GIVE TIL IT HURTS

The continued existence of this site depends entirely on contributions from its readers. If you're able to, please consider donating or subscribing to CF. Thanks!


  

THANKS!

The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Welcome to Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. Do note that the official CF comments policy remains in effect here, as enumerated in the left sidebar. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…

Mike @Substack


New Eyrie posts go up every Monday and Friday, although the time of day may (and most likely will) vary. Mike’s latest Eyrie offering is available for perusal here: Of coups, pRetend pResidents, and other don’t-matters.

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live. All Eyrie articles are getatable (yes, that’s really a word—trust me!) for one and all to read and enjoy totally free of charge, regardless of subscription status. However, a paid sub is required to unlock commenting privileges—an almighty incentive to kick loose and chip in if ever there was one. Thanks!

Recent Comments:

  • Barry on COINCIDENCE!: “OK, no disagreement. My comment was poorly worded as I understand the police not only do not have any requirement…Sep 6, 17:15
  • hhluce on COINCIDENCE!: “In general, see https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2592&context=vlr – this is a rather long law review article of case law, which is how courts…Sep 6, 15:13
  • Barry on COINCIDENCE!: ““…and that duty does not extend, nor has it ever extended, towards the governed.” Every actual oath to serve in…Sep 6, 14:42
  • hhluce on COINCIDENCE!: ““From a prior post earlier this year: When people ask why the Russians don’t rise up, throw out their corrupt,…Sep 6, 05:31
  • Barry on Memezapoppin’!: “Snap! The last one is mine…Sep 5, 22:07
  • Barry on Boeing: the long, slow death of a legend: “Agreed. I expect to hear of a Musk flight program in the next five years. It’s a natural fit IMO.Sep 5, 22:01
  • Barry on Open mouth, insert…foot, this time: “In addition to them being marxists, they are stupid.Sep 5, 21:50
  • Barry on COINCIDENCE!: ““OF COURSE this was an inside job.” Ditto, and it ain’t even close to questionable.Sep 5, 21:41

Fundraisers, forsooth!

Having shifted my brother’s ongoing flatbed-trailer begathon over to the right sidebar for the nonce, permit me now to introduce CF Lifers to a follow-on fundie, namely…well, I’ll just chop off the relevant section from tonight’s nonpareil Eyrie offering and append it herewards:

IMPORTANT NOTE! A boon, playgoers, a benison: My lovely daughter Madeleine, who is to my eternal astonishment a high-schooler as of two (2) weeks ago, requests that I commend to the attention of you Eyrirregulars the marching-band fundraiser she is participating in, to wit:

Any of you fine folks who are flush with cash are hereby beseeched to toss a few simoleons into the pot for my young ‘un: popcorn in a staggering variety of flavors, candy, and other miscellaneous comestibles are available at the above link for discriminating consumers of such items. Thanks so very, very much!

Comments for this particular post have been opened to all irrespective of subscriber status, because reasons.

And there you have it, gang.

COINCIDENCE!

Still think so, do ya? Better think again, bub.

It is sometimes impossible to believe that we are just under two months removed from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump — a former President and the Republican nominee to become the President again this year — and we have almost no meaningful information about the incident.

What is not at all impossible to believe is that the media has completely memory-holed the assassination attempt. They simply do not talk about it. Why not? Because discussion of that historic event could help Trump in the election. The media, in their TDS-induced stupor, simply cannot have that.

Fortunately for America, there are still brave people within the Secret Service (not you, Ronald Rowe) who have come forward to shed light on the massive security cock-up on July 13. Thanks to Senator Josh Hawley sharing the testimony of those whistleblowers, we have learned more about the attempt on Trump’s life that we never would have otherwise known.

Last night, Hawley had some shocking new whistleblower testimony that he shared with Jesse Watters on Fox News. It is not hyperbole to say that you are not going to believe what you are about to hear in these four minutes:

Follows, a Twatter video embed, then…

Holy sh*t. Let’s go through the list of what we learned here:

  • A local police countersniper — from the ground, not from an elevated position — neutralized the shooter, NOT the Secret Service (though they did fire the shots that killed him);
  • Acting USSS Director Rowe lied about this in his recent Congressional testimony;
  • Many of the agents assigned to the protective detail on July 13 were not from the Secret Service, but from Homeland Security, which has no experience in protecting a President;
  • Those DHS agents were pulled off of their other jobs, like child endangerment investigations, for this posting;
  • The DHS agents had NO training other than a single webinar;
  • And finally, the webinar didn’t even work for some parts of its two-hour duration.

W … T … A … F!

Is the Secret Service being run by The Three Stooges? Or is that too much of a compliment?

The Secret Service is doing exactly what it’s told, as is the DoJ, FBI, CIA, and all the other appendages of the lumbering Überstadt megalodon. The Twitchy author engages in a smattering of fretful woe-is-we-ing over the prospective reinforcement of “conspiracy theories” and such-like folderol deriving from these shocking—SHOCKING!!!— revelations, as one would expect. But for my money there can be but one conclusion that fits the known facts available to sensible, observant people, to wit:


Eventually, inevitably, poor old Good Time Charlie swallows hard, smooths his hair, squares his weary shoulders, takes a deep, steadying breath, and vaults into the fray with the usual hallucinatory cope.


Aw yeah, THAT’ll fix this thing for sure and certain. And if somehow it doesn’t, why, there’s always the next “election,” and the next, and the next, and the next, and the one after that! Each and every last one of them the most critically vitally crucially vitally IMPORTANT© “election” in our lifetimes, quite possibly EVARRR, you betcher!!!

*Le sigh* Pathetic. Pointless. Soporific. And perhaps most of all: embarrassing.

NOTE: Posted this ‘un with MarsEdit, gang. It’s working, it’s working! Sincerest thanks to Mike M of HM/EntirelyDigital for his capable assistance.

Also, my bog-standard sarcastic derogation of the “elections” will o’ the wisp is aimed squarely at US national elections, which I still maintain are pure theatre, nothing more nor less. Local and state contests are a whole ‘nother kettle of fish in my view, or a great many of them at any rate. YMMV.

Memezapoppin’!

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

NOTE: Finally said oh, to Hades with it and just C&P’d the whole shebang into the WP editor, which evolution turned out to be a lot less of a headache than I’d imagined. The seriously bizarre thing is that the server cheerfully allowed MarsEdit to upload the images as per usual, but still gags on publishing an actual post. Just told Tech Support the new server apparently doesn’t much care for the warp of my woof, or something.

Continue reading Memezapoppin’!

SitRep

Chris Bray discusses where it’s at, where it’s going, and where it might end up.

Jackbooted Paste Eaters
it’s illegal for you to notice that i pick my nose, you fascist, so you have to go to prison

The current unifying theme among a set of people who regard themselves as progressive, liberal, mainstream, respectable, and so on, is a spectacular punishment fetish. Arrest them arrest them arrest them arrest them, they helpfully explain about people who disagree with them about anything, ever. See, for an easy example of the discipline fetish, this quite popular reader-generated “diary” post from a few days ago at Daily Kos, arguing that Tulsi Gabbard’s “Quiet Skies” designation is a proper use of the state security apparatus against a domestic enemy:

It seems to this reader that our intelligence services are merely doing their jobs on this one. Given all of the terrorist horror that Putin has unleashed on the world, if Homeland Security wasn’t keeping an eye on people who meet Gabbard’s profile, I’d be deeply confused and worried. In any case, it seems that in Gabbard finally becoming a part of Trump’s team, the Kremlin is starting to put all of their rotten eggs in one basket and that should make things a bit easier for Homeland Security to do their jobs.

Underlying the teeth-grinding lust for a good firm application of the belt and the rounding up of domestic enemies is an attitude about authority that presumes the correctness of obedience and the proper absence of checks and balances. As Matt Taibbi noted yesterday, the Washington Post has just run a tech policy analysis arguing that social media executives have “thumbed their noses at authorities” — but the authorities are working to “bring tech giants to heel.”

Nearly every paragraph of this Washington Post thing contains extremely telling language, like the description of the brave judge Alexandre de Moraes fighting for democracy in Brazil by repressing platforms that tolerate the evil of dangerously unmediated speech, or the Eastern Bloc-flavored description of social media figures like Elon Musk as “impudent.” Note that, while social media leaders are being “brought to heel,” they’re also being “reined in.”

So the tolerant liberals are both yanking the leash and jerking on the reins, bringing the animals into submission. To protect democracy.

Underscoring once again why it was that the Founders abhorred and feared democracy vehemently, explicitly, and unequivocally. As a classic 1st-Generation meme had it: “Liberals” are the people the Founding Fathers warned us about; they’re the precise reason why the Second Amendment exists in the first place. Wise men, those Founder-dudes were. The bill for having ignored their sagacious advice is now coming due, and the price of our flaccid negligence is dreadfully steep.

But yeah, I’m sure we can find SOME way to peaceably coexist cheek-by-jowl with the Goosesteppin’ Left scourge. All’s Real Americans will have to do is agree to siddown, shaddup, and Submit©, no biggie. Left unanswered is just why any self-respecting, liberty-minded Patriot would even WANT to peaceably coexist with such as they.

Publick Announceminke

Looks like the Memezapoppin’ post is gonna be delayed tonight, along with everything else, due to some bewildering server issues I’ve already contacted tech support about helping me get sorted out. Until such time as etc, I’m kinda stuck here; the WP posting interface seems to work okay–the two (2) posts below this one I did using the WP dealio–but y’all know how I feel about that shinola. My beloved MarsEdit, the FTP client I use (Cyberduck, by name)–ie, all the finer things that make a blogger’s life truly worth the living, are fully and firmly hosed, alas.

More as and when, as always, and my humble thanks for your patience.

Update! Just put up a brand new post with the native WP editor, just to check a few things out. No way am I gonna attempt to use the accursed thing for the Memezapoppin’ post, though; that would be a YUUUUGE pain in Ye Aulde CF Keester, although the MarsEdit version is all done and ready to go. To my astonishment, ME was able to upload the images with nary a hiccup. Sadly, publishing the post itself via ME remains a no-go as of right this minute. Weird, no?

Paging David French, David French to the white courtesy phone please

Conservative Momma puts it WAY better, more forthrightly, and more engagingly than French ever has, or could.

BWAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHA! You go, CM!

(Via Ace)

1
2
1

Contractualities

One of our pal Ms Sarcastica’s best ever. Which, yes, that really IS saying something.

Your Body’s Updated Terms of Service:
We are writing to inform you that Your Body (“you,” “yourself,” “your aging body”) has updated its terms of service, which apply to the use of all your Parts and Areas. These terms will apply only to Your Once-Useful Body and may differ from Other People’s Bodies, Which Are Still Normal.

We encourage you to review the updated Terms before you attempt any dangerous activity, such as playing with your dog or walking uphill. Our other legal policies are available in our Depressing Policy Center.

Addendum to Terms of Service

I. Food and Beverage
a. Alcohol may be consumed a maximum of three (3) nights per week, with two nights consisting of no more than one (1) beverage and one night consisting of no more than two (2) beverages. If you have one (1) beverage on a night you are supposed to have one (1) beverage, but the drink doesn’t “do anything” and you “don’t feel any different,” you are still not allowed to have a second beverage because the first one “clearly didn’t count.” If you do have two (2) beverages on a night you are supposed to only have one (1), you will have a hangover the next day. Yes, an actual hangover. Also, if you have one (1) beverage on a night you are supposed to have zero (0), you won’t get any sleep and will wake up hating the world.

b. Caffeine is one of three good things that exist. The others are love and the Fleetwood Mac album Rumours. However, like the relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, your body’s relationship to caffeine is a productive yet fraught dance. If you consume any caffeine after 1 p.m., you won’t get any sleep and will wake up hating the world. Other People’s Bodies can consume caffeine until 3 or 4 p.m. or even have an espresso after dinner. You aren’t them and never will be. Also, if you have more than two (2) cups in a day, you will become convinced that there must be some kind of “demon” inside your chest and you will never be normal again.

c. Despite your many lobbying efforts, Pretzels are still not considered their own food group and should not be treated as such. A healthy diet consists of diverse foods from those food groups recognized by the scientific community. Capeesh?

II. Exercise
a. Your Body and Mind require 4–6 days of exercise per week, unless you want to go to sleep hating the world. Unfortunately, every kind of exercise that you enjoy causes Your Body’s back, knees, or ankles to enter “The Zone of Desolation.”

b. If your physical pain ever starts to feel depressing, it could help to look on the bright side: if you were a hunter-gatherer, you’d probably be dead by now.

Plenty more where that came from, every word of it true and accurate, every word of it eminently worth checking out.

2
2

Open mouth, insert…foot, this time

Gee, Willie Brown’s dick, her own foot, gallons of cheap vodka daily—as my Grandma used to pointedly inquire whenever she heard somebody cuss (besides herself, natch): you kiss your Mama with that mouth, Kumala?

As Vice President, I have had the privilege of visiting Arlington National Cemetery several times. It is a solemn place; a place where we come together to honor American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service of this nation.

It is not a place for politics.

And yet, as was reported this week, Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.

This is nothing new from Donald Trump. This is a man who has called our fallen service members “suckers” and “losers” and disparaged Medal of Honor recipients. 

A man who, during a previous visit to the cemetery, reportedly said of fallen service members, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

This is a man who is unable to comprehend anything other than service to himself. 

If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude. 

And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America.

I will always honor the service and sacrifice of all of America’s fallen heroes, who made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our beloved nation and our cherished freedoms. I mourn them and salute them. And I will never politicize them.

That’s the entirety of Kumala’s ill-advised “Show more” Tweet, to which the response has been…erm, unfortunate, for her at any rate. For starters:


OW, that smarts! And then there’s this:

Oh, Kamala, what have you done? In a move that was scummy even for her, Kamala Harris had the audacity to attack Donald Trump for appearing at the memorial for service members who died at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan. And, by extension, she attacked the Gold Star families who invited him to be there.

Keep in mind the only reason they’re Gold Star families is because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan and got their loved ones killed.

Now those families are responding:

And how. Follows, scads upon scads of stinging video denunciation from said families, which is a joy and a wonder to behold. For us, that is, not for her; not a-tall, in fact. No wonder the stupid, drunk-ass ho’ is so reluctant to be interviewed, debate the opposition candidate (or anybody else) honestly and fairly, or otherwise speak in public any more than she absolutely, positively must. My God, the woman makes even Dotard Jaux Bribem look like a gentleman and a scholar, which is really saying something.

One last excellent riposte I almost forgot to include:


I repeat: OW! Also: YIKES!!

Update! Senator Tom Cotton gets the last truly epic word.

You might think that would be the end of the story. After all, how do you keep pushing a false story that has even been rebuked by the very families involved who lost their loved ones due to Harris’ incompetence? The press took that as a challenge, though, and when Welker faced off against Cotton on Sunday morning, she told an inexcusable lie as she desperately tried to defend the vice president.

WELKER: The bottom line, I guess, though, senator, is it ever appropriate to make campaign content at military grave sites?

COTTON: He didn’t take campaign photos there. These families, Gold Star families, whose children died due to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s incompetence, invited him to the cemetery, and they asked him to take those photos because as they told me yesterday when I spoke to Kelly Barnett and Darren Hoover, the parents of Taylor Hoover, who has Arkansas ties, they don’t get to go to the beach on Labor Day. They don’t get to have BBQs. This is their one chance to have a memory of their children to commemorate their service and to honor their sacrifice. They wanted President Trump there, they wanted to take those photos.

You know who those families also invited? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Where were they? Joe Biden was sitting at a beach. Kamala Harris was sitting at her mansion in Washington, DC. She was four miles away. Ten minutes. She could’ve gone to the cemetery and honor the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn’t. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting with them.

WELKER: Well, they did meet with them during the dignified transfer. They were with them during the dignified transfer.

COTTON: It is because of her and Joe Biden’s incompetence that those 13 Americans were killed in Afghanistan.

Cotton’s takedown of Welker’s talking points is perfect, not because of some impressive political prowess, but because it’s the truth. The claim that Trump made “campaign content” at Arlington National Cemetery is simply false. None of the pictures with the family have been used in ads or placed in a political context by the Trump campaign. He was there at the behest of the Gold Star families. Given their children died defending this country, I think they have a right to snap a few pictures if they’d like.

This game has long been played (by the) left and the federal bureaucracy. When John McCain took some video of him walking among the gravestones, the press attacked him for it. When Barack Obama and Joe Biden did the same thing (including Biden being pictured in Section 60), no one said a word. No (D)NC official came running out telling them to put the cameras away while accusing them of breaking the rules. Let a Republican show up to honor the fallen though, and suddenly it’s a scandal. The entire thing is so transparent.

What Welker did at the end of that exchange is just inexcusable, though. Cotton specifically said Harris has never spoken to or met with the Abbey Gate Gold Star families, and the anchor jumps in to insist “they” (as in both Biden and Harris) were at the dignified transfer. Kamala Harris was not there, and every attempt by the families to connect with her since has been rebuffed. Biden was there, but he infamously checked his watch multiple times.

The rush by these hack journalists to defend Harris has them now telling outright lies on national television.

Ummm…now, Bonch? Been a good bit longer than that, I’m afraid.

4
1

Howard Stern: what happened?

Well, for one thing, by his own choice he went from being a true iconoclast to being a straight-up lunatic.

If money’s your metric, then Howard Stern is the most successful radio personality in American media history. If you consider radio a creative art, then he’s the world’s wealthiest artist. He’s been compensated more money than anyone else in his medium — and by a VERY wide margin.

He makes $130 million annually from Sirius and has a net worth of $900 million. He owns a pair of apartment buildings in New York, 32 villas and properties in Minnesota, Texas, and Virginia, 16 mansions in Florida and California, and over 5,000 acres of real estate. His enormous mega-mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., is estimated to be worth $300 million. (A nearby property in Palm Beach — Mar-a-Lago — was appraised by New York Attorney General Leita James to be worth just $75 million.) 

Stern has made more than Rush Limbaugh. More than Hannity, Beck, Imus, and Schlessinger combined. No radio talent has ever matched his checkbook.

For a time, he was so omnipresent in popular culture, that an article like this would never see the light of day. First of all, the premise alone would be preposterous — how the hell is Howard Stern irrelevant?! He’s everywhere! And second, journalists were terrified of Stern. If he turned his spotlight on you, it was brutal: His insanely loyal fans would terrorize you in public. Go ask Kathie Lee Gifford how fun it was to be caught in Stern’s crosshairs.

And really, that was the secret to his success: More than anything else, it was the connection Stern forged with his audience that made him so special. If he had an autograph signing or an appearance somewhere, thousands of his fans would huddle together in the pouring rain — waiting for hours — just to get a glimpse of their radio deity. His book “Private Parts” became the biggest literary smash-hit Simon & Schuster had ever published. His audience hung on to his every word. The emotional bond between him and his audience was unbreakable.

Or so we thought.

Then something strange happened: Howard Stern became the world’s first celebrity to go behind a paywall.

It was a clever move by Sirius: For satellite radio to succeed, they needed to figure out a way to convince audiences to pay for something that they’re accustomed to getting for free. So, if you’re Sirius, what’s the fastest, most efficient way to build a paying audience?

Answer: Find the biggest name in the talk-radio universe with the most loyal audience — fans so faithful, they’ll follow him anywhere — and sign him to an exclusive contract.

And that’s exactly what Sirius did. Stern left terrestrial radio and jumped to satellite in 2006.

Originally, this was pitched to his fans as an amazing new development for creative content: Before, Stern was limited by the FCC. Now, he’s finally free to do the show he’s always wanted to do — it’ll be wilder, crazier, and waaaay more explicit! Oh, can you imagine the antics Stern might pull without any risk of censorship?!

In his first few years at Sirius, Stern was hitting on every cylinder. Those shows were some of the finest of his career: Artie Lange, Eric the Actor (“Ack, ack”), Beetlejuice, Riley Martin, and their merry gang of goofy Wack Packers were skewering sacred cows and delighting millions of ultra-dedicated fans. Back then, when you walked around an office building, you’d usually find multiple people tuning to Stern over the Internet while wearing headphones (or hiding in the parking lot, listening to their Sirius radio), giggling and laughing.  

And now?

Nobody under 40 listens to Stern. Nobody under 30 knows could even identify him in a lineup. But whereas older Americans — Gen X-ers and up — still remember Stern as a pioneering shock jock, younger Americans don’t remember him at all. 

It’s like he never existed.

Might as well not have, in effect. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer asshole if you ask me, but YMMV.  Oh, and: “terrestrial radio”? As I understand the thing, it’s more atmospheric than terrestrial, but maybe I’m just picking nits on that one.

3
1

Another Biden fuckup

Or lie, take your pick.


Yeah, sure you will, Jaux. Or Kumala, or whichever flunky wrote that twaddle for ya, rather.

Right-wing idiots to wax hysterical claiming the IDF executed the hostages themselves rather than our blameless, peaceful, helpless Hamas friends and “natural allies” in 3…2…1…

1
1

Land of the….let’s see now, how’d that line go again?

Sorta bookends the aforementioned Eyrie outing, seems to me, albeit in a small, petty way.

This is when you fight city hall

MINOR QUIBBLE: Actually, that woulda been about forty-fitty years ago if you ask me. Not that you did, of course.

There’s an old saying about how you can’t fight city hall. I’ve always rejected it, in part because I’ve seen too many people do so successfully, but one has to understand that local governments can be particularly malicious when going after those who criticize it.

I, personally, had a number of suspicious run-ins with local code enforcement officers after I started taking issue with the local government here, for example.

But one woman is getting some help from FIRE after her fight with city hall got out of hand.

Legal help is reportedly on the way for an Arizona resident arrested for criticizing her city government during a public meeting last week.

On Monday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment advocacy group, indicated plans to sue the city of Surprise after its mayor had local activist Rebekah Massie detained for scrutinizing a city employee during the locality’s Aug. 20 City Council meeting.

“The First Amendment protects every American’s right to criticize public officials,” FIRE Attorney Conor Fitzpatrick said in a statement given to The Federalist. “The last thing people should fear when they go to a city council meeting to make their voice heard is leaving in handcuffs.”

During her testimony, Massie “questioned the city attorney’s performance and compensation,” according to The Arizona Republic, before being stopped by Mayor Skip Hall, who accused her of “attacking the city attorney personally” and violating rules governing public meetings.

Massie called the guidelines “unconstitutional” and alleged that by refusing to allow her to speak freely, Hall was “violating” her “First Amendment rights.”

Hall subsequently threatened to have Massie removed if she did not cease her criticisms. Following a short back-and-forth with Massie, Hall asked an attending police officer to remove her from the meeting.

Now, understand that Massie was clearly taking issue with the city attorney as pertains to his role as city attorney. There was no personal attack. The city is funneling a ton of money toward an attorney that Massie, as a citizen, thinks exceeds what is warranted.

When you work for a city, your pay is public and people are free to opine over that.

For Massie to be arrested because she attacked his performance as a taxpayer-paid attorney is beyond ridiculous. It’s vile.

I’m glad FIRE is coming to help her.

As am I, although I must confess myself utterly appalled that there’s any need for such assistance in the first place. Much more from Knighton at the link, every last word of which commentary is spot on.

This story is about as revolting, maddening, and beggaring of belief as it gets. Arrested, cuffed, and hauled out physically for…confronting her local-yokel overlords during the public-comment period of a public meeting, no less. More from Rob Zimmerman of Beyond The Black, a top-notch blog which has heretofore been inexplicably absent from Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle—an unpardonable lapse which will be duly addressed anon.

Today’s blacklisted American: Woman arrested in Arizona for publicly criticizing a public employee
They’re coming for you next: While making a public comment criticizing the town’s attorney at the local city council meeting for Surprise in Arizona, Rebekah Massie was ordered to either shut up or be arrested by the town’s mayor, Skip Hall, because the council does not allow citizens to make such criticisms during the public comment period.

When she had the audacity to note quite correctly that she was entirely within her first amendment rights to say whatever she wanted, Hall then had her arrested.

I have embedded the video of this event below. It is egregious beyond words.

Ain’t it, though. Ain’t it just. Onwards.

As Massie states, her right to speak and say whatever she wants has been repeatedly confirmed by Supreme Court rulings. When Hall reads to the council’s rules against any such criticism during public comments, she responds, “That’s all fine and good, but that’s a violation of my first amendment rights.” When he claims she agreed to these rules she repeats, “It is unconstitutional.” His response illustrates his complete ignorance of and contempt for the law and our basic rights under the Bill of Rights, “It’s not unconstitutional.”

When still Massie refuses to be silenced Hall orders her to be removed. When she refuses to leave she is then violently arrested. Hall claimed she was resisting, but Massie later explained, she was “not resisting, my daughter is here, I don’t know what’s going on, you say I’m being detained, but I don’t know what for.”

Massie has an extremely strong case for suing Hall and the entire city council of Surprise for a lot of money. Her arrest was unnecessary for her to win and was probably a mistake on her part, but it makes no difference. The city council’s rule forbidding any criticism of any city employee is absurdly unconstitutional, and to use it to silence Massie makes Hall and that city council very liable for damages.

Zimmerman helpfully provides a photo of and contact info for the execrable thug Hall, which I heartily encourage one and all to make best use of. I will not hector you folks as to the tone, language, or politesse of any such missive, because doing so would certify me as just about the biggest fake, phony fraud (thank you, Bob Grant!) in all of human history. As CF Lifers know by now, that simply ain’t the way I roll; never has been, never gonna be.

Let Mayor Fuckface have it full blast, with both barrels and two (2) reloads of buckshot, sayeth moi. Inarguably, the bipedal rectal polyp has earned that and a whole heck of a lot worse. As have all too many power-drunk ProPols across our beleaugered land, vanity and megalomania have turned his head entirely; he’s gotten way out over the tips of his skis, and badly needs to be—nay, MUST be—put in his place, at soonest.

Around these parts, a perennial head-scratcher going all the way back to the excruciating and interminable Senate tenure of Juanny Mav McStain has been: Exactly what the actual fuck is wrong with Arizona, anydamnedway? Sad to see that the question remains every bit as germane as ever it was.

2
1
2

Eyrie up!

I discontinued these announcements a goodish while back, primarily just to find out if the Eyrie adjunct would be able to stand on its own without further promotion from hereabouts. But tonight’s edition discusses a topic I feel important enough, enraging enough, alarming enough to resurrect the grand old Eyrie Up tradition just this once. The piece centers on a Mark Steyn column which is downright chilling as regards both the damning details and the larger implications. A small taste:

In June, in the Northern District of California, something rather unusual happened: the defendants actually beat the rap. They were two British subjects – Mike Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, respectively the founder and finance honcho of a UK company called Autonomy. In 2018 the dirty stinkin’ rotten corrupt US Department of Justice had indicted the pair for “conspiracy” and “fraud” over the company’s sale to Hewlett Packard – and, after some protracted Julian Assange-like extradition jousting, the two were put on a ‘plane to America and placed under house arrest.

And then on June 6th a San Francisco jury found Lynch and Chamberlain not guilty of all charges. On July 28th, back in Britain, Mr Lynch gave his first interview about his ordeal:

Cleared UK tech tycoon feared he would die in US jail if convicted

Less than a month later, he is dead. To celebrate his acquittal, he took a party of friends and family (including his trial attorney Christopher Morvillo) on a Mediterranean cruise, and on Monday his luxury yacht sank off Sicily.

Must be pretty sad for his co-defendant, right?

Well, no. Because he’s dead too. On Saturday Stephen Robinson went for his morning run in Cambridgeshire and, six miles into it, was hit by a car. He was pronounced dead on Monday – the same day Mike Lynch died.

Do check out the whole sordid story, folks, it really is quite something.

2
1

Tale of rock ‘n’ roll woe

Imagine Dragons iz have a Sadz.

The rest of the story:

LAS VEGAS, NV — Members of the pop rock band Imagine Dragons were reportedly crestfallen to find out that yet another of their requests to have a politician use their songs at campaign rallies had been denied.

The rejection continues the band’s 16-year-long streak of not having their music be good enough to get chosen as rally crowd-pleasers.

“Gimme a break!” complained lead singer Dan Reynolds. “You have got to be absolutely kidding me! What was it that Trump was using way back when? ‘YMCA?’ We’re so much cooler than those guys. ‘Believer’ would totally bang at a political rally. What’s wrong with these people?”

While admitting that the band does have fans somewhere, staffers from both the Trump/Vance and Harris/Walz campaigns confirmed that its music “just isn’t the vibe we’re going for.”

“It’s not like I hate them, but I’m just kinda more into Maroon 5 and T-Swizzle,” explained Harris campaign spokesperson Gayle Quimbly. “I like stuff that’s a bit more affirming, if you know what I mean. I like Coldplay.”

“Are they American?” asked Joe Linwood, a Trump staffer. “Or even popular? I don’t know…I guess we could use them at some point. Maybe if there weren’t any other bands still living.”

At publishing time, Imagine Dragons was disappointed yet again, after Jackson, Indiana mayoral candidate Josh Atkins rejected the band’s offer to use their music for his rallies, too.

Aw, poor fellers. Ya gotta hate it for ‘em.

Update! Man alive, the Tune Damage embed for this one is so blindingly obvious I can’t believe I almost let it get by me like this.

1
1
1

SF officials cut off noses

Successfully spite own faces.

San Francisco officials weigh in on departure of Elon Musk’s X headquarters: ‘Good riddance’
X owner Elon Musk’s plan to move the social media platform’s headquarters out of San Francisco has some city officials eager to bid farewell to the billionaire’s business.

“I share the perspective that most San Franciscans have, which is good riddance,” city attorney David Chiu told The New York Times.

The outlet noted that San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she had met with Musk “several months ago” but that she didn’t extend offers aimed at keeping X in the city, saying, “I’m not going to beg anybody.”

The report comes after Musk announced last month that he will move the company’s headquarters to Texas in response to a new law enacted by the state of California that prohibits schools from notifying parents if their children want to change their gender identity.

Musk said at the time that X’s headquarters would move to Austin, Texas, while he also announced that SpaceX would relocate its headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

He cited the gender identity law as being “the final straw” and attributed the move to “this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies.”

Shortly after Musk announced in July that X would move out of San Francisco, he mentioned issues with the “crazy gross receipts city tax” making it “impossible for financial companies to operate in San Francisco.”

“That’s why Stripe, Block (CashApp), VISA and many others were forced out of San Francisco, as ‘gross receipts’ came to be defined as all transactions processed by a company, even if NOT revenue. That meant companies processing payments either had to leave SF or die,” Musk said last month. “Even if the severe crime problem in SF were to be solved tomorrow, X could not remain in SF and launch payments, as it would immediately fail.”

Will the last sane person to flee what was once one of the most lovely, eminently livable cities in all the world please turn off the lights? Thank you.

5
1

Boeing: the long, slow death of a legend

The Woke mind-virus, as Elon Musk hath so aptly dubbed it, claims another formerly-distiguished victim.

Boeing Employees Humiliated That SpaceX Will Rescue the Astronauts Stranded by Starliner
“We hate SpaceX. We talk s**t about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”

Over the weekend, NASA finally made the decision to return Boeing’s plagued Starliner without a crew on board. That means stranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will now have to wait for a SpaceX Crew Dragon to return them from the International Space Station in February, stretching an eight-day journey into an eight-month one.

In other words, the aerospace giant’s first crewed test flight has been a disaster, with technical issues afflicting Starliner’s propulsion system proving insurmountable and putting the company in the position to be “rescued” by its biggest competitor in space tech.

Unsurprisingly, NASA’s decision to return the capsule with no crew on board has been a major blow to morale. As the New York Post reports, Boeing employees were left “humiliated” following the announcement.

Worse yet, it’s not just Starliner’s messy test flight — Boeing has been dealing with numerous crises, from passenger jets falling apart mid-flight to reports of major mismanagement.

“We have had so many embarrassments lately, we’re under a microscope,” one Boeing worker told the NY Post, speaking under condition of anonymity. “This just made it, like, 100 times worse.”

“We hate SpaceX,” he added. “We talk shit about them all the time, and now they’re bailing us out.”

Fran deftly puts paid to that whiny-ass horseshit.

Oh, you hate SpaceX, do you? You should be overpoweringly glad that SpaceX doesn’t hate you. If Elon Musk were similarly minded toward you, he’d leave your astronauts in space until you could retrieve them. How do you think that would look to the flying public, on top of all your other recent disasters?

Uglier’n the proverbial mud fence, I’d bet, if the rest of the flying public thinks anything like the tiny fraction of it sitting at this h’yar desk o’ mine does. Gee, wonder what these weepy, wimpy Boeing diversity-hires might look like, just out of pure idle curiosity?

Oh. Exactly like one would expect them to look, then. As Bob Bishop pithily puts it: Houston, we have a problem.

We do at that. But hey, at least OUT! cupcakes such as the two above-depicted Stunning, Brave HEROES!!!© feel “seen” and “heard.” That’s what really matters, right? Especially when it’s manned space flight, meeting the myriad challenges of exploring the Final Frontier, and the rigors of cutting-edge science and engineering with actual human lives on the line we’re talking about.

Four or five more years of this and the intentionally enfeebled Boeing Company will exist only in memory—just another proud American icon brought low by Wokester dweebs ’n’ feebs, their relentless PC ethos, and the Long March Through The Institutions. Then, for Gus, Casady, and their noxious ilk, it’ll be onwards and upwards to the next target slated for destruction.

Seriously, who gives a tinker’s damn about space nowadays? What did space exploration ever do for anybody? Any chest-thumping American Supremacist with a selfish hankering to burn tons and tons of (fossil!) rocket fuel so’s they can go fiddle-futzing around out in the Vasty Black Nowhere can always hitch a ride with the Rooskies, the (dot-not-feather) Indians, our bosom chums the ChiComs, or some other space-faring nation-state.

Hell’s bell’s, I never liked Tang anyway; the stuff tastes like warmed-over doo-doo with a fistful of used litterbox sand stirred in.

2
1

Memezapoppin’!

Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny-pitcher lovers.

Continue reading Memezapoppin’!

CF Archives

Categories

Comments policy

NOTE: In order to comment, you must be registered and approved as a CF user. Since so many user-registrations are attempted by spam-bots for their own nefarious purposes, YOUR REGISTRATION MAY BE ERRONEOUSLY DENIED.

If you are in fact a legit hooman bean desirous of registering yourself a CF user name so as to be able to comment only to find yourself caught up as collateral damage in one of my irregularly (un)scheduled sweeps for hinky registration attempts, please shoot me a kite at the email addy over in the right sidebar and let me know so’s I can get ya fixed up manually.

ALSO NOTE: You MUST use a valid, legit email address in order to successfully register, the new anti-spam software I installed last night requires it. My thanks to Barry for all his help sorting this mess out last night.

Comments appear entirely at the whim of the guy who pays the bills for this site and may be deleted, ridiculed, maliciously edited for purposes of mockery, or otherwise pissed over as he in his capricious fancy sees fit. The CF comments section is pretty free-form and rough and tumble; tolerance level for rowdiness and misbehavior is fairly high here, but is NOT without limit.

Management is under no obligation whatever to allow the comments section to be taken over and ruined by trolls, Leftists, and/or other oxygen thieves, and will take any measures deemed necessary to prevent such. Conduct yourself with the merest modicum of decorum, courtesy, and respect and you'll be fine. Pick pointless squabbles with other commenters, fling provocative personal insults, issue threats, or annoy the host (me) and...you won't.

Should you find yourself sanctioned after running afoul of the CF comments policy as stated and feel you have been wronged, please download and complete the Butthurt Report form below in quadruplicate; retain one copy for your personal records and send the others to the email address posted in the right sidebar.

Please refrain from whining, sniveling, and/or bursting into tears and waving your chubby fists around in frustrated rage, lest you suffer an aneurysm or stroke unnecessarily. Your completed form will be reviewed and your complaint addressed whenever management feels like getting around to it. Thank you.

"Mike Hendrix is, without a doubt, the greatest one-legged blogger in the world." ‐Henry Chinaski

Subscribe to CF!

Support options

Shameless begging

If you enjoy the site, please consider donating:

Become a CF member!

Correspondence

Email addy: mike-at-this-url dot etc
All e-mails assumed to be legitimate fodder for publication, scorn, ridicule, or other public mockery unless specified as private by the sender

Allied territory

Alternatives to shitlib social media: A few people worth following on Gab:

Fuck you

Kill one for mommy today! Click to embiggen

Notable Quotes

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

Claire's Cabal—The Freedom Forums

FREEDOM!!!

"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
Daniel Webster

“When I was young I was depressed all the time. But suicide no longer seemed a possibility in my life. At my age there was very little left to kill.”
Charles Bukowski

“A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.”
Ezra Pound

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Frank Zappa

“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.”
John Adams

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
Bertrand de Jouvenel

"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."
GK Chesterton

"I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free."
Donald Surber

"The only way to live free is to live unobserved."
Etienne de la Boiete

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"To put it simply, the Left is the stupid and the insane, led by the evil. You can’t persuade the stupid or the insane and you had damn well better fight the evil."
Skeptic

"There is no better way to stamp your power on people than through the dead hand of bureaucracy. You cannot reason with paperwork."
David Black, from Turn Left For Gibraltar

"If the laws of God and men, are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man."
John Adams

"The limits of tyranny are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
Frederick Douglass

"Give me the media and I will make of any nation a herd of swine."
Joseph Goebbels

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
Ronald Reagan

"Ain't no misunderstanding this war. They want to rule us and aim to do it. We aim not to allow it. All there is to it."
NC Reed, from Parno's Peril

"I just want a government that fits in the box it originally came in."
Bill Whittle

Best of the best

Finest hosting service

Image swiped from The Last Refuge

2016 Fabulous 50 Blog Awards

RSS feed

RSS - entries - Entries
RSS - entries - Comments

Boycott the New York Times -- Read the Real News at Larwyn's Linx

Copyright © 2024