Bill Richardson -- Corrupt Clinton Administration Fixer and Former Governor of New Mexico -- Accused of Rampant Bribe-Taking, Including in the Form of "Sexual Services and Favors"
Former New Mexico Democratic Governor Bill Richardson is accused of raking in hundreds of thousands in bribes and kickbacks to fund debauched lifestyle including 'sexual services and favors'
Bill Richardson has been accused of running a scheme in which he raked in over $100k of dollars in bribes while in office
Richardson, 72, served as Governor for New Mexico from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2010
According to a recently unsealed legal complaint obtained by DailyMail.com, Richardson used the money to fund a luxury and debauched lifestyle
His lifestyle allegedly included 'sexual services and favors' funded by the scam dubbed the 'Richardson Ring'
The lawsuit claims that Governor Richardson was able to place his trusted 'operatives' in state government jobs to cover-up his wrongdoing
Richardson, a career politician, was previously accused of having sex with Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Roberts when she was underage, a claim he has denied
Roberts named Richardson among several others as men Ghislaine Maxwell told her to have sex with in court documents
Sad to say it's a non-issue. Many humanities departments de facto only accept grad students who work on race/gender. All they're doing is scoring virtue points by saying they're going to do what they would have done anyway (albeit less loudly).
In March, I participated in a University of Chicago's "nonpartisan" Institute of Politics (IOP) digital initiative, called "I vote because...," where students pose with a small whiteboard stating their personal reasons for voting. I wrote, "I vote because the coronavirus won't destroy America, but socialism will."
I was naively unprepared for the onslaught of online hate and threats of violence I received. Fellow students attacked my character, intellect, family, and appearance using foul and offensive language. I was called a racist and a xenophobe. Some compared me to animals. Others declared I deserved to be bullied and that I don’t belong at the University of Chicago on account of my beliefs. I was told I was the most hated person on campus.
For days, I pored over vile posts and comments. I was in shock and emotional distress. I didn't defend myself. In fact, I didn’t respond to a single comment or post about me online, whether it was negative or positive. It wasn't until I received a death threat from one of my classmates that I made the decision to write an op-ed, sharing my side of the story and defending what I wrote on my whiteboard.
Following the publication of my op-ed, David Axelrod released a statement on behalf of the Institute of Politics condemning the violence and personal attacks I received. Although I was grateful for Axelrod's statement, it, unfortunately, validated the defamation of character students employed in calling me xenophobic and racist.
...
What happened to me is exactly why university imposed politics is so damaging. I hoped that my experience would have inspired students, faculty, and the administration to reexamine campus culture and recommit to the Chicago Principles. Instead, the administration and department heads at the University of Chicago created a hyper-partisan culture through emails and other official means, sending an implied message that silences debate on important issues.
By using my tuition dollars to cast themselves as moral arbiters, dissenters are automatically categorized as racist or anti-justice. This emboldens leftists on campus, who already wield an outsized voice and power. In short, it inspires a mob mentality. Unfortunately, dissenting students, who saw what happened to me, are more scared than ever to speak their minds on campus.
(Sorry this is one of those posts that's been in draft a while. But it's going to be a long night.)
Just Declassified: US Had Intelligence That Russian Intelligence Had Information That Hillary Clinton Intended To Launch The Whole "Russia Collusion" Smear Against Trump
Obama was briefed about this -- days before he ordered US intelligence to participate in Hillary Clinton's smear operation.
I'm not sure what this proves -- just because Russian intelligence says that Hillary Clinton is preparing an information operation against Trump doesn't necessarily make that information op false -- but the timing is very sus (as the kids say).
How did Russia find out about the Clinton smear plan?
Could it be because Russia had an asset embedded in the Democrat policy infrastructure which was feeding the Clinton campaign and FusionGPS these lies, and the asset reported to his spymasters that they were eating it up?
Or: As commenters suggest -- it could just be proof that Russia was reading every Hillary-world email, straight off her absurdly-compromised Secret Toilet Server.
Filbert says to pay attention to point 3. Let's do that: US had intelligence, from a Russian intelligence leak no less, that Hillary Clinton was pushing this bullshit to tag Trump with some kind of "national security problem" story -- to mitigate the fallout from her own real national security problem.
Just as we always suspected.
And instead of taking that as a caution flag, Obama and Biden decided to launch Operation Crossfire Hurricane. And Crossfire Razor, to get Flynn.
Just days later, Obama told his government to turn Hillary Clinton's political op into a national security crisis.
Thanks to Jack "GanjaMan" Straw.
Twitter is Chinese Government Ops and Should be Treated as Such:
310 And just like that , "Ratcliffe" is trending on Twitter, and if you click, it goes directly to Natasha Bertrand shitting all over Ratcliffe with commenters saying he's doing the "GRU's work."
A Very Special Individual Demands We Stop Saying "Straight" to Mean Straight, Because That Doesn't Include His Particular Bizarre Mix-and-Match Sexuality
A parodist wants to be read. Getting a lot of links is the whole goal. "Thae" say that we can't call straight people straight, because that... I don't know, excludes transsexuals who identify as X are are attracted to Type B genitals?
I really don't understand. I began trying to game out the LSAT Logic Puzzle of what kind of sexuality you'd have if you were a man pretending to be a woman who was still attracted to women, and then I realized, "I don't care, I'm not going to waste any of my brainpower trying to puzzle out the exact nature of the sexual fetishes of mentally-ill narcissists/hysterics."
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's wife, Jill Biden, shut down a question Sunday from CNN’s Jake Tapper about any "gaffe" her husband may make.
"Oh, you can't even go there," Jill Biden told the "State of the Union" host when he led into a question by noting that the former vice president "has been known to make the occasional gaffe."
"After Donald Trump, you cannot even say the word gaffe," she said.
"I can't even say the word gaffe?" Tapper asked.
"Nope. Done. It's gone," she responded.
"Over, so over," she added.
What an absolute pussy this frown-furrowed goose-honking jagoff is. He's a simp and a gimp.
A short video clip of this compliant Democrat operative meekly receiving his orders is here.
The alleged victim, James Kruzelnick, claims in the suit filed in New Jersey state court that he met Napolitano while working as a waiter at the Mohawk House restaurant in Sparta, NJ, in 2014.
During one of his visits, Napolitano allegedly followed Kruzelnick into the bathroom at the restaurant and groped him, the suit states.
"Defendant Napolitano grabbed plaintiff's buttocks, and told him that ‘you are just so hot,'" according to the suit.
...
In September 2015, he agreed to meet Napolitano at his house -- where the former judge allegedly coerced him into BDSM sex games.
As Kruzelnick was sitting in Napolitano's living room, the judge walked over to him with his pants down and said, "I am really into certain things," then sat on his lap.
"I want you to start slapping me really hard," Napolitano allegedly told Kruzelnick, demanding that he "just f--king do it!" when he was skeptical, the suit states.
...
During a final alleged encounter, Napolitano attempted to r@pe and force Kruzelnick to perform oral sex on him while the two were at his farm in 2017.
The lawsuit further alleges that Napolitano promised light treatment in the Kruzelnick's brother's legal problems.
That's a similar allegation to a lawsuit filed two weeks ago.
A former New Jersey man claims he was sexually assaulted by celebrity Judge Andrew Napolitano in exchange for a lenient sentence in an arson case in the 1980s, according to a bombshell lawsuit filed Friday.
The alleged victim, Charles Corbishley, also alleges the judge tried to block him from filing the suit in Manhattan federal court by lodging false police reports against him, the suit states.
...
Corbishley, who now lives in South Carolina, claimed in the suit that the abuse happened after he was indicted for arson in 1987 and retained a corrupt lawyer named Robert Hollis.
Hollis, who was later indicted for running a multimillion-dollar prostitution scheme, got Corbishley's case transferred to the courtroom of Napolitano, whom he called "a friend," according to the suit.
...
"He proceeded to place his hand on plaintiff's shoulder, and forced plaintiff to his knees. As he pushed plaintiff down toward the ground, defendant told plaintiff to ‘be a good boy'," the suit states.
The judge then forced him to perform oral sex on him, according to the suit.
After the alleged abuse, the judge gave him an extremely light sentence, allowing him to avoid any jail time in exchange for community service, the suit states.
Does anyone know the backstory regarding why "Judge" Napolitano stopped being a judge? He didn't serve long. Just eight years.
Apparently he hasn't been a judge since 1995. But he's held on to that title like he's held on to his studded riding crop and Iron Maiden Tiara.
From Wikipedia:
Napolitano told friends in 2017 that President Donald Trump has told him he was considering Napolitano for a United States Supreme Court appointment should there be a second vacancy.[4] Ultimately, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was chosen instead.
In this video, Biden seems to be communicating with an unseen party when he says, in a nonsequitor, "Okay, I lost that line."
That statement only makes sense as a cue to an unseen party feeding him lines.
@WardDPatrick
44m
FOX News has learned new details about debate negotiations between the Biden and Trump campaigns ahead of tonight's debate: (1/3)
Pat Ward @WardDPatrick
The Trump campaign wants the Biden campaign to allow a third party to inspect the ears of the debaters for electronic devices or transmitters. The President has consented to this inspection, but Biden has not – so far. (2/3)
Biden is also demanding Brain Medicine Breaks:
@WardDPatrick
The Biden campaign requested two breaks (one every thirty minutes) during tonight's program, which was denied by their Trump counterparts, in negotiations over the last several weeks. (3/3)
And of course: There are reports that leftwingers at Fox have already leaked the specific questions to Biden.
toddstarnes
@toddstarnes
Word on the street is that @JoeBiden got tonight's debate questions in advance - per @KXEL1540
This has got to be the stupidest and most obvious campaign "theme" I've seen.
Update: Biden's team first agreed to the inspection for electronic items, then, today, refused.
My theory: This is an attempt to get Trump to cancel the debate.
Because Biden needs to get out of the debate, but can't be seen cancelling it himself.
@ebonybowden
NEW: Joe Biden's campaign agreed to an inspection for electronic ear pieces at tonight’s debate several days ago but are now declining, a source familiar tells me.
Update: Statement from the Trump campaign:
"Joe Biden's handlers several days ago agreed to a pre-debate inspection for electronic earpieces but today abruptly reversed themselves and declined. Biden's handlers have asked for multiple breaks during the debate, which President Trump doesn't need, so we have rejected that request. On top of the refusal to take a drug test, it seems pretty obvious that the Biden team is looking for any safety net they can find in the hours leading up to the debate. With his 47 years as a failed Washington politician, how much help does Biden want?"
The Democrat party constantly accuses Republicans of being racist, jingoistic haters; driving America back to nativist sensibilities. Apparently the secret goal of everyone in America to the right of Alexandra Donkey-Chompers is some agrarian idyll in which everyone is lily White, Protestant, hunts wetbacks for sport, and hates everyone even slightly different.
And yet...the vitriol heaped upon anyone who deviates from the orthodoxy of the Democrat/Leftist platform is breathtaking in its vileness. And that orthodoxy includes aggressive atheism. So Amy Coney Barrett is now ground zero for the vileness because of her religiosity.
They have already suggested something untoward about her and her husband's adoption of two children from Haiti; apparently it is impossible for the Left to understand that a family can have enough love to go around for more than the Democrat-mandated two children per household.
I have no idea whether Amy Coney Barrett adopted two children and had five more because of her Catholicism, or that she simply wanted lots of kids. I don't know, and I don't care. I think that anyone who is willing to adopt children is head and shoulders above many, and the extra difficulty inherent in adopting form another country speaks well of Barrett and her husband.
The Democrats have essentially given up on blocking the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. This does not imply, however, that they will fail to turn her hearings into a nasty farce of smears of the nominee as an adherent to a voodoo-like religious devotion, and a passionate seeker of an America with no assisted healthcare and back-alley abortions.
The strategy mirrors the malicious fiction then-Senators Joe Biden and Teddy Kennedy threw at Robert Bork in 1987. Barrett, like Bork, is obviously a person of outstanding character and intelligence with impeccable credentials as a law professor and judge. It will not be easy for Democrats to portray such an accomplished and attractive person and personality, who departed for Washington with her husband and family of seven in a minivan, as the slavering primitivist that is their preferred caricature.
This is nothing more than the Left's hatred of religion, which is a direct competitor to their own psychotic replacement for God: the socialist/communist/progressive cult. But the additional target of Catholicism is too tempting for them to pass up, and it is simply a confirmation of their own hatred of anyone and anything that does not adhere to their mindless communitarian world view. They will trot out the tired idiocy of dual loyalties to America and the Vatican, and suggest that Barrett's rejection of abortion (The Left's sacrament) is proof of her loyalty to the Church.
By I refute that with my own rationale...I am not Catholic, and I am not particularly religious, yet the horror of abortion is clear to me, based on things other than religious philosophy.
Respect for human life is not expressly religious; respect for the life of an unborn child is not necessarily based on religious dogma. A logical defense of the assumption that life begins at conception can be entirely separate from any discussion of the soul or other religiously inspired argument.
But...I hope they attack her Catholicism. I hope they are vicious and cruel and vile when they talk about her children (adopted or natural...they are the same thing). I do not believe that America is so far gone that we will accept disgusting partisan attacks on this woman.
And yes, the last confirmation hearings suggest that I am wrong, but Amy Coney Barrett is a mother as well as a jurist, and that is a powerful and positive thing that maybe; just maybe will allow America to see, for a little while, what the Democrat/progressive mindset is.
Good morning, kids. Tuesday and tonight, supposedly, will be the first Trump vs. shrieking rutabaga debate. The Dems have nothing except Biden's 47-year career of enriching himself and his family at the expense of the taxpayer and the dissolution of our society. That's why the goniffing pervert dementia patient will just pound his shoe and spout lies. Thank goodness we have Chris Wallace there to keep order and put him in his place. Pfft. All Trump has to do is be himself and not Paul Ryan circa 2012. Hammer him and his son, go after his racialism against blacks and he's home free. That is, unless there is a debate at all. Biden has been held incommunicado 10 days out of the last 30 while Trump is all over the country holding massive rallies as well as garnering even more Nobel Prize nominations (his third came yesterday from a group of Norwegian academics) for initiating a titanic shift in the right direction in the world's #1 hotspot, the Middle East. Not that the press covers it. But I digress.
Sundown Joe is sundowning more and more with each passing day. They may have tried rejiggering (racist?) his circadian rhythms but doing that with an aging dementia patient who must be on a wicked drug and vitamin cocktail is playing with fire. I'm kind of shocked they didn't pull the plug yesterday. Malig-Nancy Pelosi has been teeing up the vile Trump-is-a-liar-and-unworthy-of-being-debated excuse for them to whip out for at least a week. I have to wonder of ol' Joe doesn't like being told what to do and is going rogue.
Meanwhile, coming on the heels of yesterday's Project Veritas footage of Bro-Fo bros ballot tampering in Minneapolis, James O'Keefe's group dropped more secret footage of fraud just as the Minneapolis PD has announced they are going to investigate. Frankly, given the politics of that city and state, the Dresden treatment it's endured since the end of last May and the fact that Keith "X" Ellison is the state's AG, color me slightly skeptical that this will go anywhere, let alone in time to prevent shenanigans come Election Day, er, Week, er Month, er... Whatever. That said, strangely enough, even the radical Maoists on the city council are now openly backing away from their earlier drive to eliminate the police department. Not that that means they've suddenly found morality and ethics, when it comes to election rigging. In their twisted world, it's both moral and ethical to prevent anyone challenging Marxist-Leninism from winning an election.
But wait, there's more! Massive fraud has been exposed in Texas as well as all sorts of hinky shenanigans and incompetence all over the Rotten Apple. If Trump wins by whatever margin, as I think he will (please G-d), it must mean that discounting the fraud it will be as close to a landslide as we've come since 1984.
"It's only Monday," [Republican Louisiana Sen. John] Kennedy quipped. "So far, Judge Barrett has been called a religious bigot, a racist, an antifeminist, anti-public health. Her opponents haven't gotten around yet to calling her an alien lizard person, but it'll come. Before it's over with, I'm afraid, that they will accuse her of drowning little newborn puppies."
"That's not what this is all about though, and I think almost all of my Democratic colleagues know that none of these things are true," he continued. "This is what they're upset about. Judge Barrett is a Constitutionalist, which means she's a Madisonian, which means she believes in the separation of powers, which means she believes that federal judges are not politicians in robes, which means she believes that the United States Supreme Court is not supposed to be a mini Congress, which means that she believes that federal judges are not supposed to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday to advance a political or social agenda that they can't get by the voters, which means that she believes that the law is not supposed to be politics practiced a different way."
Kennedy gets it. Not only are his barbs worthy of the snark written by the cobs and commenters here at the HQ, but he's totally on point about who the Democrats are, whaty they do and what's at stake. More like this guy, please. That said, we still have rioting and mayhem in the cities that are now spreading out to the suburbs, lockdown and psychological warfare/abuse on the citizenry inflicted on us by Democrats on the pretext of a virus that is provably no more lethal or marginally more than season flu, and a country that is breaking apart not over one or two policy differences but on the very existence of the country itself.
The revolution long since destroyed the original American republic in the minds, hearts, and habits of a critical mass of citizens. They neither want nor are any longer able to live as Americans had lived until so recently. Loudly, they declare that the rest of us are racists, etc., unworthy of self-government. No one can undo that. Chances are against the undoing happening on its own. The longer we pretend to live under precisely the same laws, the likelier we will end up killing one another. We must not do that. And yet regional differences notwithstanding, we are mostly intermingled. Sorting ourselves into compatible groups is part of the American genius and tradition. More of that has been happening and more will happen yet. If we want to live in peace, as we should, we must contrive to agree to disagree to accommodate peace. The greatest benefit that would come from the Left's defeat in the 2020 election is the possibility that it may become possible to convince the ruling class, if not the intersectionals, that such accommodation is the best deal they can get. But the intersectionals are violent enemies -- who must be dealt with as such. Fortunately, there are more spoiled children among them than heroes.
The "intersectionals" is Codevilla's term for the violent BLM/Antifa types. He games out the two scenarios of a Trump loss or a Trump victory and, like me, comes to the same conclusion that the America we knew, or thought we knew prior to 2008 or for me 2001 is gone. I'm praying that in the wake of Trump winning that perhaps it's at least a Battle of Britain moment for the nation. The war will no doubt drag on but at least it buys us time and perhaps will lead us to the road back, though that can never be known. And since we can never really know the future, that is reason enough for hope. It took the Democrats a little over 100 years to sharia their way to this point. It's kind of a damn shame that time and again, we only recognize the danger when we're almost to the point of no return. Meh, it is what it is. But the Leftists are not infallible. Powerful as they are, and in control of so many institutions of government and society, they can still be overcome.
Dennis Prager: "It takes a great deal of effort and a great deal of time to make a decent society. But it takes little effort and little time to destroy a society." A Reminder to American Jews: Civilization Is Fragile
"Yes, anti-Trump Deep Statists are still veiled behind their anonymity, even if they are speaking more loudly and assertively through their pals in the media and in social media. So we can see: More and more..." The Deep State Becomes the Obvious State
CIVIL WAR 2.0: LEFTIST REIGN OF TERROR, WAR ON POLICE
"Authorities, including Oregon State Police, Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, and the Portland Police, arrested 30 individuals following violent protests Saturday night after a large group failed to disperse, throwing objects including rocks and firecrackers at officers." Officers Respond to Reports of an Explosive Device in Downtown Portland
"Among other things, the alumni's letter savages ACB for speaking at an event sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), citing the far-left scandal-plagued smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center's (SPLC) accusation that ADF is a 'hate group' worthy of inclusion on a list with the Ku Klux Klan." Et Tu, Classmates? Barrett's Fellow College Alumni Resort to "Hate Group" Smears Against ACB
Conrad Black: "Republicans are almost certain to confirm an outstanding judge. But a simmering anti-Catholicism threatens to break through." ACB vs. 'Know-Nothing' Democrats
CHINESE CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS, FACTS AND AMERICA IMPRISONED
"Experts have warned that the [Chinese] COVID-19 pandemic might just be one in a series of increasingly frequent viral outbreaks, as the human species enters what they describe as 'a pandemic era'" caused by the grating of man against nature. Surviving the Plague Planet: Institutions Lose Control of the Future
[Malig-Nancy Pelosi spewed] "It takes money to crush the virus. It takes money to make the schools safe. It takes money to put money in people's pockets." Though their newest package was substantially slashed, it's still far above the $650 billion to $1 trillion range Senate Republicans are aiming for. Democrats Unveil Slimmed Down $2.2 Trillion Chinese Coronavirus Relief Proposal
"From Wisconsin to North Carolina -- and several states in between -- Arabella's network of some 340 pop-up nonprofits have been busy working to influence state elections even as one of the main nonprofits under the network's umbrella, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, has given $27 million to pro-Biden affiliated PACs in an effort to boost the Democrats' chances in the national contest." Left-Wing "Dark Money" -- Ignored by the Press -- Could Tip Several Elections
PHONY DEMOCRAT ELECTION-STEALING POSTAL SERVICE SWINDLE, ELECTION FRAUD IN GENERAL
"The investigators -- a former FBI agent and former police officer -- claim that Biden's Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts have been "hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots" and ordering operatives to them fill out for people in Harris County illegally, 'including dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election.'" Biden's Texas Political Director Implicated in Massive Mail-In Ballot Harvesting Scheme in Harris County
"In the middle of an ongoing election, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has altered the rules of the election and extended the 2020 General Election beyond the 'Time' established by the state legislature," they wrote. "In doing so, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has violated federal law and the federal Constitution." Pennsylvania Republicans Ask Supreme Court to Halt Mail Voting Extension
"The Department of Investigation audit uncovered the startling failures in March 2020 as they inspected the Board of Elections headquarters and borough offices, the documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Law, show." NYC Vote-Counters Can't Even Keep Track of Their Tablets: DOI Probe
"Shocking charges made against The Donald based on thinly-sourced or withheld information? Where have we heard that one before?" Donald Trump Paid Zero Taxes? Good for Him
"Getting nominees ready for presidential debates has evolved into a complex and sometimes bruising process." Battle of the Preppers
"The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits." "Totally Made Up": Trump Fires Back At Tax Reports, Says "Everything Was Wrong"
FIRST AMENDMENT, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER
"Yesterday, the New York Times published 10,000 empty words on Donald Trump's taxes, while refusin to look through publicly available filings concerning a supposed charity now called 'The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.'" Ignoring Clinton Charity Frauds to Attack Trump for Paying Taxes
"If Russia retains forces in Belarus, some NATO planners worry Russian forces will be in a position to cut off the land route between Baltic states and Central Europe, which goes through a small border gap in Poland that borders the Kaliningrad Oblast to the west and Belarus to the east." Russia Sends Troops to Belarus, Challenging NATO
"On Monday, Sky News reported on a third Nobel Prize nomination for Donald Trump, this time coming from four law professors in Australia. Law professor David Flint announced he was nominating Trump on the basis of the 'Trump Doctrine.'" Donald Trump Gets His THIRD Nobel Prize Nomination
Gordon Chang: "There is no proof Beijing is seeking to use McKinsey for this purpose or that the company is complicit, but the potential for great harm to America nonetheless exists. And given that potential, it is time for the U.S. government to terminate its consulting arrangements with McKinsey if the consultant does not end its business relationships with Chinese clients." Is China Using McKinsey To Spy On America?
Robert Spencer: "Critics generally treat Bob Dylan's 'Christian period' as an embarrassing anomaly in his otherwise stellar career, while Yusuf Islam gets a fawning feature in Yahoo Music Sunday to explain his thinking and justify his action." Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens Tells How He Converted to Islam and Became a Victim
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY
"For nearly all his first three decades in prison, Bottom remained utterly unrepentant, cynically calling himself a 'political prisoner' framed by the FBI. But the board paroled his surviving accomplice, Herman Bell, in 2018, and apparently thinks it unjust to hold Bottom to a higher standard. Indeed, it has now sprung 16 cop-killers over the last three years." Angel-of-Death Cuomo's Parole Board Keeps Releasing Cop Killers
Our intrepid science reporter: "A lot of launch action this week. The 2020 launch race is heating up, with China temporarily regaining the lead after trailing the U.S. for most of the year." China and Russia Launch a Bunch of Satellites
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
"Russia cannot buy the United States, but the Chinese can. And that's exactly what they're doing. They bought Joe Biden and his family. And now they've bought Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson." "The Rock" Has Sold His Soul to China
"The American people are clearly eating up President Trump's revival rallies where he preaches the founding narrative -- that the American people are the best in the world, America is the best country in the world, and we ain't seen nothing yet." A Moral Narrative to Foil Our Wokey Tormentors
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
“Ms. Kitts explained to the policy officer and administrators that she has asthma, but they ignored her,” “Their position was that un-masked asthmatic must leave the stadium, (which) is not consistent with any directive or other law.”attorney Maurice A. Thompson
Quote III
“It's very clear, across the UK, that this ill-thought-out 10pm curfew, has pushed everyone out of venues with socially distanced measures, into the streets, into off-licences, supermarkets, overcrowded public transport and house parties. Every operator predicted this. Shambolic.”Sacha Lord, night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester
Quote IV
As a former accountant, please allow me to explain why all of today’s newly formed tax experts are fucking morons, and we should metaphorically put a brick in a sock and beat them over the head with it until they shut up.Larry Correia
Quote V
“All of my students and their parents were always cool with me because basically they knew me,” Sylvain Helaine
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Trump campaign unveiled the president's winning strategy for Tuesday night's debate: he will simply stand there and let Joe Biden try to form coherent sentences for the entire evening.
Trump says he will simply go on stage and say, "I cede my time to Joe Biden," before calmly sitting down and watching in delight as Biden tries to maintain coherence for nearly two hours.
"It's a genius move, frankly," said one political analyst. "There's some real 4D chess going on over there in the White House. Or perhaps 7D Axis & Allies, or even 17D Diplomacy. The Biden campaign simply isn't operating on Trump's level."
A group of four Australian law professors have nominated U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, the third nomination he’s received in recent weeks.
The nomination is based on the so-called Trump doctrine, or the president’s approach to foreign policy, David Flint, one of the professors, said on Sept. 28.
A misunderstanding over a few Lightning fans' passion for their team during the Stanley Cup final Wednesday night produced a scene in Tampa rife with cops and, in the end, comic relief.
Devon Garnett, a bay area super fan of sorts recently profiled by the Tampa Bay Times, was watching Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final Wednesday evening with two buddies at Radius Palms apartments near USF. In one first-period sequence, when Victor Hedman controlled the puck in the Lightning’s offensive zone, the friends began screaming, “Shoot! Shoot!” at the TV.
Evidently, that prompted a neighbor to call police. Minutes later, a handful of Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputies were at their doorstep.
“Saturday Night Live” has an interesting “thank you” offer for brave health-care workers: Free tickets to this week’s Season 46 in-studio premiere.
Unsurprisingly, tickets earmarked for front-line medical personnel are still available for both Saturday’s afternoon dress rehearsal and late-night live show, which will feature former cast member Chris Rock and musical guest Megan Thee Stallion. Tickets for the public, however, have already been scooped up.
It’s the first in-person program at 30 Rockefeller Center since the sketch comedy series shut down Studio 8H due to the coronavirus pandemic last spring.
According to COVID-19 stipulations laid out on ticketing site 1iota, attendees can request two, seven, eight or nine tickets for people within their personal “social bubble.” That’s defined as “a group of people, related or unrelated, who have repeatedly entered into close contact (defined as less than 6 feet) with all others in that group, on multiple occasions prior to the night of the show.”
The following guidelines and precautions also will need to be followed:
All people in a “bubble” for whom tickets have been requested must come to the show, or no one in that group will be seated.
Audience members must take a self-administered lower nasal antigen test upon arrival, with results given before the show.
Temperature checks will be required at check-in.
Face coverings/masks will be required inside the building; no bandanas, gaiters or masks with vents will be allowed.
Anyone with a temperature of 100.4 or higher will not be admitted and their party also may not be allowed in.
In the first few years of Netflix, we were growing fast and needed to hire more software engineers. With my new understanding that high talent density would be the engine of our success, we focused on finding the top performers in the market.
In Silicon Valley, many of them worked for Google, Apple, and Facebook — and they were being paid a lot. We didn’t have the cash to lure them away in any numbers. But, as an engineer, I was familiar with a concept that has been understood in software since 1968, referred to as the “rock-star principle.”
The rock-star principle is rooted in a famous study that took place in a basement in Santa Monica, California. At 6:30 a.m., nine trainee programmers were led into a room with dozens of computers. Each was handed a manila envelope, explaining a series of coding and debugging tasks they would need to complete to their best ability in the next 120 minutes.
Unenthusiastic Boyfriends Posing For Etsy Projects (14 Pics)
The things we do for love. We’ll move to a new city. We’ll convert to a new religion. We’ll showcase our girlfriend’s mediocre crocheting talent by modeling for her Etsy site. We won’t look happy about it, but we’ll do it. Boyfriends modeling Etsy projects, I salute you.
Man Puts “Tire Chains” on His Crocs So He Can Go “Off-Roading” in Them
Crocs, the slip-on classic clog with a rubbery, punctured twist, is the sort of cultural curiosity that is somehow both a meme and genuinely beloved at the same time. It’s a bestseller of a shoe but also an automatic “lol” when people see them. Which is it, dammit? Are those unisex tie-dye abominations the kooky dental assistant wears hilariously stupid? Or comfortable? Or… both?
Can you wear something both ironically and unironically? That seems to be the Crocs classic conundrum. But why weigh ourselves down with what it means to own a pair of Crocs when instead we can just enjoy them however the hell we please. These aren’t some ridiculous $700 Nikes and we’re not sneakerheads.
The theft of a man’s prosthetic leg has resulted in strong-arm robbery charges, cops say.
According to investigators, Larry Stothers, 41, accused the victim of stealing a backpack. So Stothers and a cohort, 31-year-old Jayson Rappa, allegedly confronted the man Saturday afternoon in Largo, Florida.
“A fight occurred between all parties,” according to an arrest affidavit. “And in the course of the fight a prosthetic leg was taken from the victim.” The man whose leg was stolen fled the scene and sought police assistance.
Officers arrested Stothers and Rappa about an hour later, and charged each man with strong-arm robbery, a felony. Stothers (left) and Rappa are pictured in the above mug shots.
Court records do not indicate whether the victim’s leg was recovered.
Acivil rights landmark in Mississippi, a Native American site in California and a public housing complex in Texas may have little in common at first glance, but a recent list brings them all together in the name of preservation.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has unveiled this year's list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. The nominations bring a sliver of hope to a diverse set of buildings, landscapes and historic neighborhoods, which would be destroyed or face irreparable damage without immediate advocacy.
The FBI announced Thursday that a federal civil rights investigation into the fatal police shooting death of a 17-year-old white teen was being launched, in a case that demonstrates that police officers under duress do not pause to consider race.
John Albers, an Overland Park, Kansas, teenager, was shot 13 times by police in 2018 as he backed a van out of the garage of his family home — his parents were not home at the time.
A 30-year-old Mexican man allegedly reported his own mother to the authorities for kicking him out of the house, because he didn’t want to get a job or at least help with chores.
Last Wednesday, Mexican media reported the case of one Christian Uriel, a 30-year-old man who denounced his own mother and aunt to the before the Mexican Prosecutor’s Office, accusing them of assault and harassments. The young man claimed that he was beaten out of the house by the two women, who also threw water on him. What he failed to tell the authorities was that he had been living at his mother’s house for months, free of charge, without contributing to the family budget or even helping out with chores.
***
The ONT Musical Interlude
On this day: 28 Sep 1991
American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis died of a stroke and pneumonia. His 1959 album 'Kind of Blue', is a major influence on jazz music. Davis is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. via thisdayinmusic.com
&&&
On this day: 28 Sep 2015
American rock and roll and rhythm and blues singer Frankie Ford, whose 1959 hit 'Sea Cruise' reached No.14 on the Billboard Hot 100, died of natural causes at the age of 76. via thisdayinmusic.com
David Stevens co-founded Admiral with his wife Heather in 1991. The company, headquartered in Wales, has become a huge international success.
In March, Stevens announced his retirement from the company after nearly 30 years of service. This week he revealed he will leave a multi-million pound retirement farewell gift, which will be distributed among its 7,500 staff in Wales and 3,000 overseas workers.
"Saying thank you to all Admiral staff in this way is the right thing to do," Stevens said. "Their hard work and dedication has allowed Admiral to grow from a start-up to over 11,000 staff worldwide. And all of this while remaining a great place to work. Thank you from myself and my wife to everyone at Admiral."
Admiral was launched in Cardiff with a team of 57 people. The company now has offices in Swansea and Newport, with overseas offices in Spain, Italy, France, Canada, USA and India.
***
Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Home Schooling Supply List.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. All legal documents please forward to Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, S.C.
We should all appreciate Twitter. Never in human history has there been a more revolutionary mode of education. Within mere minutes, thousands of Blue Checks are instantly experts in all manner of fields of study, from virology to federal taxation of property.
Today, we have an exciting new area of Twitter-Related Instant Expertise Syndrome -- Haitian adoption practices.
This is not the way to get a peaceful transition of power.
Biden Campaign operatives in Texas are attempting to rig the 2020 election with a massive ballot harvesting scheme, according to two private investigators who testified under oath that they have "video evidence, documentation and witnesses" to prove it. With the help of mass mail-in ballots, the illegal ballot harvesting operation could harvest 700,000 ballots, one Harris County Democrat operative allegedly bragged.
The investigators--a former FBI agent and former police officer--claim that Biden's Texas Political Director Dallas Jones and his cohorts have been "hoarding mail-in and absentee ballots" and ordering operatives to them fill out for people in Harris County illegally, "including dead people, homeless people, and nursing home residents in the 2020 presidential election," Patrick Howley of the National File reported.
While law enforcement agencies are reportedly investigating these potential crimes, nothing will be done about it until "well after the November 3, 2020 election" the former FBI agent said.
...
Aguirre noted that the ballot harvesters have been exploiting the elderly with the complicity of nursing home staff.
I have in my possession video-taped interviews of witnesses attesting to the aforementioned people having groups of people completing thousands of absentee and mail-in ballots, including completing ballots for deceased individuals; illegally going into nursing homes, with the complicity of the nursing home staff, and filling out and forging the signatures of nursing home residents; signing up homeless individuals to vote using the ballot harvester's address then completing the ballot and forging the homeless individual’s signature.
This entire operation is being run by the elite politicians of the Democrat Party in Houston/Hams County. FURTHER AFFIANT SAYETH NOT.
More at the link.
Of course, Ilhan Omar's criminal staffers are doing this in Minnesota as well.
U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has been linked to a massive illegal vote-buying scheme in an elderly community in her heavily Somali district in Minneapolis. The illegal ballot harvesting operation is just the latest in a growing list of federal crimes the self-avowed democratic socialist is alleged to have committed in recent years, including marrying her brother to commit immigration fraud and student loan fraud.
Project Veritas investigators traveled to Minneapolis to see what they could discover regarding the alleged Somali vote harvesting scheme.
"U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar--also affectionately known as a member of 'the Squad' -- and her campaign may be behind one of the biggest voter fraud schemes in American history, but this time, we have it on tape," said Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe.
According to investigative journalist David Steinberg, rumors have swirled for years that Ilhan’s campaign team operated an elaborate system to purchase thousands of votes from seniors when she ran for office in 2016 and 2018. Those allegations have been forwarded to the FBI.
In the first video in the Project Veritas series, Minneapolis ballot harvester Liban Mohamed can be seen bragging that it takes serious money to run a successful vote-harvesting operation.
...
"At the end of the street, there are three towers. They’re called Horn Towers, and it’s all seniors," a Somali source told a Project Veritas investigator. "And they took every ballot," the source, a former political worker, added. "Every single ballot. They knock on the door and say, 'your ballots come? Give it to me, give it to me.'"
The woman said she saw political operatives "carrying bags of money" provided by Omar's campaign chair Ali (Isse) Gainey to pay people off. She said he was "coordinating everything."
Omar Jamal, a political insider active in the city's Somali community, corroborated the woman’s claims.
@MinneapolisPD
ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD BEING EVALUATED. White heavy check mark The MPD is aware of the allegations of vote harvesting. We are in the process of looking into the validity of those statements. No further information is available at this time on this.
"Shocking" Reversal-of-Forecast for Oregon's State Finances: Instead of Being $2 Billion Short, Oregon is Now Forecasted to Have Two Billon Extra In This Two-Year Budget Cycle
—Ace
No word from Pixy about the comments yet. I'll let you know when he does reply.
From The ARC of History:
A straw in the wind for Trump:
In April, the economists working for the State of Oregon predicted a $2 billion hit to state revenues over the next two years due to coronavirus (Oregon has a two-year budget cycle). That's about five hundred bucks a person.
After all, Second Great Depression, bla, bla, bla.
The economy was obviously going to go south, taking state revenues with it.
"We're talking about a $2 billion increase in the current biennium resources, which effectively erases what we had in terms of recession in the forecast," said Mark McMullen, state economist with the Office of Economic Analysis. "We expect to end the biennium about the same as we did in March."
The State of Oregon is now forecasting that it will be collecting more state income tax revenue in 2020 than in 2019.
If this is mirrored nationwide, this is great news for Trump.
Democrat-Encouraged BLM Riots The Costliest In History, Costing Americans At Least Two Billion Dollars... So Far
—Ace
Note: The comments system called a "lid" at 2:49 pm Eastern. They said they are "prepping for the debate." And also, glitching out due to advanced age and decaying software.
On the June 18 edition of his show, Colbert said to Harris: "Because it seems to me it has to be sustained in order to maintain the pressure and to maintain that commonality of purpose for people of all races in the United States to bring this kind of justice that is being called for. How important is it for these protests to continue?"
Harris--who did not become Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's running mate until almost two months later in August--indicated that she thought it was "critically important."
"It's critically important," Harris responded to Colbert.
...
"So, when I made a decision to become a prosecutor, it was a conscience decision which was to go inside the system and have some leverage there to effectuate change," Harris said.
"I say that to say this: The only way we're going to truly achieve change is when there are people in the system who are willing or pushing to do it, and when there are those folks outside of the system demanding it," she said.
The people "pushing" for change are the rioters. The people "demanding" change are the looters. There are various arsonists and murderers lightly peppered into the mix.
However, there are many reasons that this figure vastly underestimates the true damage wrought by the looting and violence that has broken out in recent months.
For one, the Axios report only measures insured losses. The obvious problem here is that not all the damages were insured.
As I have previously explained, insurance is no panacea for the societal ills imposed by rioting. Indeed, 75 percent of US businesses are under-insured and about 40 percent of small businesses have no insurance at all. Their untold millions in losses don’t show up in the $2 billion figure.
So, too, insurance doesn’t account for the personal pain and suffering caused by rioting. For example, what about the more than 15 people who died during the unrest? Their lives and their families' pain don't get counted in any insurance company's budgetary analysis. Nor does the pain of those such as an elderly businessman punched in the face while his store was ransacked in Kenosha, Wisconsin manifest itself in total reports on insurance compensation.
The ratings for Thursday Night Football fell to a four year low, nearly being beaten by Celebrity Family Feud.
The game averaged a 5.43 rating.
While the NFL game still topped the primetime in both total viewers and adults 18-49, it was a close call. Celebrity Family Feud began its fall run on ABC with 5.26 million viewers, on par with its summer average (as was its 0.7 rating among adults 18-49)....
...
On cable, Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight (4.71 million viewers) and Hannity (4.51 million), along with TNT's NBA game (4.6 million), all finished within shouting distance of the NFL.
Meanwhile, Clay Travis of Outkick.com baits Mark Cuban about the NBA's disastrous, cratered ratings.
Clay Travis
@ClayTravis
More people watched @TuckerCarlson head-to-head than watched Lakers-Nuggets. So far every NBA playoff game has rated lower than the Michael Jordan-Bulls documentary. This is an epic viewing collapse never seen in one year before in sports...
As usual, the easiest way to make Mark Cuban shut up and disappear is to ask him to support the Hong Kong freedom protesters or condemn the tyrannical Chinese communist party. Travis asks Cuban to do that, and Cuban quickly finds something else to do besides troll people on Twitter.
@ClayTravis
Do you know the difference between democracy and communism? And let me ask you a question: do you support Chinese people having basic human rights or do you support the NBA continuing to shut up and dribble while taking communist party cash?
@ClayTravis
Thanks for giving me a chance to share our audience, Mark. August was @outkick's best month ever across web, video, & radio. Love to have you on to discuss the NBA's 40% ratings collapse this year & why you won’t support human rights in China. Let me know when works for you.
@ClayTravis
Hey @mcuban NBA conference ratings are at a forty year low and your entire league refuses to support basic human rights in China. Keep kneeling for Chairman Xi, bud. Open invite, as always, on @outkick if you have the balls. Until then, keep sucking China's money teat.
12:42 PM · Sep 26, 2020
One of Mark Cuban's responses was illuminating, as Sports Wars points out. When Travis noted that the NBA ratings had crashed 40% -- that they'd lost 40% of their customers due to turning the league into a megaphone for far-left racist identity politics -- Cuban responded that "we have the audience that advertisers want."
@mcuban
·
Sep 26
Hey Clay, I won't try to educate you on ratings. We have the audience our advertisers want....
In other words: We don't care about conservatives, because the left-leaning corporations that advertise with us hate conservatives too.
Interesting.
Sounds a lot like what the comic book companies said when the conservative (or simply non-political) members of their former readership base began complaining about their hard left turn into nonstop divisive leftwing agitprop.
I imagine a similar fate awaits our #Woke sports/politics franchises.
Can LeBron write young adult dating fantasies about Batman for pre-tween girls? Guess we'll soon find out.
You know, any company that loses forty f#cking percent of its customers and income... that's not going to be a company that's making a lot of money in the future. No one has a "spare" 40% audience they can afford to just kiss off. 40% of your income isn't mad money or splurge money.
Let me put this in terms the average Moron can understand: Imagine losing 40% of your dick.
And, as I said earlier, it was a terrible premise for such a test because no one would ever believe we were getting big bonuses from this company anyway! https://t.co/xUwo1pQ0dD
Man Who Covered Himself Head-to-Toe in Scaly Lizard-Like Tattoos, and Who Died the Whites of His Eyeballs Jet Black, Sues School for Not Letting Him Terrify Children as a Kindergarten Teacher
—Ace
No, really. He insists on his right to terrify your Kindergarteners.
"I agree with Dwayne Johnson and Cindy McCain --
I endorse the Human Biden Puppet."
This is in France but is there any question that Hawaiian judges will be ruling in similar plaintiff's favor within the year?
- A schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue are covered in tattoos and who has had the whites of his eyes surgically turned black said he was prevented from teaching at a French kindergarten after a parent complained he scared their child.
But the teacher, Sylvain Helaine, 35, still teaches children from the age of six up, and said that, after an initial shock when they see him for the first time, his pupils see past his appearance.
His pupils see past his black-dyed pupils?
Okay he didn't dye his pupils. Still.
Video: "I'm a regular guy," says this frootloop known as (really!) "freakie hoodie" in the tattoo freak community. He's spent 460 hours "under the needle" being tattooed.
Including... in his eyes.
He would like to hang out with your five year olds now. Unsupervised.
Alex the Chick: The NYT Claim that Trump Paid $750 in Taxes is a Straight-Up Lie. By Their Own Reporting, He Paid $1,000,000 in 2016 and $4,200,000 in 2017.
In addition, Alex the Chick found something even more worrisome than the New York Times' usual Stalinesque prevarication, or the Stasi-like illegal invasion of Trump's privacy.
Even if you think the reporters of the Times should not be arrested as coconspirators for illegally obtaining Trump's confidential IRS filings, what right do the New York Times reporters have to pour through the compensation of Trump's employees?
Because that's what they did: They illegally obtained confidential records of employee compensation, too.
Also, via Tami:
@JamesGRickards
I have a graduate law degree in taxation, was tax counsel to world's largest bank. So, maybe I know more about taxes than the NYTimes. In real estate, gains are deferred until you sell the building. Expenses are current, (depreciation, interest, fees). So, tax losses are normal.
https://tinyurl.com/y5eyhqho
Plus: the epidemic known as Twitter-Related Instant Expertise Syndrome (TRIES) has an incubation period that is now measured in mere minutes:
@MZHemingway
Honestly just feel blessed to follow so many journalists on Twitter who are tax and loan experts. Didn't realize that they had this particular expertise before tonight as I'd never heard them discuss a word of it before, which makes it all the more impressive.
Alyssa Milano Shrieks About Defunding the Police on Twitter, But the Moment There's a Teenager Outsider Her Property With a BB Gun, She Calls The Police
Actress and 'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano was quick to call cops when she believed an armed gunman was on her Bell Canyon property on Sunday morning.
The call ignited a response that included seven Ventura County Sheriffs' vehicles, one K-9 unit, a police helicopter and one Los Angeles Fire Department team that sat down the street on standby.
DailyMail.com has obtained exclusive photos showing the first responders coming to the aid of the 47-year-old at her five bed, six bath, 8,000 square foot, $2.5 million home in the upscale gated community that sits just 20 minutes north of Los Angeles.
In July, the left leaning activist Alyssa tweeted out to her 3.7 million followers a link, urging them to sign the 'People's Budget L.A.' that demands a 90 percent reduction in police funding.
She tweeted: 'What is the Los Angeles Police Protective League? @LAPPL is a narrow special interest group that lobbies our politicians to protect the LAPD budget, pension + officers. But electeds (sic) need to #ProtectPeopleNot Police. Sign the #People'sBudgetLA petition.'
Then in August she tweeted simply, '#DefundThePolice'
This tweet appears to be at direct odds with her actions on Sunday, September 20.
One neighbor says, 'She can tweet those things because at the end of the day she lives behind gates in a gated community. She knows the police will come to save her. But what about all those people who don't have that luxury and live in unsafe neighborhoods? She obviously doesn't care.
'She uses her platform in hypocritical ways. Why not send your husband into the yard to find out what is actually going on before you call the police? I would guesstimate the response today from law enforcement cost tax payers thousands of dollars.'
thanks to BetaC#ck4Life.
This post is so old it's smelly. I won't leave it at the top for long.
No Interim Report or Indictments from Durham Before the Election
—Ace
#TwoWeeks.
Maria Bartiromo
@MariaBartiromo
Breaking news: NO John durham interim report. No indictments before election - Bartiromo sources.
Bonus: UFC fighter Colby Covington mocks LeBron James as a coward, says he'll kick his ass, and insults Lebron James for doing nothing (like a bitch) when his teammate was literally -- literally, not jokingly -- f#cking his mother.
Dude supports the police. And Trump, obviously.
If anyone feels they need a sport to watch, the UFC is a well-run sport with no corruption that leans (steeply) Republican.
Yes, I'm happy that Donny 2-Scoops nominated Amy Coney Barrett, and if I had my way, there wouldn't be any hearings. None. If the GOP has the necessary votes, as McConnell and Graham claim, just move the nomination out of committee to a straight floor vote. What's the point of the hearings? Everybody knows the Democrats are going to vote not to confirm, regardless. I know there would be value in allowing the Democrats to show the American people how batshit crazy they are in nationally televised hearings just before the election, but after the Kavanaugh debacle, they've forfeited their right to any kind of consideration. Just shove it up their ass and listen to them squeal. And then have Kayleigh McEnany play selected clips from the Kavanaugh hearings during a press conference and conclude with "...and that's why the Democrats can't have nice things."
But I do have one caveat.
Barrett is Roman Catholic. No, I'm not concerned about any "dual allegiance" garbage, but I do know that RCC social teaching is not good on a number of important issues and I don't know how much that will affect Barrett's decisions. I remember back in the day when American bishops would write public letters to (or about) Ronald Reagan and the sentiments expressed were mostly squishy left nonsense. In our continual struggle against the USSR, the bishops were all a bunch of appeasement monkeys, and domestically, they never met a big government welfare program that they didn't like.
And more recently, the RCC was all in on Obamacare and only started complaining about it when they discovered that the government was going to force them to violate Church teachings:
It is now a requirement of Obamacare that every Catholic institution larger than a single church — and even including some single churches — must pay for contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after abortifacients for its employees. Each of these is directly contrary to the Catholic faith. But the Obama administration does not care. They have said, in effect, Do what we tell you — or else.
I remember giving a Nelson laugh to the RCC when this first happenened. I said, what did you stupid idiots think was going to happen when gave your approval to the government running the country's health care?
Also, they're real soft on illegal immigration and have no problem with inviting in millions of unvetted, undocumented, unassimilable "refugees" from any country in the world who can manage to make it here, in the name of compassion. In other words, like any liberal, they're extremely generous with other people's money.
Oh, and I almost forgot the death penalty. Technically, Catholic theology allows it, but the conditions they place on its use are so strict that they might as well be against it in principle. And didn't Pope Francis recently issue a statement saying that the death penalty is immoral under any circumstances?
Anyway...
I don't know how much of this, or if any of it, influences Ms. Barrett's legal and constitutional thinking. I do know that Neil Gorsuch "surprised friend and foe alike" when he sided with the liberal wing of SCOTUS in a recent decision making sexual orientation a protected class according to federal law. They arrived at this decision by expanding the definition of "sex" as it appears in the relevant civil rights statute. And I thought Gorsuch was supposed to be an originalist. Not this time. He just pissed all over the original definition of the word in order to get where he wanted to go.
Gorsuch supposedly attends an Episcopalian church that is very liberal on social issues.
I'm worried about what will happen when, say, a case involving some aspect of Trump's immigration policy comes before SCOTUS. Barrett clerked for Antonin Scalia. He was also a Roman Catholic, but he never "grew in office". I hope his influence on her proves to be the stronger.
Oh, and one more thing: this latest 'bombshell' story about Trump's taxes is going to be like Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's vault.
Friday Who Dis: British actor Robert Donat died too early, at age 53, from an asthma attack (from which he suffered all of his life). He starred with Greer Garson in the 1939 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
Today's Edition Of The Morning Rant Is Brought To You By Salted Caramel Glazed Doughnut Holes:
Good morning, kids. Start of a new week and wishing a blessed Yom Kippur and an easy fast to all the members of the Tribe. The big story of course is the President officially nominating Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy at the Supreme Court. I am still of the opinion that there should be no hearings at all, given the fact that we already have the requisite number of votes to confirm her (even with potential defections from the usual Defectos) and that the Democrats will vote 100% to reject the nomination. On top of that, they will use the occasion of the hearings to verbally abuse a righteous, highly qualified, decent, G-d-fearing woman, which is revoltingly ironic given that those hurling the abuse are amoral, heathen, mental defective vermin and moral midgets. Supposedly, Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley are promising that they will not allow the Dems to do to Barrett what they did to Kavanaugh and every other GOP nominee since Robert Bork. They better be banging that gavel harder than an amyl nitrate-fueled John Bonham pounding a set of Slingerlands harder than Carlo Rizzi on Connie Corleone.
O'Keefe's latest video documents an Omar campaign helper Liban Mohamed speaking with a carload of absentee ballots:
Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here, period. You know what i am saying? Money is everything and a campaign is managed by money. . . . Numbers do not lie. Numbers do not lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Can't you see? Look at all these, my car is full.
The Project Veritas investigation found three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle, where the scheme operates: the Riverside Plaza apartments, the senior citizen community at Horn Towers, and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.
Hennepin County Attorney Jeff Wojciechowski told a Project Veritas journalist on a recorded line the ballot harvesting conduct described to him was: "Illegal, and we will be investigating."
I'm sure indictments will be handed down by end of business today and that the miscreants will be tried, convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, while the girl with the tutti-frutti-I-keeel-you hat/turban will finally have her citizenship stripped and then returned to Somalia for immigration fraud. Yup. Thank goodness we have a fair and impartial justice system. Were it not for that, we'd be... Somalia.
I guess you have detected just a slight whiff of sarcasm there. Can you blame me? In any case, Democrats will always cheat and have always cheated to gain the advantage. Call it, "an insurance policy," nudge-nudge wink-wink. And considering that the stakes in this election are absolute power, seemingly forever, if they can steal it, the cheat machine is huge. The question is, given that Trump is more than likely going to win - or be ahead - by a massive margin when the polls close on Election Day, will the trickling in (by the thousands) of ballots miraculously found in the trunks of cars, ditches, and Cracker Jack boxes with deadlines extended for days and weeks in the key battleground states actually be enough to overturn the results? I don't think so.
Pennsylvania's not alone. Activist judges in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have also entered rulings throwing over their state's statutes regarding mail-in voting and, instead, substituting judge-made rules that drag voting out far beyond the November 3 election.
Doug Ross thinks these activist judges may have been too clever by half. Typically for Democrats, these activist judges don't know the Constitution:
All of these illegal proclamations directly contravene state law and are simply naked, partisan attempts to swing the election.
More importantly, they are in clear violation of the Constitution... Doug says the same line of thinking applies to the presidential election:
As for the presidential election, the Constitution is equally clear, as Mark Levin has repeatedly pointed out.
Article II, Section 1
...Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector...
Once again, the legislature is wholly responsible for directing the manner of presidential elections.
... Ross reads the Constitution to mean that, while the judge-made rules can affect state elections, they cannot affect federal elections. At the federal level, the only elections that count are those that comport with legislation. Put another way, only the people's representatives in a given state have the authority to decide how federal elections should be handled in that state. Judges don't have that power...
If the new rules from the activist judges suppress in-person voting, that may prove to be a disaster if the subsequently mailed ballots get thrown out. No wonder Democrat bigwigs are starting to encourage their peeps to vote in person.
And that brings us full circle to the Supreme Court and to Amy Coney Barrett. This is ultimately where the Dems' plan, if it gets this far, will fall apart. A full complement of nine justices will kill the power grab dead. Well, 5 for sure. Barrett is a Constitutionalist/originalist and in any case, the wording of the law is absolutely unambiguous, the x-factor of John "it's a tax, it's a sex" Roberts notwithstanding. I really hope to G-d that this thing never has to wind up here, although the lawsuits are sure to fly fast and furious come November 3rd whatever the outcome.
One good sign is the Democrats complete about face on in-person voting. I think they think that even with the cheating, the enthusiasm gap between Trump and Goofy Joey Bivalve is growing wider by the day. And I think Trump is going to win over significant portions of the black and Latino vote as well as perhaps take states that were trending purple that the Dems might think are in the bag for them. The only thing that will help is for every Trump voter to physically go to the polls and vote in person. Turnout, turnout, turnout - like never before. And bring one or two Trump voters with you for good measure.
ABOVE THE FOLD, NOTEWORTHY, BREAKING
"As usual, in part because of persistent judicial overreach and in part because the Democrats' desire to keep getting in Court what they cannot win at the ballot box, the courts are the main focus of attention this week." Courting Trouble
Angelo Codevilla: "The revolution long since destroyed the original American Republic in the minds, hearts, and habits of a critical mass of citizens. So now what?" Revolution 2020
Victor Davis Hanson: "The hard Left believes its mission is so critical, so morally superior, that all means can be justified to achieve its noble ends. And so almost every institution that the Left has in its line of vision is now petrifying." The Progressive Medusa
"Not only does the messaging pushed by the Biden foundation perpetuate radical, far-left narratives about gender, it also okays subjecting children to permanently life-altering surgeries which many ultimately come to regret." Biden Foundation Promoted Transgenderism For 18-Month-Old Babies
"A debate has begun within the Department of Justice as the timing of John Durham's criminal investigation conclusions. I'm being told by sources it is now too close to the election and could be viewed as politically motivated." FNC's Bartiromo: Durham Report Before Election "Unlikely"
"These are violent thugs obviously -- many of them, by the way, have college degrees from expensive universities. But in the end, they're all just foot soldiers. There are legions behind them. People you don't see on camera. It takes legions, it takes money, and it takes organization to stage effective riots for three and a half months." Tucker Carlson Names The Rich CEOs Funding Supplies, Bail For Louisville Rioters
President Trump: "She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution. This should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation." Republicans Prepare for Accelerated Supreme Court Confirmation
"McConnell has pointed out that the precedent wasn't about not holding Supreme Court hearings during an election year, but rather, not holding hearings during an election year when the president and the Senate, which is tasked with voting on the Supreme Court nominee, are of opposite parties during an election year." Biden Says Moving Forward With Barrett Nomination Before Election Day Is An "Abuse of Power"
Roger Kimball: "The Left is going to find Amy Coney Barrett a tough nut to attack. She is smart, pleasant, and competent. Her personal history is an open book of service and commitment." Barrett Will Sail
"Democrats are less afraid that Coney Barrett will impose Catholicism on them, than they are of her imposing constitutionalism." Amy Coney Barrett and the Zealots
"Democrats and President Obama abandoned prudence as part of political persuasion in 2016 and so they failed to get their nominee confirmed. Now they are angry that Republicans and President Trump are using it effectively." Trump's Nomination of ACB Honors Constitutional Norms; Dems Dishonor Them
"A politician first, Fauci has always played all sides of the equation because he knows that inspiring fear will always drive public policy in the direction he wants it to go." Anthony Fauci and the CDC: Inspiring Fear Since 1983
PHONY DEMOCRAT ELECTION-STEALING POSTAL SERVICE SWINDLE, ELECTION FRAUD IN GENERAL
"One alleged ballot harvester, Liban Mohamed, the brother of Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman, is shown in a bombshell Snapchat video rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard." (Bro-Fo Omar/Nur's bros in action - jjs) Project Veritas Video Uncovers "Ballot Harvesting" Fraud in Minnesota
"[Democrat Colorado Secretary of State Jena] Griswold sent a mailer to several people who are not eligible to vote, CBS4 reported, in a swing state that has a U.S. Senate seat on the ballot this year and could prove pivotal in the presidential race." Colorado Secretary of State Encourages Non-Citizens, Deceased to Register to Vote
"Poll workers will attempt to collect absentee ballots at over 200 unsecured, outdoor locations, and only deliver these ballots to the City Clerk's Office at the end of the six-hour campaign. There could be no justification for this ad hoc, unsecure, and unlawful approach that your campaign appears to be creating." GOP Challenges Madison, Wisc., "Ballot Collection Day" in City Parks
The statement from Paxton's office says that the individuals in question created fake ballots to boost Brown's razor-thin race by targeting "young, able-bodied voters to cast ballots by mail by fraudulently claiming the voters were 'disabled,' in most cases without the voters' knowledge or consent." Texas Attorney General Announces 134 Felony Charges of Voter Fraud from 2018
"Under a Biden administration, we will see a colossal escalation in the scope and power of government, projected by authoritarian policies, many of which were put in place under President Obama." Biden's Authoritarian America
"The same media that obsessed for days about a fairy-tale in which President Trump insulted World War I's dead have nothing to say about Biden's crude insults." Joe Biden Caught on Tape Abusing America's Troops
"When I ran for president four years ago, I looked at the dismal and shameful record of the Democrat Party and asked, black Americans, 'what the hell do you have to lose?' And they all said, you shouldn't use the word 'hell,' but I said it's just, just more descriptive. It doesn't work as well without it." Trump: Our Movement Is Welcoming Millions of Black Americans Back to the GOP
"Americans must realize Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are racial fanatics and defend their honor against their new would-be 'slaveocracy.'" On Race, Biden is Speedy Joe
"The gov needs to take a week off from talking to the press (let his aides release the virus updates), and focus on figuring out how to plug the state's $14.5 billion budget deficit. It may be boring, but at least then he'll be putting out fires -- not setting them." Angel-of-Death Cuomo Has Gone Loco on Crime and Vaccines
"As rural residents in states dominated by urban Democrats begin to visualize what life would be like if they could govern themselves, the populist momentum could become uncontainable." Two New U.S. States? The Case for Jefferson and Greater Idaho
"The sad truth is that these individuals are often released and returned into immigrant communities to potentially victimize other immigrants, and the crimes we are talking about span things like homicide, kidnapping, rape, robbery, battery, fraud, theft, drug offenses, crimes against children, weapons charges -- these are not law-abiding people who anyone should want in their community." Sanctuary Los Angeles Frees Illegal Aliens Charged with Murder, Sex Crimes
"To a pro-life movement accustomed to condescension and dismissal from Republican party leaders, President Trump is an unexpected and welcome delight." Trump Is Consistent and Truthful on Abortion
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
"...as politically painful is it would be for al-Kadhemi to crack down on the militias, it would be worse for him if the U.S. packed up and left." U.S. Plans "Full Withdrawal" From Iraqi Embassy
"This Trump Era realignment of foreign policy has been startling for naysayers, but it has proved to be effective both in achieving success for America and in producing novel workarounds for decades-long international disputes." Ten Ways Businessman Trump Has Improved America's Foreign Policy
"Critics of the president's first term have focused excessively on his rhetoric instead of his actions. A review of actual foreign policy actions in the context of American history allows a more balanced perspective." How Trump's Foreign Policy Fits Within the American Tradition
"Many of Biden's top advisers, including prominent names who served with him during the Obama administration, predicted that Trump's efforts would isolate the United States and incite a military conflict. In reality, these policies have constrained Iran's atomic weapons program, bolstered Israel's security, and brought the Middle East closer to peace than ever before." Study: Biden's Foreign Policy Circle Has History of Failed Predictions
"Chinese influence in multilateral organizations is reaching a critical mass, sources say, as Beijing mounts a bully pulpit-style campaign in the U.N. and elsewhere to defend its domestic interests." Trump Admin Seeks to Combat Chinese Influence at U.N.
"The regime wanted to send a message of intimidation to the rest of the population in order to prevent further protests in a very tense environment. But the execution actually sent the complete opposite message. It revealed the regime's incredible fragility." The Message of Iran's Execution of a Wrestling Champion
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE BUREAUCRACY, WASTE, FRAUD, ABUSE
"This is not Norman Rockwell's America. Indeed, it's not even the America one might remember growing up in the 1980s and '90s. It's changed for the worse." The Third Worlding of America
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
"Freeports, if implemented properly, could give the U.S. economy the shot in the arm it needs after damaging lockdowns this spring." The Promise of Freeports
"President Trump has delivered a confusing message on health-care reform." Muddled Accomplishments
EDUCATION, AND WHAT PASSES FOR IT
"With increasing audacity, progressive faculty in social sciences and gender studies programs are preaching a groupthink that brings undergrads to a low opinion of themselves and their country." The University as Madrasah
"The radicalization we see in the streets of American cities and the radicalization of American college students may look like two separate things. But they are not." The Molotov Diploma
"The woke mobs are battling phantoms from America's past, while they are simultaneously, and aggressively, establishing a new racist status quo." The Upside-Down World of the Woke
HITHER & YON
"Would Ursula K. Le Guin, were she still alive, feel welcome on the Left? Hard to say." The Ones Who Walk Away
NOTE: The opinions expressed in some links may or may not reflect my own. I include them because of their relevance to the discussion of a particular issue.
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Revolutions never succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society. Yet revolutionaries seldom conceal that their success entails the seizure of all wealth, the suppression of dissenting opinion, and the murder of class enemies. Gary Saul Morson
Quote II
“Let’s see how the implants look, I told her. Look, this one’s down more, this one’s down less, let’s look at the scars, and she was beside me and I kissed her tits, and that was all,”Juan Emilio Ameri
Quote III
And neither Kamala Harris nor her sidekick Joe Biden send any message aimed at quelling the violent hysteria. One must conclude that they’re on-board with rioting, arson, looting, and bushwhacking. Like I said: chaos = their comfort zone.James Howard Kunstler
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you. William Arthur Ward
Quote VI
First, you cannot fight bigotry with bigotry; religious intolerance is just as wrong as any other kind of othering. Indulging it won’t get us a more tolerant America. Melinda Henneberger
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report glowingly stated: “With the support of federal tax incentives, both wind and solar power purchase agreement (PPA) prices are now below the projected cost of burning natural gas in existing gas-fired combined cycle units.”
This is despite the fact that the DOE’s own data show wind’s “capacity factor” (percent of time actually generating electricity at full capability) is only 35%, compared to 57% for natural gas plants and 92% for nuclear. In many locations, huge industrial wind facilities actually generate power well below 30% of the year. On the hottest and coldest days, it’s often close to zero. That’s why nuclear power plants actually produced 20% of U.S. electricity in 2019, despite having only 9% of the nation’s generation capacity.
In addition to being weather-dependent, intermittent and unreliable, wind turbines cover vast areas of land; affect scenic views and local wind flow, temperature and moisture; kill bats and birds of prey, with no penalties under migratory bird or endangered species laws; have relatively short life spans and require massive amounts of raw materials, especially for ocean turbines, compared to coal, gas, hydroelectric or nuclear plants; involve enormous air and water pollution in faraway countries where a lot of the mining, processing and manufacturing are done, before turbine parts are shipped to America; and more.
“The Americans aren’t just angry. They’re really, really, really angry,” said one Iraqi official after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed the Iraqi government that the U.S. was planning a full withdrawal from the U.S. Embassy unless attacks on American personnel and the embassy by pro-Iranian militias ceased.
When coffee makers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed
Watch along as hacked machine grinds, beeps, and spews water.
With the name Smarter, you might expect a network-connected kitchen appliance maker to be, well, smarter than companies selling conventional appliances. But in the case of the Smarter’s Internet-of-things coffee maker, you’d be wrong.
As a thought experiment, Martin Hron, a researcher at security company Avast, reverse engineered one of the $250 devices to see what kinds of hacks he could do. After just a week of effort, the unqualified answer was: quite a lot. Specifically, he could trigger the coffee maker to turn on the burner, dispense water, spin the bean grinder, and display a ransom message, all while beeping repeatedly. Oh, and by the way, the only way to stop the chaos was to unplug the power cord. Like this:
Thousands have signed the petition calling for Nancy Pelosi to be ‘prosecuted for COVID violations’
A petition has gone viral across social media that is calling for Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to be “prosecuted by San Francisco for her flaunting of COVID regulations.”
The viral campaign has gathered tens of thousands of signatures in response to Speaker Pelosi being caught on camera in a hair salon without a mask earlier this month.
“The salon owner gets death threats, while Pelosi has paid ZERO price for her hypocrisy,” the petition states.
arthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin announced earlier in September that it would search for a replacement name for its “Red Men and the Lady Reds” team names, citing issues based around race and gender.
The decision comes from the president of the college, John Swallow, who had received the go-ahead from the board of trustees and said that "[We] want to be inclusive and not single-out Native Americans. And we also want to be inclusive for gender as well," according to Fox 6.
According to the report, the administration cites reasons of racism, and sexism in its decision to change the name of the sports teams, in addition to retiring the mascot, “Torchie." The team names and mascots have been used since the early 1900s to represent the colors of the school, and the mascot has represented the “torch of education."
In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, John Legend says that Americans may have to consider leaving the country if President Trump is reelected.
"Every once in a while you think about it," Legend said. "I don't know what one's supposed to do when you have a leader who is trying to destroy democracy."
Trump has feuded with Legend and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, throughout his presidency.
Legend, a strong supporter of 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, has been a prominent political activist for years, with a particular passion for criminal justice reform.
Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
In an interview with Cosmopolitan UK, John Legend says that Americans may have to think about leaving the country if President Trump is reelected to a second term.
"Every once in a while you think about it," he said. "We were born and raised here, all of our families are here. It would be hard to leave. But I don't know what one's supposed to do when you have a leader who is trying to destroy democracy."
Legend continued, saying that "If that project [to destroy democracy] was to be in any way successful, you'd have to think about going somewhere that is a true democracy, that has respect for the rule of law and human rights."
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Has the Kung Flu decimated the commercial real estate market for some time? What is an office for?
I haven’t worked in an office — a proper office — since 2008. Back then, I had a cubicle plastered with sticky notes and a desk chair of questionable ergonomic value. I had meetings in the conference room, lunch at my desk. I had colleagues in cubicles nearby for advice and gossip. I had mice who left the tiny evidence of their nightly visits in my desk drawers.
Now my desk faces a wall covered in sticky notes and my chair is still of questionable ergonomic value — but that desk is in my home. My meetings are over the phone or Skype, and most exchanges are by email or text. It’s quiet. I don’t waste time commuting, and I can even throw in a load of laundry when I get the chance.
More people, not just freelancers like me, are choosing to work remotely. A 2018 survey by an alternative office space provider gleefully reported that 70 percent of workers worldwide work remotely at least once a week. Some people are suggesting that startups shouldn’t bother to get office space at all. I recently interviewed the two founders of an app-making company, one of whom lived in New York and the other in Georgia. They rarely met face to face.
This is an older article published approximately 11 months before the shit hit the fan. Yours truly hasn't worked at an office for nearly 16 years. I'm not sure if I could anymore.
According to the London press cited, there's talk now of yanking titles. Or who knows, cutting them dead. Something. Some kind of sanction for this low descent to partisan politics. They've already signaled some kinds of displeasure by taking Harry's and Meghan's picture down as a backdrop during a state address from the queen, and then pointedly leaving Meghan out of birthday-greetings pictures sent to Harry on his birthday. Now they've really stepped in it and reports say the queen is mad.
Because there's no doubt about it, the whole political act was colossally obnoxious. The queen has good relations with President Trump and spoke with him last time he visited for more than an hour. That's more time than she gave to the visiting and solicitous Obamas.
It didn't take a genius to know whom that remark was directed to, and worse still, it was pure naked politics, under the rubric of not-politicking, just asking everyone to be nice, and everyone can see through it. Meghan's politics are no secret, she told us all about them earlier when she refused to stiff-upper-lip it and meet the leader of the free world on his first state visit to England, claiming the ailments of pregancy, but showing up at some event 24 hours later. No wonder President Trump has since said he's "not a fan" of Meghan's, and wished Prince Harry "lots of luck" now that he's stuck with her.
On Saturday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law mandating that convicted criminals can request placement in single-sex prisons based upon the prisoners’ self-defined “gender identity.” There’s strong evidence that letting intact men go to women’s prisons is an invitation for rape. That makes the new law one of the most misogynistic things California’s hard-left government could have done.
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The ONT Musical Interlude
Born on this day: 27 Sep 1947
American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor Meat Loaf (Marvin Lee Aday). His record breaking 1978 album Bat Out Of Hell spent 457 weeks on the UK album chart. His Bat Out of Hell trilogy of albums (consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell, and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose) has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Meat Loaf has also appeared in over 50 movies and television shows. via thisdayinmusic.com
On this day: 27 Sep 2011
Tony Bennett became the oldest living person to top the US album chart when the 85-year-old's 'Duets II' album went to No.1. The record, which featured collaborations with Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga, was also his first US No.1 in his 60 year career. The previous oldest performer to top the chart was Bob Dylan in 2009 with 'Together Through Life'. At the time he was 67-years old. via thisdayinmusic.com
SEPTEMBER 23--The Ohio woman who recently called 911 to claim that “my pussy’s on fire” and, as a result, needed someone from the fire department to “put it out with their hose,” pleaded guilty today for her misuse of the emergency dispatch system.
In a plea deal with prosecutors, Katrina Morgan, 50, copped to disorderly conduct with persistence, a misdemeanor, in connection with a late-night 911 call in May. Morgan was intoxicated when she placed the call while at a friend’s home in Port Clinton, a city on Lake Erie.
After entering her plea in Ottawa County Municipal Court, Morgan was sentenced to 10 days in jail, though the execution of the sentence was suspended as long as she avoids trouble for the next year. She was also fined $250, but $150 of that penalty was suspended.
Seen above, Morgan was initially charged with disrupting public service, a felony, and several misdemeanors.
WATCH – Soldier Returns from Kuwait, Surprises Family at Football Game: ‘We Needed This’
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Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Crochet Faux Pas.
Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire and AceCorp, LLC. The ONT has been blacklisted by the Crochet Circle International. No rights reserved, no shits given.
Welp, I have been promising you people a video on the M1 Carbine for what seems like forever, and the planets finally aligned this past week and I was able to get 'er done! I really had meant to take care of ths sooner, but something always seemed to come up; running out of time at el farm-o, forgetting the ammo, forgetting the rifle... you know, the usual lame BS.
Anyhoo, let's take a peek below and see how it turned out, shall we?
The M1 Carbine is a great little rifle and it is a lot of fun to shoot! As I said in the video, mine was made by the Inland Division of General Motors in 1944. I found it online in 2012 and paid around $800 for it, which at the time seemed about the going retail price. I haven't checked values recently, but suspect they're going for more than that in decent condition. Prices aren't likely to go down anytime soon, so if you see one, grab it!
Manufacturers
Always of considerable interest to me is the list of companies who produced rifles and other war materiel under wartime contract. Manufacturers of the M1 Carbine included:
- Inland Division, General Motors
- Winchester Repeating Arms
- Irwin-Pedersen
- Saginaw Steering Gear Division, General Motors
- Underwood Elliot Fisher
- National Postal Meter
- Quality Hardware Manufacturing Corp.
- International Business Machines
- Standard Products
- Rock-Ola Manufacturing Corporation
- Commercial Controls Corporation
Does anyone else find the wartime production conversions from automobiles, typewriters, postal meters and juke boxes to rifles interesting?
Sight Radius
In the video, I mentioned sight radius and gave an over-simplified explanation of the concept. It's a topic which is little more involved than I described, and applies to all weapons with iron sights, both handguns and rifles, alike. It also happens to tie in nicely with the discussion we've been having lately on iron sights and making adjustments to them. To clarify a point I made in the video, a weapon with a longer sight radius is not inherently more accurate but it makes it easier to shoot them more accurately than a weapon with a shorter sight radius. Small inaccuracies in sight alignment have a greater effect on target when using a shorter sight radius. Make sense?
These are just a few articles on the subject and I'm certain anyone interested in exploring the concept can find others.
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First up our pal Brian in New Orleans sends us a picture of his recent range trip to his sister's place. Brian assures us the beer bottle was for the photographer, not one of the shooters!
Went shooting this past week at my sister's place. First day off in 18 months and this trip was still delayed three times since early-August. Hurricane Sally still came while I was out there.
Here's my sister shooting a 60-year old Remington Scoremaster model 511 that's been by her back porch for a couple decades in case of a brave coyote. Leaning against the table is a Ruger 556 with discontinued Nikon 4-12x40 Coyote-special brush-camo scope that we got a great deal on from the clearance table.
Isn't that a great set-up? Steel plate at 100yds, paper at 50 and 25yds. Pink spray-painted steel plates for the pistols.
That sure is a great setup! Nothing quite like having a place to shoot of your own. I had to buy a damn farm to have that! Thanks for sending this to us Brian in New Orleans!
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Next we have a pretty slick setup for securing your truck gun from our pal JT.
Is that sweet, or what?
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And here's a sad story from our pal WTM that serves as a reminder to us all.
A friend of my wife's has a son, in his 40's, who had never been around guns thanks to Dad but married a woman who had. He then got a gun safe and a collection of handguns which he decided to clean one day.
I'm told that there were 3 identical pistols, probably semi autos then, that he had out to clean. It seems that one was loaded and the other two were not. He violated the first rule of gun safety, and began cleaning the loaded pistol. It discharged and the bullet struck the gun safe, ricocheting back and putting out one eye.
He is unemployed and has no medical insurance. There is one life ruined.
Naturally, my wife was in a panic about our own situation and I should be ashamed to say that I laughed at her. I told her that ALL of my handguns are loaded, both in and out of the safe, and even if they weren't I would treat them as if they were. I said that what happened with her friend's son was never going to happen here since I follow the rules of gun safety. I do clean guns frequently and have done so for over 40 years without mishap. Note that my long guns do not have a round in the chamber even though the magazine may be loaded.
I am fairly OCD when it comes to making certain a firearm is unloaded before I start to do anything with it, and even then always treat them as though they're loaded. Please, please, please make sure you follow the safety rules when handling any firearm. The eyeball you save may be your own. The rules aren't complicated. Follow them.
- Treat all guns as if they are always loaded.
- Never let the muzzle point at anything you are not willing to destroy.
- Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
Thanks for the reminder, WTM!
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Next, our pal redc1c4 sends us a link for the Strikeman Laser Training System. This looks like another good indoor dry fire system, and it's available for pre-order now at $99 for an early October delivery. With ammo hard to find and expensive when you find it, a dry-fire trainer makes even more sense now than ever before.
Looks like a good deal and a smart investment, thanks redc1c4!
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I'm pretty sure I need one of these:
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Texas MoMe
The Texas MoMe will be here before we know it, I personally, I can't wait! Details are on the main page, left sidebar. Those of you wondering what all the fuss is about will simply have to attend one to understand. Fun doesn't even begin to explain it, and each year it just keeps getting bigger and better! There will be plenty of shooting opportunities, with dedicated handgun and rifle ranges.
Many of our fellow Morons are coming from around the country and for logistical reasons, may not be bringing their own gun or ammunition. Rest assured, there will be plenty of guns there for everyone to try, so if you are driving, please consider bringing a box (or two) of your favorite caliber ammunition to share. Thank you!!
I can think of several 'ette's here with these skillz! [h/t MisHum]
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Please note the new and improved gmail account morongunthread at gmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Hope I'm not stepping on any toes. It's been a long time, and I don't occupy any of the normal time slots.
For the funny little end-bit of the video: in Connecticut, Senator Richard "Dick" Blumenthal had a reputation as a relentless news-camera hound during the 20 years when he was the State AG. This is what the old gent is referring to.
Food Thread: Bagel With Lox And A Schmear, And A Side Of Lily White Rice
—CBD
Tonight at sundown begins Yom Kippur, the most important holiday in Judaism, when even mostly-areligious Jews tend to do something to recognize the holiday. It is the Day of Atonement, when Jews fast and ask forgiveness for their sins against God. It gets a bit more complicated with sins against our fellow man...we have to seek forgiveness or reconciliation, and to try to right those wrongs. Yeah...it's complicated.
But we get to break the fast with some fun foods, and I have been using the quintessential Jewish-American food for years! Luckily I live in an area which has pretty good bagels, and smoked salmon is no longer a specialty item! Hell, Costco has excellent stuff, so I don't have to go to Russ & Daughters in Manhattan and take out a second mortgage to buy a few pounds of salmon, especially since most of it will be sitting on a pile of cream cheese and onions.
If I were serving it on its own I might consider buying the high end stuff, but for most uses I have absolutely no problem eating mass-market smoked salmon. By the way, it is a bit different than the more heavily smoked fish that I used to see in California and the Pacific Northwest. It is a more delicate cold-smoke with a bit less salt. Not better...just different.
A mostly ignored ingredient that is a key component of the perfect bagel and lox sandwich is the cream cheese! Whipped is mandatory. Sorry, there is nothing better. And Temp-Tee brand is the best of the lot. Oh, Philadelphia brand will do in a pinch, but no self respecting Jew will choose it over the classic.
The bagel needs to have a chewy crust and a tender but firm interior. Too soft and it won't stand up to the filling. And that crust is the difficult part of the bagel baking process. I've made them, and it's not as easy as it seems. The claim among NYC bagel makers is that the water is key, but the best bagels in NYC come from New Jersey, and I promise you that our water is crap compared to New York's last (only?) claim to fame.
Onion? Yes. Preferably a red onion. But tomato? Absolutely not, but I am in the minority. I think tomato muddies the flavors and makes the entire sandwich mushy.
Capers on the other hand? They add a nice briny pop. But that's it. no other silly accoutrements. And for fvck's sake...no butter!
Uncle Ben was a dignified and well-dressed man who was the advertising face of the brand. In what way was his likeness insulting or disrespectful? Uncle Ben's Rebrands as Ben's Original.
It wasn't.
Are there HR and marketing managers in these companies frantically looking for imagined slights to some aggrieved group so they can polish their PC chops and improve their standing in the virtue signalling contest that seems to be running perpetually?
Must they cleanse everything of any hint of Black America before it became woke and communist? The last time I checked, Black America had a vibrant food scene and it is certainly something of which to be justifiably proud.
There is a maniac on the loose and that maniac is responsible for bringing pumpkin spice Kraft macaroni and cheese into the world. Has humanity not suffered enough with this spice that's "been a thing" for 3,500 years, according to History.com, but now has gone too far.
The planet can't support billions of meat eaters. If we all ate only plants, we'd need only half the land we use at the moment.
And I think that David Attenborough is a Champagne Socialist who needs a swift kick in the teeth and a nice medium-rare NY strip so that his brain begins to function properly after years of starving it of real food.
What are we supposed to do with all of that unused land? Last time I checked we really weren't hurting for open space outside of the densely populated cities, and none of that land is taken up by farms that support the evil red meat industry.
The obvious reality is that the planet can support billions of meat eaters just fine. Although the sooner Attenborough shuffles off this mortal coil and stops plaguing us with inane pronouncements about what we should do, the better off the rest of us will be.
Now excuse me while I go have my lunch of a large beef short rib.
Maybe two if I am feeling peckish.
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I remember this from a few years ago, but somebody mentioned it in the comments recently and I had to post it. Jimmy Dean Sausage Complaint call may be the best two minutes on YouTube!
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Yes. Oh YES YES YES!
What's not to like about this? I haven't had a corn dog since the Sonoma County Fair in the 1990s...or maybe even earlier. But there is something wonderful about the idea, and this just makes it easier.
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It's happening again! every year around this time it starts to get cooler and the days become shorter and my tastes shift to braises and stews and other warming foods. This one looks good, and standard, but there is nothing wrong with that. Guinness Beef Stew may be right out of a 1950s cook book, but sometimes the simplest foods from our past are still around for a reason; they taste good.
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Food and cooking tips, Large-breasted Muscovy ducks, young wild pigs, bartenders who use vermouth in Martinis (but not too much), pork belly that doesn't have 5-spice, low-temperature-roast chicken, and good tomatoes that aren't square, pale pink and covered with Mestizo E.coli: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com. Any advocacy of French Toast with syrup will result in disciplinary action up to and including being nuked from orbit. And yes, shaking a Manhattan is blasphemy...it's in the Bible!
Where is the Green New Deal? I want a battery that lasts forever!
The camera in the photo has a small battery that lasts for barely 250 photos. And even fewer if I want to take 4k images. Yes, it is a difficult and painful life, but we must try to function in this brutal time.
I was taking some time lapse images of...stuff*...and 250 images just didn't cut it. at 30 frames/second that's barely eight seconds, and I WANT MORE!
So off to the internet, where I found an AC converter that fits perfectly in the battery compartment (it has a convenient hole in the cover for a cable) and will allow me to power the camera externally.
But here is the awful part; I had to wait an entire day for it to be shipped to me. In fact, more than 24 hours from the time I ordered it until the time it arrived.
I struggled, barely functioning, mostly curled up in a dark closet until the package arrived.
Joking aside, it is a wonder what we have available to us. That camera takes amazingly high quality photos with an almost infinite number of adjustments available at the touch of a finger. I can transfer the photos to my PC or send them over the internet to be printed. Oh, it takes pretty good video too!
Remember the clunky and crappy cameras of yesteryear? Sure, some of us invested a lot of money in equipment, and time learning how to use it, and were able to take glorious photos. But most of us muddled along taking mediocre photos and then had to wait to get them developed.
I am sure that there are purists who pine for the good old days, but most of us are perfectly happy with modern photography equipment that does most of the work for us and produces better photographs.
Although they still sit in the equivalent of photo albums, mostly unseen...
Yes, We Are Better Off In Many Ways Than We Were 50 years Ago, But That Entirely Misses The Point
—CBD
"Cafe Hayek" is a reliably consistent website that faithfully carries on the legacy of Friedrich Hayek, a vociferous defender of free markets and classical liberalism. He has always impressed me because he moved from socialism to free markets, just as Thomas Sowell did, as he learned more about the world. That says something about the leftists of today, but I digress.
The common experience over the past several decades has been that jobs are readily available for those who want them, and for quality of life to improve. The populist argument that typical workers have been at a standstill for decades – victims of an elite that has “rigged the system” against them to help itself, or of immigrants – is incorrect.
And from a strict economic interpretation, it is a powerful argument.
Nostalgia for, and misty-eyed myths about, a long-gone past are understandable. We humans are prone to such lazy indulgences. But I guarantee that if any of you ordinary Americans were suddenly projected back to, say, 1975 and found yourself living as ordinary Americans then lived, you’d feel desperately deprived. The reason is that, by the standards of today, you would be desperately deprived.
But this is an incomplete analysis of the issues, which are not simply economic. Yes, cell phones and modern cars and great medicine and incredible TVs with 500 channels (of mostly nothing!) and all of the other marvels of 21st century life are axiomatically much better than what we had 50 years ago. But there has been a degradation in our standard of living that is not so easily quantified, compared to the quality of my parents' 13" Sony Trinitron versus my 60" Sony flat screen.
This exposes the limitations of economics as a science to describe societies. Where is the measure of the feeling among many Americans that we are no longer judged equally by our justice system? Where is the graph showing the shift from manufacturing to service jobs, and the decrease in stability of the typical American family. And most of all, show me the pie chart that describes the withering away of patriotism and pride in country, replaced by a globalist perspective that we are all just one big (not so) happy world family.
Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which I guess look OK, but why pay $1200 for grass stains when I know any number of kids who will provide them for free?
Blog Note:
Thanks to moron commenter naturalfake for arranging to have Zombie Judge Roy Bean fill in for me last Sunday. The judge provided a number of interesting book recommendations and, from what I saw, he didn't have to hang anybody.
It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®
And you thought it was the Germans who had a word for everything:
Also, if you could figure out a way to use this word in a Scrabble game, you'd make a yuuge score.
Since the Wuhan flu crap started, I've been drawn to reading books like Boorstin's "The Discoverers" and Hackett Fischer's books about the Founders, because I want to read books that celebrate our history and civilization rather than denigrate it. And also because I fear that in the near future authors like Boorstin and Hackett-Fischer and Barzun might very well be banned for being "white supremacist."
Posted by: Donna&&&&&&&&V at September 13, 2020 10:50 AM (HabA/)
A little over a year ago, I mentioned a new history textbook that does just this, i.e. it celebrates American history and civilization rather than condemns it. Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story is written by historian Wilfred M. McClay of the University of Oklahoma, which sets our country on a foundation of respect rather than contempt:
A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding; and it needs to be able to convey that narrative to its young effectively. It perhaps goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale or a whitewash of the past; it will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But there is no necessary contradiction between an honest account of the American past and an inspiring one. This account seeks to provide both.
Antifa/BLM scum lobbing fireworks and Molotov cocktails at police officers is what you get when you feed your kids a steady diet of Howard Zinn and other "f*ck America" academics. And I must say I'm a bit astounded that it took us this long for us to get a president who is willing to use the bully pulpit call out this poisonous miseducation for what it is.
Highly regarded here and abroad for some thirty works of cultural history and criticism, master historian Jacques Barzun has set down in one continuous narrative the sum of his discoveries and conclusions about the whole of Western culture since 1500.
And:
The triumphs and defeats of five hundred years form an inspiring saga that modifies the current impression of one long tale of oppression by white European males.
Donna mentions, as an example, Barzun's defense of Columbus:
Barzun notes that there were plenty of people in Spain - especially clergymen - who recognized the humanity of the Indians and denounced brutal treatment of them right from the start. It was NOT official policy of either Spain or Columbus to slaughter the Indian population. The problem was that official authorities in Spain had very little control over what individuals bent on becoming very wealthy did in the New World. The sort of personality types willing to sail off into the unknown and risk tremendous hardships were the same sort of men who ventured alone into the American West centuries later - very tough hombres and not infrequently that toughness crossed the line into ruthlessness. But, as Barzun also points out, the Indians themselves were hardly peaceful innocents - the Caribs encountered by Columbus had exterminated an earlier tribe. Barzun could say such things in 2001 and still get praised by critics at the NY Times and Atlantic. If he were still alive today (he died in 2012, close to his 105th birthday), he'd certainly have antifa brats picketing his house.
These are good things to think about as we are engaged in a pitched battle to determine the course of America's future. And anyone who says that America needs to be "fundamentally transformed", as Obama did in one of his early speeches, is on the wrong side.
For many years I presented this story to my class of Montessori children ages 2½ to 6. They loved it. I would only tell them a small part of the story each day as I laid out illustrations of the people and events in order of occurrence. I often gave them a cliffhanger so that they could contemplate and discuss what might happen next, as they eagerly awaited the next part of the story.
No child should be denied knowledge of the history of his country. It is important for children to understand that what people have done in the past has an effect on how we live now. They need to be able to connect the dots—to see which prevailing thoughts led to fights, what ideas led to prosperity, what actions led to other actions, and so on.
Our country has a unique history of men and women with the right ideas who had the integrity and courage to put those ideas into practice. If Western Civilization is to survive, this is a story that needs to be told and cannot be lost.
Emphasis mine. "Your life belongs to you" is a great one-sentence description of what America offers, particularly Europeans tired of being bossed around by various kings, lords, dukes, earls, etc.
Who Dis:
(Last week's 'who dis' was author Frederick Kohner and his daughter Kathy, the inspiration for his best-selling novel 'Gidget'.
As Eberstadt illustrates, humans from time immemorial have forged their identities within the structure of kinship. The extended family, in a real sense, is the first tribe and first teacher. But with its unprecedented decline across a variety of measures, generations of people have been set adrift and can no longer answer the question Who am I? with reference to primordial ties. Desperate for solidarity and connection, they claim membership in politicized groups whose displays of frantic irrationalism amount to primal screams for familial and communal loss.
The conventional wisdom is that the West first experienced religious decline, followed by the decline of the family. Eberstadt turns this standard account on its head. Marshalling an impressive array of research, from fascinating historical data on family decline in pre-Revolutionary France to contemporary popular culture both in the United States and Europe, Eberstadt shows that the reverse has also been true: the undermining of the family has further undermined Christianity itself.
Drawing on sociology, history, demography, theology, literature, and many other sources, Eberstadt shows that family decline and religious decline have gone hand in hand in the Western world in a way that has not been understood before—that they are, as she puts it in a striking new image summarizing the book’s thesis, “the double helix of society, each dependent on the strength of the other for successful reproduction.”
You can see the same themes running in both works.
Moron Recommendations
38 I just began Edward Achorn's new book "Every Last Drop Of Blood: The Momentous Second Inaugural Of Abraham Lincoln" . Having listened to an interview of the author, in which he noted parallels between the struggles Lincoln faced and Trump faces every day, I was hooked. I even bought the hard cover edition, so I have high expectations!
Posted by: Huck Follywood at September 13, 2020 09:14 AM (gtNWf)
By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans and left intractable wounds on the nation. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors—every drop of blood spilled—might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.
...A host of characters, unknown and famous, had converged on Washington—from grievously wounded Union colonel Selden Connor in a Washington hospital and the embarrassingly drunk new vice president, Andrew Johnson, to poet-journalist Walt Whitman; from soldiers’ advocate Clara Barton and African American leader and Lincoln critic-turned-admirer Frederick Douglass (who called the speech “a sacred effort”) to conflicted actor John Wilkes Booth—all swirling around the complex figure of Lincoln.
23 Last week I responded to a comment about all the grimdark stories by recommending a couple of authors that write lighter and humorous fare, but that was kind of late in thread so I'm repeating it here. If you're looking for fun and funny books you should try A. Lee Martinez and the John Moore who's written books like A Fate Worse Than Dragons and The Unhandsome Prince and Heroics for Beginners.
Posted by: Cybersmythe at September 13, 2020 09:10 AM (qDSku)
Let's take a look at John Moore, who likes to take fairy tales and twist them around in humorous ways. Take, for example, The Unhandsome Prince:
Caroline’s plan to live happily ever after has hit a snag. She’s spent months mapping the swamp, building tadpole nets, and kissing every wriggling frog she could get her hands on, and one has finally turned into a prince. Unfortunately, Prince Hal is not, as promised in the fairy tales, particularly handsome. In fact, he’s kind of dorky-looking.
Hal himself isn’t very eager to marry a girl so obsessed with appearances, but he finds that a lot of people have a stake in his impending nuptials—including a sorceress in training, an irritating dwarf, and Hal’s own royal family, who seem to have misplaced large portions of the treasury. But the biggest reason for him to marry Caroline, true love be darned, is that if he doesn’t, it’s back to the lily pads for him—permanently…
A homeschooling mom I know personally has self-published an adorable little book for the tween set. She looked for an agent and was told that while the book was good, there wasn't enough about toxic masculinity or trans children to get a contract. :( So she went out on her own and got it done.
The book is in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown with the heroine coming from a Catholic homeschooling family. I proofread it for her, and I laughed out loud a few times while reading it. I purchased it, and it has the ultimate seal of approval from my children in that the ones that read independently read it in one sitting. It's probably at the 10-12-year-old level for reading, but it would make a good read-aloud for the younger set as well.
Young John Quincy Adams befriends a boy whose father is illicitly buying weapons, finds a girl pretending to be something she's not, learns from a French doctor connected to a mysterious Committee, and discovers a British spy in search of something that might not be there.
In Sea Chase, bestselling author John Braddock has written a story of the American Revolution for young adults...
Inspired by the incredible true story of young Johnny Quincy Adams' first journey to Europe, Sea Chase is a novel of action, courage and resilience in the face of enemies, foreign and domestic.
$2.99 on Kindle.
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Books By Morons
Moron author Jerry Carroll has published a sequel to his 2014 book The Great Liars, a novel about some wild WWII shenanigans and whether Roosevelt knew about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor. The Greater Liars picks up the action where the first novel left off:
The madcap and harrowing adventures past and alarmingly present continue for roguish former Navy officer Lowell Brady and Smithsonian scholar Harriet Gallatin as government agents try to keep secret events just before Pearl Harbor that could bring down some very big names in the Capitol. It is early in the morning in 1953 when FBI and CIA agents rise from beach grass and fire at one another in an operation that has gone tragically awry. Pulling off a Bonnie-and-Clyde getaway, Brady continues his recollections of his wartime experiences as she tape records them with eyes on the rear view mirror as terror mounts on their endless cross-country flight from danger. Her dawning realization that Lowell is an adrenaline junkie who gets a charge from narrow escapes is making making her as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Both novels can be purchased on Kindle for $2.99 each.
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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.
What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.
(I guess we're lucky that Calvin never discovered the Loompanics catalog.)
Two little boys, ages 5 and 7, are excessively mischievous. They are always getting into trouble and their parents know if any mischief occurs in their town, the two boys are probably involved.
The boys’ mother heard that a preacher in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but he asked to see them individually.
The mother sent the 5 year old in the morning, with the older boy to see the preacher in the afternoon.
The preacher, a huge man with a deep booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, “Do you know where God is, son?”
The boy’s mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open.
So the preacher repeated the question in an even sterner tone, “Where is God?!
Again, the boy made no attempt to answer.
The preacher raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy’s face and bellowed, “WHERE IS GOD?!”
The boy screamed & bolted from the room, ran directly home & dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him.
When his older brother found him in the closet, he asked, “What happened?” The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, “We are in BIG trouble this time!”
“GOD is missing, and they think WE did it!”
Thank you Legally Sufficient for tonight's joke.
Learn How to Swear in 15 Languages From Samuel L. Jackson
It’s not unusual for celebrities to lend their voice and their talents to help get out the vote—especially in presidential election years. But this one is a little different, because it involves Samuel L. Jackson offering a masterclass in swearing in 15 different languages. If that’s not enough of an incentive to check your voter registration status, we don’t know what is. Here’s how to learn international cursing from the best in the biz.
The beer-and-brandy soaked state consistently leads or places among the top contenders in America’s Drunkest States round-ups, and this past January, the Badger State clocked in with 12 of the top 20 entries of the Nation’s Drunkest Cities as compiled by 24/7 Wall Street. Overconsumption of alcohol is a serious matter and can be problematic on many fronts, and most states might try to quickly bury such headlines from the daily news cycle, but Wisconsinites wear this black eye like a badge of honor after a bar fight.
“Drinking is part of the state identity. In a weird way they’re perversely proud of it. It’s a part of life,” says Milwaukee native Robert Simonson, an acclaimed drinks writer and author who now lives in Brooklyn but makes it back to his home state three to five times a year. (He also famously dons a glittery green-and-gold Green Bay Packers Santa hat at his annual Christmas party as he mixes up Tom & Jerry’s for guests.)
Call them bum wines, street wines, fortified wines, wino wines, or twist-cap wines.
Whatever you call these beverages for the economical drunkard, this page explores the top five.
So curl up on a heating duct and enjoy...
It’s an idea that’s getting a lot of airplay as the world reimagines the post-pandemic working week. But will employers ever make such an expensive leap of faith?
“If only Marx were still by my side to see this with his own eyes!”
So quivered journalist and revolutionary theorist Friedrich Engels, in a state of euphoric anticipation on May 1, 1890. He was penning the preface to a new edition of The Communist Manifesto, some 42 years after he had put his name to that somewhat influential pamphlet’s first printing, and seven years after the death of his famous collaborator, Karl Marx. “Today as I write these lines,” Engels proclaimed in his foreword, “the European and American proletariat is reviewing its fighting forces, mobilized for the first time, mobilized as one army, under one flag, for one immediate aim.”
And what was this world-shaking upheaval that had him sermonizing about a new world order like a steampunk General Hux? It wasn’t the overthrow of a czar, or the abolition of all property, or anything quite so dramatic (not yet anyway). It was a coordinated peaceful protest — the international forerunner to Labor Day — which was taking place in cities across two continents that day, in which workers were demanding the eight-hour day become the legal standard in their respective countries.
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The ONT Musical Interlude
On this day: 26 Sep 2003
English singer, songwriter Robert Palmer died of a heart attack aged 54 in Paris France. He was a member of Vinegar Joe and Power Station (with Duran Duran members Andy Taylor and John Taylor with drummer and former Chic member Tony Thompson). As a solo artist had the 1986 US No.1 & UK No.5 single 'Addicted To Love' and the 1988 hit 'Simply Irresistible'. via thisdayinmusic.com
Science Isn't Dead, But it Is Ailing! [Jay Guevara]
—Open Blogger
Science faces a crisis of confidence owing to its politicization and the replication crisis. The latter, which intersects with concerns about scientific fraud, is the subject of this post, a matter on which I've previously commented. (OK, ranted.)
Part of the impetus was from a study by Amgen, summarized in Wikipedia as follows:
Out of 49 medical studies from 1990–2003 with more than 1000 citations, 45 claimed that the studied therapy was effective. Out of these studies, 16% were contradicted by subsequent studies, 16% had found stronger effects than did subsequent studies, 44% were replicated, and 24% remained largely unchallenged.[59] The US Food and Drug Administration in 1977–1990 found flaws in 10–20% of medical studies.[60] In a paper published in 2012, Glenn Begley, a biotech consultant working at Amgen, and Lee Ellis, at the University of Texas, argued that only 11% of the pre-clinical cancer studies could be replicated.[61][62]
To try to put some numbers to my visceral impressions, and thereby to test my conjectures regarding dodgy results I went over to Retraction Watch, which features a database of papers that have been retracted by the authors/journals or otherwise had their validity called into question.
One can rummage around in that database for hours, so I narrowed the search to "concerns/issues about results," which yielded 562 hits.
The requisite data to normalize for the number of papers published in each field are not to hand, but with that caveat these data bear out the impression that the biomedical literature has some real problems.
Where, geographically, do these problems come from? Querying the database for papers that raised concerns/issues with results (regardless of whether from physical, life, or medical sciences) yielded these results, again not normalized for the number of papers published in each country:
Without information regarding the number of papers published, it's impossible to draw hard conclusions, but I would imagine that there are probably a lot more papers published in the U.S. than in China, and yet the two are in the same ball park regarding questionable results.
Interestingly, the database includes data regarding some of the more dubious areas of "science." For this search I included outright scientific fraud, and found effectively none for any of these fields, although a similar search the physical, biological, and health sciences all returned a number of hits. Once again, the caveat regarding total number of papers published applies, this time probably a forteriori.
For comparison:
My conclusion, subject to the caveat above: the biomedical literature does in fact have grievous problems, and China is punching above its weight in generating lousy results. Last, the Wild West of "scientific research" (climate change, sociology, alternative medicine, and psychology) I suspect may not have fraudulent papers because results in those areas are so squishy that it is impossible to falsify pretty much any assertion made in those literatures.
The key to this problem is recognizing that Black is backed up into a corner and his pieces are kind of stepping on each other.
1.a5+ Kb7
My chess app decided that 1...Kxa5 allowing the fork was the better option. I played it out because I saw that if I wasn't careful, Black could free up one of his pawns. 2.Nc6+ Kb5 3.Nxa7+ Kc4 4.Ke5 c5 5.e3 Kb4 6.Kxd5 c4 7.Ba4! c3 8.Bc2 a5 9.Nc6+ Kb5 10.Nxa5 Kxa5 and wins.
2.Nc6 Qa8
3.Kg7
The queen is toast.
3...Qc8
4.Bxc8+ Kxc8
5.Kf6 Kd7
6.Nb8+ Ke8
7.Ke5 Kd8
8.Kxd5 c6+
9.Kxc6 Ke7
10.e4 Kf6
11.Nxa6 for the win.
Hope to see you all next week!
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Note: that cryptic line of letters and numbers you see underneath each board diagram is a representation of the position in what is known as "Forsyth-Edwards Notation", or F.E.N. It's actually readable by humans. Most computer applications nowadays can read FEN, so those of you who may want to study the position, you can copy the line of FEN and paste into your chess app and it should automatically recreate the position on its display board. Or, Windows users can just "triple click" on it and the entire line will be highlighted so you can copy and paste it into your chess app.
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So that about wraps it up for this week. Chess thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to my yahoo address: OregonMuse little-a-in-a-circle yahoo dott com.
Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Join the festivities. Forget about everything else for a couple of hours.
2 year old Bogie and Bacall. Hard to believe they are brother and sister. - Duane
Well there isn't much for resemblance. Still they are neat looking cats and that is a cool photo. Thanks for sharing today.
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Misanthropic Humanitarian –
This is our 2yr old cat Dini (Houdini) showing how she’s “Hidin’ from Biden”.
Seriously, she has been a great addition to the family. Full of energy and loves to stalk and play hide -n- seek. Fenway, our Flat-Coat Retriever mix has a love/hate relationship with her. - Our Country is Screwed
At the moment that photo was taken it appears they were in "Toleration Mode". Dini sounds like one joyful critter. We are glad you took the time to share with us. Thanks.
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This was my cousin's dog, Maverick. He passed about a month ago. One of the most intelligent dogs I ever met. I always dogsit when my cousins go away(they have three others).
Mavy's first year was difficult because he was so stubborn. But, the rest of his sixteen years, he was a terrific dog who absolutely loved being around people.
Love the Pet Thread! - Unkaren
Maverick certainly looks like a big sweetie in that photo. Stubborn? Nah thats just a puppy. So sorry to hear of his demise.
***
(Schotzie)
(Daphne, Spock, Jethroe in back)
I am just a lurker, but I cannot wait for the pet thread every Saturday. This is Schotzie. She is my number four shepherd(another rescue). I had to have my cat Schrodinger put to sleep, and this big girl came along to fill the void. I have previously posted Spock, Jethroe and Daphne, and thought I would share my pretty, black girl. She is a very focused tennis ball hound and is faster than Jethroe. Neurotic and clingy as only a GSD can be, I haven't been to the toilet by myself since I got her. Thank you for the pet thread, it makes my Saturday happy and sometimes brings tears to my eyes. - Robert
Well Robert, it certainly appears you have your hands full with 4 beautiful GSDs. Sorry to hear about Schrodinger's passing. That is such a tough road to travel. I'm happy to hear you enjoy the pet thread. Thanks.
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Hello Mis Hum Welcome back.
I offer this submission from my youngest daughter, Laura, who lives in Arkansas.
Lupa is a Husky/American Eskimo mix who was acquired from a family that was downsizing. This is her story.
“I had to put down our family dog at 13, and I was broken-hearted. After a month, and meeting a lot of different rescue dogs, I found a family on a re-homing group with a big shepherd. After determining that their dog would be too big for my duplex, I was about to leave and the couple said, “well, we really need to downsize to two dogs, so if you need something smaller, we have her”, and out came Lupa (then Tink). After a rough first couple days, she has become a truly loyal companion and best friend. I bring her to work every day and she loves going for walks by the lake." - Pete Seria
If they changed your name and had that sparkle in your eye you would be a difficult creature as well. ;) Cute photo, so happy to hear that your daughter was able to find a companion. Thanks for sharing.
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Hello from smokey Oregon where prayers for firefighters and burned communities are gratefully received.
Sending this in case it is postworthy.
The reviews on Amazon are a hoot.
Thanks for the PT, - C for C&C
Of course it's post worthy. We don't get cats reading books often sent in. Thanks for sharing and prayers up for the fires to cease.
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Hey Mis-Hum, I'm the guy in 2018 that sent you stuff about Piper The Airport Dog-Traverse City Michigan, that had recently passed on.
Well, that dirty bastard cancer also took out my Springer BuddyBoy last week at age 10. Found a hip tumor on him when we could finally get his hair cut. Did surgery, but it was a fast mover and was just too late. (thanks loads Gov. Grindle Whitless for shutting down groomers-might have caught it) He was a GREAT DOG, loved every human, but kept deer and other varmints out of His Yard. I might have sent a pic of him before along with the quip, "This is my yard, there are many like it, but this one IS MINE" We live in the woods of Northern Michigan, left him outside during the day when we went to work, with no fence, and he Never Left The Yard-Never. Mrs. Realanator misses him horribly, as he was her faithful companion, in any and I do mean any weather on their daily walks through our woods. He is and shall be sorely missed. My nic is Dandor the Realanator when I comment.
Dandor, I'm a sucker for a photo with a pet and a child hanging together. Tough choices you provided to choose from. So sorry to hear about your pup. What a tough way to go. We appreciate your contribution today.
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Here's a photo of the dog we got Thursday. Her name is Lucy, and according to the shelter, she's 7 years old. They also said she's a chiweenie, but I don't believe it, having had dachshunds before. A Chihuahua/MinPin cross I'd believe easily, thought.
Personality is great, very friendly though a bit shy at the moment (probably due to new surroundings). She'll have her first-ever vet appointment Wednesday. Probably even more expensive that the Sunday Book Thread, but the little sweetie has already wormed her way into my heart. She was raised in an apartment, and loves our fenced back yard! - Empire1
Congrats on your new addition of Lucy. Aren't fenced in yards the greatest? Here's hoping many happy years with this lovely dog.
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Meet Pepper. She came to us a few weeks ago. Since we live outside the city limits, sometimes people will abandon their pets out here. That's our source for kitties.
We lost our beloved TomCat earlier this year when he was hit by a car, so we needed a replacement.
Pepper is a sweet little girl, very affectionate.
She also likes to be fed twice a day. She must have gone hungry for a while.
We feel very fortunate to have her. - ALH
Sorry to hear about TomCat's passing. But happy to hear you have a new addition to the ALH household. Just remember all Black cats matter. Thanks for the good news today.
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As always you folks have demonstrated your love for pets and the pet thread. Thanks so much for making it a success.
Do you have something to share? You can reach out to us at petmorons at gmail dot com.
NEW: Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her large family left their Indiana home this afternoon dressed up for a special occasion. Our @GaryGrumbach on the scene for us. Announcement at 5pm at WH for Supreme Court nomination. pic.twitter.com/A4yVNo7jgE
For those of you who guessed the left would begin claiming it was racist of Barret to adopt black kids, or to allege there was some criminality involved in the adoption: Collect your winnings.
The Middle East's New Map "The imminent establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, is part of an on-going process of security cooperation going back many years.[...]It means that the process of ending the era of Arab-Israeli confrontation will continue, culminating perhaps in a political upheaval in Iran. That is the road that the Middle East may now be on." We'll see. [CBD]
I've put a lot of posts in draft the past two weeks that I never posted. Because no one's around to complain about it, I'm just crapping them out now, even though they're sometimes more than a week old. I put a zombie comment into a post about three weeks ago, maybe even a month ago. I wonder if I can get away with posting that. It is about a generally-applicable point (the religious cult of leftwing politics). Write "No" in the comments if you don't want me to publish a three week old post.
I should take this opportunity, with comments being down, to complain about how disappointed I am in the site's readers, without any fear of back-lip. #BeBetter, people. #BeBetter.
I know the comments are down. I contacted Pixy to give the hamsters a shot of Joe Biden-level meth.
Democrat attacks on Trump are trivial, wrongheaded, and hypocritical, says... leftwing pop-metaphysics hobo Russell Brand He points out that Trump's ginning up of anger at the media, and claiming they serve corporate masters, is a critique that never bothered the media before, and never was cause for the current moral panic and fainting-couch hyperventilations. Because it had come in previous years from the socialist left, who are, of course, the media's allies. And the media has always been willing to entertain the possibility that they're just not leftwing enough, and are being held back by anti-progressive forces.
"Amy Coney Barrett's family has more diversity than the Huffington Post editorial board" "She literally has more black children then RBG had black clerks"
That is true. The Notorious RBG was also The Racist RBG. She had one (1) black clerk in her long, long judicial career. And despite being a hardcore partisan left-liberal who is supposedly a champion of racial equality.Ginsburg's failure to hire more than one black clerk is not just bad luck or a long string of coincidences. That's design and determination.
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