I Regret That I Have But One ONT To Give For My Country*
—WeirdDave
Howdy Morons! Friday meme madness is here, and I want to take just a moment to let y'all know how glad we are that you're here.
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Screensaver-Worthy Vistas Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The poor dog got cornholed!
YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE ME?! I MUST FIGHT YOU!
Bear goes HAM on a backyard jungle gym.
An unexpectedly pretty lagoon in Turkey.
I don't know where this is, but it looks amazing.
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Quick Hits
—Disinformation Expert Ace
CNN notched another record low in ratings.
Ratings-challenged CNN hit rock bottom in a key viewership demographic last weekend -- another sign of the difficulties facing incoming boss Mark Thompson.The cable news network logged its worst weekend ratings on record in the all important 25- to 54-year-old demo, according to the latest Nielsen data released Tuesday.
CNN -- which launched in 1980 and bills itself as "the most trusted name in news" -- totaled just 55,000 viewers for its weekend slate of shows that include Sunday political programs "State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash," and "Fareed Zakaria GPS."
The network's Sunday primetime lineup, which featured "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" and "Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy," drew 43,000 in the demo.
The ratings are the network's worst since 1991 -- the earliest TV data is readily available.
Data prior to 1991 is largely not digitized.
CNN's overall viewership wasn't much better.
The network logged 345,000 total viewers, trailing Fox News' 683,000 and MSNBC's 424,000.
...
"CNN is a ratings embarrassment," an industry insider said. "At least with Thompson they will have a direction."
Joe Manchin has moved to reverse the decision to suspend the Senate's dress code, or the so-called Roberts Rules of Retards.
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has floated a proposal to reverse changes to the Senate dress code that permit members of the upper chamber to dress as they please.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer confirmed this week that senators, but not their staffers or reporters, would no longer be subject to dress requirements. The move appeared to accommodate Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who prefers to dress in athletic shorts and a hoodie.
The change prompted scoffs from lawmakers, especially Republicans, and Manchin now seeks to revert the dress code to its prior regulations. The proposal reportedly would set the dress code to align with the rules that immediately predated Schumer's changes, The Hill reported.
It remains unclear how many lawmakers have endorsed the proposal, though Democratic and Republican senators such as John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have both expressed support for revising the dress standards.
Dick Durbin? Apparently yes.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, blasted the recent dress code easing for Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) -- and suggested the upper chamber "needs to act on this.""I'm concerned about it. The senator in question from Pennsylvania is a personal friend, but I think we need to have standards," Durbin told "The Briefing with Steve Scully" on SiriusXM in an interview airing Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed the policy change Sunday, while insisting, "I will continue to wear a suit."
"I can't understand exactly what he was thinking at that point," a seemingly baffled Durbin replied when asked about Schumer's rationale for the switch.
"I want to give him the benefit of the doubt until I speak to him but I think the Senate needs to act on this."
Zelenskyy is returning to Ukraine's capital, Washington, DC, to meet with his subjects.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is returning to Washington less than a year after he last visited, seeking to solidify support for his country as chaos on Capitol Hill threatens both the U.S. economy and America's support for Ukraine.Standing side by side with President Biden will send a signal of America's commitment to Kyiv's fight against Russia's invasion. But his meetings with lawmakers are likely to highlight the growing skepticism over the cost of ongoing U.S. support for Ukraine in Congress, which ultimately has control over additional military and financial assistance.
Criticism has been the loudest in the House, where a growing group of far-right Republicans want to cut off funding entirely. But even in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said there's "unanimity" in support for Ukraine, there's significant fractures on what that support entails.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has earlier put up roadblocks in the Senate on passing funding for Ukraine, delaying for at least a week a $40 billion aid package in May 2022. When the Senate brought the bill to a vote on the floor, Paul led 10 other senators in opposing the measure.
Asked by The Hill on Monday night if he would attend the meeting with Zelensky, Paul quipped, "Is that a welfare hearing? What is that for?"
"I don't think we should be sending any more money," he said. "I'm just not for sending them any more money."
Biden has requested $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine, to include security, economic and humanitarian assistance for Kyiv, and funds for "countries and vulnerable populations worldwide impacted by Russia's unprovoked and brutal invasion of Ukraine."
US troops might miss paychecks during the shutdown, but the Army of the Republic of DC, the Ukrainian Army, will keep getting their regular pay from Uncle Samya.
I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 @ImMeme0BREAKING: The Pentagon will exempt its Ukraine operations from a potential shutdown if lawmakers can't agree on a deal to fund the government by the end of the month.
This means America will be sending tens of billions of your tax dollars to Ukraine regardless.
When people tell you who they are, Listen.
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Author of Pornographic Teen-Sex Comic Book Gender Queer: "I Don't Recommend This Book for Kids"
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Shouldn't we abide the wisdom of The Expert, here? Who could be more of an expert about the appropriateness of a book for children, than the expert ximself?
Meanwhile, Randi Weingarten and the Vengeful Woke Childless Harridans who make up the teachers unions bureaucracy and the Marxist national librarians guild will continue to foist this pornographic material on normal people's children:
The author of "Gender Queer," the graphic novel with explicit sexual content that has shown up in public school libraries across the country, outraging parents, is saying her book is not actually for kids.Last week, author Maia Kobabe, who identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns "e, em and eir," explained that while her book might be appropriate for "older teens," she does not recommend it for children.
"It keeps being called a children's book ... but I think that's coming from a misreading of the comic-book form. 'Gender Queer' is a comic, and in full color, but that doesn't mean it's for children. I originally wrote it for my parents, and then for older teens who were already asking these questions about themselves. I don't recommend this book for kids!" she told The Washington Post in an interview published last week.
AllahPundit owns the book in galley form under its original title, Toni Morrison's "Beloved."
"Gender Queer" includes illustrations of sex between two males with a sex toy, oral sex, masturbation, and other sexually explicit content.Kobabe was reacting to Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) reading some of "Gender Queer's" most graphic passages during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday last week.
That video:
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New Study: Freud Was All Wet
And Other Psychological GAINZZZ
—Disinformation Expert Ace
It has been the central, foundational assumption of psychiatry for 100+ years that the only way to move on from trauma is to continually confront it, to talk about it, to think about it, to "process" it. To continually pick open old wounds and then scratch at the scabs until the bleeding starts again.
What if that was totally false from the start?
What if the real way to get past trauma is to... get past it? To just stop thinking about it?
To bury the dead, instead of exhuming them for 50 minutes every week?
Scientific American reports on a new paper published in Science Advances:
Suppressing an Onrush of Toxic Thoughts Might Improve Your Mental HealthCounter to the conventional wisdom, suppression of distressing thoughts could be an invaluable addition in treating depression, anxiety and trauma
By Ingrid Wickelgren on September 20, 2023
Zulkayda Mamat is no stranger to traumatic memories. Ethnically Uighur, Mamat left China at age 12 after an uprising in the region of East Turkestan, where most of Mamat's extended family still lives. More than one million Uighurs have been arbitrarily detained in "political education" camps and prisons. "I know people in camps. I have witnessed families completely broken down, people in the diaspora, their entire lives changed," says Mamat, who just received her doctorate in cognitive neuroscience from the University of Cambridge.Over the years, Mamat has noticed how the most resilient Uighurs she knows manage to cope with their trauma. Their formula is simple: they push the distressing memories out of their mind. Mamat herself is good at this. "It's almost intuitive to be able to control my thoughts," she says.
Clinical psychologists often warn against suppressing thoughts because they believe distressing ideas and images will bubble up later with greater frequency and worsen mental health problems. Psychoanalysis focuses on the contrasting approach of hunting down and exploring the meaning of any thoughts a person might have pushed to the back of their mind.
But Mamat now has data to support her intuition that suppression is beneficial. In a September 20 paper in Science Advances, she and her adviser, cognitive neuroscientist Michael Anderson, report that they successfully trained people--many of whom had mental health problems--to suppress their fears and that doing so improved these individuals' mental health. "Suppressing negative thoughts, far from being a hazardous thing to do," Anderson says, "actually seemed to be of great benefit, especially to the people who need it the most--people suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress."
The work also calls into question whether people with mental health disorders have an inherent inability to suppress intrusive thoughts. "It's probably not a deficit," Mamat says. The vast majority of people in the study, she says, "were surprised to see that this was something they could learn."
The technique bears a likeness to behavioral therapies in which people expose themselves to cues or situations that trigger fear and anxiety--heights, dirt or parties, say--until the brain learns to inhibit those fear responses, says Charan Ranganath, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the research. But learning to halt the thoughts that arise from those cues is a novel approach. "What's surprising to me is telling people to stop that thought in and of itself is effective," Ranganath says. "That's an idea that could be really useful to bring into therapies."
Not everyone agrees that the approach is safe or likely to be successful as a therapeutic tool. But if further research suggests it is, suppression training might either be used alone or in conjunction with, say, cognitive-behavioral or exposure therapy, Anderson suggests.
...
Anderson and his colleagues... have generated data spanning two decades that suggest that pushing away negative memories causes those memories to fade and become less distressing. His experiments are meant to mimic a real-world scenario in which people encounter reminders of worrying thoughts and then need to decide whether to stem those thoughts or dwell on them.
The technique consisted of subjects telling researchers what their fears and anxieties were. The researchers would find some triggering words -- "hospital," for example, for those who feared for their health -- and instruct subjects to just stop all thought about that word when they heard it. And shut down all imagining and imagery.
And it... worked. People reported feeling less anxious about their anxieties, neuroses, and phobias.
I was heartened to find this technique said to be "like cognitive behavioral therapy" or "confrontation therapy," because those are the therapies I'm pretty sure work. As you may or may not know, I suffered with debilitating social anxiety, and then panic disorder, and then even agoraphobia through my early not-quite-29 years. A drug helped me greatly with that -- klonopin -- but what finally just completely ended my social anxiety was when I walked into a martial arts class, knowing nothing about martial arts and not knowing anyone there, and also being old and fat and with the hip flexibility usually seen only in Lego figures.
It wasn't the meditation or confidence boost of punching stuff that helped me. It was simply going into a situation that would normally give me a panic attack and just forcing myself do it.
After a year of that, not a single twinge of social anxiety again.
So I really think that sort of therapy works. Do you have a fear of crossing bridges? Okay, find a pedestrian bridge and walk 50 feet across it, and then 50 feet back. Do that three times a week, until you can walk 100 feet across it, then 100 feet back. Etc. Once you get to the midpoint of the bridge, it's easier to just walk right across the bridge than turning back. Keeping doing that, and you will bit-by-bit deactivate the phobia bomb in your head.
But that is actually doing something, not just talking endlessly about why you can't do something.
I have a feeling this study is right. Because it seems to me the very last people on the face of the earth endlessly rehashing their fears and insecurities are people strongly predisposed to neurosis and obsession. You want to dismantle the pathways to anxiety and fear that they have built up in their brains, not continually use those highways and burrow those panic-tracks ever deeper like the same cart running over the same dirt path.
I have hopes, I have hopes.
And I have a not-so-secret Gay Agenda here: I cannot wait for the expert class to be completely discredited and humiliated yet again.
Sometimes old wisdom -- "put it out of your mind" -- is in fact good wisdom.
Like, for a segue, the old advice that early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.
A study finds that nightowls -- or "people with the evening chronotype," i.e., their bodily clocks are set to keep them up into the small hours -- are more likely to have other health morbidities.
Large study of middle-aged nurses found those with an evening chronotype were more likely to engage in an overall unhealthy lifestyle particularly smoking, poor sleep, and physical inactivity, and had a 72 percent higher risk of developing diabetes.Recent research involving over 60,000 middle-aged nurses has discovered that those with an evening chronotype, characterized by feeling more energetic later in the day, are at a heightened risk of diabetes. Additionally, these individuals tend to exhibit unhealthy lifestyle habits such as smoking, insufficient sleep, and physical inactivity. This is when compared to individuals with a morning chronotype. However, the authors indicate that factors like profession, education level, and socioeconomic status of participants could influence these results.
Yeah well, as we used to say about the Marvel Universe when we still cared: It's allll connected.
...Chronotype, also known as circadian preference, is a partly genetically determined construct and refers to one's inclination for earlier or later sleeping times. Roughly 8% of the population possesses an evening chronotype. Notably, this has been associated with poor metabolic regulation, disturbances in glycemic control, metabolic disorders, and a higher incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes. However, the precise reasons behind the observed connection between an evening chronotype and elevated diabetes risk remain elusive.
Scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School conducted a prospective cohort study of 63,676 nurses aged 45 to 62 years with no history of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes from 2009 to 2017.
The researchers discovered that participants with a "definite evening" chronotype were 54 percent more likely to have an unhealthy lifestyle than participants reporting a "definite morning" chronotype. Persons with evening chronotype also had a 72 percent higher risk of developing diabetes during the follow-up period.
According to the authors, this association weakened but persisted even after adjusting for all measured lifestyle and sociodemographic factors.
So we can't fix it...?
And now, for the inspirational animal vids.
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Update: When Bob Menendez' Aide Wanted to Meet With Vice President Biden, Who Do You Think He Emailed to Arrange The Sit-Down?
—Disinformation Expert Ace
He contacted Hunter Biden's business partner/fixer Eric Schwerin.
Weird how these corrupt bagmen people all have each other on speed-dial.
And even stranger: The way to get a meeting with Joe Biden is not to go through his well-staffed office, but through secret back-channels involving his bagman son.
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Agents Say That the Feds Deliberately Tanked Any Investigation Into Biden's 2020 Campaign
—Disinformation Expert Ace
There were possible "criminal violations" committed by Biden's 2020 campaign.
Merrick Garland's DOJ made sure there was no investigation.
Feds thwarted probe into possible 'criminal violations' involving 2020 Biden campaign, agents sayNewly-discovered inquiry opened after the 2020 election into the payment of Hunter Biden's overdue taxes by a lawyer, but like other investigative avenues there was 'obstruction' by prosecutors, Congress told.
By John Solomon
The FBI and IRS probed allegations that Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign may have benefitted from "campaign finance criminal violations" by allowing a politically connected lawyer to help pay off Hunter Biden's large tax debts but agents were blocked by federal prosecutors from further action, according to new information uncovered by congressional investigators.
That would be Biden's "Sugar Brother," Kevin Murphy, who paid $2 million of Biden's tax-evaded tax bill. He cast this as a "loan" so it would count as a donation to Hunter or count as income to Hunter, but we all know this "loan" is not expected to ever be repaid.
It's a sham transaction, and another case of tax evasion, because while you don't pay taxes on a loan, you do pay them on a gift.
More crimes!
...[The new] evidence includes a case summary memo written by IRS Supervisory Criminal Investigative Agent Gary Shapley to his bosses dated May 3, 2021 in which he alleged that Lesley Wolf, a top prosecutor in the Hunter Biden case inside Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss' office, waived agents off the campaign finance case. Shapley provided the information to Congress under the protections of whistleblower laws, and lawmakers voted the information to be public.<
"This investigation has been hampered and slowed by claims of potential election meddling," Shapley wrote in the memo, according to his now-public transcribed interview with House Ways and Means where he read verbatim a passage from the memo. "Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations.
"AUSA Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation," Shapley's memo stated, according to his interview. "She cited a need to focus on the 2014 tax year, that we could not yet prove an allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, and that she does not want to include their Public Integrity Unit because they would take authority away from her. We do not agree with her obstruction on this matter."
..."This is something that I think is a concern, because, you know, you had this individual come in and cover Hunter Biden's tax liability," [Jim Jordan told JustTheNews]. "That's kind of interesting. And then, was in fact that a contribution to Mr. Biden's campaign when he ran for president?"
Shapley wasn't the only federal agent to raise concerns about the campaign finance inquiry.
One of his subordinates, IRS Agent Joseph Ziegler, also referred to an effort to block an investigation into the Biden campaign during his transcribed interview to the House Ways and Means Committee this summer. He said agents learned about the allegations after the 2020 election but ran into opposition from prosecutors. Ziegler also provided the information to Congress under the protections of whistleblower laws, and lawmakers voted the information to be public
"Were you aware of any other limitations placed on investigators in this case that we haven't discussed?" Ziegler was asked by House investigators.
The question prompted a brief off-the-record interruption in the interview, but when it resumed Ziegler explained his concerns about the campaign finance inquiry being sidelined.
"Yeah, things related to the campaign were kind of, at least during the investigative stages, were off limits," Ziegler testified.
"Do you mean the Presidential campaign?" he was asked.
"Yes, the Presidential campaign," he answered.
"In 2020?" the House lawyer pressed,
...
House investigators also believe retired FBI Special Agent Timothy Thibault, the former No. 2 official in the bureau's Washington field office, also may have been referring to the campaign finance inquiry in a transcribed interview he gave last week to the House Judiciary Committee.
In excerpts of that interview, obtained by Just the News, Thibault relayed an incident when a colleague in the FBI's Delaware office and an official from FBI headquarters called and asked him to "take the temperature" of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington D.C. about a fresh aspect of the Hunter Biden inquiry.
...
Thibault was asked whether he ever discussed the issue brought to him by Delaware and FBI headquarters with the office of Washington D.C. U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee. He said he reached out at the request of the Delaware FBI and the bureau's headquarters.
"Not Mr. Graves. I spoke to a gentleman named J.P. Cooney," he said. Cooney was an experienced public integrity prosecutor in Washington D.C. who worked on Jan. 6 prosecutions and is now a deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith in the prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
How cozy.
"And had you spoken with Mr. Cooney prior to this?" he was asked."No. It was only one phone call," he answered. "It was at the request of the Baltimore Field Office and headquarters that I make that call."
"And was the call that they would, you know, push for a prosecution?" a congressional investigator asked.
"I don't want to get into it because I don't know if that matter was opened or not," he answered. "...They were talking about a matter that maybe could have been venued in D.C."
In other words: A campaign finance violation case.
Speaking of Biden's corrupt Stasi capos: Merrick Garland.
The nation's chief law enforcement officer has no special insight into the malfeasance unfolding under his nose.He is just an oblivious bystander, unperturbed by the tyrannical turn the DOJ has taken under his leadership, persecuting his boss's political enemies and coddling the crooked president's crooked relatives.
Even though Garland used to be a judge, he makes no judgments at all.
He professes to have no view about US Attorney David Weiss' farcical five-year "investigation" of the president's 53-year-old son Hunter.
"I promised the Senate that I would not interfere," he told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
"I have not intruded or attempted to evaluate that, because that was the promise I made to the Senate." What an honorable man, keeping his promises.
But he's the ship's captain. There is a fire in the hold, the vessel is going down, and he doesn't even trouble himself to find out what happened.
"Have you had personal contact with anyone at FBI headquarters about the Hunter Biden investigation?" asked Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).
For what seemed like an eternity but was really about seven seconds, Garland looked down at his tightly clasped hands, slowly turned his head left and right as if the answer might materialize somewhere on the empty table below him, then popped his tongue, said "Ahhhh," pursed his lips, exhaled and arranged the edges of his mouth in a downward shrug, before finally looking up at Johnson with a sheepish expression and stammering, "I don't real ... I don't ... ah ... I don't recollect the answer to that question, but the FBI works for the Justice Department?," a non sequitur delivered in a cascade of upward inflections as if he was the one asking questions, or maybe channeling a Valley Girl.
...
[H]is favorite line was to point out that Weiss, whom he has elevated to special counsel despite manifest failures, was a "Trump appointee."
He said so nine times.
He seems to think that bias can be ascribed to prosecutors depending on which party appoints them. Presumably he applies that logic to himself, as a Biden appointee.
Usually smart people find it tedious to say the same thing nine times in a row, but Garland seemed to enjoy it, until the wonderful Liz Cheney-slayer Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) wiped the smirk off his face.
"Mr. Garland, one of the things you have done and repeated over and over and over again is to point out that Mr. Weiss was appointed as US attorney by President Trump, as though that somehow inoculates him from criticism by us. Is that really how this game is played, that if someone is appointed by a Republican, then they're supposed to be on the Republican team, or if they're appointed by a Democrat, they're on the Democrat team? You were appointed by Mr. Biden, weren't you? Are you on the Democrat team?"
Touché. He never said it again.
The hearing stumbled on in useless fashion, alternating between Republicans laying zingers that went nowhere and obsequious Democrats bloviating about "extreme MAGA Republicans."
"The Justice Department treats everyone alike" was Garland's central lie. Any criticism of his biased prosecutors is "dangerous," he said darkly.
Bob Menendez and His Wife Indicted on Corruption Charges
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Definitely what I'd call "a Biden Democrat."
Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was indicted on corruption charges by federal prosecutors on Friday morning in a Manhattan court in an influence-peddling scheme involving Egypt.
Wait, the bribe scheme involves a foreign country that wants favors from the State Department?!
Ooooh, a very Biden Democrat!
The unsealed indictment revealed that Menendez's wife, Nadine, New Jersey real estate mogul Fred Daibes, and two other business associates are being charged along side the lawmaker.Led by Southern District of New York attorney Damian Williams, in June 2022, investigators conducted a search of Menendez's residence in New Jersey and found $100,000 worth of gold bars, nearly half a million dollars in cash, "much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe," and a brand new Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible.
Kind of like the brand-new $130,000 Porsche that a foreign entity bought for Hunter Biden?
"Menedez and Nadine Menedez agreed to and did accept hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menedez's power and influence as a Senator to seek to protect and enrich" his allies "and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt," the indictment reads. "Among other actions, Menendez provided sensitive U.S. government information and took other steps that secretly aided the Government of Egypt," the filing notes.
The DOJ press briefing is below.
I hope that Menendez mounts a defense of "they gave that to my wife, not to me," so that the DOJ is forced to educate the public that the law of extortion (bribery) makes it explicit that the bribe does not have to be directly given to the politician being bribed, but can also be given to a family member for the crime to have occurred.
I dearly want the public to be educated on this favorite White House talking point.
Because this is so dangerous for Joe Biden, Menendez is going to be pressured to plead guilty -- in exchange for the famous Corrupt Democrat Politician Slap-on-the-Wrist -- and resign his seat so that the Democrat governor can replace him.
The Democrat Party needs this story to go away.
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Pool Report Embarrasses Biden By Reporting What He Really Said
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I don't mean a report about him swimming naked in his pool in front of his female Secret Service staff. I mean the press pool report, where one reporter dashes off a report about an event and all other reporters are permitted to quote that.
From Beege Wellborn, an embarrassing anecdote, reported accurately.
Did you know that Joe Biden was almost an All-American football star? I mean, he wasn't even varsity at his college, and didn't play much in high school, but yeah, he was almost an All-American back in nineteen-deucedy-two.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is attempting to run on the Joe Biden Economy, for reasons best adduced by mystics and madmen.
And he's screaming about 'MAGAnomics." You know, the economic policies that had us at full employment and roaring 4% growth before Biden and his Chinese friends released covid-19 and shut down the world.
There is one sector of the economy Biden has turbocharged: government hiring.
The number of jobs added to the U.S. economy has been increasingly inflated by public sector positions as the economy begins to cool, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).The 327,000 public jobs added for the year as of August 2023 made up 17.4% of total jobs added, while the proportion was only 5% after the U.S. added 175,000 public sector jobs during that same time frame in 2022, according to the BLS. The U.S. added a total of 3,590,000 jobs from the start of 2022 to that August, which is far greater than the 1,884,000 added during that time span in 2023.
The U.S. added 187,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, while the unemployment rate shot up to 3.8%. The number of jobs added in June and July were both revised down from what was previously thought in August's job report, with the U.S. adding only 105,000 jobs in June compared to the 185,000 previously reported, and July adding 157,000 jobs instead of 187,000.
The increase in government jobs has been accompanied by a rise in government spending, excluding COVID-19 stimulus measures, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). In the first quarter of 2020, the federal government had an expenditure of about $4.88 trillion for the year period, while the second quarter of 2023 boasted a $6.48 trillion expenditure over the year.
Economic growth is not as strong as previously thought after a revision to Gross Domestic Product in August led the BLS to update its estimate from 2.4% growth to 2.1%, coming more in line with original expectations of 2% growth for the economy.
And on the topic of government locusts eating us out of house and home: Biden's attempting to make it illegal for any Republican president to fire his leftwing partisan #Resistance "employees."
The Biden administration is setting a booby trap in case a Republican wins the presidency in 2024.On Friday, the White House unveiled a proposed rule that would make it even harder than in the past for an incoming Republican president to wrestle control of the left-leaning federal bureaucracy and actually implement the conservative policies promised to voters.
Of the 2.2 million federal civil workers, only 4,000 are presidential appointees. The rest stay in their jobs, from one administration to the next, protected by rules that make it nearly impossible to discipline or replace them.
They overwhelmingly favor the Left. A staggering 95% of unionized federal employees who donate to political candidates give to Democrats, according to Open Secrets. Only a tiny 5% support Republicans.
Some federal workers in high positions slow-walk or even derail a Republican president's agenda -- and get away with it.
Why bother to vote if the left-leaning deep state stays in charge no matter who wins the presidency?
...
It's a gravy train, paid for by John Q. Public. That's sickening enough. But it's even worse when these civil "servants" put their own leftist leanings ahead of the president and public they're paid to serve.
After Trump won in 2016, they went to town neutralizing him on almost every policy front, explains James Sherk, special assistant to the White House Domestic Policy Council under Trump.
Career lawyers in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division flat out refused to challenge Yale University's discrimination against Asian American applicants. Trump had to recruit lawyers from other divisions. After Joe Biden became president, the DOJ dropped the case. But the same career lawyers who refused to sue Yale made the losing argument in support of affirmative action before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Career health officials like Dr. Deborah Birx circumvented Trump's instructions to moderate COVID lockdowns. Environmental Protection Agency lawyers pursued cases against fossil fuel producers and withheld the information from Trump appointees.
Trump mandated in a 2020 executive order that new federal buildings be designed to please the public, which prefers classical designs. Instead, General Services Administration architects chose modern designs they like. Trump mentioned as an example the San Francisco Federal Building, the ugliest edifice in the city.
It goes on, including weaponization of the FBI against the president himself.
In October 2020, Trump issued an executive order that federal workers who make policy should be reclassified as at-will employees who can be terminated.But before it could be implemented, Biden became president. He canceled it immediately, knowing the bureaucrats were on his side.
The rule announced Friday would slow a president's ability to reinstate Trump's order. Democrats in Congress are going further, pushing to eliminate the president's authority to reclassify jobs altogether.
The New York Times announced, "Biden Administration Aims to Trump-Proof the Federal Work Force."Ramaswamy vows to go further than Trump, eliminating half or more of civil service positions. "Speaking as a CEO, if somebody works for you and you can't fire them, they don't work for you," he said in a speech on Sept. 12.
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Project Veritas Suspends Operations Amid Funding Collapse, Following the Sudden Firing of the Founder/Talent of the Group, James O'Keefe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I don't know about you, but I totally did not see this coming.
Investigative news outlet Project Veritas suspended operations this week amid a substantial drop in funding following the ouster of founder James O'Keefe.HR Director Jennifer Kiyak announced a round of layoffs on Wednesday in a letter obtained by Mediaite.
"In the interest of preserving the possible future existence of Project Veritas we need to put operations on pause and, as communicated since the Spring, another Reduction in Force ('RIF') is necessary," she wrote.
What did they expect?
To be honest, I think they expected this. I think they intended to destroy the organization.
As we keep seeing, the Establishment will only permit half-hearted, token, symbolic resistance.
If you really resist them -- out come the r4pe allegations.
THE MORNING RANT: Healthcare Executives, Traveling Nurses, and RNs who won’t work for “the wage they deserve”
—Buck Throckmorton
I’ve spent a lot of time recently bashing corporate executives, so I am going to start off with a disclaimer…
There are many thousands of executives in corporate America doing great work, inspiring loyalty among their employees, showing reciprocal loyalty to those employees, and growing their companies through inspired leadership. A great many of them built those enterprises or rose through the ranks of the companies they now lead, which provided them motivation to proudly lead the only company they’d ever want to helm. The most valuable education they brought to their role was expertise in both their industry and within that specific company, and these exemplary executives typically leave their companies stronger when they retire.
But today’s rant is not about them.
No, today I’m going to focus again on awful executives, specifically those whose elite business school training has created a nurse staffing crisis in this country, putting in place all the worst incentives, and creating high turnover that is detrimental to patient care.
In my post a few days ago about the UAW strike, I touched on the obscene pay of auto company executives, focusing on Ford CEO Jim Farley, whose $21 million compensation has nearly doubled in two years, despite Ford recording multi-billion dollar losses under Farley’s EV-focused mismanagement. A discussion of executive pay ensued in the comments. Among them was this witty exchange regarding America’s nursing mess:
Commenter Mike Hammer succinctly summarized the management formula of the elite MBAs running health care companies, noting that the hypothetical executive earns his $20 million annual compensation without even needing to understand the industry. Instead, his role is simply to reduce services and cut costs, because that is now the recipe for profit among our business elite.
Commenter Bruce Wayne then pointed out the predictable, yet destructive, result of that hypothetical health care executive’s cost cutting. ”Deciding not to give nurses a 6% raise so they all quit, then hiring them back as travel nurses at rates that are MUCH higher than the asked increase. That’s what he does.”
This is exactly what is happening! And the executives are clueless about how they are incentivizing this.
In my circle of friends, family, and professional acquaintances, there are quite a few Registered Nurses, several Doctors, and a handful of managers/executives in businesses that employ nurses.
One executive I know is outraged at the nurses who keep quitting, because they refuse to work for “the wage they deserve,” which in turn is causing their hospitals to spend a fortune on travel nurses, who not only cost more, but also need to be trained on systems and protocols. This has the effect then of making operations less efficient, which impacts productivity goals, and also negatively affects survey results, which are apparently very critical to hospital operations.
High turnover of nurses might even impact patient care, but that, of course, is a much lower priority than goals, efficiencies, and surveys.
Continue reading
The Morning Report — 9/22/23
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning, kids. Yesterday, I had a link in the Culture Wars section about flabby, late middle-aged over-the-hill thesp John Q. Sack, nee John Cusack, who went on an unusually brutal diatribe against his political allies. It probably got glossed over, considering the lead stories sucking out all the oxygen, and I did not see any mention of it in the comments. But all things considered, I find it worth a revisit:
“They have played a major part in creating the precise conditions for fascism to flourish – Obama corporatist democrats – are to the right of Richard Nixon on domestic policy – Don’t believe me – look it up – and Dems have sold out the working class for decades – and this kind of bought and paid-for betrayal of principals [sic], fairness – historical precedent -any sense of moral or intellectual honesty – The kind of brutal selfish horrific actions one only does – because they can get away with it,” he wrote in part on X, formerly Twitter, Monday.The 57-year-old “Say Anything” and “High Fidelity” star’s lengthy post continued with a takedown of the party’s complacency with the wealthy, not-far-enough-left politics and neglecting certain principles.
He argued that the party elite’s trajectory has planted fertile ground for Republicans like Trump to win.
“All your Yale and Harvard buddies will tell you how great and smart you all are – and they are all in bed with all the same big , big money power players- And we run the world – right ? – this kind of staggering amoral bulls— is one of the main reason ( yes there are others ) Trump’s demagoguery works on people. The Democratic elite ARE full of s—,” he continued.
The lengthy statement came in response to an article from Jacobin Magazine which claimed some top Democrats seek to outlaw federal wealth taxes.
“Imagine what FDR would say about such a proposed law ?! Don’t worry fellas – the Democrats will save the .ooooooo1 % from paying tax – the hubris to do this – is staggering – it’s a sham and an insult to everyone’s basic intelligence – the contempt for people – To even attempt this … Unbelievable,” he continued.
He ended the spiel by accusing Obama’s famous “hope and change” slogan of becoming “another branded hustle.”
Cusack has been outspoken about his political stances in the past, slamming former President Donald Trump on multiple occasions, including by calling for an impeachment over his alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We need strikes / and we need to remove Trump from power to save lives Impeach him again / Pressure for 25th,” he tweeted at the time.
Additionally, Cusack blasted the former president by comparing him to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler.
He also blasted Trump’s supporters for voting for, in his words, a “mentally ill, virus-spreading, child-abducting Nazi rapist.”
"Say Anything," indeed. What I find interesting, once you're able to wade through what amounts to a puerile, poorly written screed (what else is new with this guy and the majority of his comrades) is both the nuggets of truth of his rant in the first paragraph and salted here and there through the rest of it. The maddening thing is the complete cognitive dissonance. His pea brain can't put two plus two together to add up to four. The failings of his party that he rails against should cause him to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee, not go crazy with fear that they will give Trump a chance to win in 2024! This would be the same Trump whose actual policy achievements created the greatest economic boom since the 1920s and 80s which helped more minorities and heretofore "marginalized" groups lift themselves up than any other administration ever.
He just can't deprogram himself from the bullshit that Democrats good and Republicans “mentally ill, virus-spreading, child-abducting Nazi rapist[s].” Yeah, he knows how to make those intellectual arguments, doesn't he.
Still, for whatever it's worth, the criticism of his own party, especially some of his points which are surprisingly right on target, I think is something unexpected. At least I can't remember him being this bitter. And is his infantile attacks on Trump, or the couching of his attacks on his own party as a putative warning to same as shooting themselves in the foot to allow a MAGA win, just reflexive or is it self-preservation to avoid becoming an outcast with his peers? Either way, I think it's one of those signs, albeit anecdotal, that there is indeed trouble in lefty Paradise on Earth.
With that, I give you yet another example from a more mature quarter of the show biz set. And refreshingly minus the equivocation and poo-flinging at Emanuel Goldstein either:
Music icon David Foster’s daughters declared their “hate” for Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday, blaming the Democrat for the state’s deteriorating quality of life — and wondering if his goal is to have California “be a socialist state.”Sara and Erin Foster detailed their growing bitterness against their home state amid news that the latter sister was moving into a new home in Nashville, Tennessee. “I’m jealous because — if anyone follows me, you know that I have a lot of complaints about the city we live in and the state we live in,” Sara Foster, 42, griped on their joint show, “The World’s First Podcast.”
“And people are always like, ‘Why don’t you just leave?’ Guys, it’s not that easy.” Other than leaving family and friends behind, the “90210” actress complained that she could be subject to a 10-year tax to the California government if she relocates to another state. The proposed exit law — introduced at the beginning of the year — would apply to the Golden State’s uber-wealthy who might be looking to avoid state taxes on billionaires by moving to states that don’t have income or wealth tax. Although the bill is still being considered by the state’s Assembly committee on tax and revenue, the Foster sisters aimed their ire at Newsom.
“I blame everything on Newsom. Newsom is, like, the worst,” Sara Foster said. “Yeah, I hate him,” her 41-year-old sister agreed, adding that they once met the governor in the Bahamas. Sara Foster said the proposed legislation is especially distasteful as California grapples with “crime through the roof.” In fact, the state will now spend $267 million to help local law enforcement fight brazen smash-and-grab robberies that have become commonplace across the Golden State.
Foster doubled down on Newsom’s leadership, who has been governor since 2019. “You are running the state and your policies are whack, therefore, I’m coming for you … it’s really f–ked up what’s happening here,” she said. “And I think that it’s like, is the goal to be Venezuela? Is the goal to be a socialist state? I don’t know.” The podcast rant was not the first time the actress targeted California leadership.
In April, she took to Instagram to blast San Francisco’s “liberal politicians” following tech mogul Bob Lee’s violent death in the city earlier that week. She shared a screenshot of The Post’s article about Lee’s final moments before his death on her Instagram Story, showing a smiling Lee with his two daughters. “I have no words,” she wrote. “SF is a complete s—hole. I am a registered Democrat and feel confident saying liberal politicians are ruining cities.” Disgusting. My heart breaks for this family,” she added.
No equivocation. No couching the blasting of Newsom and California pols to warn that their actions are paving the way for Trump and his white supremacist Nazi MAGA hordes to take over. In fact, Sara Foster specifically used the phrase "liberal politicians" to rip San Francisco's insane leaders. We shall see if she retracts what she said, but I think the bridge has been burned here.
Assuming the Fosters do stand by their words, the Cusack example is still the big question mark, vis a vis the mindset of run of the mill disaffected lefties and more crucially less insane lifelong liberal Democrats. The policies that they have supported by voting for Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants have destroyed their livelihoods, their cities and their sense of personal safety. Can they at least finally acknowledge that in no uncertain terms, to at the very least stay home during Election Season, if not make the great leap forward (pun intended) and vote for Republican candidates? Not just on the national level but crucially in the places where they live (assuming that the game isn't rigged, or at the very least vote in such numbers as to overcome the Dao-Min Yen factor) at the state and local levels?
From the half-full portion of the program we go to the half-empty:
Hollywood has been mostly silent on the wave of censorship washing over the culture. Consider the following examples in the arts alone.“The French Connection,” an Oscar-winning classic, got snipped to remove an offensive word
Books by Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming got a sensitivity reader “upgrade”
Films and TV shows with problematic content have been erased in the public arena
Comedians fear the loss of their careers for telling the “wrong” jokes It’s just a partial list, but it’s damning all the same. And that doesn’t include Big Tech censors restricting both comedy and free speech across YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and more. Celebrities routinely weigh in on subjects they have little to no expertise on, from border enforcement to gun control. Their livelihoods depend on free expression, yet most are stone silent on the subject.
The exceptions include: Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, Rob Schneider, John Cleese, Nick Searcy, and, to a lesser extent, both Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Now, a gaggle of stars is skewering so-called “book bans” happening across the nation.
Upwards of 175 actors, musicians, authors, comedians, reality stars, models, media personalities, academics, activists and more have signed the open letter spearheaded by Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton and published Tuesday via public advocacy organization and political action committee MoveOn Political Action.That’s your first clue the mission is politically motivated. MoveOn.org is a progressive body that promotes Democrat causes. Why make censorship a political matter? Here’s why.
One, many of the “book bans” in question involved sexually graphic tomes that have no business being in a school setting. Conservatives are trying to protect children from inappropriate material, while Democrats want this filth in schools nationwide.
Two, the conservative movement has embraced free speech as a core principle in the modern era. The Left, the former champions of free expression, now favors hate speech restrictions and looks the other way as the U.S. government censors American citizens.
A lot. The next time you watch college students shout down a conservative speaker consider which party they call home. There’s only one answer. And they’re proud of it. . .
. . . How many of those stars have spoken out against sensitivity readers? Big Tech censorship? The Biden [junta's] censorship regime? Attacks on comedians for telling the “wrong” jokes? . . .
. . . It’s one thing for Hollywood stars to remain silent on modern censorship. It’s gross, but we can’t force celebrities to speak out on every issue of the day, even one that directly impacts their art form.
For some of these same stars to rally behind a politically charged effort that ignores the larger, toxic threat to free speech is something far more insidious.
What friend of the blog Christian Toto notes above directly applies to John Q. Sack. Unless he's just reflexively brainwashed with Lefty Tourette's syndrome. But for sure, there's got to be a part of his mind that clearly understands that there is a line that he dare not cross. I think that both of those things are factors for him. He either was taught or deluded himself into "true believer" status of all these Leftist shibboleths that it's jarring for him to see the hypocrisy and bullshit of those he supported engaging in it. Then again, he also obviously still believes the rancid blood-libels against conservatives so there is that. I'd say he's a lost cause. But not the Sara Foster's of this world, and it is they that need to be embraced and encouraged.
Are there more of her than him? That remains to be seen. If we are ever to claw back from the abyss, it should be a mission to convert more Fosters to overcome the perpetually blinkered, unreconstructed, unsalvageable Cusacks.
How we do that when shit like this is going on is a good question:
Sometime during the summer of 2023, I posted a review of Elliot Page’s memoir Pageboy on Amazon. I take words seriously, even the words that constitute Amazon reviews. Language can convey truth; language can empower lies. The difference between truth and lies is the difference between life and death. In my faith, Satan is the father of lies. God is the logos, the Word; God is truth and the truth sets us free.Elliot Page’s Pageboy is a poorly written book. I said so in my review. I said this because bad writing matters. “Writing clearly is thinking clearly.” Writing poorly underwrites destructive behavior. Identifying bad writing is a worthwhile use of time. . .
. . . In my review of Pageboy, mindful of current speech codes, I did not refer to Elliot Page as “she.” Rather, I focused on, as I said in the review, “sentence structure, punctuation, narrative flow, and coherence.” I received a cheerfully-worded email telling me that my review was up, thanking me for the review, and providing a link that allowed me to visit the review. I did so. I saw the review on Amazon.
A few days later I thought of the review again, clicked on the link Amazon provided, and saw an error message. “That page does not exist,” the message said, or words to that effect. I had received no notification from Amazon that the review would be removed. I received no explanation as to why it was removed. I received no warning telling me that if I posted another honest review of a poorly written book, I would be banished from Amazon forever. I received no instruction on how to write reviews that Amazon would not delete.
Perhaps a month after that, I again attempted to review a book on Amazon, Christian Cooper’s Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. Again, I received a cheery notification from Amazon telling me that my review was posted. I clicked on the link Amazon sent and I saw the review. Again, a few days later, I clicked on that same link and got the same message. “This page does not exist.” Again, I received no notification, and no explanation. . .
. . . On September 7, 2023, weeks after the above events, my inbox was flooded with approximately one hundred emails from Amazon. The emails that I read before deleting them all said the same thing. “Thank you for reporting a fake review,” or words to that effect. This made no sense. I hadn’t been reporting fake reviews at Amazon. At the end of this avalanche of spam from Amazon came the final email. That final email informed me that all of my reviews, reviews going back almost thirty years, had been removed. I would never again be allowed to post reviews on Amazon, not for books or for anything else. If I bought a spatula that was a really good spatula, I could never say that on Amazon. . .
. . . I posted about the Amazon canceling on Facebook. A Polish friend said he couldn’t believe it. He knows I’m an honest person and would not make this up. He just couldn’t believe it. Another Polish friend said, “I’m so glad I’m not an American.” He believes he has greater freedom of speech in Poland than I have in the US.
Yes, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other sites are private entities and they can dictate whatever terms they want. But there’s more to the story than that simplistic analysis. Activists often sneer at any mention of the harassment and threats that JK Rowling has endured ever since she posted that women should not be fired for saying that “sex is real.” Some sniff that Rowling has Midas money and can hire all the security she needs. That’s true, but it misses the point. Most people are not JK Rowling. Most people observe the vitriol and death threats inundating JK Rowling and say to themselves, “I can’t afford to risk that. I’d never find another job. My kids’ safety is paramount. I need to keep my mouth shut.” Just so, when Amazon makes a decision about what can and cannot be said, it has far-reaching consequences.
Many people have sent me private messages on social media. “I agree with you. I can’t say so publicly. I can’t risk it.” My leftist, Atheist, and Christophobic social media contacts love to cite my church, the Catholic Church, as the epitome of the suppression of free speech and freedom of conscience. I ask them, are you aware of those who have had to go into hiding, who have lost jobs, who have lost access to their own children, because of something they said? It’s not conservatives squelching free speech. It is the Left. . .
. . . I just took a break from writing this essay to check my email inbox. A friend just wrote to tell me that he just finished a book on early Soviet Russia – and he he is now afraid to review it on Amazon.
And what does it say about the mindset of whoever it was who carried out the campaign against me? The spamming of my email inbox, which was confirmed by Amazon to be from them. Sending me a link that would damage my computer, again, confirmed by Amazon to be from them. The erasure of all of my reviews going back decades, with no explanation, no recourse. Whoever did this is no Stalin, but this person is surely a totalitarian. What does it say about America that people who cannot debate, but who can only destroy, wield any power at all? What is this anonymous and unreachable Amazon saboteur like as a spouse, as a citizen, as a friend? When corporations train their employees to be little Robespierres, they undermine society.
Corporations are now doing the oppression and persecution that the Junta can't. At least not openly. And then it can crow about how they are the protectors of "our precious democracy" (*vomits*) because they are merely allowing the free market to flourish unimpeded as our founding fathers meant in the Constitution, don't you know?!
Of course, John Q. Sack and his fellow travelers would concur. H8tr!
Have a good weekend.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- "Everything before 2008 must go!" (Adolf builds a bonfire . . . - jjs)
Libraries Clearing Shelves Through ‘Equity-Based’ Book Weeding
- Christian Toto: "Guillermo del Toro, Mark Ruffalo, Chelsea Handler attack straw men, ignore real threat."
Celebs Rally Against ‘Book Bans,’ Ignore Real Censorship
- "Because I didn't like two hot books."
Amazon Manipulates Reviews and Sends Malware Link to Reviewer
Continue reading
Daily Tech News 22 September 2023
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Cisco is acquiring Splunk in a $28 billion deal. (Bloomberg)
If you were thinking Elon Musk overpaid for Twitter - and he did - then rest assured that the market hasn't come to its senses.
What is Splunk? I was under the impression that it was a log aggregation tool, which would never be worth $28 billion.
It is.
Continue reading
Do You Remember The 21st ONT Of September?
—WeirdDave
Howdy y'all. Welcome to Thursday's ONT.
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Rescue Rangers Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I could do this except it looks pretty gay, actually.
I don't even know what this is.
This elephant says "I can do that too."
Milan "vertical forest" apartment building.
Isn't this a sign that you're inside The Matrix?
Compilation of videos of people being reunited with pets.
Kittens swim across a lake hoping to be saved by fishermen.
Fishermen save a baby moose stuck on some cold rocks at the edge of a lake.
Rescuing a horse that got its big ol' butt stuck between two trees.
Sound on: Inside a standard suburban birdhouse. You're gonna wanna hear that clock.
Mother dog jumps into a fast-moving river to save her puppy.
A bear stuck its head into an airbag bucket -- the bucket an airbag deploys from -- for a month. This man valiantly strains to get the bucket off the bear's head. And it's not easy.
Goose step more like a goose lambada am i rite
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Quick Hits
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Breaking, from Hollaria Briden, Esq.:
Via Hot Air, the Teflon Senator Robert Menendez might finally have some criminal charges that'll stick.
Even NBC "News" is now reporting on this.
Allegedly, Robert Menendez rendered political favors to a felon -- in exchange for gold bars delivered to a family member (his wife).
This is just like the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden bribery case. Except with gold bars.
Federal prosecutors are looking into whether an admitted felon helped arrange to give gold bars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez or his wife in exchange for help, sources familiar with the matter tell News 4.Investigators want to know if Menendez offered to contact the Justice Department to try to help that man who was accused of banking crimes. Those questions are now before a federal grand jury in Manhattan that is considering whether to hand up corruption charges against the senior senator from New Jersey.
Sources say witnesses are now testifying before that federal grand jury. Part of the investigation centers on the senator's ties to Fred Daibes, a New Jersey developer and one-time bank chairman. Officials with the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation want to know if Daibes or his associates gave gold bars to the senator's wife, Nadine Arslanian -- gold bars worth as much as $400,000.
At the time of the gift handoff, Daibes was facing federal bank fraud charges that could have landed him up to a decade in federal prison.
Sources familiar with the matter say federal prosecutors have been asking if Menendez, a Democrat who has represented New Jersey since 2006, offered to help support Daibes with his criminal case by contacting Justice Department officials about the case. If the senator did offer to act in exchange for expensive gifts, legal experts say that could be a crime.
"For purposes of the Federal Extortion Act, it makes no difference if the senator took an official act so long as he accepted the money and there was knowledge the money was in exchange for that official influence, even if he never carried out what he had promised he would do," NBC Legal Analyst Danny Cevallos said.
Right, and it doesn't matter if the bribe was delivered to a family member instead of the principal. The federal law on bribery and extortion says so explicitly.
Now apply this to Joe Biden.
The Demented Tyrant Biden declared another lawless decree:
Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_NEW: DHS announces it is extending and redesignating Temporary Protected Status for 18 months to Venezuelans residing in the U.S. on or before July 31, 2023. DHS estimates this will immediately make 472,000 Venezuelans in the US eligible to apply for work authorization. This also shields them from removal & deportation.
...
I’m also hearing from Border Patrol agents who are groaning about this news, saying it will just make the problem worse and attract more Venezuelans to the border who will hope for a new TPS redesignation next year.
And of course they'll get that.
NeverTrump not only voted for Biden, they did so enthusiastically, and continue making excuses for him.
Because they're liberal open-borders internationalist maniacs, scarcely better than their close kin the transnationalist progressives, who quit the party when they could no longer control the great majority of the party which wants to close the borders. You know, like a Real Country might do.
As Democrats become frantic about Biden's weakness of body and political standing, he tells them "Just relax, Fat. I've got this. My word as a Biden."
The Biden White House has a blunt message for doomscrolling Democrats fretting about the president's old age and bad poll numbers: Clam up and chill out.Driving the news: Mike Donilon, a senior White House adviser, is telling anxious Democrats that two issues -- abortion and Donald Trump -- will propel Biden to re-election, according to people familiar with the matter.
In those private conversations, Democrats have been struck by top White House aides' confidence. Some worry it's hubris.
Why it matters: Biden officials dismiss most of the growing concern over impeachment headlines, Hunter Biden's indictment, an immigration crisis, the president's age, an economy that voters don't love, and an auto strike that's testing Biden's union support.
Instead, the White House plans to continue its Rose Garden strategy, with a three-pronged message that focuses on protecting democracy, abortion rights and a resilient economy, including a historically low unemployment rate.
The recent calls for Biden to step aside are seen internally as just the latest example of elite Democrats underestimating Biden.
Can you underestimate Biden? Is that a thing which is physically possible?
America Is Becoming a Joke
Apart from the usual quibbles about verb tense, this is a great column from Kurt Schlichter.
The United States just lost an F-35 as part of its campaign to reduce itself from the greatest superpower in human history to a pitiful punchline. Ah, the magic of leftism -- only it can make a great country like America ridiculous. From an inability to find its fighters to an unwillingness to defend its borders or prosecute criminals -- with the exception of conservatives framed for the crime of conservativing -- our country has become the Three Stooges without the dignity. AdvertisementThe first question that arises from the mystery jet is not what happened -- we can safely assume it was some manner of gross incompetence -- but what the plane's pronouns were. We had the spectacle of the Marine Corps high command dragging itself away from one of its drag shows to ask regular folks if they could pretty please give the jarheads a hand finding their wayward fighter. They couldn't even spin this fiasco effectively and brag about how their not being able to detect the $100 million aircraft just goes to show how darn good our stealth tech is. No, instead it was just exactly what it sounded like. We can't keep track of our jets. The only ones happy about it had to be the Navy, since this was a welcome respite from the mockery it earned smashing its destroyers into other boats. Our Army -- with its colonels running sex kennels -- used to recruit with slogans like "Be All You Can Be," and now it would probably be better off with "We Suck Less Than That Other Service That Lost The Jet."
Over on Capitol Hill, where the People's House that you get sent to jail for peopling inside is located, we have the Republican Charlie Browns once again teeing up to kick the football held by the Democrat Lucys. Yeah, this time will be different! The GOP has only had the better part of a year to get ready for this debt ceiling thing and to plot out a course of action to get some concessions. But have they? Ha! Why win when you can lose?
And on the Senate side, our minority leader keeps freezing up like a Windows blue screen as everyone explains how it is perfectly normal for McConnell to stand there rebooting every time someone puts a mic in his mug. And, of course, there's Chumley the Congressman insisting that the august institution conform to his desire to dress like a guy playing $2 blackjack hands at Circus Circus on a Monday morning.
Amazing.
Actress Emma Roberts (a one) is accused of having "misgendered" a transgender (government name: correctly gendering a transgender) while on the set.
Oh no. Anything but that.
If you want to see an Emma Roberts movie, let me recommend Nerve. It's a fun and stylish thriller. The one problem is that the ending is contrived and dumb, but here's the thing: Every movie like this, with a Twilight Zone future-fantasy type premise, has an ending that is contrived and dumb. Every single one of them.
Because there really aren't any great ways to end these things.
"We're all in a zoo!" "It was all a dream!" "The pretty people are really the ugly people!"
It's not that kind of ending. But think of The Running Man, where suddenly with a half hour to go they figure out a way to bring down The Network while still playing the game. Because you have to beat the bad guys, even if it makes no sense.
So, you know you're getting a contrived and dumb ending going in. I go into all thrillers and mysteries with the expectation that I will not like the ending. Ce n'est pas la destination, mais la voyage.
But it's good until then! Worth the rental.
And now, for the rest of the story.
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Sam Bankman-Fried Denied Bail; Lawsuit Alleges That Democrat Superdonor Parents Allowed Him Access to Democrat Dark Money Juggernot Arabella Advisors
—Disinformation Expert Ace
A judge had previously denied Sam Bankman-Fried's motion be allowed out on bail awaiting trial. He appealed to the 2nd Circuit court of appeals, which just affirmed the lower court's ruling. No bail for Sammy.
Josh Gerstein @joshgersteinBREAKING: 2nd Circuit panel unanimously denies bail to Sam Bankman-Fried. 'We discern no error, much less clear error, in the district court's detention decision.'
A lawsuit now alleges that Bankman-Fried's father sat on the advisory board of dark money Toxic Superfund Arabella Advisors, and could access that group's billions.
The father of disgraced cryptocurrency kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried sat on the advisory board of the liberal dark money behemoth Arabella Advisors and likely had access to the group's funds, a federal lawsuit filed against Bankman-Fried's parents on Tuesday charged.
The lawsuit, filed by Bankman-Fried's defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, cites communications from the elder Bankman in which he discussed having access to Arabella funds. The suit also reveals that FTX had a special arrangement with the largest Arabella affiliate, the New Venture Fund, through which the crypto trading firm and its donors could contribute to "select charitable causes." Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of stealing billions of dollars from FTX customer funds to keep his hedge fund afloat and to donate to political causes.Though the extent of Allan Joseph Bankman's involvement in the Arabella advisory board or the level of control he had over the consultancy is unclear, the lawsuit shows the elder Bankman discussing Arabella and its corresponding non-profit, New Venture Fund, as vehicles to move money around and obscure its origin.
Arabella's network of five nonprofit funds, which do not have to disclose their donors, have spent billions of dollars operating a vast array of left-wing advocacy groups that present themselves to the public as grassroots initiatives.
Arabella spokesman Steve Sampson told the Washington Free Beacon that Bankman "has never had any role at Arabella Advisors."
But the lawsuit cites communications from the elder Bankman in which he discussed routing Arabella funds through his son.
"We considered having funds made available by Sam through Arabella, through our own 501(c)(3), through a foreign entity with a 501(c)(3)-like charter, and through Alameda as a public benefit corporation," Bankman allegedly said in connection with a discussion surrounding gift taxes.
The FTX lawsuit alleges that Allan Joseph Bankman and his wife, Barbara Fried--both Stanford Law professors and major Democratic donors--played a direct role in FTX's downfall through breaches of fiduciary duties, fraudulent transfers, and unjust enrichment. The lawsuit cited Bankman's discussions of his son's partnership with Arabella as proof he had "unfettered access" to FTX's finances.
Speaking of leftwingers abusing their slush-funds: "Ibrahim Kendhi," the hustler who has profited the most, personally, from the BLM hoax, started a -- checks notes -- "charity" to promote "antiracism." He collected millions and millions of dollars to "fight racism" and to explain how to "be antiracist."
You'll never guess what happened next!
Well actually I'm pretty sure you can guess. His "research institute" failed to produce any research.
Ibram Kendi's Center for Antiracist Research Hasn't Produced Any ResearchThe group announced this month that it would slash a third of its workforce
That's so sad I'm crying.
Ibram X. Kendi's Center for Antiracist Research made headlines this month when it announced it would axe a third of its workforce. But those layoffs may not have much of an impact, considering the center has hardly produced any original research at all.
The Boston University-based center has produced just two original research papers since its founding in June 2020, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Output from the center's scholars largely consists of op-eds or commentary posted on the center's website. The group's plans to "maintain the nation's largest online database of racial inequity data in the United States" quickly fizzled out, and the database has been dormant since 2021.The Center for Antiracist Research is the latest left-wing group to fall on hard times. George Soros's Open Society Foundations, which gave $140,000 to Kendi's center, cut 40 percent of its staff in June. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation's revenues fell 88 percent from 2021 to 2022, as support for the movement plummeted to an all-time low.
It is unclear how much money remains in the Center for Antiracist Research's coffers. Boston University did not respond to a request for comment.
But not Boston University is opening an "inquiry" to ask what everyone should ask of every leftwing huckster and hate-peddler: What did you do with all that money, Chester?
Actually Ibram's name isn't Chester. His real name is Henry Rodgers (and he hates being called by his Slave Name).
Boston University said Wednesday it would conduct an "inquiry" into Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Center for Antiracist Research after complaints emerged about the center's culture and financial management.The assessment comes the week after Kendi, a celebrity author, scholar of race, and antiracism advocate laid off more than half the center's staff.
The complaints, a BU spokesperson said, "focused on the center's culture and its grant management practices."
That means: We're focusing on him giving money to his cronies while getting no "research" in return.
The inquiry announced Wednesday represents a broadening of a previous "examination" of the center's grant management practices, according to the spokesperson, Rachel Lapal Cavallario.Kendi "takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports," she said.
Shut up, Hank.
Since its announced launch in June 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors.
He waited "days" after George Floyd to start a grift.
Whole days.
What restraint.
At the time, Kendi, the author of the bestselling 2019 book "How to Be an Antiracist," said the center would "solve these intractable racial problems of our time."
Well now that everything's solved, we can stop giving money to Race Pirates, right?
Or no?
"I don't know where the money is," said Saida Grundy, a BU professor who worked at the center from fall 2020 to spring 2021.In December 2021, Grundy sent an email to BU provost Jean Morrison alleging dysfunction in the organization and a "pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated" by them.
I'm sure they threw some sick house parties, though.
Supposedly -- Wink -- Disney Will Be Walking Back from the Brink In Its Unending Culture War on Its Former Customers
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I do not believe this, not for one second.
I can believe that the Woke Warrior Bob Iger is taking a page from Black Rock head Larry Fink -- he will stop using the terms "ESG" and "DEI" to appease a public which has grown to despise the acronyms, while continuing to invest in firms pushing a woke agenda.
And that's basically what Iger is saying here -- he's saying he's trying to "quiet the noise" and controversy around Disney.
That is not the same thing as abandoning the policies and propaganda that have made Disney controversial.
Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors the company will "quiet the noise" in a culture war that has pitted social conservatives against the global media and entertainment conglomerate, according to an analyst note on Wednesday.Iger's brief statement, included in an analyst report from Needham media analyst Laura Martin, was part of an investors' presentation on Tuesday at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, in which the CEO also announced Disney will double its investment in theme parks and cruise ships over the next decade.
Disney is struggling to make its streaming business profitable, improve the quality of its films, position its flagship sports brand, ESPN, to stream directly to consumers, and potentially shed its television networks. In its most recent quarter, the company beat Wall Street's profit expectations but fell short on revenue.
Disney declined comment.
In other words, when reporters called to ask what Iger meant, he refused to say, because he doesn't mean anything. He just wants conservatives to stop boycotting him, but he doesn't want to give in to any of their demands. He wants to continue pushing woke propaganda and grooming children; he just doesn't want conservatives to punish Disney economically for that.
But he'll keep doing it. Just more "quietly."
Is the Man in a Beard and a Dress still greeting confused little girls outside the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique? You say he is?
Then shut the fuck up, Iger, you revolting c**t.
Sexton points out that with Disney planning to spend billions more on theme parks, that means they will not be following through on the threat to leave DeSantis' Florida.
Meanwhile, Forbes got hold of the UK tax filings for The Marvels, which was formerly called Captain Marvel 2 but then they realized everyone hates Captain Marvel.
A better name would be Captain Marvel Now with 66% Less Captain Marvel. I might actually see that.
Disney has revealed that the cost of making its upcoming superhero team-up movie The Marvels hit $130 million after just two months of filming....The Marvels appears to be a slapstick sci-fi firmly-focused on the youth audience as the trailer shows the trio of stars changing places involuntarily. It is the sequel to 2019's Captain Marvel which grossed $1.1 billion at the box office so Disney is sparing no expense.
LOL. Captain Marvel made money because Marvel lied and told people that it was critical for understanding Avengers: Endgame. If Marvel had said that shirtless pictures of David French were required viewing for Endgame, they would have sold $1 billion worth of candid snaps of David French's sadly puffy nipples.
Now Forbes reports that the cost for the film has ballooned to $270 million.
And that's just what Disney is willing to admit.
Disney has revealed that it spent more than $270 million on making The Marvels, the latest instalment in its Marvel Comics super hero saga, which will be released in theaters in November.The blockbuster budget is disclosed in company filings released yesterday by the Disney subsidiary which made the movie.
They show that over the two-year period from the incorporation of the company to September 30, 2022, it spent $274.8 million (£221.8 million) and banked a $55 million (£44.4 million) subsidy from the government of the United Kingdom where the movie was made. This brought its net spending down to $219.8 million meaning that the movie will have to gross at least $439.6 million at the box office to break even as studios get around half of theater takings.
...
Trailers for the Marvel movie show that it is a slapstick sci-fi as the trio of stars change places involuntarily whenever they use their powers. On paper, it looks like a sure-fire hit as the film is the sequel to 2019's Captain Marvel which grossed $1.1 billion at the box office.
Oh yeah, it looks like a huge hit. The average Marvel fan, a dude between 18 and 60 years old, is totally into a Freaky Friday parody of a superhero films crammed with Disney XD children's humor.
They got this information from the UK tax filings. The production was organized by a corporation calling itself "Warbird."
I wondered why the UK tax filings would include the budget spent outside of the UK. After all, if you're just getting a tax credit for the amount of money spent in the UK, why would you report the expenditures in America or Canada?
The article answers this question: To get UK tax credits, you have to spend at least 10% of the total budget of the film in the UK. So to establish that, you have to report both your UK costs and the total budget of the film.
Gary Beuchler from Nerdrotic was laughing yesterday about an interview with the director of this latest Marvel disaster-in-the-making, in which she clearly distances herself from the project, stressing that she was not allowed to make her movie and that this is really Kevin Fiege's movie.
In other words: Don't blame me for this piece of shit. My career should not be damaged by what we're about to shit out on to the public.
Turns out, when you direct an MCU film, you're still second-in-command to Kevin Feige. The Marvels director Nia DaCosta recently opened up about this in an interview.Speaking to Vanity Fair for their cover story, DaCosta revealed what working in the MCU is like. She said that The Marvels is "a Kevin Feige production, it's his movie."
LOL.
"The Marvels? What's that? Oh right, I showed up a few days to watch them filming it. Kevin Feige should be so proud! He tries so hard, despite everything!"
She continued, "So I think you live in that reality, but I tried to go in with the knowledge that some of you is going to take a back seat."
That's not humility, that's survival instinct kicking in.
Governor Abbott Declares the Border to Be In a State of Invasion, Vows to Repel Invaders
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Governor Greg Abbott announced an hour ago that he officially declared an invasion at the southern border today and he's going to begin repelling it.He sent a letter to Joe Biden and declared that he's sending troops to the border and they are building a wall, deploying razor wire and marine barriers to protect his state from the Mexican drug cartels since Biden won't do it:
He wrote: "The federal government's failure has forced me to invoke Article I, § 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, thereby enabling the State of Texas to protect its own territory against invasion by the Mexican drug cartels."
A bigger, more readable version of the letter is at the link.
Also from The Right Scoop, leftwing thug Mayor Eric Adams followed Joe Biden's lead in pushing illegal aliens out of areas controlled by leftwingers and into Republican-leaning areas -- namely, Staten Island.
Staten Islanders blocked the buses transporting the illegals, though cops arrived to break up the blockade of the street and arrest the protesters.
Weird, the cops routinely allow BLM to take over the streets and block all traffic. I wonder what accounts for this Illegal Disparate Treatment of Political Protesters.
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