

Why should they question it? They have it from the highest source possible: From other dull minds who sit on Twitter all fucking day, repeating other people's "Twitter Wit" and passing it off as their own wisdom and insight.

It's a Human Centipede of Smugly-Assured Ignorance, one unwarrantedly-confident imbecile shitting into the next unaccountably-selfsure know-nothing's wide-open mouth.

Update: According to this Twitter user, Eric Trump says the FBI "showed" the lawyer the warrant from "ten feet away," too far away to actually read, and refused to leave a copy.

I don't know if he's claiming this, or if he is claiming it, if it's true.

It would explain things, though -- how the FBI would claim they technically "presented" the warrant -- from ten feet away! -- but did not actually let anyone read it.

Julia @Jules31415

Eric Trump: "They told our lawyer... you have to leave the property right now. Turn off all security cameras. They would not give her the search warrant. So they showed it to her from about 10 feet away. They would not give her a copy of the search warrant."

Gestapo tactics.

If that's true -- if -- it will take David French about 30 minutes to reconfigure all of "Muh Princibuhls" and begin defending it as necessary and prudent.

Wednesday Morning Rant [Joe Mannix]

—Open Blogger

Everything in public life today indicates the unserious and obsessive passions of those running the show. Behavior from the highest corridors of power to corporate boardrooms to lecture halls, classrooms, doctors' offices and the press appears to be just so much obsession with minutia and symbolic enemies. It's passionate argument over which flavor of fancy coffee creamer to use or who hates the symbolic enemy more as the house burns down.

This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the stupid, venal, partisan and obsessive pile of trash that used to be called "the press." The flippant and casual immaturity with which the press addresses the developments and stories of the day is breathtaking. There were two headlines recently that underscore their unprofessional and obsessive behavior, both of which were brought to my attention by fellow Morons.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

A Laughing Bravo with a Bass Viol and a Glass
Hendrick Terbrugghen

The subject and execution are great, but damn dude, buy some new colors!

The Morning Report — 8/10/22

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning, kids. Wednesday and in the wake of the junta's Gestapo-like raid on Mar-a-Lago, the pundits are out there analyzing the fallout. A number of them are prognosticating that this maneuver all but guarantees President Trump will at the very least be the nominee and that what happened makes his re-election in 2024 a lead pipe cinch. It is amazing to me that after all we have witnessed up to and including this revolting episode that people still believe that regular order, elections, and life in general in America goes on as it always has, when in fact the republic as it was, or as we had always imagined it, has fallen and in fact fell a long time ago.

Michael Goodwin, who is a pretty good columnist for the NY Post despite his Trump aversion, wrote a column with what has got to be the most clueless headline imaginable in light of the past 48 hours, and certainly the past five years:

Aww, isn't he cute? Along with planted, fabricated evidence, they'll have a DC jury pool along with the junta's answer to Roland Freisler, Emmett Sullivan, on the bench presiding. That should be more than "enough," Michael.

In any case, to reiterate, what does it really mean to have elections in the wake of what happened at Mar-a-Lago and really in the wake of 2020? And this is not an acute problem. Electoral fraud happens at every level and has been going on for decades (see 1960 as one example), and when we collectively decide to accept it, then it leads directly to the situation we find ourselves in. We are fallible human beings, and temptation is what it is, but this just crosses the line into something that was unimaginable even just a few years ago. The corruption is so deep and dark that only now are we seeing it. It's not just in politics but it has seeped into every corner of our society. I know I've had this quote from Abraham Lincoln before but it is just so striking in its accuracy that it might very well be our epitaph:

In actuality, Lincoln is partially correct insofar as the ideology that infected our society did come from abroad in the form of Marxism which spread thanks to the importation of the acolytes of the Frankfurt School. But evil is evil and we just took Herbert Marcuse's ball and ran with it on our own.

Let's look at this corruption in light of the raid. The FBI is, or was, a fabled institution that so many of us believed was staffed with brave, capable, incorruptible crime fighters that kept Americans safe in their homes. From the time we all got a peek up J. Edgar Hoover's skirt and saw more than a little ankle up until the present day, fools like Andrew McCarthy still claim that it's staffed by 99% good-guy ham-and-eggers and it's the political stooges at the top that ruin the image. And yet, you can rail all you want at Christopher Wray and James Comey, but it wasn't them rifling through Melania's lingerie drawer.

If the FBI rank and file are such decent, honest, ethical people, surely they'd all have refused to participate, blown the whistle ahead of time and resigned en masse rather than "just follow orders."

At the very least, I will grant that the average FBI agent while perhaps not necessarily eager to be the tip of the spear in a Gestapo-like illegal raid on the de facto head of the political opposition of a divided nation, is certainly human. They will get along to go along because they know it could just as easily be them rotting away in the Garland Archipelago along with the J6 political prisoners. Don't get me wrong; I'm damned sure there are agents at the FBI who have orgasmic delight in putting their boots on the neck of average people and you better believe more than just a handful were on the scene ripping Trump's home apart with gusto. How far we have fallen. Or really how far the insidious bastards who rotted us out from within have dragged us down.

Just to reiterate, it's not just the FBI. It's in every department of every agency. Not just law enforcement or national security but everywhere in the bureaucracy which, to remind you (as if I really need to) is in the main unconstitutional in its founding, scope and purview yet is where the real political power resides in this nation.

With multiple agencies weaponized, as we have seen clearly with the DOJ, FBI, and intelligence community, will the IRS pick up low-level enforcement? The FBI can’t arrest all of the regime’s opponents. It doesn’t need to. Enough tax liens, additional payments, and lengthy investigations will subdue most average Americans. The process is the punishment, and the IRS can bankrupt the average family faster than the DOJ bankrupted Gen. Michael Flynn. According to Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, Democrats have vowed to revive their banking surveillance. You may recall that their initial Build Back Better proposal was to audit every banking transaction over $200. Supposedly that is why the IRS needed to double in size in the first place. And the IRS is doubling in size. Manchin and Sinema will obviously cave with the correct incentives. And you should not put anything past Democrats at this point.

Does the raid on Mar-a-Lago mean anything in terms of electoral politics? That depends if you believe that electoral politics is going to mean anything in terms of halting this madness and even having the chance, slim though it might be if we do win and win massively, of starting the process of reversing course. It gets harder and harder with each passing day and each new outrage to believe that voting is a factor. In any case, I don't think we can necessarily go back to what was. But we can't lay down and surrender either. Something big is in the wind. Dictators and despots ultimately will fall, but not before leaving millions of people dead in their wake. I hope it never comes to that. I fear it will.

For now, we just have to stay engaged. And enraged.

FYI: Obviously, the Mar-a-Lago story is sucking all the oxygen out of the news but there are some important stories in the links so do take the time to peruse them.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Michael Anton: "America must sink so the world may rise."
  Socialism and the Great Reset
  
• "When looking at Hungary, Americans find a nation that has not lost its will to fight, its will to preserve itself, and its will to persist for future generations. This is a nation that has repeatedly elected a leader who represents the best of their national values from a young age—one who put his life on the line to fight against communism and liberate his nation as a young student activist."
  What Americans Can Learn From Viktor Orbán's Courage
  
• "Western policing is on the road to hell, paved with woke intentions."
  From Law Enforcers to Woke Enforcers
  
• "How market globalists, progressives, and jihadists found allies in each other."
  Globalization in the Shadow of the Crescent
  
• "With multiple agencies weaponized, as we have seen clearly with the DOJ, FBI, and intelligence community, will the IRS pick up low-level enforcement? The FBI can’t arrest all of the regime’s opponents. It doesn’t need to. Enough tax liens, additional payments, and lengthy investigations will subdue most average Americans. The process is the punishment, and the IRS can bankrupt the average family faster than the DOJ bankrupted Gen. Michael Flynn. According to Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, Democrats have vowed to revive their banking surveillance. You may recall that their initial Build Back Better proposal was to audit every banking transaction over $200. Supposedly that is why the IRS needed to double in size in the first place. And the IRS is doubling in size. Manchin and Sinema will obviously cave with the correct incentives. And you should not put anything past Democrats at this point."
  Do Those 87,000 IRS Agents Look a Little Different This Morning? They Should.

Daily Tech News 10 August 2022

—Pixy Misa

Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (8/9/22)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Quote I

"We are making plans for all sorts of contingencies across public services, particularly critical areas like health," Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Kit Malthouse

Quote II

“The FBI raid on Trump’s home tells us one thing. Failure is not an option. We must destroy the FBI. We must save America. I stand with Donald J. Trump,” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)

Quote III

Merrick Garland may very well still be working out his Mitch McConnell daddy issues but he’s also the puppet president’s puppet. The prime directive of this Democratic hive mind is to keep Donald Trump off of the ballot in 2024 because they know that he will destroy them. Stephen Kruiser

Quote IV

“I would much rather serve with Mikie Sherrill and Chrissy Houlahan and Elissa Slotkin than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, even though on substance certainly I have big disagreements with the Democratic women I just mentioned,” Rep. Liz Cheney (RINO-WY)

Quote V

“Not only did Reinhart make an ethically questionable move from prosecuting Epstein and his accomplices to representing them, but according to FEC records, Reinhart donated $1,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and another $1,000 to a pro-Obama PAC in 2008,” PJ Media’s Matt Margolis

***

Ladies, gentlemen and everything in between. I proudly present you the POTUS and Leader of The Free World............

After seeing the CIC in action and watching the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, can you believe this assertion?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has backfired immensely for Moscow. Instead of a quick defeat of Ukraine and a capture of Kyiv, the war has dragged on for almost half a year with bloody consequences. According to the Department of Defense’s own reports, Russia has suffered between 70,000 and 80,000 soldiers killed or wounded.

***

Paul Joseph Watson's take on what happened at the Trump estate.

***

Although my father sold a different brand of vehicles, I always thought the IHScout was cool. It's making a comeback.

Scott Keogh, the incoming CEO of Volkswagen's new Scout brand, really loves old Internationals. In fact, he loves them so much that he attended Harvester Homecoming in Indiana this past weekend. It's an enthusiast event held at one of the company's old engineering facilities in Fort Wayne, and Keogh turned up to show his dedication to the Harvester hardcore.

VW acquired the rights to the Scout name in 2021 when its Traton truck unit was merged with Navistar, International's parent company. For the uninitiated, the IH Scout was a two-door off-roader made from 1961 to 1980, fighting against rigs like the Jeep CJ. VW confirmed plans to bring Scout back as its own off-road EV brand in 2026 with a pickup truck and a "rugged" SUV.

***

I didn't know this. But, I'm not surprised. Domino's Pizza can't make it in Italy. Whatever possessed them to think that was a Win-Win Pizza Dinner idea?

Just seven years after making its debut in Milan, Domino’s Pizza is saying arrivederci to Italy.

The fast food giant closed the last of its 29 stores on the Italian Peninsula after struggling to gain a foothold in the country, Bloomberg reports, with locals proving to be difficult to win over for the American chain.

The company’s exit from Italy was met with cheers on Twitter, where users mocked Domino’s for even attempting to establish a foothold in the homeland of pizza in the first place.

***

It's a monster. Kicks at dirt and says, "Never mind."

A recent sighting of the Loch Ness Monster turned out to be an escaped Alpaca going for a swim. When a long-necked figure was seen in the infamous waters people naturally assumed it was the mythical creature, but they were wrong.

It turns out a herd of the South American mammals had escaped from a nearby enclosure and had decided to go for a swim, and one, with it's neck protruding from the water, looked remarkably like the iconic shot of Nessie, as the Daily Star reports.

An image of an alpaca in the loch was shared on social media and people soon began making jokes about the situation, as one said: "Cue the Nessie sightings from the other side of the loch."

***

I am Woman hear me roar. Then the roaring stopped.

A senior woman who expressed discomfort regarding a trans-identified male in the women’s changing room at her local pool has been banned from using the facilities she frequented for over three decades.

Julie Jaman, 80, had been a guest at the YMCA-run Mountain View community pool in her small town of Port Townsend, Washington for over 35 years. Speaking to Reduxx, Jaman revealed that on July 26, she witnessed a trans-identified male using the female locker rooms at the pool, and became concerned due to the fact he appeared to be watching the little girls as they changed out of their bathing suits.

***

Most of the time I take issue with civil forfeitures. This is one of those instances I do not. I bet you won't see this on CNN.

Judge Orders Forfeiture of Michael Avenatti’s Jet, Purchased with Stolen Client Money and Seized in 2019

A federal judge today ordered the forfeiture of a jet Michael Avenatti bought with stolen client money.

The five-page order from Senior U.S. District Judge James V. Selna in the Central District of California provides 30 days for anyone other than Avenatti to request a hearing “to adjudicate the validity” of their claimed interest in the Honda HA-420 aircraft, originally valued at $4.5 million.

There are at least a few possibilities of that occurring, as Alexis Gardner, the client whose settlement money Avenatti used to buy the jet, already has a claim for it pending in a separate U.S. District Court action.

***

Is this a sign of good things? Maryland sees huge growth in Concealed Carry classes.

A new phenomenon in Maryland: packed houses for concealed carry classes

Under Maryland’s “may issue” concealed carry law applicants had to be able to demonstrate some sort of special circumstance that elevated them above the average citizen before they could be issued a license. After the Bruen decision striking down New York’s similar statutes was handed down, however, Gov. Larry Hogan instructed the state police to drop their “good cause” requirement, and we’re already seeing the impact.

In the weeks since, applications to the state police have soared 700% , and firearms instructors say they’re seeing a similar surge in interest for the training classes that are mandatory for anyone wanting to exercise their right to bear arms in public.

***

Quite the vacation. I Went To A Waterpark And All I Got Was This Lousy Flu.

On June 11, 2021, at least 21 people got sick with an illness caused by the Shigella bacteria. On June 18 that same year, another six were infected with norovirus.

The Wichita Eagle later reported that another 36 people reported illness, but none were confirmed to test positive for Shigella or norovirus.

The rare Shigella bacteria is only spread through nonhuman primates, the CDC said.

However, the only primate available for direct interaction at the park that June were lemurs, who are not known to carry the bacteria.

***

She lives in a gated fortress in the swamp. She doesn't give a rat's ass.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) district saw a 57% increase in major crime under her tenure, a new study found.

The district suffered massive increases in what the New York Police Department considers the seven "major" crimes of murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto, a study by former NYPD inspector Paul Mauro found. Shootings went up by 47.05%, the study said.

"Let’s just say, with those numbers: Were she a precinct commander, she’d better have some answers for the chief of department," Mauro wrote in an opinion piece.

The former inspector dismissed anticipated criticism that the end of coronavirus lockdowns was the culprit for the increase because crime rates were consistently increasing while the lockdowns were underway. He tied the drastic increase to the $1.5 billion cut in funding for the NYPD in 2020, an effort Ocasio-Cortez spearheaded and lamented wasn't enough

***

On the Horde behavior front. There is Yoko, there is Tanya. Now we also have Hero Alom.

You have been warned.

***

The ONT Musical Interlude & Strawberry Preserves Emporium

RIP Lamont Dozier.

&&&

On this day: August 9,2007 - Frank Zappa
Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed today as the city's official Frank Zappa Day, citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defence of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. via thisdayinmusic.com

&&&

Born on this day: August 9, 1943 - Wanda Young
American singer Wanda Young. She was a member and after 1965, the lead singer of the Motown all-female singing group the Marvelettes. They gave Motown their first No.1 Pop single in late 1961 with ‘Please Mr. Postman’. The Beatles later recorded ‘Please Mr. Postman’ on their second studio album With the Beatles and in 1975, the Carpenters' remake of ‘Please Mr. Postman’ was a No.1 hit around the world. She died on 15 December 2021 age 78. via thisdayinmusic.com

***

If only she had Sous Vide. Genius Award Winner 1st Runner Up.

AUGUST 9--A Florida Woman is facing a domestic assault charge for allegedly throwing a raw steak at her partner during a confrontation Sunday night in their residence.

Police say Rochelle Wright, 42, and the male victim were “involved in a verbal argument and were intoxicated” when the uncooked meat went airborne. Wright and the man, cops report, have been together for 20 years and are the parents of a juvenile.

According to a criminal complaint, Wright “became angry at the victim” while he was seated in a chair inside the family’s home in Tarpon Springs, a Tampa suburb. Wright, investigators allege, “subsequently picked up the steak and threw it at the victim.”

The meat, however, missed its mark. Instead, the steak struck the victim’s chair and a nearby wall. When questioned by police, Wright reportedly copped to the meat flinging, saying she was “tired of his behavior and their arguing.”

And finally another Florida resident who is tonight's Genius Award Winner.

Man released from Pinellas jail tried breaking into 3 sheriff’s office vehicles on grounds
He had previously been arrested on a drunken driving charge after rear-ending a car on Ulmerton Road.

***

Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

***

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Photography.

Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. until the Stasi takes us down.

Close it up

Tiny Roar Cafe

—Ace

What am I looking at here?

When your dog just doesn't have time for your nonsense.

Two great big cat kittens Pouncing videos. I've linked these before, but I think this is the first time they have sound.

Very cute: stray cats bring a kitten along over a big jump.

Sound on: is the sea lion laughing?

"Oh we're doing this, now?"

Mixes 3D street painting and bears, so it must be good.

Content warning: A guy tries jumping over a car speeding towards him and fails utterly. He didn't even clear the hood or front bumper. I have no idea what he was thinking.

Another stupid trick.

Another man tempted to his death by a glimpse of a woman's heiney.

Did this guy taunt the bulls or something?

This puppy is a player.

This is pretty funny. In each clip, the person with the meal is attempting to take a picture of it, almost certainly for social media likes. Kill me now, is this still 2017?

And also in each clip: someone decides he doesn't like people taking pictures of their f*cking food and does something about it.

I don't use the word "Heroes" lightly, but: Heroes.

Quick Hits

—Ace

I've had real doubts about Kari Lake, but... this is promising.

And this is also promising.

In Arizona last week, Kari Lake won the GOP nomination for governor on a pledge that Arizona will act where the federal government has failed. It was a big victory--Lake netted over 48 percent of the vote to secure the nomination.

"As governor," Lake promised, "I will issue a declaration of invasion, finish President Trump's wall, blow up the cartels' drug tunnels and surveillance drones, and deploy the Arizona National Guard to stop illegals from entering. Arizona is our home and I will do everything in my power to defend our families."

Finish President Donald Trump's wall? Blow up drug tunnels? Deploy the Arizona National Guard? Can a governor really do all that?

She can. Though securing the border is the federal government's responsibility, the Constitution empowers state governments to act when our federal government refuses.

Of course, she has to actually get elected to do anything like this. I sure hope she knows the electorate and is playing to them, and not just playing to me.

As has been pointed out, the media sold the "Inflation Reduction Act" as, well, reducing inflation up until the moment it passed... and then stopped claiming it would reduce inflation at all, and instead sold it as doing other things.

Paul Krugman lists what the Inflation Reduction Act will do. HINT: He's forgotten to mention "reduce inflation."

SPOILER: He didn't actually forget; this is part of the left's coordinated messaging.
They know this won't reduce inflation so now they're trying to pretend the Inflation Reduction Act was never really about Inflation Reduction at all.

Craven liberal Chris Christie sought the David French Vote by immediately declaring that of course this warrant was perfect, just like the FISA warrants were perfect.

The search of Donald Trump's personal safe in an unprecedented federal search at the former president's Florida compound was "fair game," former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said in an interview Tuesday morning.

During his seven-year stint as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie had to make "analogous decisions" to the Monday search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, he said in an interview with Sirius XM's Julie Mason. The search warrant aims to determine whether the former president mishandled White House records, according to two people familiar with the matter.

"I have concerns this morning about it," Christie, a onetime staunch Trump ally, said. "This is not something you should be doing willy-nilly. This is something that should be backed up by grave concerns."

When he issued similar warrants, Christie explained, he needed to be confident there would be enough evidence to charge the person being investigated. If nothing was found, the search would be "unjust," he said.

We've never used a warrant to raid the home of a politco for a mere document recovery -- despite the example of Hillary Clinton concealing her emails from the government, and then destroying them.

And despite Sandy Berger stuffing top secret documents into his socks and stealing them from the confidential archives of the United States.

These matters were handled without raids.

Don't worry, lefties and NeverTrumpers (but I repeat myself): In the future, we'll be availing ourselves of this power to strong-arm our political enemies that you've now mainstreamed.

If you don't have anything to hide -- what do you have to fear from yearly IRS audits and FBI raids?!

Harmeet K. Dhillon
@pnjaban

This FBI:
* Pushed Russia collusion hoax
* Spied on law-abiding Americans
* Lied to FISA court
* Ignored Hillary's server escapades
* Ignored Biden Family criminal activity
* Persecutes journalists at Project Veritas
* Treats J6 trespassers like terrorists
* Goes after PTA moms
* Ignores drug crimes at border
* Allows drug cartels to operate freely in the US
... I could go on.

Our FBI has become a total disgrace, and Merrick Garland is so deeply lacking in judgment that he is unfit to serve as AG. Americans deserve better that this shameful crew.

Further escalation: The FBI seized the phone of a Congresman.

We're just taking notes about what we'll be doing in 25 months. Do go on. You're giving us lots of ideas.

Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania says that the FBI has confiscated his cell phone.

Perry, in an exclusive statement, told Fox News on Tuesday that while traveling with his family earlier in the day, he was approached by three FBI agents who handed him a warrant and requested that he turn over his cell phone.

Muh Norms, huh?

Democrats urge Wyoming Democrats to change their partisan affiliation to vote for Liz Cheney.

This is what galls me about AllahPundit's But whyyyyyy?! whining about why the party is ejecting Liz Cheney.

Pretty simple, really, Genius: It's because she has telegraphed that she intends to run as the Democrat against the Republican Harriet Hageman for half a year.

All of the NeverTrumpers continue supporting the Democrat Party. They have supported Democrats, as I keep noting, four four election cycles in a row, supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016, then Democrats for Congress to rebuke Trump in 2018, then Joe Biden, then Democrats for Congress again to rebuke Trump in 2020.

They're preparing to support the Democrats again in 2022... again as a rebuke to "Trumpism."

Trumpism, now, notice -- not Trump. Now they're dropping the mask that this is about Trump; this is about punishing Trump's voters and telling them that they are not permitted to win elections, because they are, yes!, Deplorable, just like the candidate they supported in 2016 said.

And of course they will support the Democrat, whoever it is, in 2024, if Trump runs. Or even if DeSantis is the nominee.

Because this is about the Neocon Establishment Restoration Project. And they'll keep joining the Democrats until we hand the party back over to these sick, wormy liberals.

But AllahPundit and the rest of them keep whining, But whyyyyyy can't you let us be paaaaaart of the paaaaartyyyyyy?

Because you're not part of the party; you're Democrats.

Why don't we let Adam Schiff be part of the party, too? And Pierre Omidyar, and all the rest of the Democrats you take money from?

How many election cycles do you get to support Democrats and still claim "But I'm really a Republican, you know, the moment this 'Trump fever' breaks and we get back to nominating neocon establishment squibs like Jeb Bush and Nikki Haley and Chris Christie" ?

You're out of the party. A party has the right to patrol its own membership.

And you, fucker, are G O N E.

Go to The Bulwark, Allah. They're (almost) open about just being a Democrat front organization now. Not completely open, of course; they are all sneaky lying worms, like yourself. They have to do some lying. They think lying about their intentions and their affiliation makes them "clever."

You'll fit in perfectly!

NeverTrump

Once we purge every single actual conservative from the party, we'll be ready to both re-join and lead the party again as a respectable and reasonable junior partner to the Glorious Democrat Party.

Was This Something?

—Ace

Ric Grenell: I Told Trump He Had to Fire the Criminal Wray Two Years Ago

—Ace

A fox overseeing the fox-house.

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell is warning that the FBI is facing a "real crisis" from partisan tampering with investigations, revealing he actually urged then-President Donald Trump to fire Director Chris Wray back in 2020 when such concerns first became obvious.

"I told President Trump we got to get rid of him," Grenell said Monday in an interview with Just the News on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "[Wray] was terrible. First of all, he didn't understand what was happening. He was so aloof to what was happening down below and had just a knee jerk reaction to everything just to protect the status quo."

Grenell made the comments just hours before Trump announced Monday the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home and office in Florida, cracking a safe and removing documents in an apparent probe into suspected missing classified documents.

Grenell, who also served as U.S. ambassador to Germany, said the reasons he urged Wray's dismissal two years ago were rooted in his inability to see politics ruining the storied law enforcement agency"

"He's a creature of the FBI," Grenell said. "And he views everything as a PR exercise. Don't criticize the FBI. Don't talk about any failures at the FBI because he loves the brand. And it was a brand exercise."

...

Grenell described an episode in spring 2020 when he was acting DNI and was trying to declassify documents about FBI misconduct in the Russia collusion probe and its pursuit of former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, and there "was a lot of pushback."

He said FBI leaders told him frontline agents adamantly didn't want the memos declassified and released to the public because they would reveal investigative sources and methods.

"I said I'd like to talk to these FBI agents who actually redacted this information," he recalled. "And oh, boy, they did not want me to. But I did. I pushed through, and because I had the position, I was able to do it. I said, 'You know look, I'm about to release this information. But I'm asking you to tell me. If this is really a source or a method, point it to me. What am I missing here?'

"Did you know, John, that the FBI rank and file agents who did that said to me, 'We agree with you. We didn't redact this. Our bosses did.' And it was so obvious to me that there was a political manipulation from up top."

When the FBI is reconfigured and split into multiple smaller agencies with more focused missions -- and the bureau loses its monolithic power -- the head of each of the new smaller agencies must come from outside the FBI culture and be skeptical of the old FBI -- preferably, antagonistic towards the old FBI -- and not "Company Men" like this soft chubby smug Criminal Wray.

Obviously, we will also need to move the DOJ to a red state and red district, so that federal prosecutions will be made up of red juries. There is absolutely no law stating that the working offices of the DOJ must be located in Washington, DC. There has to be some staff there, I guess, because the AG is part of the president's cabinet. (But does even that require him to be in DC?)

But all DOJ operations should be removed to, I don't know.

Pensacola, maybe.

I don't even know-- what's a city with 100,000 or more people that leans red?

We need a Federal Internal Affairs department.
Posted by: garrett

A Federal Judge Would Never, Ever Show Political Bias In Authorizing a Raid on a President
* Except It Wasn't a Federal Judge-- It Was a Mere Magistrate
* Who Was an Obama Donor
* Who Was an Epstein Lawyer

—Ace

David Axelrod
@davidaxelrod
One thing is very clear. Garland would not have authorized this raid, and no federal judge would have signed off on it, if there weren't significant evidence to warrant it.

We heard that all with the FISA warrants too, obese schlub c*cks*cker.

It's incredible how quickly we are Demanded to Forget in this Empire of Lies.

And he wasn't a federal judge. Rather than getting a federal judge, the Corrupt Merrick Garland went to a mere federal magistrate -- a lesser official who signs warrants and handles lesser judicial functions -- and instead of getting a federal magistrate without any conflicts of interest, he made sure he shopped this to an Obama donor and partner in The Regime.

He walked out of the US Attorney's office which was prosecuting Epstein to create a defense law firm, and began representing Epstein's employees the day after quitting the government.

So you know he's tight with The Regime.

A Florida magistrate judge who reportedly signed off on the FBI's raid of former President Donald Trump's home has ties to convicted sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead of an apparent suicide in August 2019.

Sources told The New York Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the search warrant that authorized the raid of the former president's home. That judge had previously represented Epstein employees who had received immunity in the investigation of Epstein's sex trafficking, according to the Miami Herald.

Reinhart reportedly resigned from the South Florida U.S. Attorney's Office on January 1, 2008, and the next day went to represent the Epstein employees. He told the Miami Herald that he represented Epstein's pilots, Epstein's scheduler Sarah Kellen, and Epstein's reported "Yugoslavian sex slave" Nadia Marcinkova.

He was representing Epstein's employees but have no doubt, Epstein was paying the bills, to keep them from turning on him.

I don't think that worked, because they were later immunized.

He would later be named in the 2011 Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit, accusing him of violating DOJ policies through the job change in the midst of the Epstein investigation, according to the Herald.

Reinhart denied this allegation, claiming he "never learned any confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter," according to the Herald, and denying that he participated in the Epstein case while at the South Florida U.S. Attorney's Office.

Oh, Heaven forfend! There was a full 10 hours before stopping work at the one and beginning work for the other.

And it is alleged he is lying about that, too.

His former colleagues contradicted this in a 2013 court filing that said Reinhart had learned "confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter," the New York Post reported. In response to this accusation, Reinhart reportedly told the Herald that the Justice Department had dismissed a complaint that an Epstein victim's lawyer had filed against him.

He was appointed to in 2018. I wrongly said that Trump must have appointed him in a big batch, but McCool says Presidents don't appoint magistrates at all. And he's right -- they're appointed by all active judges in the circuit.

He donated to Obama twice in 2008, and then decided he was a fan of Jeb! in 2015, and donated to him.

So this Democrat donated to a Republican -- for probably one of the few times in his life -- to oppose Trump.

And this is the "federal judge" -- except he's not a federal judge; he's, at best, an assistant judge who looks over subpeonas and records requests and records submissions -- that Merrick Garland got to sign his warrant.

Wait WTF????

THIS BRUCE REINHART???

Wtf!!! https://t.co/9fWqKeeUA2 https://t.co/f7LJqkZvmB pic.twitter.com/l9W1S1Eigk

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) August 9, 2022

Man.... https://t.co/gQSrnWMGN7 pic.twitter.com/dtqnFQrOvS

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) August 9, 2022

Me trying to resist being a conspiracy theorist but they keep making conspiracies pic.twitter.com/mWuzhbABRZ

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) August 9, 2022

Symone D. Sanders, former spokesbimbo for Kamala Harris, is demanding the media -- and I'd imagine, social media -- stop permitting people to call the raid on the president's home a raid.

How long do you think it will be before the social media monopolies begin slapping a "Misleading Claim" on to any post describing the raid accurately as "a raid"?

The fact that Merrick Garland used a "mishandling of official documents" pretext to order an FBI raid on a former president's home -- for the first time in history! And that's not even a major charge you'd even consider breaking out such a major response for -- is troublesome. Merrick Garland, stopped by Republicans from getting on the Supreme Court by Trump's election, is using fairly minor federal no-no's as a pretext for federal raids on political enemies, and the likely opponent of his boss in 2024.

Which, The Atlantic magazine tells us, only proves that the Department of Justice is... independent from Biden!

Andrew Yang @AndrewYang

It looks increasingly like the FBI raid was to find mishandled classified documents and not some other DOJ investigation which was my first thought. Mishandling documents doesn’t seem like raid material. It does however seem like excellent campaign material for Trump.

"If they raided his home just to find classified documents he took from The White House," one legal expert noted, "he will be re-elected president in 2024, hands down. It will prove to be the greatest law enforcement mistake in history."

Virtually everyone agrees that this is yet another pretext warrant -- the pretext is that the FBI is raiding his home to get documents, which apparently were so sensitive they let them sit at Mar-a-Lago for almost two years.

The reality is that the warrant was just used as a pretext to search his home to find anything that might incriminate him as far as January 6th. They have "taint teams" separating the documents they're permitted to look for from his private, personal correspondence and his communications with his lawyers.

Do you think that maybe, Whoops!, the ham-and-eggers of the taint team might just accidentally slip some of the non-covered documents into the covered pile? Or maybe write down notes about the documents they weren't allowed to see but, Whoops!, did see?

Neil Stevens
@presjpolk
You wanna know why limited government is becoming less popular in the GOP?

Because it's viewed as capitulation.

If you want to make limited government more palatable, do something about the Democrats.

Non-negotiable.

If your answer is "Oh well" then you are going to sound like you're out of touch at best, or siding with the Democrats at worst.

This is a loss of faith in the institutions, and it must be repaired by constructive acts that rebuild trust.

This is big tech all over again.

When major corporations are using corporate welfare to attack their political opposition, and your answer is just to shrug and say 'free markets,' then you cede the field to those with answers.

That's why Ron DeSantis wins, and others lose.

The burden of proof is on the side of limited government to show how people like President Biden, Attorney General Garland, and FBI Director Wray will be held accountable for abuses of power.

Clinton committed perjury and obstruction and walked.

Obama and Holder ran guns to Mexican cartels and walked.

It can't go just one way, folks. Not if you want buy-in into the rule of law.

Close it up

Ezra Miller Charged With Felony Burglary

—Ace

Note: I know this is not a big story in the scheme of things. But 1, I don't know if people want three posts on the Deep State's Last Dance in a row, and 2, I need time to finish the next post anyway.

Yes I know about the magistrate who signed the Impeccable, Robust, Unquestionable Warrant. I'll write on that next.

So here's a change-up.

As David Zaslav seeks to revamp Warner Bros Discovery's DC cinematic universe, one of the studio's biggest stars continues to make headlines for alleged criminal behavior.

Ezra Miller, who portrays Barry Allen, aka the Flash, as part of the DC Extended Universe, has been charged with felony burglary in Stamford, VT, according to a report from the Vermont State Police.

The alleged incident occurred on May 1 and involved missing bottles of alcohol from a local residence. According to the report, surveillance video indicated Miller's involvement and they were issued a citation on Sunday to appear in Vermont Superior Court on Sept. 26 for arraignment.

This latest incident follows a pattern of disturbing behavior and allegations of misconduct that traces back to at least 2020. Miller was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and harassment in early 2022 and, hours before their court appearance in April for these charges, was arrested again after an altercation in which they were accused of throwing a chair and injuring a woman.

Additionally, two orders of protection have been granted in recent months, one for a 12-year-old in Massachusetts and one for Gibson Iron Eyes, an 18-year-old Standing Rock activist, who was allegedly groomed by Miller, according to parents Chase Iron Eyes and Sara Jumping Eagle.

He's also running an illegal pot farm -- illegal, because a license is required to grow the number of pot plants he's growing.

And of course there are those grooming allegations, but that's, you know, legal in America now if you're a They/Them.

Hillary Clinton's Lawyer: Say, If Trump Concealed, Removed, Or Destroyed Federal Records, He's Barred From Ever Holding Federal Office

—Ace

Say... didn't Hillary Clinton conceal federal records (her email communications) and then, when their existence was learned of, destroy them using BleachBit?

Is Marc Elias narcing on his own client?

No, of course not; he just understands that the law does not apply the same way to Democrats and Republicans.

In the current configuration of this oligarchy-ruled Empire of Lies, at least.

We'll see about the future.

@marceelias

The media is missing the really, really big reason why the raid today is a potential blockbuster in American politics.

Yes, I recognize the legal challenge that application of this law to a president would garner (since qualifications are set in Constitution). But the idea that a candidate would have to litigate this is during a campaign is in my view a "blockbuster in American politics."

No, not really.

Let me talk about the qualifications clause of the Constitution. It specifies that a president must be at least 35 years old and a natural born citizen and a resident of the United States for 14 years.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that this constitutes the exclusive qualifications for eligibility to run for president. There is no requirement that he have a clean criminal record, for example.

And it doesn't matter if a federal law claims that someone would be disqualified from office. The Constitution doesn't recognize that, and the Constitution trumps a mere law.

This is, by the way, why you can never have congressional term limits passed. The Constitution also specifies the qualifications for congressmen and Senators -- what is it, age 25 for congressmen, 30 for Senator, and residents of the states/districts they represent? -- and the Court has ruled those are the exclusive qualifications required by the Constitution.

They have ruled you cannot add to them legislatively by passing a law that says, basically, "And there's another qualification, that you cannot have served more than 6 years in Congress." To do that, you need to pass an Amendment, which would add another Constitution-level qualification for holding congressional office.

So no, you can't disqualify Trump by charging him or convicting him with... anything.

Via Ed Morrissey of the Salon Hot 25 approved blog, the New York Times admits that researchers considered whether Hillary Clinton was disqualified from running for president in 2016 based on her own "removal" and "mutilation" of government documents.

Their conclusion? No, the Constitution is the exclusive determiner of qualifications for office.

The law briefly received a close look in 2015, after it came to light that Hillary Clinton, then widely anticipated to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, had used a private email server to conduct government business while secretary of state.

Some Republicans were briefly entranced with whether the law could keep Mrs. Clinton out of the White House, including Michael Mukasey, a former attorney general in the administration of George W. Bush. So was at least one conservative think tank.

But in considering that situation, several legal scholars -- including Seth B. Tillman of Maynooth University in Ireland and Eugene Volokh of the University of California, Los Angeles -- noted that the Constitution sets eligibility criteria for who can be president, and argued that Supreme Court rulings suggest Congress cannot alter them. The Constitution allows Congress to disqualify people from holding office in impeachment proceedings, but grants no such power for ordinary criminal law.

Hillary Clinton's Corrupt Lawyer recognizes that, but then say that's not the point, of course: The point is weaponizing the Department of Justice against Trump is, as it's always been, not to get a conviction but just to throw so much mud on him that it destroys him as a potential threat to The Regime.

And they... admit this. They're proud of this.

They're proud to admit the DOJ and FBI are now engaged in an illegal, extraconstitutional operation to veto presidential candidates the Oligarchy and the Deep State which serves it do not approve of.

Just as they've been doing since 2015.

They didn't rig the 2016 election -- but they've been breaking every law and norm to "fortify" every election since then, to prevent a free and fair election from ever taking place again.

The American people can "choose" a president -- but only from a Curated Selection of candidates the Oligarchy and Deep State have approved for them.

Below: The Oligarchy and Deep State's last choice.

OUT: The FISA Court Only Issues Surveillance Warrants With Compelling Evidence
IN: Federal Judges Only Issue Warrants to Raid Presidents With Compelling Evidence

—Ace

Below the fold, "Fusion Ken" Dilanian basically says the exact same things he did about how hard it is to get a FISA surveillance warrant, and how the very fact The Regime secured one against Trump proves that the evidence against him is bountiful, robust, and impeccable.

Excuse me, Fusion Ken, but we've heard all of this before, and heard it from you before, haven't we?

In the Empire of Lies, all citizens are required to forget everything The Regime did a month or more ago.

.@KenDilanianNBC is explaining the process of obtaining a search warrant for a former President in his home, what the FBI would have to establish to get a federal judge to authorize a warrant of this nature, and other details. pic.twitter.com/g5WOPtCF72

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 9, 2022

I'll believe it when I see it. As Kyle Sheidler points out, the Senate Republicans rolled over when the Criminal Wray decided he was going to play hooky on their committee and take a jet they had given him to go on a weekend vacation.

After years of shrieking that it's too dangerous to the Republic to even talk about going after Hillary Clinton for her many crimes, NeverTrump is clapping like seals about Biden weaponizing the federal government to go after the likely 2024 GOP nominee.

Maybe it's time for governors and all right-thinking local governments to end all cooperation with the FBI.

I renew a suggestion for an action that all Americans can take to show their rejection of Oligarchic Rule: Automatic acquittal in all federal prosecution cases until the federal government is reformed. They can't prosecute and terrorize the population if jurors -- guaranteed in criminal trials by the Constitution -- automatically refuse to convict.

You can't trust a prosecution brought by a criminal gang, obviously.

It's always the same people -- and the same people cited for malfeasance by the IG:

Of course, they keep being put on these cases because they weren't guilty of "malfeasance." They did exactly what The Regime asked of them. And so they are rewarded.

Even this cvck gets it:

And this one, of course, does not:

Five hours ago, David was talking about how the IRS is used to unduly harass people, including himself.

What changed? The target. pic.twitter.com/gd8ln5BG8U

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) August 9, 2022

#MuhPrinciples, amirite?

This is funny, but it makes a good point: There is obviously evidence that Hunter Biden has committed a lot of crimes, and yet there are no raids on his home.

There is also evidence that Joe Biden committed crimes with him.

Conclusive proof? No, not yet -- but that's why you issue warrants to conduct raids on people's homes. To get that proof.

Now, in the past, even though there is probable cause to believe Joe Biden committed crimes, we would say: "But we must restrain ourselves. This is a president we're talking about. We do not send the FBI over to raid his house because we have probable cause to suspect he was running a foreign influence-peddling operation with his dirtybag crackhead son."

But that was in the past.

What restrains us now?

If we see a Democrat -- any Democrat, including one running for any office -- for whom we have any probable cause of suspicion of committing any crime, send the police raiding parties, slap on the leg irons.

And what will NeverTrump say then about MuhNormzzz? They've blessed this tactic every single time it's been deployed against Trump or his people.

Is it time for them to decloak and admit simply that they are Democrats and urge a different rule for Democrats just because Democrats believe in a separate rule for Democrats?

Close it up

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

—CBD

The National Socialist German Workers' Party ran Germany from 1933 until the end of World War II in May of 1945. In a quirk of their own design, in spite of being the very heart of the effort to destroy the Jewish people, they killed about 70% of Germany's Jews, in large part because they were sticklers for the appearance of the rule of law. Contrast that with the savagery they exhibited in other countries. In Greece and Poland they killed in excess of 90% of those nations' Jews.

Beginning in 1933 the Nazis began constructing a legal framework for their ultimate goal. Everything was done under the guise of German law, and as Hannah Arendt famously described, it was the banality of evil: clerks and accountants and railway engineers and carpenters doing legal work that was nevertheless shocking in its depravity and soullessness.

Fast Forward 90 years, and we have a government that is acting very clearly in a depraved and evil way, yet shields itself from accusations of anti-freedom behavior with arcane legal structures that allow them to act under color of the law, in spite of the obvious moral and ethical wrongs that they perpetrate.

The clearly intended consequence of the 30,000 federal statutes and innumerable regulations buried in millions of pages of the Leviathan is the culmination of Lavrenti Beria's famous maxim:

Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime.

But Donald Trump is different; he doesn't play the game, and for that he must be destroyed, because the American people did not reject his brand of muscular populism the way they were expected. Instead they embraced him as someone who truly understood them and their desire to be out from under the jackboots of the state. And mostly they loved him for his love of them and their country.

So Donald Trump's love of America must be banished, and Donald Trump must be punished.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Relativity Lattice
Maurits Cornelis Escher

The Morning Report — 8/9/22

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning, kids. Happy Nagasaki Day. Appropriate considering what happened at Mar-a-Lago late yesterday afternoon. Does this really surprise anyone? I mean, really, if the attempt to sabotage 2016 via the Russian collusion hoax, the rigging and theft of the 2020 election and then the staging of the Jan 6 Reichstag Fire and Kangaroo courts did not convince you, the FBI's illegal, Gestapo-like raid on Mar-a-Lago is proof positive that America as founded, or what was left of it before Election Night 2020, is gone. I would like to say that all bets are now off but, given the fact that the nature of the American people is that of peace-loving, God-fearing individuals who believe in the sanctity of human life and the concept of live and let live, that may not be the case. At least not yet.

Look on the bright side. At least there won't be any more lockdowns or phony pandemics as a pretext or cover to rig elections. They're out in the open. If the junta does not want a candidate to win, they just won't let him run. If they can't persecute the candidate via the process, they'll just nacht und nebel his ass and chuck him into the Garland Archipelago. More to the point, if you John Q. Citizen Serf open your unworthy, ungrateful cakehole to complain about high gas prices, out of control crime, turning your children into catamite Frankenstein monsters, a wide open border, your belief that climate change is a hoax or that the government itself is a fraud, you'll wonder what hit you. Just head over to that jailhouse in DC where scores of folks just like you are still rotting away, waiting for a trial date for the heinous crime of being FBI patsies.

Speaking of which, I don't know what was more infuriating the other day; watching Christopher "Fey" Wray basically tell a Congressional committee to go fuck itself and then jet off, at taxpayer expense, to an Adirondack vacation home or the fact that, in the wake of yesterday's Gestapo raid the GOP is promising on a stack of Bibles that it will hold Wray and Garland accountable once they take control come November. Give me a fucking break with that garbage. They won't do jack shit because at the end of the day, they can't do jack shit even if they were sincere about it. Congress and the Courts are powerless against what used to be a shadow government, the Federal Bureaucracy. It and it alone controls the country and by extension the citizenry. If an administration, D or R, or in this case an illegitimate junta, goes along with it, no problem. And by going along with it, I mean furthering the nearly 100-year "long march" so to speak to fundamentally transform America into a socialist dictatorship.

For the first time in all that time, we finally had a president who was not "down with the struggle," so to speak. And so, five years on, here we are. Whatever you feel about Donald Trump personally or even politically, it is undeniable that his domestic and foreign policy achievements, in the cold light of day, make him arguably the most successful and transformative (in a positive way) president sine 1900, if not arguably of all time. What some, including close colleagues and friends consider his Achilles heel, his personality, was at least in part what contributed to something I consider his greatest achievement — exposing the utter hypocrisy and sham of the two-party electoral system and the complete top-down corruption of our government. The reaction to him since he and Melania came down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 merely underscores my assertion.

I have no more tears to shed, no more voice to shout and no more fucks to give about a lot of things. It all boils down to the fact that what they are doing is not necessarily the issue. The issue is how do we the people of We The People respond, both individually and collectively? If we fight this individually, and I am not even talking about acts of violence, we get blacklisted, ostracized, targeted via law-fare by leftist organizations and individuals or worse, a feral bureaucracy that includes our old friends at the IRS. I hate to say this but I almost don't really care about the billions of dollars wasted in that travesty of a bill. The trebling in size of the IRS as well as whatever the hell else in terms of oppression is buried in those hundreds of pages is of course another story. But as for the money, what does it really mean? We are headed pell-mell for total economic collapse and then, soon after, societal collapse. Meh, bring it on.

No food, no fuel and then anarchy (we already have lawlessness in that we are no longer a nation of laws but of men). Maybe that's what it's going to take since, obviously, we have fully a third of the population and the tyrants they support who control the instrumentalities of government and much of society in general who not only not recognize our legitimacy but increasingly have denied even our basic humanity.

We are moving further and further into uncharted territory and the raid on Mar-a-Lago was a giant leap further into the darkness. When I say uncharted territory, I mean insofar as here in the nation formerly known as the United States of America. In historical terms, we've seen this picture before over and over again, so many times that the sprockets are almost shredded.

I really do not know what else I can say other than if I wrote down here what I actually think and feel should be done, I'd probably have a no-knock raid at my home some time this afternoon. I'm beyond disgusted and frankly sick and tired of waiting and pondering what the hell could possibly come next because it will be the no-knock raid on me and you and everyone who understands the insanity of this situation. Desperate people sometimes lash out and do desperate things. This junta is on the verge of making millions of us desperate all at the same time. I wonder if they realize it.

WAR.

RAID ON MAR-A-LAGO
• “After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” Trump said in his statement.
  Trump Says FBI Conducting Search of Mar-a-Lago Estate
  
• Robert Spencer: "With the FBI raid on Trump’s home, America has fallen into the abyss."
  End of the Republic
  
• "The main purpose is to keep Trump from being able to run again. That’s it."
  Marc Elias Boasts About the Real Motive Behind the FBI's Mar-a-Lago Raid
  
• "The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic."
  DeSantis Blasts Biden’s ‘Banana Republic’ After Feds Raid Trump’s Mar-A-Lago
  
• “Well, it’s a breathtaking moment to have a raid like this on a former president and potentially the future opponent of the current [so-called quote-unquote "president"]."
  Turley on Trump Raid: "Why Didn’t Merrick Garland Ask for a Special Counsel to Be Appointed?"
  
• "The thorough weaponization and politicization of each of our law enforcement institutions is now undeniable; the left has crossed Caesar's Rubicon."
  The Complete Sovietization of the Democrat Party
  
• "They have declared war on 74 million Americans."
  Seb Gorka Blasts FBI Raid on Trump’s Home
  
• "By contrast, Trump allies past and present — such as Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Peter Navarro, and others — have been subjected to spectacular raids, often leaked to friendly media ahead of time, over relatively minor or unrelated allegations."
  Not Raided by FBI: Bidens, Clintons, Russia Hoaxers, Black Lives Matter
  
• But he'll still vote Democrat, I guess.
  Dershowitz Reacts to FBI Raid at Mar-A-Lago: Biden Junta Has Weaponized Justice System

Daily Tech News 9 August 2022

—Pixy Misa

• AMD's Threadripper Pro 5000 series is finally available in retail. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Five weeks before Ryzen 7000 launches.
  
  If you need the memory capacity (Threadripper Pro supports up to 2TB of RAM) or the I/O bandwidth (7 full x16 PCIe slots with room left over) then these chips make sense. There's certainly nothing from Intel to compete right now.
  
  If you just want a faster CPU they're less compelling. The 24 core 5965WX is likely only 10% faster than the 7950X will be, and much more expensive.
  
  
  
  

Monday Overnight Open Thread (8/8/22)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

My thoughts on the raid of President Trump's home.

Earlier this evening I was at a non-profit organization meeting when my cell phone buzzed in my pocket. It was the notice that President Trump's home had been invaded by the Secret Police.

My mind really wasn't into the agenda after this. And I thought about it all the way home. I read Ace's thread and I must say he was very restrained.

I'm a Christian, but at the very moment a very poor one. I am unable to pray for my enemies and quite frankly I wish they would all go to hell after suffering an excruciating death from natural causes.

I'm pissed about the double standard, triple standard or quadruple standard of law and justice in this country. Lois Learner, Hunter Biden, John O. Brennan, Hillary Clinton, James Comey and the list of scum goes on.

I opine we have crossed the threshold of remaining a united union of states. I'm afraid we are on course for a civil war. We are not going to vote ourselves out of this mess. It is doubtful we could vote ourselves out of our debt. We are not going to vote ourselves out of a Banana Republic.

President Trump exposed the deep abuse of power committed daily by unelected bureaucrats. His fortitude peeled the mask off the Main Lame Steam Media.
Quite frankly I don't know how he could get up everyday and go to the Oval Office. Why he didn't say, "Fuck it, I don't need this shit." is beyond me.

Now out of office for over two years he still lives in his enemies' heads rent free. But they are not content to let him fade away. They want their pound of flesh. And by attacking a man's castle, they knowingly or unknowingly place the United States on the precipice of destruction.

I'll be honest. I don't know what the best course of action is. All I can recommend is to keep fighting the good fight. What is that good fight? Prayers for our country, grassroots efforts to clean up your local politics, returning your local school boards to normalcy, boycotting vile and putrid companies and any other thing you think could help us out.

I know after this weekend's news from the Senate and now with the Secret Police raid of Trump's home we are upset. However in tonight's comments please refrain from violence. It's Ace's house. We are guests here. Let's not spoil it.

That being said, the remainder of tonight's ONT was written before the big news out of Florida broke.

***

***

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

“You got into World War II because of Pearl Harbor. You were completely isolationists [beforehand]. Thank God the Russians had already won the bloody war by then. Twenty-three million Russians died, protecting you and me from the Nazi menace.” Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters

Just another brick in the head

*

Quote II

“By the time we got there they had gotten three more 911 calls in that span of time. In a couple of them they heard dogs barking in the background, but no human voices at all.” Lakeville, MN PD Officer Michelle Roberts

I'm surprised guns were not drawn and shots not fired.

*

Quote III

“Don’t let Hulu fool you. I don’t support their story about my life. It’s not 1822. It’s 2022. They stole my life story and didn’t pay me. To Hulu executives I’m just a n****r they can sell on the auction block.” Former Heavy Weight Champion Mike Tyson

***

Well good luck with that.

Insurance companies may be filing lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers in the near future.

So says one of the country’s top epidemiologists, Harvey Risch of Yale University.

Speaking with Just the News, Risch detailed exactly how and why such lawsuits may come about.

Are institutions of higher learning obtaining common sense?

UChicago drops booster mandate after saga of COVID regulations, protests
On July 26, the University of Chicago announced it would no longer require booster shots for COVID-19.
The updated vaccination policy comes in the wake of a number of COVID-related controversies that Campus Reform has previously covered.

***

Please share with the Co-Exist crowd. Good stuff.

I’m here to apologize to my brothers and sisters of color — my white daughter’s pale skin has brought me nothing but shame. I have failed as an ally.

For if whiteness is the root cause of systemic racism, then what does that make me for having a white child? How can I extol the virtues of anti-racism and dismantle white supremacy while simultaneously birthing another white person? These two seem incompatible. If I were truly honoring my commitment to decolonizing white spaces, I would have had my tubes tied or had myself euthanized and done the BIPOC community and the planet a favor. I’m such a coward.

My therapists will have their work cut out for them this week. “Love is love,” unless you fall in love with a cishet white male. Then love isn’t love — it’s white privilege.

***

My kind of job. I wonder if they give out sammiches?

Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A New York-based mattress company is seeking professional "sleepers" to get paid for taking naps and documenting the experience on social media.

Casper, a mattress firm founded in 2014, said on its website that it is hiring "Casper Sleepers" willing to snooze "in our stores, and in unexpected settings out in the world."

***

You have to pass the bill to know what's in the bill. You have to pass the bill to know what to buy. Duh!

Congress is poised to approve newly expanded tax credits for electric vehicles, but the rules are written in such a way as to effectively disqualify every EV that's currently on the market today.

That’s because most EVs run on lithium-ion batteries that are mostly made in China. The nation has a lock on some 76 percent of the battery market today (the US only represents 8 percent). And to get a deal passed in a deadlocked Senate, Democrats agreed to provisions that would require eligible vehicles to use batteries that are made in North America.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which passed the Senate this weekend in a party-line vote, would require batteries to have at least 40 percent of materials sourced from North America or a US trading partner by 2024 in order to be eligible for a $7,500 tax break. By 2029, battery components would have to be 100 percent made in North America.

***

The GOP should take note of Florida's Ron DeSantis and see how to be productive.

When Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that Florida would be cracking down on “woke” banking and other corporations, PayPal reacted immediately by unfreezing money in the account of the conservative group Moms for Liberty.

A month prior, when DeSantis spoke at the group’s summit in July, PayPal stopped processing their monthly donors and would not let them transfer out any money already in their account. The action was presumably tied to the organization’s ideological views.

***

I found the following video yesterday and thought I would save for tonight.......

There's been an update.................

***

I don't know about you. But, I feel better knowing that Ana Navaro has found a steady meal ticket. Lord knows she needs her nutrition.

Guests Ana Navarro 50, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, 33, recently landed full-time roles on the show.

Ana has reportedly signed a multi-year deal to co-host the daytime talk show.

Whoopi announced their permanent roles and said: "Today, we’re proud to make another long overdue announcement that Ana Navarro is becoming an official co-host of The View.”

Whoopi continued: “She always has an unfiltered and quite hilarious take...“

"As Barbara Walters used to say, you know you’ve made it when you’ve been parodied on SNL.”

Ana replied: "After many years, many hairstyles, many pounds up and down…we’re finally putting a ring on it and making it official. I want to thank the very loyal View fans.”

***

Sanctuary cities.

No comprende El alcalde Adams?

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) had a negative reaction to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) busing illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities on the East Coast, calling the action “horrific” as dozens of mostly single adult males arrived in New York City from Texas over the weekend.

Exclusive footage from Breitbart News shows a bus filled with mostly single adult males arriving at Port Authority in New York City on Friday following Abbott’s decision to disperse illegal border crossers to Democrat-run, illegal-friendly sanctuary cities.

"Vete a la mierda."

Perhaps Miami should take a lesson from Texas' Governor Gregg Abbott.

Miami Is Tearing Itself Apart Over Bonkers Plan to Move Homeless to Island
‘PEOPLE ARE REALLY MAD, MAN’
Some of Miami’s wealthiest residents may soon have a new neighbor—a homeless encampment on a hurricane-prone barrier island that’s miles from the nearest grocery store.

***

Warning: If you don't want to click onto an eight slide story, so be it.

Would you eat these new Wisconsin State Fair foods? Some I would. And others I would say, "What are you, fvcking nuts?"

***

The ONT Musical Interlude & Soft Drink Emporium

RIP Olivia Newton John

&&&

Born on this day: August 8, 1961 - The Edge
The Edge (Dave Evans), guitarist, singer, songwriter with U2. They signed with Island Records and released their debut album, Boy in 1980. Their 1987 worldwide No.1 album The Joshua Tree spent 156 weeks on the UK chart. Their U2 360 Tour of 2009-2011 is the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour in history. via thisdayinmusic.com

***

Is this a Genius Award story? Probablly not.........Never bring a fist fight to a gun fight.

Brazil’s eight-time jiujitsu world champion Leandro Lo has been fatally shot in a Sao Paulo club, his family’s lawyer said.

Lo was out with friends on Sunday for a concert at the Clube Siria, a sport and social club in Brazil’s biggest city, when the attacker approached their table and began making threatening gestures with a bottle, said lawyer Iva Siqueira Junior.

Lo, who won International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) world titles in five different weight classes from 2012 to 2022 – an all-time record – pinned the man to the ground “to stop the situation and avoid a fight”, Siqueira added.

And there is this one..............

SICK You have been warned. Beyond Genius Award Winner.

AUGUST 4--The Florida Woman charged with receiving oral sex from her dog confessed to the crime and told cops that the male Husky, named Loki, was just “being curious,” according to a felony complaint.

Christina Calello, 36, and Geoffrey Springer, 39, were arrested Tuesday and charged with sexual activity involving animals, a felony. Police identified Springer as Calello’s former boyfriend.

Investigators say they recently recovered a video--shot by Springer--showing “the animal performing oral sex on his ex girlfriend.” The video was stored on a flash drive in a “folder titled ‘XXX Sex Videos Loki.’”

The recording was made in “May/June 2022,” according to a complaint that does not reveal how police obtained Springer’s “personal USB drive.”

Springer identified Calello as the woman in the video, according to cops who noted that both Calello and the woman in the clip have a “heart shape tattoo on her hip area.” Additionally, Springer said Calello “has engaged in 30-50 sexual acts with the dog in a time span of 8 years.”

After being read her rights, Calello reportedly “admitted to the dog possibly performing oral sex on her numerous times due to the dog being curious.” Video evidence, cops say, showed Calello “not making any motions or gesture to stop the sexual act.”

***

No shit? Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

Experiments found microscopic organisms transplanted into mice stopped the progression of diabetes—and the technique could end the need for painful insulin injections for human patients in the future.

It involves engineering E.coli bacteria from stool samples, which also has the potential to treat a range of gut conditions— from obesity to irritable bowel syndrome.

Residing within the human gut are trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that can impact a variety of chronic human ailments, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, and cancer.

***

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by A Parent's Worst Nightmare.

Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. World components used in The ONT. Manufactured in the USA. No artificial coloring or flavoring added. Copious amounts of caffeine and gluten used.

Close it up

Guardian Cat Cafe

—Ace

Ghost sculpture at Castle Vezio, Italy

I know people still want to talk about the end of the American Republic. You can still discuss it in the thread below, which is officially still Live.

But I also think some people might be about to blow a gasket and might need to decompress. Like me.

Falling domino artwork.

Jumping on other planets.

Careful toddlers navigating a dangerous world.

Little kid turns a bike fall into a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Wait, if you're over there, who's holding my hand?!

Brave kids save a dog from the coils of a big constrictor.

Baby really enjoys his parents' singing.

Tesla battery changing station.

Don't Look Now.

San Francisco, 1906, four days before the earthquake. Color and sound added.

Idiot tourists trap an adult male orangutan on the path between them. Fortunately for them, the orangutan had more sense than they did and walked away.

THIRD WORLD JUNTA: The DOJ Just Executed a Surprise Raid on the President's Home

—Ace

Are we supposed to still be loyal to this Regime?

Are we still fighting the "authoritarians" or nah?

Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11

The FBI just completed an unannounced raid of President Trump's home at Mar-A-Lago. America is devolving into a Third-World Nation and this latest escalation by Merrick Garland and the Biden Regime should shock every single American--regardless of who you voted for in 2020. Wow.

I don't want to hear another thing about norms, and I don't want to hear a complaint from the left or NeverTrump -- but I repeat myself -- when what they have coming starts coming.

You bought the tickets, settle in for the ride.

NeverTrump Leaps to Endorse!

David French @DavidAFrench

A note about "banana republics."

Yes, corrupt regimes politicize prosecutions. But corrupt regimes also permit powerful people to break the law with impunity.

If the legal and evidentiary grounds for a search exist, then even a former president *should* be searched.

David French has believed and supported every single anti-democracy hoax operation his Deep State pals have against a president the public voted for but whom the Deep State "vetoed."

Why stop now?

He's "fighting authoritarianism," you know.

Via Jane D'oh:

Nasty fatty Meghan McCain retweeted:

@mikescollins - 34m

(Barron not even looking up from his Xbox) "Safe's in the back."

Quick Hits

—Ace

The scramble to re-brand the "Inflation Reduction Act" as the "Everything Except Inflation Reduction Act" is an all-hags-on-deck priority:

Literal State Media NPR: The GOP "feuded" with the "mainstream media" (no one calls the propaganda corporate media that but themselves any longer).

Are you sure the corporate propaganda media didn't feud with the GOP?

Now the GOP is shutting we, the media out -- and now they're going to get one-sided coverage, and it's all Republicans' fault we'll be giving them one-sided coverage!

Defund, and also: Cancel their broadcast licenses. They have no right to the airwaves. The airwaves are held in public trust for the public good, not for the good of the most privileged, most over-served 30% of the population.

There should be a diversity of voices heard on the nation's airwaves, not the same c*nty establishment white progressive twats on every single frequency.

(((DeanObeidallah)))
@DeanObeidallah

More of GOP's brutality on display: "Texas GOP governor sends migrants to New York City."

When illegals are being sent to leftwing cities, suddenly it's "brutality."

But even "Hot Air Conservative" Jen Rubin supports sending Texas' illegals to NYC:

Jennifer "Pro-privacy" Rubin
@JRubinBlogger

Replying to @DeanObeidallah

I dunno. Sending people to arguably the greatest city in the world where they'll get work and be welcomed seems good. God forbid they should have to live in Texas-- with gun violence, a flaky grid, forced birth, etc.

Fusilli Spock
@awstar11

I hear Chicago is a great and safe city too.

No "forced births," as Noted Conservative Jen Rubin calls "live births," either.

More reactions to this Noted Conservative at Twitchy.

Is that real? No, it's fake, as a thousand "fact" checkers are flooding the zone to let you know.

But that is the kind of thing that NeverTrumpers and the hard left -- but I once again repeat myself -- come very close to saying. When the public disagrees with their Enlightened Urban Effete Cosmopolitan Progressive Religion, they are increasingly brazen about just arguing that we need to Do Something About Democracy, Because It Keeps Being Wrong!

And these people, being, unaccountably, "elites" in the media and government, have the real ability to actually rig an election if they so choose.

And they do so choose.

In fact, they openly bragged about "fortifying" the 2020 election to "save it" from being won by Trump.

The media, the leftwing constellation of dark money groups, and the leftwing tech oligarchy pushes two messages at the same time:

1, the election wasn't rigged and if you say so, you are a Russian Asset and we will ban you and attempt to get you fired and made unemployable, and

2, we want credit for having been daring enough to rig the election for you.

Mollie Hemingway: People should expect there to be major action on FBI corruption if Republicans take power.

Let's change that to people should demand major action. I think we expect nothing.

"The FBI is in complete crisis," Hemingway said. "They have been embroiled in so many scandals, whether it's being way too involved in setting up kidnapping attempts in a way that meddled in the 2020 election, weaponizing the Russian collusion hoax which interfered with so many other elections, going after parents for the crime of wanting to know what curriculum is being taught. You know, covering up this investigation into Hunter Biden by putting out a disinformation operation against it."

"Christopher Wray doesn't seem to think it's a big deal at all. Obviously nothing is going to happen so long as Democrats are in power but when Republicans take the House I think people should expect major action to deal with these two standards of justice at the FBI and Department of Justice," Hemingway said.

Video at the link.

Varad Mehta
@varadmehta

Least surprising thing in the world how quickly the NeverTrumpers are becoming NeverDeSantis. But they were already mostly NeverRepublican, so the surprise would be in they supported anyone who wasn't Liz Cheney or Larry Hogan.

Oh no! Pediatricians are throwing out Baby's First Unneccessary Experimental Vaccine due to lack of demand.

When COVID-19 vaccines for children under 5 finally rolled out in June, doctors expected to face hesitant parents. Surveys had predicted that only one in five would jump at the chance to vaccinate their littlest children right away.

But in the six weeks since, the uptake has proven even weaker than feared.

Nationally, as of figures reported on Aug. 3, 3.83 percent of children age 6 months until 5 years had received at least one dose of vaccine. In Massachusetts, which provided more current data, the number was 11 percent, one of the highest rates in the nation but still lower than any other age group in the state.

Seizing every opportunity to vaccinate, doctors are opening 10-dose vials during regular office visits, knowing they probably won't use all the vaccine and will have to throw some out. Once a vial has been punctured, its contents must be used or discarded within 12 hours.

"It feels yucky. I hate waste," said Dr. Wayne Altman, a family physician in Arlington. His practice has had a comparatively high uptake of vaccine, with about one-quarter of eligible patients getting it. Still, he has not once used up every dose in a vial.

Don't worry, Pfizer's still being paid. That's the real point of this exercise.

"Yucky." You can always tell a leftist because they deliberately speak like children.

They want to be confused with children.

Why would an adult deliberately speak in a childish way, as if desiring to be mistaken for a child?

Who can say why? It's a mystery.

Meanwhile, lefties are still hysterical about anti-grooming measures and complain they won't protect student from grooming, just drive away good educators (who are groomers).

From a couple of weeks ago: The Babylon Bee offered substitutes for the now-banned word "groomer" -- banned precisely because it was accurate.

My favorite, of course, is "Person of Grooming."

Oh, this sad leftist shill is still shilling.

Kevin Smith has weighed in on Warner Bros. Discovery scrapping the Batgirl movie starring Leslie Grace. The move made by the conglomerate has caused shockwaves in the industry and Smith, who is a comic book aficionado and writer, shared his thoughts on his YouTube series Hollywood Babble-On.

"It's an incredibly bad look to cancel the Latina Batgirl movie," Smith said in the video. "I don't give a sh** if the movie was absolute f***ing dogsh** -- I guarantee you that it wasn't. The two directors who directed that movie did a couple of episodes of Ms. Marvel, and it was a wonderful f****ing show and they had more money to do Batgirl than they had to do an episode of Ms. Marvel and stuff."

Note his only complaints about this are based on race.

Here's another charity case who doesn't make money who's upset.

1, your heart had the right idea five years ago, and 2, go make another She-Man movie and then lie about it when people accurately reporting on the bait-and-switch you're pulling.

The democrats just blocked my effort to try & force Soros backed prosecutors to put dangerous criminals in jail pic.twitter.com/alt5DZmiSS

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 7, 2022

My wife and I have such a vibrant, intimate sex life that I send her off to swinger's parties with my brother posing as her husband, reports totally normal man with normal heterosexual drive.

BERNIE SANDERS: The “so-called Inflation Reduction Act...will, in fact, have a minimal impact on inflation.”pic.twitter.com/gE9H2cJIgg

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 7, 2022

A small group of lesbians critical of trans ideology at the #DykeMarchHamburg in Germany on Friday were accosted & harassed by attendees & a tall transvestite. Like in the US, German lesbian events welcome male-bodied people who say they are lesbian women. pic.twitter.com/d5bf06DciV

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 8, 2022

The left keeps insisting that "Dark Brandon" is a super-powerful meme with a musky scent and girthy penis and the right just can't handle the ultra-potent sexual energy of Dark Brandon.

Behold: Dark Brandon, in the real world.

Joe Biden faces down his toughest challenge yet: a jacket

pic.twitter.com/ElW9eynccC

— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) August 8, 2022

Close it up

As David Zaslav Goes Straight Savage Cutting and Cancelling Everything #Woke at Warner Discovery, SJWs Start Shrieking About MuhFakeJobs

—Ace

David Zaslav, The Grim Reaper of Wokeness, is in a cost-cutting frenzy.

Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of CNN, HBO Max, TLC and Food Network, is mounting an aggressive cost-cutting plan ahead of its promise to find more than $3 billion in savings in 2023.

CEO David Zaslav has wasted no time since the $43 billion merger between Discovery and WarnerMedia closed in April. According to The Hollywood Reporter, senior leaders in the company's US-based advertising division were informed that buyouts will be coming, although they haven't been offered yet.

News of the cuts, which will slash approximately 30% of the firm's ad sales team, or about 1,000 jobs, was first reported by The Information on Tuesday.

He's cutting lots of underperforming projects at the DC division of Warner, in addition to Batgirl.

The bloodbath continues at Warner Bros. Discovery. Or is it Discovery Warner Bros.? We can never remember. Either way, David Zaslav is rampaging around the corridors of the studio wielding his axe and nothing, and nobody, is safe. Batgirl lies dead and the current DCEU is no more. Maybe his vision works on movement? Has anyone tried standing absolutely still to see if that means they avoid cancellation?

...

Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, and Titans are all up next on the chopping block and cancellation is apparently imminent. They will join the never started Wonder Twins on the DCEU scrapheap.

That is not all. Another high profile show is also about to be made to walk the plank while it is still in development. Greg Berlanti's Green Lantern.

Rumors are flying that Zaslav is going to end, mostly, DC's monthly comic business, and either start publishing just the occasional graphic novel, or perhaps license out their eight or ten actually-valuable characters to some other company. The result will be a lot less work for the people who killed the American comic book industry.

And they're screaming. They think that calling Zaslav a racist will work.

Here's one of DC's more obnoxious SJWs attempting the "I'll call my boss a racist to keep him from firing me" card.

Not this time.

TEE FRANKLIN HARLEY QUINN WRITER @MizTeeFranklin

This #WarnerBrosDiscovery call is hurting my brain. This whole thing is affecting me & plenty people I know personally.

I can't wrap my mind around ANY of this. Plus, I guess I'm a male now? I just...

A lot of them freaked out over Zaslav's market-research-backed statement that HBO Max had a "male skew" and Discovery Plus had a "female skew." They all seized on this and claimed that this made them transexuals or something, because they liked the "wrong" channel.

Can you really not understand that?

Are you... are you developmentally delayed? Are you admitting that?

Because it's an extremely simple concept.

If more men than women watch something, it has a "male skew." If more women than men watch something, it has a "female skew."

It doesn't mean that only men watch the male-skewing thing.

And watching it doesn't make you a tranny.

Do you not understand this?

Or maybe they're just trying to whip up a twitter mob against Zaslav, because they know from how he's talking -- emphasizing things like "quality" and "profits" -- that they're the next to be fired.

As well as being retarded.

Replying to @MizTeeFranklin
I hope y'all reading in between those lines, "Best storytellers" to tell diverse stories.

What a concept, hiring the best storytellers. What a racist codeword!

MzTeeFranklin knows she does not qualify as the "Best Storyteller" under anyone's definition.

The fact I'm focused on this call & not in my grieving cave is telling. Whew.

This dude a whole fucking villain.

This is your boss... for the moment.

If you thought DC was practically all white before... chileeeeeee we ain't seen NOTHIN yet.

And if you didn't know that comic book villain has been quoted in articles sayin, "he would hire the best people he could find and gender and racial diversity, while a factor, would not be his top priority."

It's WHAT'S not being said y'all. Read in between those lines.

So yes, and I'll read between your lines: You're a shit writer and you know you're a diversity-hire charity case and Zaslav is basically saying the days of burning money in charity-case burn-pits are over and you're very upset about that.

Fine.

I bring all this up because CNN is also a Warner Discovery company.

And guess which other Woke Charity Case is trying to save his job?