Almost but not quite

Encouraging, if true

Posted on February 18, 2023February 18, 2023 by Mike

Is this something? Or no?

Marines Catch FBI Trying to Sabotage Substation in Idaho, and Kill Them.

Over the last three months, at least nine substations have been attacked in North Carolina, Washington, and Oregon, depriving tens of thousands of people of power, sometimes for several days. Following those attacks, the FBI posted a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever carried out twin attacks in Moore and Randolph Counties, N.C.

The feds also timidly implicated Trump supporters who oppose the LGBTQ community because the saboteurs struck cities hosting trans-friendly events.

The military now says the FBI should have put the 250K bounty on itself, for all signs suggest corrupt agents perpetrated the substation mishaps.

According to our source, the FBI’s “5th Column,” a growing number of agents working against Merrick Garland and his abhorrent Department of Justice, told Gen. Smith’s office that rogue agents were planning to disable a “power station near Boise” during the Super Bowl, but the tipster didn’t know which substation would be struck. And since Boise, a city with 250,000 residents, and its suburbs had numerous substations, Gen. Smith wanted specifics before committing his Marines to what could have been a wild goose chase. Such an attack would undeniably have made people angry and left thousands without electricity on a frigid night. Although some earlier “5th Column” tips yielded fruitful intelligence—and led to Deep State arrests—others were a bust, a waste of time and resources.

By Super Bowl Sunday kickoff, a Marine reconnaissance platoon had already arrived in Idaho and had scouted five distribution substations within a 30-mile radius of downtown Boise. They decided that anyone brazen enough to assault a utility while the sun still shone would choose a remote location with the sparsest nearby housing. But no such locale existed. The surrounding substations in Boise, Eagle, and Meridian were densely populated, with homes, in some cases, only meters away from buzzing and humming transformers. The platoon commander, unwilling to stretch his forces too thinly, divided the Marines into three 8-man teams, stationing them at substations with the least visible security—chain fences and such—and foliage the agents could use to avoid detection.

An hour into the game, the Eagles were beating Kansas City, but the Marines in Idaho saw no signs of FBI saboteurs. At halftime, as a demonic Rhianna dressed in a crimson bodysuit with a pentagram belt took the stage, an SUV sporting “Trump 2024” bumper stickers stopped beside the gate of the Columbia substation in Meridian. Four men, none of whom looked like feds, exited the truck and approached the locked gate. All wore MAGA regalia—hats and jackets endorsing Trump’s 2024 presidential bid—and one carried bolt cutters. Two had AR-15-style rifles slung across their shoulders.

The Marines challenged the quartet as it snapped the padlocked gate. The intruders were told to stand down and surrender, but one unshouldered his rifle, rocked the charging handle, and leveled the muzzle in the Marines’ direction. He never had a chance to pull the trigger.

The Marines, armed with suppressor-equipped M27 rifles, opened fire, killing the aggressors. Upon searching the bodies, the Marines found several magazines and a belt pouch of C4 explosives, though none of the dead had wallets or identification. They ran a make on the SUV’s VIN and plates, which traced back to a laundromat in Wilmington, Delaware.

The dead, our source said, were fingerprinted, and White Hats with access to the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System matched two sets of prints to FBI agents assigned to an FBI office in Spokane, Washington.

So tell me: are we to consider the Marines to be the heroes of the story, or the White Hat FBI people? Oh, and if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard so much as Peep One about this incident from the “news” media, well…don’t.

“We can’t interrogate the dead, but at least now we know the FBI is complicit in the substation attacks,” our source said. “What’s worse, we’ve given the proof to MSM but they refuse to air it, and, yeah, this includes Fox, OANN, and Newsmax.”

Because of COURSE it does. No great surprise there, really. In Amerika v2.0, the revolution will NOT be televised.

Hilariouser and hilariouser

Posted on February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 by Mike

Spy balloons, schmy balloons.

The hot air of spy balloons

Originally, General Milley — who promised to warn Red China if we would sneak attack Beijing — and Biden tried to keep the balloon from the public.

They would have gotten away with it, if not for the meddling Billings Gazette publishing photos of the balloon snapped by that pesky Larry Mayer.

This weekend, it was like a shooting gallery as an embarrassed Pentagon fired 4 shots to take down 3 balloons. Top Guns, our pilots are not.

They fired their guns but the balloons kept a-comin.’ There wasn’t as many as there was a while ago.

One of targets was over Lake Huron, which is next to Michigan and its population of 178 people per square miles (24 times Montana’s density). As Woody Hayes once said in a quote I just made up, “Michiganders are expendable.”

Chairman Xi said the first balloon was his but not the other ones. Xi is right because “the call was coming from inside the house!”

These were our balloons. On August 2, 2019, Lisa Kaczke of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, reported, “Pentagon launching drug surveillance balloons over Midwest.”

Ooooops. And then there’s this small revelation.

Bottlecap Balloon Brigade – an Illinois hobby group – claims its $13 weather balloon last pinged near Yukon on February 10 – hours before F-22 brought down UFO in SAME area with $400k missile

A mystery object shot down by U.S. fighter jets amid ongoing hysteria sparked by a Chinese spy balloon may have been a $12 inflatable launched by a hobby group in Illinois.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB) reported one of its balloons ‘missing in action’ around the same location – and at the time time – a U.S. Air Force jet downed an unidentified object near Alaska using a $400,000 Sidewinder missile.

NIBBB said its ‘K9YO’ balloon last reported its location shortly before 1am GMT on Saturday, February 11 (8pm EST on February 10), near the coast of southwest Alaska.

Later on Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared an ‘unidentified object’ was downed over Canada’s Yukon territory, several hundred miles from K9YO’s last known location.

Modeling shared by NIBBB shows its balloon was headed in the direction of Yukon before it vanished – and opens up the possibility it was one of the suspicious objects down by the U.S. military.

Hey, fret not, people—Jao Bai-Deng’s crack team of “experts” is ON. THE. JOB—defending US airspace and protecting the American people from mysterious alien incursions!

A shocking revelation

Posted on February 12, 2023February 12, 2023 by Mike

Although the part I find most shocking might not be the one that comes immediately to mind.

In appearances on two Sunday talk shows, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) said that China sending a high-altitude spy balloon across the continental United States “was an act of espionage in plain sight” and revealed that the balloon had a greater capability than satellites to gather and collect imagery, and left open the possibility that these signals and images were still transmitted to Beijing even though US intelligence officials claim that they “mitigated” the damage.

On “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo,” McCaul said:

“These spy balloons have great capability to gather and collect intelligence, I would argue moreso than even satellites in the sense that they’re flying at, say, 40 to 60 thousand feet above the earth. The imagery that they can capture and other intelligence data that I can’t be specific about can be captured and then transmitted back to the mothership in Beijing.

“This was an act of espionage in plain sight, plain view of the American people.”

So far, so “well, DUH.”

McCaul’s first statement in the interview was that one of his priorities as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is to stop the export of American technology to China “that then goes into their most advanced weapons systems” (such as stealth technology, which CFIUS allowed to be sold to a company majority-owned by the Chinese government). Brennan asked if it made McCaul uncomfortable as a conservative “to have government try to control private business investment. How do you do that?” In his answer, we learn exactly why he’s comfortable doing that, and what a massive national security issue it is (emphasis mine):

Well, we have what’s called an entities list. The Department of Commerce had jurisdiction over the office within their — the Department of Defense has one.

We need to harmonize those, make it more security-focused. You know, capital flows is one issue, but technology exports into China that they use to turn — that maybe eventually turn against us, we have to stop doing that.

And I think we can do it by sectors. They do it by companies now. Obviously, they identified the six. I think, shockingly, when the balloon was recovered, it had American-made component parts in there with English on that. It was made — you know, parts made in America that were put on a spy balloon from China. I don’t think the American people accept that.

Bold in the original, not mine. And that’s where the part I found shocking comes in: “American-made component parts”? Really? Man, I had no idea we still made anything at all in this country anymore.

Grey matters

Posted on February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Mike

Nee-grows are low-IQ, prone to violence, primitive, and have poor impulse control. Yes, it’s all YOUR fault, Kemosabe.

Black children living in poverty face increased instances of stress and trauma that can alter their brain development, a new study found.

Researchers found that increased stressors like economic hardship and systemic racism play a significant role for Black children and can lead to the development of mental health issues as they age, the study said.

The stressors contribute to Black children having less gray matter in their brains, a byproduct of absorbing “toxic stress.” The study defines the stressors as “prolonged exposure to adverse experiences” that lead to excessive stress hormones and “disrupt the immune and metabolic regulatory systems.”

In the study, researchers found that Black children often developed behavioral problems later in life such as PTSD, anxiety and depression. These children also were susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse and suicide attempts and were likely to commit violence, the study said.

Black children showed lower amygdala, hippocampus, and PFC gray matter volumes compared with White children.

Bold mine, to highlight the way CNN just might be reversing cause and effect here, because reasons.

The hippocampus plays a number of crucial roles, including regulating emotions, motivation, hormonal activity, autonomic activity, and memory formation.

Probably the most well recognized function of the hippocampus is its role in learning and memory. Although the exact mechanisms remain somewhat mysterious, it is believed that the hippocampus receives and consolidates information, allowing for establishment of long-term memories in a process known as long-term potentiation (LTP). It also plays a role in spatial memory, allowing us to keep track of where things are, as well as where they are in relation to each other; as such, it is instrumental in the formation of cognitive maps.

There have been numerous reports linking tumors, lesions, and epileptogenic activity in humans within the hippocampus to aggressive reactions, ranging from minor hostility to explosive acts of violence. The hippocampus’ role in mediating aggression and rage appears to be dependant on the region of the structure that is stimulated: activation of the temporal pole, i.e. the region closest to the amygdala, stimulates predatory or fight behavior; while activation of the region closest to the septal pole instead suppresses those impulses.

If any of that behavior sounds at all familiar to you, then you are definitely a RAYCISS™ for sure. Divemedic finds CNN’s conclusions a tad sketchy.

I was with them on the other evidence. Yes, there is evidence that black children are likely to be poor, have incarcerated parents, and lower intelligence. I agree. What they are essentially saying is that blacks are poor, less intelligent, and more likely to be criminals than are whites, and that there is a biological and physiological basis for this. That’s exactly what I have been saying for years. What I have a problem with is the conclusion that is unsupported by any evidence presented by this so-called study- that it’s white people’s fault.

This seems like junk science with no control group and little in the way of actual, well, science. When I was a teacher, had one of my students turned in an unsupported conclusion like that one, it likely would have received a poor grade.

Hey, if it wasn’t for junk science, shitlibs would have no science at all to back up their politically-motivated arguments.

This one’s for EP

Posted on January 27, 2023 by Mike

For reasons which shall soon become obvious.

Go Inside the New Tesla Semi: Features, Screens, Seats, and More

We visited Frito-Lay to find out what the Semi’s interior looks like, and how it drives and charges.

Expect no surprises, that’s my advice. Because it’s gonna shake out exactly as anybody who’s been following this EV foofaraw already knows it must.

Tesla fans with Ruffled feathers over perpetually delayed products can finally Lay off the brand. After much waiting (only four years late), the electric Tesla Semi’s first customer, PepsiCo, has taken delivery of its first examples of the big rig. The beverage and snack food conglomerate’s Frito-Lay division will take center stage in the company’s Tesla truck rollout plans at its Modesto, California, factory and distribution center, so we visited the upgraded 80-acre zero-emissions facility to experience the Tesla Semi firsthand and talk to its drivers about what it’s like to drive.

Frito-Lay’s 15 new Tesla Semis made their debut at an event celebrating the Modesto factory’s transformation into a zero-emissions pilot project for Pepsi as it aims to achieve zero emissions across its operations by 2040. The revamped facility is massive: 500,000 square feet dedicated to turning potatoes and corn into Lays, Ruffles, Doritos, Cheetos, and Fritos chips, powered by a massive onsite solar facility and local renewable energy projects, both backed by 2.7 MWh of onsite battery storage. Helping the factory distribute its snacks throughout the American west are three electric BYD 8Y yard tractors, six Peterbilt 220EV electric box trucks for local last-mile deliveries, 38 natural-gas powered Volvo VNL trucks for long-distance slogs, and of course, six (and counting) Tesla Semis, used for out-and-back trips across the region.

Making “three times the power of the average diesel semi,” according to a media-trained Tesla rep, the electric Tesla Semi effectively sports a lightly modified Model S Plaid tri-motor powertrain spun around backward. The Model S’s front motor drives the Semi’s rear axle, functioning as the “highway drive unit,” while the Plaid’s dual rear motors are mounted on the Semi’s middle axle. These motors feature a Rivian-like clutch, allowing them to be used for acceleration and to decouple once at speed for improved efficiency. Considering the bestselling semi in the U.S., the Freightliner Cascadia, sports 350 hp in its basic form and that “three times” that figure is 1,050, we’re fairly confident in saying the Semi matches the Model S and Model X Plaid’s 1,020 hp, and possibly its 1,050 lb-ft of torque, as well.

As for its battery—well, logic dictates we should look at the Plaid again. The few PepsiCo Tesla Semi drivers present during our visit said the truck has a 1,000-kWh battery pack, or 1 megawatt-hour (MWh), which equals 10 Plaid battery packs daisy-chained together. That jives with Tesla’s claim of 500 miles of range and company chief Elon Musk’s claim of the Semi using 2 kW per mile traveled. In real-world use, Frito-Lay’s drivers told us the Semi’s routes are much shorter. A typical day for them might have them leaving Modesto in the morning with a load of chips (weighing less than the truck’s 82,000 gross combined vehicle-weight rating) and running an out-and-back loop to places like San Jose or Concord, both about 85 miles away.

Hey, that oughta work out great. After all, over my years of driving big rigs, I can’t really recall hearing of ANY trucker EVER being expected to cover more than 170 miles in a single day. But wait, it gets even better still.

The out-and-backs are crucial because at the moment there are few places to charge an electric Tesla Semi. Frito-Lay installed four Superchargers onsite in dedicated “Tesla Semi” parking stalls, all of which feature a unique squarish plug incompatible with any other Tesla we’re aware of. The chargers are capable of outputting 750 kW, far exceeding the 250-kW peak rates of Tesla’s passenger vehicles and existing Supercharger network. That, says Frito-Lay, is good enough to charge its fleet of Tesla Semis from nearly empty to 70 percent in about a half hour (good for 400 miles), and to 100 percent in about 90 minutes.

Interestingly, the four Tesla chargers are positioned in such a way that the Semis must unhitch their trailers and back in to plug into each one’s charge port, which is located on the driver’s side, just forward of the middle axle.

Ohhhh yeah, the truckers are gonna just LOOOOOVE that. “Extended” range, for certain values of the word “extended,” plus the added hassle of having to drop the trailer every time you need to “gas up” the useless hunk of junk too? I ask you, what’s not to like here?

And believe me, hassle it is: first, scramble underneath to pull the handle on the fifth wheel and unlock the kingpin. Then, sweat yourself into a lather winding down the rusty, stiff, recalcitrant landing gear on the trailer. Which in itself can be quite damned hazardous, actually: several years back, my brother knocked himself near-unconscious when a landing-gear handle kicked back on him and whacked him upside the haid. Ended up having to get stitches, that’s how severely it laid him open.

And yes, the same damned thing has happened to me plenty of times too sans the stitches part of it, along with every other unfortunate soul cursed to the trucking life, guar-on-teed. It’s just one of those things you gotta deal with, y’know?

Yep, sounds like those Frito-Lay/Pepsico boys have themselves a lot to look forward to with these fine, fine machines.

Blinded by reality

Posted on January 23, 2023January 23, 2023 by Mike

Yet again, I say: TINVOWOOT.

We are approaching eight years since Trump descended the golden escalator of Trump Tower; in many ways the decline has accelerated. The Republican establishment, however, does not seem to have learned much in the intervening years, and still has very little to offer. This was most clearly on display during the midterm elections when, despite the smug predictions of an inevitable “red wave,” some were keen on the idea that some hollow “Commitment to America” would motivate voters to overwhelm the polls.

To the surprise of no one who has not been in the establishment or a coma, it failed. Perhaps for good reason, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blithely informed us following the GOP’s embarrassing midterm performance that providing military aid for the Ukraine should be our top priority, and a dozen more of our Grand Old Party elected officials voted in favor of codifying the redefinition of marriage.

Our elites ruthlessly trample upon the very foundations of America; they seek to destroy the good, deny beauty, and ultimately lead souls on the path to destruction. This unsustainable ideology has produced nothing but depression, confusion, and harm.

Yet, in a civilization at its breaking point, where one is reprimanded for espousing basic truths, this major party has nothing positive to offer. Have they been so deflated by the lies from our enemies’ tongues, that the absolute best we can look forward to is forbidding scandalizing sexual education policies until third grade? Once the child hits the age of 9, all bets are off?

A soft-spoken, low-energy politician with a “serious strategy,” simply clinging onto the toothless abstractions of freedom and individualism is insufficient. The summation of the Right’s worldview—should it provide a muscular alternative to the current course of decline—cannot simply be: but we’re not them!

As Peter Thiel reminded us at the 2022 National Conservatism conference, even Florida in 2022 fails to provide the foundation for a long-term alternative model to the one offered by California.

America needs a proven leader, and a visionary to capture the intangible—someone who will not merely motivate the masses to get to the polls but who can craft a meaningful vision in which Americans can place their hope. It needs a vision for American excellence: a sovereign nation under God that embraces Truth, not rejects it.

Any such person is doomed from the git-go by those very qualities, and has no more chance of becoming President in our entirely rigged system than I do. “But we’re not them”? Au contraire, mon frere: you absolutely, positively ARE them, which is the root of the whole problem.

Unintentional (?) hilarity

Posted on January 14, 2023January 15, 2023 by Mike

The Revolver author takes it as satire, but after looking the thing over a cpl-three times, I ain’t so sure about that myself.

With our coverage of Ray Epps, Scaffold Commander, and the ever-elusive MAGA Pipe Bomber, we at Revolver have done our part to thoroughly discredit the mainstream narrative of January 6.

Most of America, of course, has moved on from January 6, regardless of how it voted in 2020. But then, there are the diehards: The collection of people for whom a few hooligans in the Capitol was the most psychologically traumatizing event of their entire lives.

And now, they have a comic book. Fresh from OneSix Comics, it’s…“1/6: The Graphic Novel”!

My bolded bit below would seem to be a dead giveaway as to satirical intent and authenticity:

1/6: The Graphic Novel asks and answers the question: what if the January 6, 2021 Insurrection had been successful? In an entertaining, chilling, and sometimes humorous form, 1/6 illustrates how close we came to authoritarian rule in the United States, demonstrating how strategic disinformation, racial and religious bigotry, and cynical political ambition convinced millions of ordinary Americans to reject cherished constitutional values and support violent sedition.

Harvard Law School Professor Alan Jenkins and New York Times bestselling graphic novelist Gan Golan have teamed up with veteran comic book artist Will Rosado to depict, in chilling detail, what the Insurrectionists and their allies had planned on that day, the threats to our democracy that remain, and what can be done about it.

Ayup, NOT satire. Still hilarious though, if only in a dark way.

For now, here are Revolver’s nine favorite details from Volume 1.

1. The story opens with a team of special forces storming a CNN-esque news station, and executing the staff without a trial.

2. The murdered news anchor is replaced with a new one, and apparently, the new anchor is supposed to be Tucker Carlson. Only problem is, he looks more like Mitch McConnell in a toupee.

I’m digging it already. My personal fave from the unfortunately notional MAGAmerica? This one.

5. The old Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building has been renamed in honor of a far better black Supreme Court justice…and also his wife, for some reason.

The building’s courtyard is dominated by a massive statue of Clarence Thomas and Donald Trump both waving gavels.

Heh. Yep, totes digging it. ¡Viva la MEGA-MAGA revolucion!

Fucked around. Found out

Posted on January 14, 2023January 14, 2023 by Mike

Recent events would seem to indicate that ordinary Americans are just about fed the fuck UP with lawlessness, theft without repercussion, and random scumbaggery.

Albuquerque guitar center doesnt mess around. pic.twitter.com/hsx01RboQU

— 🥀_Imposter_🕸️ (@Imposter_Edits) January 13, 2023

When I forwarded this to him via text message, habitual commenter brack said: “The collar/belt buckle heave-ho into the trash can is priceless.” I couldn’t agree more with that assessment. This post is going into the “Art” category, among others, because that fast-takedown is a true thing of beauty.

(Via Driscoll)

“What happens when you land on the wrong aircraft carrier?”

Posted on January 13, 2023January 13, 2023 by Mike

Hilarity ensues.

When there used to be more than one carrier in a task group, if an aircraft landed accidentally on the wrong ship, some fun was had before sending him “home”.

Imagine doing this today.

The flight deck crew would be sent immediately to undergo 100 hours of mandatory sensitivity training, so as to be sure Peter “Wrongway” Peachfuzz’s hurt feeeeeelings were properly assuaged, of course. But none of these all-in-good-fun hijinks would be possible today, sad to say. For one thing, it would require a sense of humor, which is a rara avis indeed in these parlous times.

I purely love what they did to this F2 Banshee.

Strikethrough — *Must be Chair Farce—heh*

The “Down Bird” Phantom is good too.

FYI, it’s an aircraft from USS Constellation, see, that mistakenly set down on the deck of the USS Bonhomme Richard, whose crew-assigned nickname (all USN ships have one, which is voted on by the crew from a list of candidates which have been pre-approved by their CO) is the Bonnie Dick. Lots more rib-tickling photos at the link, going all the way back to an old F4U that got itself declared a “POW” owing to its poor pilot having shit the bed, so to speak, in similarly spectacular fashion.

Gas stove blowup

Posted on January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Mike

No, there really is NOTHING they’ll leave alone.

CPSC Withdraws Proposal to Ban Gas Stoves;Left Wing Goes From Claiming The Right Is Crazy To Oppose Banning These Racist, Climate Destroying Stoves, To Claiming the Right Wing Is Crazy To Claim the Left Ever Wanted to Ban Them
—Ace
Via Jazz Shaw at Hot Air, Richard Trumpka, Jr.’s trial balloon about banning gas stoves in the name of Racial Justice — really about climate “justice” — went over like a lead balloon, further convincing the country that the Biden Administration and the Democrats would not stop until they had poked every single American citizen in the eye.

And so they issued a “clarifying statement” that they were just totally kidding when they said they were considering banning gas stoves.

Ace then hips us to Doc Zero’s characteristically-deft takedown.

“The Right’s new fight” HA HA HA HA

This is the funniest and most blatant habit yet of the Left picking a fight out of nowhere and then blaming normal people for waging a “culture war” when they push back.

They do this all the time. It’s a standard tactic of totalitarianism. When the Party launches a political crusade, and you resist, YOU’RE the aggressor. If resistance actually thwarts the crusade, you’re a monster. If you question the New Truth of the Party, YOU’RE the attacker.

This is happening even faster than I predicted yesterday, probably because the War on Stoves trial balloon exploded in flames while the lefties were still downloading their new programming. They’re confused and angry.

You had lefty blowhards on Twitter in the middle of shouting their new War on Stoves talking points yesterday when the Biden administration suddenly backed down. It’s like pulling the chip out of a Terminator while it’s in the middle of emptying a magazine at Sarah Connor.

Look at how prominent dingbats like AOC played it, with classic Orwellian “we have always been at war with Eastasia” full-steam ahead gusto: We have ALWAYS known gas stoves were dangerous. Everybody knows this. It has ALWAYS been an urgent crisis.

This started a few days ago with a single Biden apparatchik floating a ban based on a fraudulent “study” from a whack-job activist group, but they were told to believe it was some longstanding consensus and THANK GOD SOMEONE IS FINALLY THINKING ABOUT THE CHILDREN.

The only way to salvage that half-downloaded program still bubbling in the heads of so many lefty robots is to concoct a new narrative that says the opponents, the resisters, ATTACKED and are OBSESSED and were probably organized by paid stooges of Big Stove and Big Gas.

It’s the same tedious, but far too effective, playbook they use with every social issue, a totalitarian method of shifting the political landscape by claiming every bit of ground you aggressively seize has been yours forever, and those trying to take it back are the attackers.

Hmm, now let me see here. The actual statement:

Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka, Jr., told Bloomberg in an interview this week that a ban was “on the table” for gas stoves, which research has linked to health problems including asthma.

“Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” Trumka told the media outlet. Trumka also highlighted the health dangers of gas stoves in an appearance last month before the Public Interest Research Group.

“We need to be talking about regulating gas stoves, whether it’s drastically reducing emissions or banning gas stoves entirely,” Trumka told PIRG, adding that a ban “is a powerful tool in our toolbox and it’s a real possibility here, particularly because there seem to be readily available alternatives already in the market.”

Yep, another clear-cut case of Nothing To See Here Folks, No Really, Trust Us, as my boldface above incontrovertibly proves. Damned Reich-wing nutjobs, their baseless hysteria, and their own lying eyes.

Let it be

Posted on January 9, 2023January 9, 2023 by Mike

No, the federal G isn’t remotely likely to stand idly by and let it happen. But hey, a man can dream, right?

BOMBSHELL POLL: 66% of Texas Voters Want TEXIT

According to a newly released poll by SurveyUSA, a top-rated pollster, 66% of likely Texas voters want Texas to withdraw from the union and “become an independent country.”

The bombshell poll was conducted in eight states, including Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, and Hawaii. Support for exiting the union polled highest in Texas, with regular voters showing 66% support and voters who vote only in presidential elections showing 63%.

The poll results shouldn’t surprise supporters of the Texas Nationalist Movement. TNM President Daniel Miller has publicly stated that he believes a TEXIT referendum result would be 60%-65% in favor of Texas reclaiming its status as an independent nation.

69% of Texas voters who expressed an opinion want Texas to hold a referendum on separating from the US, including 81% of Republicans. These numbers support the recent vote by delegates to the Republican Party of Texas Convention, who voted 90.08% in favor of a platform plank that calls for putting the TEXIT question to the people of Texas.

With or without a vote, 60% of Texas voters who expressed an opinion want Texas to set a date for a complete withdrawal from the union. 70% of Texas Republican adults who expressed an opinion agreed.

They can want it all they like, but wanting ain’t getting, alas. Lest anyone forget, we already fought one war over this sort of thing, and FederalGovCo has only gotten bigger, greedier, more powerful, and more tyrannical since then. If Texans truly do want their freedom and independence…well, there’s only ever been just the one way of achieving that, really. Thomas Jefferson knew it well enough.

What country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.

And that’s the long and the short of it.

Banana republics gotta banana republic

Posted on January 9, 2023January 9, 2023 by Mike

What the J6 “insurrection” probably SHOULD have looked like. At least, in the early going.

Chaos in Brazil: Protesters Storm Capital, Destroying Supreme Court and Congress

Thousands of opponents of socialist convicted felon President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stormed his offices and the headquarters of the Congress and Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) of Brazil on Sunday, reportedly demolishing the facades of two of the three buildings and causing “irreparable” damage to priceless artifacts in the chambers.

The riot in Brasilia occurred while Lula himself was in Sao Paulo state assessing the damage of recent floods. Lula, in a public statement following police action to subdue the protesters, announced an official “federal intervention” in Brasilia – consolidating the public security powers of several agencies into the hands of a hand-picked, top-level official – and accused police of acting in “bad faith” in failing to prevent the protesters from storming the buildings.

The incident is an offshoot of months of protests following the October presidential election that saw Lula narrowly defeat then-incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in two rounds of voting. Most protesters support Bolsonaro but, more broadly, oppose Lula’s victory as illegitimate on several grounds, including his multiple convictions on charges of corrupt acts occurring during his first two terms as president. An audit of the 2022 runoff presidential election, which featured only Bolsonaro and Lula as candidates, by the Armed Forces of Brazil concluded that no guarantee could be made of the absence of fraud or irregularities.

Protesters also accuse the STF, particularly its head justice Alexandre de Moraes, of intervening in the election by censoring mentions of Lula’s corruption case and silencing Bolsonaro supporters through fines and police raids.

Well, gee, that last bit doesn’t sound AT ALL like how we found ourselves stuck with dear old Pedo Joe as pRetend “pResident,” now does it?

Lula’s inauguration on January 1 occurred without major incident and Lula used his powers to immediately begin undoing Bolsonaro policies, most notably sharply limiting civilian access to firearms.

Proving yet again that gun-grabbing shitlibs are the same the world over.

Last month, Lula’s pick for justice minister, Flavio Dino, referred to anti-Lula protest groups as “incubators of terrorism.”

Nope, still not ringing any bells for me. Don’t know about you guys.

Many of the protesters convening in Brasilia on Sunday are part of a movement demanding that the nation’s military oust Lula. They insist that their demand is not for a coup d’etat, but for a “military intervention” they say the Brazilian constitution provides for in the event of an illegitimate election.

Some protesters shared videos on social media during the event on Sunday urging the military to “save us from communism.”

Sorry to be the wet blanket here, but I’m afraid that’s on y’all, same as it is here in the US. Vote your way in, shoot your way out, all that jazz.

All in all, I can only agree with JJ.

With that, fresh off the two-year anniversary of “the most devastating attack on our precious democracy (*vomits*) than the Civil War, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined,” the brave citizenry of Brazil have a few things to say about Socialist/Globalist rigged elections. And I’d be lying to you if I said what’s happening down South American way isn’t making my mouth water.

Ditto, brother. Mega-MAGA dittos, you might even say.

Update! Kunstler tots up some of the striking similarities between thither banana republic and yon one.

A great mob of many thousands went apeshit in Brazil over the weekend in that country’s weird, geographically isolated capital, Brasilia, a horror of 1960s-style Modernist city planning. They stormed the national congress and trashed the offices within to protest the fishy election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the former incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. As in our own country, the quarrel was over the mysterious behavior of voting machines and the unwillingness of election officials or courts to verify the results. The New York Times offered a thumbnail of Mr. Bolsonaro, who is sitting out the current action in Florida:

The resulting picture showed an elected leader, first as a congressman and then as president, who has built a narrative of fraudulent elections based on inaccuracies, out-of-context reports, circumstantial evidence, conspiracy theories and downright falsehoods — much like former President Donald J. Trump.”

Get it? There’s no way fraud could have happened, just like in our country. And Bolsonaro is another Trump. It explains everything. All complaints are “baseless,” “false,” and “conspiracy theories.” End-of-story…. Are these shopworn tropes maybe losing their mojo? And is The New York Times embarrassing itself, a little bit, to trot them out as if they are actually arguments against anything?

The truth is more that Mr. Lula is another Hugo Chavez, poised to wreck Brazil with a fresh attempt at nationalizing all enterprise, ramping up a Marxist police state, and inviting China to partner-up in the action, including new Chinese military bases in the western hemisphere — an interesting challenge to the Monroe Doctrine (if anyone remembers what it says). And so, Mr. Lula has arrested hundreds of protesters and declared a national emergency.

Don’t expect it to stop there. The protesters are asking the army to intervene, as Brazil’s constitution actually obligates them to do in election disputes. Also, unlike the USA, Brazil has plenty of prior experience with the army removing elected leaders. Sometimes, electing yourself into tyranny is not the best way to solve economic problems. For the moment, Mr. Lula borrows a page from the American Left’s playbook for destroying a society. It will matter a lot if he doesn’t get away with it. That’s why the US political Swamp, and its errand boys in the news media, look on the action in Brazil with alarm. Unlike the January 6 protest in Washington, the Brasilia mob represents a genuine insurrection aimed at overthrowing a communist seizure of power.

All well and good, until we go off the rails entirely, in the usual fashion.

Before long, the House is going to impeach Mr. Biden over this fiasco and quite a few other matters. He may not be convicted in the Senate, with its slim Democratic Party majority, but they will be compelled to hold a trial, at least, where a lot of dirty laundry will get aired, and pressure will mount for the old grifter to resign.

Hoooooo-KAY, then. Don’t let’s anybody be holding their etc waiting for THAT Skittles-pooting unicorn to turn up, that’s my advice.

What are they even teaching kids in school nowadays? ANYTHING?!?

Posted on January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Mike

Better to remain silent and be thought a fucking moron than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

People in California and New York pay 20% of federal taxes and have 4 Senators. People in 21 states–AK ID UT MT WY ND SD NE KS OK IA MO AR LA MS AL TN KY IN WV SC–pay 15% of federal taxes and have 42 Senators.

What's that old saying? Oh yeah, taxation without representation. pic.twitter.com/oZRatpkQXt

— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) January 4, 2023

Actually, bright boy, EVERY state has TWO (count ’em, 2) Senators; totting up a passel of less-populous states for purposes of sniveling about how UNFAAAIIIIR!™ it all is is entirely beside the point, and therefore irrelevant. That’s because, until the 17th Amendment stood the whole concept on its head and ruined everything, the Senate was originally conceived as providing representation for the sovereign States, not Duh Peepul. Which would, y’know, be the House’s job.

No seriously, dude, you could look it up. Assuming you can even read at all.

Happily, J.kb has an idea for a solution I believe I could probably live with.

Fix: IN

Posted on January 6, 2023January 6, 2023 by Mike

Those 20 heroes I sang the praises of yesterday? Meh, not so much.

THE DAM BREAKS IN THE HOUSE

Update: On the thirteenth ballot, McCarthy again failed to secure enough votes for a win. He picked up one additional vote this time around, Rep. Andy Harris (Md.). The rest of the holdouts voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio): McCarthy 214, Jeffries 212, Jordan 6. The House is adjourned until 10 p.m. tonight.

Original story:

On the twelfth vote for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, several of the twenty holdouts switched their votes to Kevin McCarthy’s column.

The House erupted in cheers each time a holdout voted for McCarthy, signaling their relief that the end of the protracted battle for the top position in the House may be in sight. The final tally was McCarthy 213, Hakeem Jeffries 211, and others 7, coming on the heels of tense negotiations over the last several days as a group of conservatives pressed McCarthy for changes to House rules and key leadership roles. The magic number for McCarthy had been 218 votes, but due to three absences in the House, it was lowered to 217, leaving the California Republican just four votes shy of a win. McCarthy has indicated that he wants to proceed with another vote rather than adjourn for the weekend, suggesting he believes he has the votes needed to bring the election to a conclusion.

It was reported early Friday that the dam had begun to burst, and key holdouts indeed switched their votes to McCarthy early in the afternoon.

But hey, looky at this mess of pottage the Devil gave me in exchange for my soul!

I repeat: there’s only way out of this for us now. Yes, it will of necessity mean bloodshed.

Sick-making update! Ask a silly question.

WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS???!!! Mother of Murdered American Patriot Ashli Babbitt ARRESTED by DC Goon Squad on 2-Year Anniversary of the January 6 Mostly Peaceful Protest…

Why, Amerika v2.0, of course.

Micki Witthoeft was part of a group of protesters walking westbound on Independence Avenue between the Capitol and House office buildings. A trailing police officer in a marked car tried to order the protesters to move to the sidewalk away from the Capitol. The protesters ignored the warning and continued marching, with Witthoeft on the outside in the middle of a traffic lane.

Capitol Police set up a roadblock and ordered the protesters to cross the street to the sidewalk or be arrested. After an officer shoulder checked Witthoeft where she tried to move past him, Witthoeft turned her back to the officers and offered to be arrested. She was immediately cuffed and taken into custody.

She can only thank her lucky stars that the Capitol Pig goon-squad didn’t just gun her down in cold blood like they did her poor daughter. Because you know good and well they were just itching to, the soulless rat-bastards.

20 Superheroes

Posted on January 5, 2023January 6, 2023 by Mike

Please note the absence of capes.

Dozens of prominent conservatives, including a former attorney general for the Reagan administration, released a letter Wednesday in support of the 20 House Republicans standing between Rep. Kevin McCarthy and his bid for the speakership.

“Months ago, these members made clear that this established way of doing things was no longer acceptable,” the Conservative Action Project letter said. “Rather than engage them in a good faith negotiation, Rep. Kevin McCarthy has instead maligned both the requests and the messengers. He has publicly and through proxies leveled attacks against members of his own party, including threatening to deny committee assignments for those who continue to oppose him.”

Some of the signees included Edwin Meese III, former attorney general for Ronald Reagan, Ginni Thomas, president of Liberty Consulting and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Jim DeMint, chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute and former U.S. senator.

Composite pic of these true American heroes, screengrabbed off of GP:

The White Hats — *God bless ’em all for standing strong and tall*

God bless ’em indeed, every one. The spectacularly entertaining futility of Kevin’s Folly continued through today with a historic (most since 1859, I believe it is) eleven ballots held sans denouement and will pick up again tomorrow at noon, so as to allow all the august national “leaders” time to recover from their throbbing hangovers and hunt around in the closet and under the bed for whatever pitiful scraps of dignity they may once have had, if any. Aesop pithily analyzes the doin’s.

Much funnier than watching Moscow try to take Kiev, and almost as funny as watching Emperor Stumblefuck Poopypants try to form coherent sentences without crapping himself.

And for all the punditry that claims “conservatives” never conserved anything: HTF do you expect them to do that, when there are apparently only 20 of them out of 222 nominal Republicans in the House? (And that’s probably a high-water mark in the last 50 years.)

BTW, we note in passing, there is no requirement anywhere whatsoever that the Speaker of the House be a sitting congressweasel. Which means, just for giggles, that the Republicants (not a typo) could, if they so chose, elect President Donald J. Trump to the post, and there’s fuck-all anyone else could do about it. He would thus preside over the entire run of the 118th Congress in the House of Representatives, assign committee seats, decide what bills moved forward for voting, etc., yet without a vote himself on any bills.

Just for the comedy factor, it’d be a YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE win, while emphasizing the smallness and ineptitude of Emperor Poopypants to serve as the selected Fraudulent.

Just saying.

And I’m just agreeing, brother. Alas, with the willful destruction of the supply-chain and all, I fear the nation’s available popcorn supply is gonna wind up falling FAR short of demand before this all shakes out completely. Meanwhile, no money is being spent; no unnecessary, redundant, and/or meddlesome legislation is being passed; and the essential gridlock so wisely hard-coded into the system by the Founders remains in effect, for the nonce. For which blessing we can all be thankful.

Update! Close. No cigar.

It is clear that Republicans in Congress are upset.

They have every right to be.

But it’s McConnell, not McCarthy!

DUDE, embrace the healing power of AND, ferchrissakes.

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