Asses in seats, gals

The worst thing that could possibly happen to these WNBA broads would be to pay them what they’re actually worth.

Minnesota Lynx All-Stars reflect on wearing ‘Pay us what you owe us’ shirts
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – The WNBA had its All-Star Game over the weekend in Indianapolis, and players sent a message to the league before a basket was ever scored.

During pregame warm-ups, players, including Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, wore “Pay us what you owe us” shirts. Last week, more than 40 players met with league officials as the WNBA negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement. Talks have not gone well as an October deadline looms.

Collier accepted the MVP award for the game, with “Pay them!” chants coming from the crowd as WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert handed her the trophy. Collier talked about it after the game. Collier signed a three-year contract with the Lynx back in 2022. She’s making about $214,000 this season, the final year of her current deal.

Not too shabby a salary just to run like a gimp, jump like an overweight elephant seal, dribble like a retard, and shoot like a grrrrl, before an audience so scant any normal schmendrick could tally up the house using their fingers and toes. And that’s on a GOOD night, mind. My personal favorite bit from the article is this sub-hed:

Why you should care

“Why. I. Should…” Say WHAT again, now? See, that is really just…uhhh, errr, mmph. Mmmmph. *snort, snorfle, gack, giggle* BWAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I’d like to interject a Zen kind of question at this point, if I may:

If there’s nobody watching ‘em play, either in the stands or on the TeeWee, do they keep score? SHOULD they be? If you answered yes to the last question, please give at least three (3) good reasons why you think so.

The gals of the WNBA seem totally unaware of a simple, basic rule governing pro sports, entertainment media, and the arts in toto, namely: If you aren’t putting asses in the seats, it’s not only you as an individual athlete that is doomed to fail; it’s also your team, and eventually, the entire league itself. Doesn’t matter one whit how talented, how charming, how good-looking, how smart, how financially responsible you might (or might NOT) be your own self—try as they might to ignore this fundamental truth, nobody but nobody gets to do so for very long.

Serendipitous spinoff update! Late last night, I ginned up a barely-related addendum to the above post, positing a tenuous connection betwixt suicide and Phillip Sudo’s incredibly awesome Zen Guitar. Really, it amounted to yet another of those annoying, interminable 50-kajillion-word digressions I’ve become so renowned for (rightly so, I must admit). As such, I snipped the OT jabberwock from the above post, plopped it whole, raw, and unexpurgated into a brand new ME draft, and saved the resultant pile to MarsEdit’s handy-dandy “Local drafts” folder, after which I happily yielded the CF podium and went to bed in hopes of getting perhaps an hour or two’s uninterrupted slumber.

I just now remembered the aforementioned digression (mostly over-garrulous logorrhea; entirely too personal to be of much interest to anyone who ain’t me; just meandering with no particular plan or destination in mind, a regrettable tendency I’m increasingly subject to in my dotage) and felt it was really just too damned bad the directionless mess would be an in no wise perfect fit as a CF index-page item.

BUT….

What I can do, probably should do—rather than just wastefully toss some perfectly valid albeit stupefyingly dull ruminations on both these subjects altogether—is dump the whole steaming pile into a fresh new WP Page of its very own, maybe under the “Greatest Hits” header purely as a Navbar space-saving measure.

Yep, I believe I’m gonna get cracking on this minor project straightaway. Notification, as ever, to appear in a later update here once I’ve gotten this rhetorical jalopy cranked up and running smooth as the proverbial baby’s butt—keep watching this space so’s you won’t miss nuttin’. Who knows, it’s barely possible that, contra my earlier discouraging words, you might even find you enjoy reading the dadblame thing.

“Hulkamania is DEAD!!!”

Took a while, but Randy “Macho Man” Savage was proved right in the end.

I saw this pre-match rant back when it first ran in the run-up to Wrestlemania V, and always felt the spittle flooding down his chin was truly an Oscar-worthy touch. Macho Man, of course, departed this vale of tears long ago. Now, the Hulkster has joined Savage in the Choir Invisible. God bless ‘em both. More on Hulk Hogan’s passing.

Before Hogan came on the scene, professional wrestling was a niche form of entertainment. Often low-budget and rough around the edges, the pro wrestling of ages past wasn’t the slick product that it is today. Hogan (born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Ga.) helped usher in the modern era of pro wrestling.

I like the way TMZ explains Hogan’s appeal: “Hulk transformed professional wrestling into a family entertainment sport. Before Hulk, wrestling catered to a fairly narrow audience. Hulk’s theatrics in the ring was [sic] magnetic for children and their parents, and it supercharged the sport.”

Hogan’s candy-colored wardrobe, boundless enthusiasm, and “real American” persona appealed to kids and adults, and he was an easy hero to follow and emulate. My brother had a foot-tall Hulk Hogan action figure that’s at my house today for some reason. He said he would pick it up on his way home from work for his shrine.

Hogan’s villainous turn in 1996 broke plenty of hearts, but it added to the Hogan legend. World Wrestling Entertainment inducted him into its hall of fame in 2005, but after the cretinous gossip site Gawker leaked allegedly racist comments he made, WWE rescinded his induction in 2015. Hogan successfully sued Gawker, and WWE re-inducted him in 2020 as part of NWO, the collection of wrestlers he hung with under his villain persona.

The Hulkster had a successful career in movies and television as well, but his appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention may have been one of his most memorable moments of his later years. He exulted Donald Trump both in character as Hulk Hogan and out of character as Terry Bollea.

Speaking of, no way am I gonna let the Hulkster’s powerhouse RNC star turn go unmentioned here. Not on this day, of all days.

Fucking beautiful, and dead on the money, every word of it. Fare thee well, Hulkster, and well done.

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’!

Fare thee well

RIP to the incomparable Ozzy Osbiourne.

Black Sabbath legend Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness, dead at 76
Ozzy Osbourne, the legendary Prince of Darkness and one of heavy metal’s most iconic stars, has died. He was 76.

He died “surrounded by love,” his family said in a statement to The Post Tuesday. “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time. Sharon, Jack, Kelly, Aimee and Louis.”

News of Osbourne’s death comes more than five years after he announced his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in January 2020.

Born John Michael Osbourne in Birmingham, England, on Dec. 3, 1948, he was nicknamed “Ozzy” in primary school.

He had a challenging childhood, but music provided him with an outlet.

Learning was difficult for him due to dyslexia, and the future Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee claimed to have been sexually abused by bullies when he was 11. He also recalled attempting suicide as a teen.

Osbourne credited The Beatles and their 1964 song “She Loves You” for inspiring him to pursue a music career.

Ozzy sold over 100 million albums as a solo artist and a member of Black Sabbath.

Here’s a 1970 vid in which Black Sabbath demonstrates what performers mean when they talk about leaving absolutely everything they have on the floor of the stage.

Rest easy, Ozzy. The world has never known another quite like you, and almost certainly never will again.

Pollyanna gets excited over nothing again

Ahh, if only.

Will John Brennan Finally Be Indicted?

Stupid question, easy answer: No. No he most certainlly will not. Not that there isn’t ample reason to, I mean. It’s just that Amerika v2.0 is not the knid of country where things that really ought to happen usually DO happen, see.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that John Brennan is under investigation, and with good reason. Brennan is the most corrupt former CIA director ever. His transgressions against the U.S., coming to light more succinctly with each passing week, portray an individual who should have never been in government service, let alone CIA director. Now is the time to nail him.

Brennan lead the subterfuge against Donald Trump in his first campaign. He was aware that Trump had not collaborated with Russia before or after the 2016 election. In fact, he fully briefed Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee’s scheme to frame Donald Trump as a Russian operative who was colluding with Putin to steal the 2016 election.

He knew that the Steele Dossier was bogus and that it was illegally employed to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign and his staff.

Brennan falsely claimed that the Russians successfully hacked DNC computer servers. He made sure that lies about Russian intelligence and collusion with the Trump Administration made their way into the public arena via major newspapers, television, and the internet.

Russiagate was a complete fabricated lie and yet Brennan, still serving as Obama’s CIA director, put in place a surveillance system to monitor at least two dozen Trump campaign staffers and advisors. Brennan wiretapped and eavesdropped on the conversations of Donald Trump’s most prominent political supporters.

Much later, when investigator John Durham finally finished his investigation, Durham’s report highlighted that Brennan had informed Obama and Biden about the Clinton Campaign’s plot to portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Russian government, under Vladimir Putin.

For all of President Trump’s first term, Brennan actively sought to inflict damage whenever and wherever he could.

In a better, more enlightened era, actively working to harass, undermine, and unseat a duly elected President by nefarious, illegal means was called by its proper name: treason.

Another of those devoutly-to-be-wished consummations that I really, really hope none of you good people are holding your breath waiting for:

DNI Gabbard: Obama Directed a ‘Treasonous Conspiracy’ Against Trump
On this week’s broadcast on FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said former President Barack Obama directed a “treasonous conspiracy” against President Donald Trump during his first term.

Gabbard said, “The implications of this are, frankly, nothing short of historic. Over 100 documents that we released on Friday really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama if just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already gotten elected. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue — this is an issue that is so, so serious, it should concern every single American because it has to do with the integrity of our democratic republic.”

“Integrity,” she says. I think it’s just soooo cute how poor Ms Gabbard seems to actually expect anything to be done about Quarter-Black Jesus and what she aptly calls his “treasonous conspiracy.” Alas, Bathhouse Barry and his co-coup plotters are no more likely to be seen rockin’ orange for their heinous crimes against the (former) Republic than Brennan is—or Comey, or Strook-Stroke-Struck, or any of the Bribem crime family, or Fauci, or…

At the end of the day, cynics like Stacy McCain have the right of it.

Those of us who’ve been angry for years about the Steele Dossier, etc., now find ourselves in the shoes of the urban protest mobs demanding #Justice. We know damned well that Team Obama and Team Hillary engaged in wrongdoing, and that they deserve to be punished for it, but what are the chances that Pam Bondi could actually get a criminal conviction in a federal court? Not good — not good at all.

As egregious as the RussiaGate scandal is, the overwhelming likelihood is that nobody involved in this sordid mess will ever be charged with a crime, and that if somehow Bondi does find a way to get indictments against Brennan, Clapper, Comey, et al., the subsequent trial will end in a verdict of acquittal. “Guilty as hell, free as a bird,” to quote Weather Underground alumnus Bill Ayers. “America is a great country.”

‘Fraid not, Stace; America WAS a great country, once upon a time. Alas, the days of her greatness are far, far behind her now.

Have people had a bellyful of it yet?

Looks like the Spaniards may have, some of them at any rate. Heartfelt kudos to those cake-eating civilians for at last r’aring up on their hind legs, angrily screaming “ENOUGH already!!” Next comes the traditional raising of the Middle Digit Of Hate© in the general direction of Established Officialdom at every level, closely followed by aggrieved Serf Class knaves taking matters into their own (unwashed) hands.

Hopefully, it’s not already way too late for the Spanish Peasant Uprising of 2025 to be of much help in the way of significant sociopolitical change, beyond affording the local yokels a fleeting sense of pride, bravery, and honor reclaimed—both personal and national varieties in one fell swoop, as they say.

Big Trouble in Torre Pacheco
For the last few days there has been widespread unrest in the region of Murcia in southeastern Spain. The trouble began last weekend in Torre Pacheco, when a 68-year-old was attacked and wounded by what he said were Moroccan culture-enrichers. Angry groups of native Spaniards then took to the streets looking for Moroccan culprits, and from there the unrest spread to other Murcian cities. There have been multiple reports on the ructions in recent news feeds (see, for example, The Daily Mail, GBNews, Blue News, Brussels Signal, and European Conservative).

The following article from the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, also translated by Gary Fouse, describes recent events in Torre Pacheco:

6 arrests for attacks, damages, and altercations in the unrest in Torre Pacheco (Murcia)
Six persons have been arrested — five Spaniards and one Maghrebian — for assaults, damages, and altercations in a police operation deployed in Torre Pacheco, Murcia, as Mariola Guevara, the government delegate in the community, reported tonight.

Thus, during Sunday, the forces and agencies of state security have arrested another five persons, all of Spanish nationality, in addition to the Maghrebian arrested on Saturday.

Three of those were arrested were for attacking a Moroccan minor and for causing damage to a journalist’s sound equipment; two others were arrested as they were walking around in a group on a public street wearing bicycle helmets in a suspicious manner.

Hmph.  SO, then, let’s recap:

  • Violent retribution against randomly selected Muzzrat immivaders
  • Trashing the (pricey) gear of purveyors of Europropaganda
  • Carrying out a surveillance and intel-gathering mission, as well as intimidating, confusing, and antagonizing the enemy via large groups dressing and conducting themselves “in a suspicious manner,” which sounds like all-purpose legal bafflegab whose meaning is adjustable according to the circumstances; the aspect which pisses off the Spanish Stasi most of all is how the RAYCISS!© thugs evinced not the least concern at the prospect of arrest, jail, fines, and presumably, execution by keelhauling

I dunno; sounds to me as if those Spanish ReichWingNaziDeathBeasts© have their heads screwed on straight—clearly, their hearts are in the right place, and they’ve got their priorities in order. Some regularly-scheduled range time—let’s say, a bare minimum of two (2) hours, thrice weekly—could well be indicated here, before Spanish Leftwits completely outlaw all such terrifying, deadly, and barbaric places and pursuits.

Linky-lurvs

Attentive CF Lifers may already have noticed our latest addition, findable at not-quite-bottom left in Ye Aulde CF Blogrolle section: Substack Scalawags, featuring whippersnappers who have cast aside the creaky, crotchety, arthritic old WP “weblog” gizmo for that newfangled Substack whatsit all the kids are talking about nowadays. Check it out, loads of excellent stuff in there.

Another good ‘un gone

Kim DuToit memorializes the renowned Sloop New Dawn’s master, owner, and captain.

The Layabout Sailor
Longtime Readers may recall that a bunch of my friends and I used to get together once a year for the Feinstein-Daley Memorial Shoot at the east Texas ranch of Reader Airboss (sadly, since deceased). It was always a festive affair and featured the occasional gun.

It was at one such event where I met Doc Russia, at the time still a med student at UT-Houston, who had a blog entitled Bloodletting (which I miss dreadfully, even though I still see him regularly for shooting and dinners etc.). Another blogger also came along at that same meeting: Jim Siegler from Smoke On The Water (ie, blog, linked at Kim’s place—M), which featured guns, politics and details of his life on board his beloved yacht, the sloop New Dawn.

While Doc was an excellent shot, Jim was likewise; actually, Jim was easily the best all-round shooter — pistol, revolver, rifle and shotgun — I’ve ever met.

I need to make a comment at this point. Frequent Readers of this website may remember that I have always referred to Jim as “the Layabout Sailor”. That was a total lie, because Jim was one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever come across, and the ironic nickname was the complete antithesis of him. Having come from extreme poverty — his first job was washing dishes at a restaurant, at age eight — Jim worked his whole life at a number of jobs, sometimes two at a time: insurance adjuster, car salesman, bus driver, roofer, whatever paid the bills. He used to joke that his best-paying job was when he enlisted in the Air Force in his late teens, so you get the idea. College was never an option because there was little money and he refused to get into debt. But he was always well-groomed and impeccably dressed — and by the way, very intelligent, well-read and well-spoken, his soft Texas drawl a welcome sound always, along with his impish sense of humor. (His online signature: “Jim S.– Sloop New Dawn” became “Jim S. — Sunk New Dawn”, which masked his despair at the tragedy of its loss.)

Last November Jim wrote to me to tell me that he was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — Lou Gehrig’s Disease — and of course as we all know, ALS is incurable. His prognosis was grim — perhaps two years — but the cruelest part was that while ALS can affect both the brain and the muscular system, Jim’s brain was completely unaffected. So his body was starting to collapse, leaving his lively, intelligent brain intact. He became weak and his speech began to slur.

My friend Jim died two weeks ago, in late June 2025, after only nine months since his diagnosis. Rather than a slow decline, his condition simply went over a cliff, and he died of pulmonary failure, as his lungs — even with a respirator — ceased to function.

And the world became a little worse for his passing.

It did indeed. Most of you have probably run across Jim Seigel’s remarks in the comments section of one blog or another, maybe including this one; for a good long while there, he popped up at CF frequently. I was fortunate enough to enjoy an extended private email correspondence with Jim as well. Never did get to meet the man IRL, alas, nor to go shooting with him, which makes me just a wee mite envious of DuToit, damn him.

But as I slowly, torturously figured out after my late wife’s sudden, violent demise at an unfairly early age—as I have told friends who are fetched up in the deepest toils of mourning over the loss of a beloved spouse, child, parent, sibling, what have you—the only way to get through the agony of bereavement is to not be bitter over what you lost, but to be grateful for what you had. Yes, maintaining a positive outlook, keeping our attention tightly focused on gratitude rather than the easy, more natural slump into bitterness, darkness, and crushing despond can be tough sledding indeed. No matter how long one had with the Dearly Departed—years? Months? Weeks? Days? Hours?—it can never be long enough to satisfy those left behind.

Although Jim and I were on friendly terms, and I hugely enjoyed our email correspondence, we weren’t so close that I’d presume to offer counsel to his widow and other loved ones on how they might best cope with the unfillable hole in their hearts Jim’s absence is sure to leave. I hope and pray that Jim’s people are hanging in there as well as might be, and that when the immiserating flood-tide of grief has at last begun to subside the survivors can evade the dead-end swamps of bitterness, resentment, and leaden futility to walk the more comforting, luminous path of gratitude instead. Like I said, that really, truly is the only way. Same-same goes for our old buddy DuToit, a good and decent sort his own self. Kim, my prayers are with you and yours, my friend.

Regardless of whether you were familiar on any level with Jim of the Sunk New Dawn or not, do read all of DuToit’s heart-rending post. The death of such a singular, multifaceted, and noteworthy an individual as was Jim Siegel diminishes us all to some extent, whether we know it or not. As such, his passing should be marked, his numerous accomplishments remembered, his extraordinary life celebrated.

Barrence Whitfield & The Savages redux

Yes, I know I posted a jubilee of praise for the mighty, mighty Barrence Whitfield not terribly long ago, but for some reason I got to ambling through my Barrence YewToob playlist earlier today and, as is his/their usual wont, Barrence and the boys just blew my doors in all over again. In consideration of any poor deluded fools who have no interest in grooving to the extraordinary rock ’n’ roll stylings of the Round Mound Of Beantown Sound* and his band—a soul-blighting malady I can neither comprehend nor overlook—I’ll just tuck the vids below the fold.

Continue reading “Barrence Whitfield & The Savages redux”

Yeah, tell me another one, Tommy Flanagan

Had to edit the title, for accuracy. My own arcane title reference explained here.

An Exceptionally Good Liar D卐M☭CRAT: Newsom Reimagines His Record on Gun Rights in the Run-Up to 2028

There, that’s better. Now, onwards.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing all he can to obfuscate his abysmal record to prepare for a White House bid in 2028. His latest stunt – he received a SIG Sauer P365 XMACRO from Shawn Ryan while he was sitting for a podcast interview.

It gets better.

For certain values of the word “better,” mind.

Gov. Newsom actually said, “I’m not anti-gun at all. I’m just for some gun safe common-sense. I’m challenged by large capacity clips in urban centers, weapons of war sometimes outgunning the police. But otherwise, man, people have the right to bear arms. I got no ideological opposition to that at all.”

If you believe that, I’ve got a Golden Gate Bridge to sell you.

Here’s Gov. Newsom’s problem. We have the receipts. Heck, everyone has the receipts. The firearm industry hasn’t forgotten the time California Attorney General Rob Bonta – working for Gov. Newsom -“leaked” the personal information of every California concealed carry permit holder. Gov. Newsom’s self-professed affinity for the Second Amendment is about as hollow as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ attempt to side with gun owners by saying she owns a GLOCK handgun.

Perhaps Gov. Newsom thinks no one remembers his failed publicity stunt to nullify the Second Amendment with a proposed 28th Amendment. In 2023, Gov. Newsom wanted to export California-style gun control to the rest of the United States by proposing a “Right to Safety” – an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would strip Second Amendment rights from individuals and instead make the government the arbiter of which firearm “privileges” would be allowed. That would be recipe for disaster.

Townhall.com did the math for everyone who hasn’t been attempting to tally every gun control law Gov. Newsom has signed. Don’t feel bad for not keeping track. They’ve been coming at a dizzying pace. Since 2019, when he took office, he signed nearly 70 gun control laws. For someone who claims to respect Second Amendment rights, he’s got an odd way of demonstrating it.

Well, I mean, y’know, DUH. Don’t know who the hell Gruesome Newsome thinks he’s fooling here, but in reality it amounts to just another spectacular demonstration of the plain and simple truth fact, no matter what lies they may try to peddle to the contrary (for instance, “I’ve been an avid hunter my whole life!”), shitlib D卐M☭CRATs and the 2A DO NOT MIX. Never have, never will.

(Via Stephen)

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’!

The Daily Donnybrook, and other fine things

Welcome to Ye Aulde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. 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: “Screamin’ meemie Monday!” Links to archived Golden Oldies are findable down at the bottom of each post.

Please do consider subscribing to The Eyrie, gang; it’s free, unless you’re feeling big-heartec enough to kick in for a paid sub. Either way, paying customer or freeloading looky-loo, an Eyrie subscription is a bargain at any price, a move you’ll won’t ever regret mking.

All subscribers receive email notification whenever each new post goes live, although CF management promises not to blow up your inbox with a bunch of junk mail. Latest Eyrie offering is getatable (yes, that’s really a word—trust me!) for one and all to read and enjoy totally free of charge, regardless of subscriber 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, everybody!

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The incredible disappearing “client list”

Tonight’s Eyrie submission casts a jaundiced eye upon the Trump admin’s self-beclownment via unforced error concerning the too-conveniently phantasmagorical, now you see it-now you don’t Epstein client list. Coinky-dinkally enough, our bigly esteemed blog-colleague Ken Layne posts a bit of relevant meme-ology over at his crib. To wit:

 

Mo’ bettah.

The not-subtle, courteous-to-a-fault complaint tacitly made in that second meme above—using a sotto voce which reeks of hopelessness and despair as the realization sinks in at last: there will never be a reckoning for any of the well-connected frequent fliers on the Lolita Express—is sure to leave a powerfully bitter taste in the mouths of even the most placid, steadfastly unflappable Real Americans.

Those folks are a decent, justly proud albeit unassuming breed—endowed as individuals from birth, seemingly, with inexhaustible reserves of equanimity—whose interest in, patience for, and/or willingness to put up with ceaseless torrents of breathlessly gushing Hot Breaking News!!© reportage (despite the aforementioned equanimity) are in the main so grudgingly extended, greedily infinitesimal, and short-lived as to be undetectable using any method, process, or device known to modern science.

Or, to lay a-holt of a hoary, innocuous blogospherical catchphrase we’ve all heard a blue million times already and stand it on its head, so to speak:

This time, it AIN’T funny ‘cause it’s true.

Update! Looks like it is ON.

BONDI OR BONGINO: Bongino Won’t Remain At FBI If Bondi Keeps Job, Source Says
Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi have sparred over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Dan Bongino, the Deputy Director of the FBI, is threatening to leave the bureau if Attorney General Pam Bondi remains on the job, a source close to Bongino tells The Daily Wire.

Bongino is reportedly furious with Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which has led many to believe he could walk away from the job that he took in February. The source close to Bongino said that he’s effectively issued an ultimatum, saying he won’t work alongside Bondi.

Bongino left a lucrative career in broadcasting to take the job in the Trump administration. He was not present at the FBI on Friday, after a reported spat with the attorney general earlier this week over the Epstein situation.

The rift between Bongino and Bondi intensified on Wednesday, days after the Department of Justice announced there was no evidence to prove that child rapist Jeffrey Epstein had a client list, had blackmailed powerful people, or had been murdered. Bondi had promised to reveal major details in the case five months ago, when there were no massive revelations to bring forward.

The deputy FBI director, who raised questions about Epstein’s death before he was in the Trump administration, said in May that his review of the file and hours of video recording from Epstein’s jail proved that the child abuser committed suicide. FBI Director Kash Patel also said that the evidence the bureau has reviewed shows that Epstein was not murdered.

A source close to the Justice Department told The Daily Wire that Patel also wants Bondi gone, and that he would consider departing alongside Bongino. The source also said that Patel wants Bondi to unseal more documents.

I have to say, this whole shit-circus has left me mighty damned disappointed in Ms Bondi. Which, I hate that, actually; I had terrifically high hopes for that gal back when Trump first picked her for AG. Now, though? Not so much, sad to say.

Of course, we don’t know the whole story here, possibly never will. That said, though, I’m thinking Trump’s people are going to find it extremely tough to reconcile the fact that Bondi explicitly stated back in February that she had the client list sitting on her desk among a bunch of other heretofore unreleased material and that she’d be releasing the whole kit and kaboodle the following Monday, IIRC, with the current admin claims that there IS no client list; that there never WAS any client list; that all the hinky aspects of Epstein’s purported “suicide” never actually happened, etc.

So what goes on here, anyway? As pretty much everybody knows by now,  or should know at any rate, the clumsy “Epstein committed suicide” ploy didn’t pass the smell test; right from the beginning, there was evidence aplenty indicating something entirely Else, great interlocking. mutually-supporting heaps of it. Now, though, the Trump team tries to tell us that there’s “no evidence?”

Sorta calls to mind Praetorian Media’s continually repeated refrain, from mid-November 2020 on, sniffily dismissing “Trump’s baseless claims” of election jiggery-pokery, a rousing Halleluja Chorus of “no evidence” for fraud, tampering, ballot-box stuffing, phonus-balonus absentee/early ballots, &c—the list goes on from there, and it is by no means a short one.

Sorry, Mr President sir, but anybody who’s even half-heartedly paid attention to the Everest of clear, documentary evidence in support of contentions of massive, systemic fraud rife before, during, and after the 2020 Presidential “election” knows better.

This just might be the most unappetizing tidbit from the whole rancid, offputting shit-sandwich.

“In February, I did an interview on Fox, and it’s been getting a lot of attention because … I was asked a question about the ‘client list’ and my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file, along with the JFK, MLK files as well,” Bondi said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “That’s what I meant by that.”

During that same Cabinet meeting, President Donald Trump blasted a reporter for asking Bondi about the Epstein case.

“That is unbelievable. … I mean I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this when we’re having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas,” Trump said. “It just seems like a desecration.”

“Desecration,” my withered, baggy ass. You say you want to drain the Swamp? Well, I can’t think of a better way to demonstrate just how serious you really are about it than by shining a bright light upon the sloppily-concealed facts surrounding the murder, by Swamp rats, of one of their fellow Swamp-dwellers who had was too much on them for their own comfort.

Deny it all you want to; play along with the Deep State éminences grise to your heart’s content. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans at this point—they still won’t trust you, they’ll never trust you. Before long, they’ll decide it’s necessary to remove the threat you represent to them in their own minds. This, they will assuredly do, or hire it done, rather, only next time it won’t be some cognitively-impaired, maladjusted teenage whackjob on whom the Secret Service and/or FBI “security” personnel will helpfully turn their backs and avert their gaze from; preposition ladders, rifles, and/or other essential equipment; unlock doors, switch off interior lighting, and close blinds/curtains. After all those preps are done, “security” will spend whatever time remains before the scheduled first pull of the trigger on shrugging off credible reports of suspicious persons, movements, and/or behavior given by alarmed locals who witnessed what was going down at firsthand, in real time.

No, no more of that amateur-hour clowning around. Next time, the contract will be offered to none but seasoned professionals, who will preferably have extensive military sniper training and field expertise. Afterwards, the shooter will police up the general AO—cigarette butts, candy/gum wrappers, boot-prints, empty water bottles, spent brass (assuming he didn’t just rig one of those fancy-schmancy brass-catcher thingamabobbers over his weapon’s ejection port before heading out for the field, thereby making his life a heck of a lot easier). This is NOT the sort of task on which a true professional would ever dream of doing less than a one hundred and ten percent perfect job; after all, it’s his own ass he’ll be saving (or endangering) by it. As such, he will leave no traces of his physical presence behind for investigators to find layer, nor will there be any slightest hint of his ever having been in the vicinity at all.

Unless something goes horribly awry, the shooter’s name will never be known, his true identity a fanatically guarded secret shared only betwixt the three to six FederalGovCo bureaucreeps behind the whole op, ie the small cabal of secret plotters responsible for choosing, recruiting, hiring, and briefing the members of the hit team (a shooter, a spotter, a cpl of gear-humpers who will later double as back-watchers and perimeter guards—probably four (4) support personnel all told, five at most, the fewer the better. As an important codicil from the Hells Angels’ charter says: three can keep a secret only if two are dead).

The treasonous original conspirators will pay their SpecWar field operatives with cold, hard cash money, half in advance, half on completion of their mission: wrinkly, crinkly, tattered, battered, well-traveled US greenbux with nonsequential serial numbers in various denominations ranging from one-hundred dollar notes, then fifties, all the way down to a smattering of lowly double-sawbucks, said currency having been passed along, around, through, and among hands beyond counting.

Once the operators have been paid off in full, all involved parties will disappear like a thin fog wafting off the surface of a lake, this spectral condensation quickly cooking off into nothingness by the heat of the rising summer sun—a damp, chilly mist that vanishes faster than a cockroach caught square in the middle of the kitchen floor when you turn on the light. Same-same with the assassination-provoking, power-obsessed cock-a-roaches on two legs who, if they’re anything like as smart as their more-admirable Neopteran cousins, will likewise vanish, never to be seen or heard tell of again by we lower-caste denizens of the overt world.

Believe it, Mr President: you’ll never know what hit you.

JAZZ cat!

Actually, I’d call this number from jazz/R&B/pop/rock legend Ben Sidran more blues than it is anything else, but that’s probably just me. See what you think, bearing closely in mind Rule #1 with all things musical: Always go with what your heart tells ya.

The brilliantly understated piano and guitar solos work together with the likewise spare but quite tasteful fills from the tremolo-soaked Stratocaster and that perfect Hammond B3/Leslie pairing to juice this modest piece right on up to genuine “earwig” status. Sidran’s laid-back vocal stylings are just the icing on a VERY tasty cake; he and his backing musicians play so far behind the beat here that they’re in serious danger of having it come around behind to lap their asses.

Sidran has been kicking out the jams since about 1960 or so, winning his spurs with an insanely wide variety of fellow artists. To wit:

Ben Hirsh Sidran (born August 14, 1943) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist, producer, label owner, and music writer. Early in his career he was a member of the Steve Miller Band and is the father of Grammy-nominated musician, composer and performer Leo Sidran.

Sidran was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He was raised in Racine, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1961, where he became a member of The Ardells with Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs. When Miller and Scaggs left Wisconsin for the West Coast, Sidran stayed behind to earn a degree in English literature. After graduating in 1966, he enrolled at the University of Sussex, England, to pursue a PhD. While in England, he was a session musician for Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, and Charlie Watts.

Sidran joined Steve Miller as keyboardist and songwriter on recording projects, appearing on the albums Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, Number 5, and Recall the Beginning…A Journey from Eden. He produced Recall the Beginning and co-wrote the hit song “Space Cowboy.” In 1988, he produced Miller’s jazz album Born 2B Blue. He has also produced albums for Mose Allison, Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones, and Diana Ross.

Sidran returned to Madison, Wisconsin, in 1971 and has spent most of his life there. He taught courses at the university (on the business of music) and beginning in 1981 hosted jazz radio programs for NPR (including the Peabody Award-winning Jazz Alive series) and TV programs for VH1 (where his New Visions series in the early 1990s won the Ace Award). While hosting that series, Sidran frequently expressed his desire to “demystify the world of jazz; jazz musicians are just like the rest of us, only more so.”

As a musician and a producer he has released over 35 solo recordings.

And even that catalog of achievement, remarkable as it is, is but the tip of the Ben Sidran iceberg. There’s a way-cool backstory for the above embed, specifically the title shared by both song and album.

The original idea for Rainmaker was to throw a party in a Paris recording studio in honor of my 80th birthday. I saw it as a way to celebrate the survival of so many things, including myself, a life without borders, and my friendship with so many musicians abroad.

I imagined that it would be a blues record, so I began by writing some original blues songs and revisiting some of my favorite classic blues too. But as often happens, what we discover is not necessarily what we were looking for, and in this case I found myself writing songs that felt dystopian, not all of them traditional blues forms, and not what you might imagine as “party music”.

But by the time we finished recording at Studio de Meudon with new and old friends from America and France, the record had found its own sound. Somewhere between tragic and celebratory, shaggy and polished, broken and healed, I guess you could say that Rainmaker really is all about surviving in the modern world.

“Just like the rest of us, only more so.” Yeah, you sure said yourself a mouthful there, Ben.

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