Hmmm… – Page 26

The Verdict

Posted on May 30, 2024May 31, 2024 by Mike

Surprising exactly no one with half a lick of sense, Trump got got earlier today, on all 34 spurious, wholly-contrived counts.

President Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of…something, a bookkeeping issue turned into a felony, with whatever the underlying crimes the jury picked (Trump wasn’t told) for a conviction, quite contrary to the Supreme Court’s 1999 Richardson ruling, that the jury must be unanimous as to the underlying crime. Justice Juan Merchan said otherwise and that was what the jury was told.

So now the left is happy, dancing, Joe Biden trying to make money off it, and Merchan, who presided over this kangaroo court in New York, setting the sentencing for Trump to July 11, just before the GOP convention. Maybe his Democrat political operative daughter recommended that one.

The justice, who bitterly complained about not being able to send one of President Trump’s executives to prison for a longer sentence than he did, again, over a bookkeeping issue, is sure to send President Trump to Riker’s Island, making himself a hero to the left, which will no doubt ensure that he gets richer.

Which seems about par, given the dishonesty of this entire case, one that makes the U.S. a global laughingstock on the world stage and will undoubtedly empower dictators to do the same to their political opponents.

So much was utterly wrong with this case.

All it does is show us how vile and evil the left is, with absolutely no scruples of any kind as they seek to re-elect floundering Joe Biden and better still, knock Trump from the race by any means necessary.

Oh, it does a great deal more than just that, I’m afraid; let us count the ways, as ol’ Will S. once said. For one thing: it condemns Trump to spend the rest of his life, and a YUUUGE chunk of his fortune, in appeals court. For another: it also ensures that, from this day forward, you will never again see the words “Donald J Trump” mentioned in any Enemedia outlet without the words “convicted felon” appended as prefix. For yet another: this transparently farcical decision put-up job amounts to the biggest pie ever hurled into the faces of Real Americans, as well as America That Was overall.

Everyone associated in any way with this vile molestation of the very concept of impartial justice and the rule of law should be deeply, deeply ashamed of themselves. If any of them possessed even one iota of simple decency, they surely would be. Our old friend and certified CF Lifer hhluce asks the pertinent question in a concise post over at his reliably top-notch streamfortyseven Substack hang—then answers it, I believe all too accurately.

Trump Convicted On 34 Felony Counts … What Happens Next?
My bet is that he is remanded to the maximum security wing at Rikers Island, then to whatever New York state prison the New York Department of Corrections deems appropriate. I also bet that the judge will revoke the bail, and set a fine equal to the bail amount – $175 million. I could see the judge sentencing Trump to ten years for each of the felony counts and run the sentences consecutively – that’s 340 years. Trump will be off the campaign trail for good, now, and will be free only after an appeals court hears his case and overturns the verdict, or the US Supreme Court does so – and that could take years. He might very well die in jail given his age. No more Trump rallies, no more huge crowds, none of that. Today, Joe Biden won another term as President, the election will be a pro forma exercise. This sets an ominous precedent, because the population of the country has to believe in the concept of free and fair elections, and this action drives a wooden stake right through the heart of that concept. I don’t know the downstream consequences of this, but I doubt that they will be either pleasant or peaceful.

A-yup. As y’all know, I’ve been fretting hereabouts for years now about the likelihood of Trump being hauled off to durance vile, then conveniently Epsteined once in lockdown and entirely at the mercy of his—and ours, and America’s—implacable enemies. With this revoltin’ development, unsurprising as it was, I see no reason to revise that estimation.

As for “peaceful,” we must hope like hell not. Not that I’m advocating strife and bloodshed, mind; I dread the awful prospect to the very marrow of my bones. That said, though, if, as I expect will be the case, MAGA Americans just sit on their hands and quietly do nothing as has been their wont for many decades in the face of endless, relentless Leftist depredation and escalation, the last feeble spark of hope for any sort of meaningful American renaissance will gutter out and die. To coin a bitter phrase: When war becomes necessary, peace is the least desirable option. Or, in other, more florid terms, “peace at any price” isn’t really peace at all; in truth, it’s surrender.

If America was still the nation it once was—if Americans were still the proud, independent, upright people they once were—the corrupt, dishonorable, and iniquitous “Judge” Merchan would have been swinging by his neck from a lamppost months ago.

Update! Matt Margolis—and, to my own personal glee, Ron DeSantis—weighs in on the side of decency, propriety, and plain common sense.

I knew it was coming. We all knew. Yet, the verdict delivered on Thursday in the case against Donald Trump still shocked me.

We knew Democrats had long planned to impeach Trump before even taking office, yet when they finally succeeded, it was hard to process.

“Today’s verdict represents the culmination of a legal process that has been bent to the political will of the actors involved: a leftist prosecutor, a partisan judge and a jury reflective of one of the most liberal enclaves in America—all in an effort to ‘get’ Donald Trump,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a statement. “That this case—involving alleged misdemeanor business records violations from nearly a decade ago—was even brought is a testament to the political debasement of the justice system in places like New York City. This is especially true considering this same district attorney routinely excuses criminal conduct in a way that has endangered law-abiding citizens in his jurisdiction.”

DeSantis continued, “It is often said that no one is above the law, but it is also true that no one is below the law. If the defendant were not Donald Trump, this case would never have been brought, the judge would have never issued similar rulings, and the jury would have never returned a guilty verdict. In America, the rule of law should be applied in a dispassionate, even-handed manner, not become captive to the political agenda of some kangaroo court.”

Well said, Gov, and good on ya for coming out swinging in defense of Trump at long, long last. Better late than never, I reckon. Matt closes his piece skillfully, passionately, and with nary a flinch or blink.

This verdict was a warning shot, signaling that the Democrats’ quest for unchallenged power has no boundaries and that it can succeed if we don’t take back our country. Their willingness to bend, break, and shred the rule of law in their pursuit of supremacy is unprecedented. It’s a chilling reminder that the republic they claim to champion is on life support, and what they really want is to pull the plug.

Exactly, precisely so. If this doesn’t open the last averted eyes out there—up to and including Trump’s own—to the harsh reality that political business-as-usual; our governmental, legal, and criminal-justice systems; and the entire politico-societal order as we once knew it are all dead and gone, I really don’t know what might do the trick.

It’s gotten downright infuriating for me to read or hear some otherwise astute pundit acknowledge in the first ‘graph that 1) yes, the Old Order has ceased to exist, that there is neither refuge, recompense, nor redress to be had there any longer. Then, by the last one, he/she/they/zhimm/it/whatevs starts in working the same lame, tiresome “we must file lawsuits/Vote Harderer/work within the system/protest peacefully etc etc etc” wheeze, despite having tacitly admitted the worthlessness of those stratagems only moments before.

Look, guys, I get it, I really, really do. You, me, Trump, all of us deeply, sincerely loved America That Was—its traditions, its core values, its rich history, its strength, its open-hearted generosity, its unprecedented success. It was a wonderful place in which to live, work, raise children, and grow up: warm, welcoming, safe, comfortable. That America was unique in its brash, confident exuberance. Though we could sometimes be immodest about it—obnoxious, even—when we laid claim to American Exceptionalism, it wasn’t merely empty braggadocio. The rest of the world knew it, and if they resented us for it here and there, they also very much admired us.

Hell, I’ve been across the pond quite a few times and can report truthfully that, with vanishingly few exceptions, they like us Americans over there. Loud, inane chatter; vulgar, uncouth deportment; unfashionable clothing and/or hairstyles; crappy, piss-water beer served cold (!!); disgusting “cuisine” and all, they really, really LIKE us clumsy, foolish Yanks.*

Much as it hurts to have to say it, though, America That Was is no more. To our immeasurable loss, that noble Republic is dust in the wind, a fond memory and nothing more. We live in Amerika v2.0 now: a squalid, intolerant, crumbling, improvident DC-centric shitrapy (mis)ruled by cheap con-men, oafs, sadistic thugs, and plunderers so far gone in degeneracy and grubby self-indulgence they’d make Caligula himself blush to his roots at the mere sight of them.

Today’s juridical obscenity “surprising,” “shocking,” “unexpected”? With a cast of characters as loathsome as this, it was inevitable—a foregone conclusion, sad as that is.

* Particularly European (and Scandinavian) women, who are without exception beautiful, lissome, and totally charming. Walk down any street in Amsterdam or Helsinki and you’ll fall hopelessly in love every other block; open your gob and let ‘em hear that flat American twaaannnng and all of a sudden you’ll have a very pleasant, utterly beguiling tour-guide for the rest of your evening stroll at least, longer if you play your cards right and aren’t an irredeemable douchenozzle

Memorial Day Part the Second

Posted on May 28, 2024 by Mike

Not to slight our honorable war dead, but these filthy, fascist bastards should never be forgotten either—just in a different way, with utmost dishonor instead of respect and love.

I made this. 68 million views. I wish it was ten times that. I am unvaccinated but I dealt with this personally and I’m never forgetting. pic.twitter.com/nfiCCc1gIH

— MAZE (@mazemoore)

May 28, 2024

Those of the above that haven’t already dropped dead from twelve-foot long bloodclots and coronary “distress” should be shot right in the fucking face. “Fuck your freedom,” Arnie? No, fuck YOU, pal. You, and everyone who “thinks” like you, forever and ever amen.

(Via Dave Renegade)

The cars of Teh Future

Posted on May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 by Mike

And they always will be.

Buttigieg defends Biden’s EV strategy after question on how only 8 federal charging stations have been built
Buttigieg says Biden focused on making sure EV revolution is American-led

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg defended the Biden administration’s push to build half a million electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along U.S. highways by 2030 after being questioned about how just eight have been built since President Biden signed the legislation two years ago.

Buttigieg appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” where he tried to ease doubts about reaching Biden’s goal of 500,000 chargers by the end of the decade when asked why it wasn’t happening more quickly.

“Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plugging a small device into the ground,” the secretary said. “There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states.”

“Seven or eight, though?” host Margaret Brennan said with a laugh.

“Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers,” Buttigieg said. “And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built.”

See? Fret not, folks, Comrade Mr Secretary Buttplug is ON THE CASE!!! Assuming he’ll have any time, whilst also getting pregnant, giving birth, and breast chest-feeding “his” children, to deal with such trifling inanities as this charger grift, of course. Meanwhile, a commenter over at Insty’s joint notes a leeeetle problem.

My back-of-the-envelope math also indicates that building seven stations every two years will get us to Biden’s goal of 500,000 no later than the year 144,881 AD. Assuming we’re still using AD by then. 2030 doesn’t seem that far away now, does it?

Oof. Also, ouch. Hey, math is haaaaard. Who knew? Really, though, the underlying issue is going unmentioned.

Buttigieg said “the EV revolution will happen with or without us” and that Biden is focused on making sure the EV revolution is led by America, not by a competitor like China.

He said the charging stations are just one factor that will help Americans transition from gas-powered cars to electric; the other is lowering the cost of EVs for the consumer.

Bold mine, and horseshit of the purest ray serene. The “EV revolution” will assuredly NOT be “led by America,” contra whatever falsehoods the flailing, floundering Buttplug pukes forth. Fact is, this misleading Peter-puffery is a useful indicator of precisely where, how, and why we’ve gone so wrong: unlike previous world-altering, genuinely revolutionary* shifts organically driven from the bottom up thanks entirely to entrepreneurial creativity, ingenuity, and ambition (think Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, Edison’s incandescent light bulb, the internal-combustion engine, powered flight, among others), the hard-luck huckster Buttplug’s “EV revolution” is 100% Astroturf, forced on us Serf Class simps from the top down, whether we will or we nil—led by the government, not America.

Sorry, but this is not no way no how something to be celebrated, at least for any Real American not hungrily sucking at the drooping Überstadt teat. Such as, for example, Comrade Buttplug. On the bright side, though, maybe FederalGovCo will explain that mind-boggling “7 every 2 years=500k in 6” computation when the junta issues its next Five Year Plan. That ought to be a hoot.

*Hate to have to bust any bubbles here, but the very idea of a government-led “revolution” is a non sequitur, by definition an impossibility; sorry, but revolutions just don’t work that way. Call me pedantic, call me a language-Nazi, but revolutions aren’t done BY governments, they’re done TO them.

Open mouth, insert foot update! Jesus, it’s like the boob just can’t help himself.

In a surprising move, Secretary of State Pete Buttigieg didn’t blame an alleged increase in extreme turbulence impacting air travel on racism. During an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” the embattled cabinet member instead chose to blame the problem on climate change.

“The effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation,” he said. “We’ve seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn’t statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme.”

A recent study found hurricanes and typhoons are actually decreasing, but okay, Pete.

It’s always the same old song with these people over and over and over again, the song only has one note, and nary a one of ‘em can carry a tune in a slop bucket. Yet they will NOT stop singing the stupid thing, even as the audience stomps out with their hands clapped tightly over their ears. More tiresome than one of those interminable, multi-band “Louie Louie” marathons they used to do now and then as radio-station promos, that’s what it is.

MOAR EV follies update! A joke, and not a very funny one: Electric…FIRE ENGINES?!?

Jeez Louise.

New Mexico Democratic Governor Michelle Grisham was recently excited to announce that the state’s Environment Department was awarding a nearly half-million dollar grant to Bernalillo County to partially finance the purchase of a new “all-electric” fire truck for their fire department. It was only a “partial” reimbursement because the projected cost to the county to replace its 1991 diesel fire engine with a Pierce Volterra battery electric fire engine was more than $1.8 million. The local fire chief was quoted as proudly saying, “There’s no cancer coming out of the tailpipe” of the new truck. So that’s a win for all concerned, right?

Not so fast there, chief. You have to read quite a ways down into the announcement to learn the uncomfortable truth about this purchase. The supposedly “all-electric” fire engine has a diesel engine in it. The pumps that actually deliver the water to put out fires run off of the diesel engine and the truck itself can run off of diesel when the battery inevitably runs out. So the entire description of “all-electric” is a farce.

What aspect of the “EV revolution” ISN’T a farce?

So why would these fire trucks still have diesel engines?

Elementary, Watson: because electric motors and batteries simply aren’t adequate to the kind of heavy-duty task required of pumper trucks, shitlib fantasies about Skittle-pooping unicorns notwithstanding.

They’re supposed to be eliminating fossil fuels to save us all from climate change, aren’t they? The answer should be fairly obvious. These are emergency response vehicles. If your neighbor’s EV can’t make it out of the driveway one morning because they couldn’t find a charging station or there was a blackout, they might miss a day of work. If the fire truck can’t do its job, buildings will burn down and people may die. It’s simply not worth the risk.

The water pumps on the fire trucks are massive. They have to be to move that much water so quickly over a sustained period of time. Also, the engine that powers the vehicle is far larger than the ones in most consumer vehicles, on par with the ones in big rigs. If there is a significantly large fire taking place, the pumps may be running for hours on end. EV batteries simply are not up to the job. If a conventional fire truck begins running low on diesel, a refueling truck can be brought over to fill up the tank in a few minutes. You can’t accelerate the battery recharging process.

Bad enough, sure, but is that all, you ask? Not hardly, I reply.

Here is another fun fact about these trucks, as pointed out by Larry Behrens, Communications Director for Power The Future. Those “all-electric” fire trucks cost 40 to 50 percent more than conventional, diesel models. The one that Bernalillo County purchased cost $1.8 million. That’s roughly $600,000 more than standard diesel truck costs and that bill was saddled on the taxpayers of the county as well as the entire state thanks to the Governor’s “generous” grant. (It’s funny how these politicians are always able to be so generous with your money, isn’t it?)

Wait, so you’re telling me you feel that Saving Mother Gaia from A) trace atmospheric gases essential for plant life; B) gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters, and C) efficient, reliable, affordable modes of transportation for everyday Americans isn’t worth paying any price, going to any lengths imaginable? To quote Saint Greta of Thunberg: HOW DARE YOU!!! Oh, and speaking of that glowering, insufferably self-righteous nitwit, get a load of this:

Doom Goblin Greta? Bless my soul, how I do love it! Expect to see that one regularly from here on out, gang. I’ve been sitting on this mad-genius Tweet for a couple weeks now, just waiting for the right time to use it, and finally, it has come.

Talk about menaces…

Posted on May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 by Mike

So late last night curiosity got the better of this cat, prodding me into digging around for more on the vintage besoboru retaliation vid embedded here the other day, and Lord-a-MIGHTY, but this Lenny Randle fella was some piece of work. First off, a look at what the rulebook has to say.

Retro Interference – Batter-Runner Randle Tackles Pitcher
In May 1974, Rangers second baseman Lenny Randle bunted down the first-base line and then veered into fair territory to tackle Indians pitcher Bob Johnson, who had thrown behind Randle one pitch earlier. HP Umpire Dave Phillips ruled the batter-runner out despite Johnson never having actually tagged him, sparking a benches-clearing brawl leading to our latest Ask the UEFL question: What’s the right call here?

Despite articles discussing the base path or runner’s lane, the answer is fairly simple: Randle was declared out for interfering with a fielder entitled to field a batted ball. Naturally, HP Umpire Phillips or 1B Umpire Bill Deegan could have similarly ejected Randle for unsportsmanlike conduct as a result of the flagrant and intentional collision.

Two rules cover this. Official Baseball Rule 5.09(b)(3) states that a runner (including the batter-runner) is out when said runner “intentionally interferes with a thrown ball; or hinders a fielder attempting to make a play on a batted ball,” while OBR 6.01(a)(10) confirms that it is interference when a runner “fails to avoid a fielder who is attempting to field a batted ball, or intentionally interferes with a thrown ball.”

SIDEBAR: If two fielders attempt to field the same batted ball, only one of them is entitled to protection from interference (this is not the case here as only the pitcher is fielding the batted ball).

There exist other rules pertaining to interference with a fielder who has already caught a ball and for the purpose of these rules, the pitcher is considered to be in the act of fielding at the moment of interference, even though the ball is already in his possession.

For the record, this is not runner’s lane interference (OBR 5.09(a)(11)), which is a call of interference with the fielder taking the throw at first base; thus, RLI requires a throw to be made. No throw = no possibility of runner’s lane interference. Similarly, this is not an out-of-the-base-path call, since out of the base path is defined as running more than three feet away from the direct line between the runner and the base which the runner is attempting to achieve in order to avoid being tagged. Because Randle ran directly to the pitcher (the only player who could have tagged him), who had yet to make a tag attempt, he was not out of his base path.

Okay, now that we got the legal niceties of the actual at-bat all sorted out, what about Randle himself? Might he have been temperamentally inclined to overreacting over what was really a pretty ordinary, run of the mill brush-back pitch? Hmmm, could be, could be.

The pitcher fields it clean, tries to make the tag and that is exactly what Randle wanted. As the pitcher comes up with the ball, Randle lays a hit on him that John Randle would be proud of. I mean he laid him out. I love how Randle just takes off for first acting like he didn’t do anything wrong, luckily the first baseball decided to show off his form tackling as well. First baseman wraps him up and drives him into the ground. It’s an all out brawl from there wit some good punches landed.

Most of the times baseball fights are just pushing and shoving and yelling, not here. Everyone was trying to get a piece of someone else, quite an impressive fight if you ask me.

Fun Fact- I googled this guy Lenny Randle, turns out he also punched one of his managers in the face three times. Sensing a theme here….

A-yup. And then there’s this:

During spring training in 1977, first round draft choice Bump Wills earned the starting second base job over Randle. On March 28, the Rangers were in Orlando for an exhibition game with the Minnesota Twins. During batting practice an hour before the first pitch, Randle approached Rangers manager Frank Lucchesi. Randle claimed that Lucchesi called him a “punk”, which Lucchesi denies. Randle punched Lucchesi in the face three times before the altercation was stopped by bystanders.

Lucchesi was hospitalized for a week, needing plastic surgery to repair his fractured cheekbone which Randle had broken in three places.[6] He also received bruises to his kidney and back. The Rangers suspended Randle for 30 days without pay and fined him $10,000. On April 26, before the suspension was complete, Texas traded him to the New York Mets for cash and a player to be named later; Texas later received Rick Auerbach.

Randle was charged with assault, and pleaded no contest to battery charges in a Florida court, receiving a $1,050 fine. The Rangers fired Lucchesi on June 21. Lucchesi sued Randle for $200,000. They settled for $20,000.

Uhh, yeah, from all appearances this guy was hot as a two-dollar pistol, safe to say. This next Randle item I thought was pretty funny.

With the Kansas City Royals visiting the Kingdome on May 27, 1981, Royals center fielder Amos Otis hit a slow roller down the third base line in the sixth inning. Randle got on his hands and knees and blew the ball over the foul line; the umpires disallowed his action, and ruled it fair. Afterwards, Randle said that there was a “no-blow rule” implemented. He jokingly said, “They won the game, we won the protest.”

Heh. Well, give the guy points for creativity, anyhow.

Are we not entertained?

Posted on May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 by Mike

Trump beards the Libertarian lion in his den, hilarity ensues. Gotta give the man full props, he’s one feisty, pugnacious sumbitch.

Trump Was Booed Relentlessly at the LNC, Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing for Him
Donald Trump had a “We’re no longer in Kansas” moment on Saturday night. The former president attended the Libertarian National Convention in a bid to convince that small segment of American voters that he was their best bet in November, and let’s just say the crowd wasn’t exactly friendly.

From beginning to end, Trump was booed relentlessly during his speech, though he had a few applause lines, specifically surrounding a prospective pardon of Ross Ulbricht. Overall, though, the scene was chaotic despite the best efforts of Trump supporters like Mike Lee to calm things down.

Here’s a bit of what it sounded like, and in a twist that may surprise some people, I’m going to explain why this was a good thing for Trump.

There are two ways to respond to this if you’re a supporter of Donald Trump. One is to take the approach Monica Crowley did, which is to just outright mislead people about what happened.

One night President Trump has the Bronx cheering for him.

The next night he has the Libertarians going wild for him.

He’s expanding MAGA in unbelievable ways.

Absolute legend.

Okay, I have to say, that’s just pathetic right there. Downright despicable, even. Onwards.

The other approach is to tell the truth because the truth is much cooler than the North Korean-style “Everyone loved him” claims. Let me explain.

Yes, Trump was booed over and over, but so what? I would posit most people prefer a candidate who is willing to go into a hostile environment, speak to those who disagree with him, and keep his composure in the process. During the first clip above, as the crowd showed its disapproval, Trump cracked a smile and kept hitting his points. That’s the best way to handle a situation like that.

Compare that to Joe Biden, who often gets flustered and lashes out in the face of hecklers, telling them “not to jump” or challenging audience members to push-up contests. It’s weird and unappealing, and it’s a product of the president having skin so thin that it’s translucent.

Agreed, right down the line. Judging from Trump having acquitted himself with such aplomb and good humor, as well as Libertarian national committee chair Angela McCardle having done likewise as evidenced below, I’d say the only one who came out of the whole brouhaha looking like a total chump was…guess who.

Both Joe Biden and Trump were invited, but it was Trump who accepted, in a historic move.

“For the first time ever, a former president addressed the Libertarian Party. It was a rowdy crowd but we’re grateful for Pres. Trump’s time, and excited to make history,” said Libertarian national committee chair Angela McArdle after the speech in a statement.

One wonders if a president would do that again, given the mixed and rowdy nature of the reception.

But perhaps the best capper for the event was the reaction from McArdle after the Biden-Harris HQ account — which is the campaign’s official rapid response account — tried to mock Trump and the reception he got. McArdle just leveled them.

And Ms McCardle did that little thing, too.

You didn’t even show up. You have zero credibility. https://t.co/Z6fnhThitH

— Angela McArdle (@angela4LNCChair)

May 26, 2024

So how does one deal effectively with a slippery, slimery sleaze-orrhoid PropPol like Pedaux Jaux, then? Well, you don’t take one single, solitary ounce worth of shit off his senile, basement-dwelling ass, for starters. He opens his yap, you slap it the fuck SHUT—no delay, no fuss, no muss, no mercy, each and every time, without fail. Here endeth the lesson.

A bargain at ANY price

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Mike

You can’t take the skies from me.

Rocket Report: SpaceX focused on Starship reentry; Firefly may be for sale
Firefly may be up for sale. Firefly Aerospace investors are considering a sale that could value the closely held rocket and Moon lander maker at about $1.5 billion, Bloomberg reports. The rocket company’s primary owner, AE Industrial Partners, is working with an adviser on “strategic options” for Firefly. Neither AE nor Firefly commented to Bloomberg about the potential sale. AE invested $75 million into Texas-based Firefly as part of a series B financing round in 2022. The firm made a subsequent investment in its Series C round in November 2023.

Launches and landers … Now more than a decade old and with a history of financial struggles, Firefly has emerged as one of the apparent winners in the small launch race in the United States. The company’s Alpha rocket has now launched four times since its unsuccessful debut in September 2021, and it is due to fly a Venture Class Launch Services 2 mission for NASA in the coming weeks. Firefly also aims to launch its Blue Ghost spacecraft to the moon later this year and is working on an orbital transfer vehicle.

Butbutbutwait—you mean you aren’t talking about…dammit, I thought you meant…you shoulda told…oh, to hell with it.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

(Via Insty)

Now, THAT’S impressive!

Posted on May 25, 2024May 25, 2024 by Mike

I have bought weed legally in one of Amsterdam’s fabled “black” coffee shops, and smoked it therein too—again, legally. So my question about this headline is: what in the actual fuck does one have to do to be arrested for drugs in Amsterdam?

Nicki Minaj Reportedly Arrested On Drug Charges In Amsterdam [VIDEOS]

No excerpt from the article, ‘cause who the hell cares.

News you can use

Posted on May 23, 2024May 23, 2024 by Mike

For those of you who are still interested in this sort of thing, Gateway Pundit is doing a livestream from the Trump rally in the Bronx, which begins at 6. I may watch a little of it myself, actually. Not that I care about the “election” and the related jockeying for position very much, but just to see if Sandy from Westchester shows up to throw a hissy fit. The stupid bint is already tempting fate by daring to invoke God Himself on the side of the unrighteous, the unjust, and the truly Satanic.

Ocasio-Cortez mocks Trump over bad weather ahead of Bronx rally: ‘God is good’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) mocked former President Trump over bad weather ahead of his Thursday rally in the Bronx.

“God is Good 🙏🏽,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a Thursday post on the social platform X.

The New York Democrat replied to a post showcasing that the Crotona Park section of the Bronx, where the rally is slated to take place, had rain around 10 a.m. local time Thursday.

The House progressive went after the former president earlier this week for doing a campaign rally in the South Bronx. She said he was holding it in the Democratic stronghold due to a “legal version of an ankle bracelet.”

“Donald Trump is broke. He needs money. He’s hosting a rally to try to con people and try to fleece them out of every dollar that they have to fund his own legal fees,” she said.

Yeh, yeh, yeh, Bimbelina. What was it, 16k or thereabouts in debt when she first went to Congress, yet suddenly worth a few million now?

Tell ya what, flash us them big ol’ fun-bags of your’n, whydon’tcha, since you’ll be in the vicinity of all those TeeWee news cameras anyway. I have a bunch of cheap-ass, brightly-colored plastic Mardi Gras necklaces I’ll toss ya as compensation for your trouble, of the variety all my female friends in NOLA sneer at as “shit beads.” These women harbored no objection to letting ‘em breathe, and often did, albeit never in exhange for any of those tourist trinkets. That, they viewed as a gross insult to their not-inconsiderable womanly charms and personal honor.

Update! Shoot, forget the damned beads, Sandy. Just picture it: the E-ville Trump reduced to stammering, stuttering incoherence onstage at the very sight of you, front-row center with your T-shirt hoicked up around your neck, Latinx udders flapping in the breeze, uptight Reich-wing Xtianist Mega-MAGAts shocked into a dead faint, bodies strewn in unconscious windrows all about as you dance the Dance of True Freedom, letting your Freak Flag fly with utmost pride and dignity!

DO it, Sandy, you MUST! Cast off the shackles of unnatural body-modesty, guilt, and shame—foisted upon Wymrynz by their sexist Patriarchal Oppressors—cast off your top, and be the Hero we need so badly right now! Strike a mighty blow for Equity, Inclusiveness, and Social Justice; for the Sisterhood; for Palestine; for your D卐M☭CRAT colleagues; for Our Sacred Democracy itself! ONLY YOU CAN SAVE US NOW…

And your tig ol’ bitties, that is.

Oopsie update! The above GP link ain’t working, try this one instead.

The Tytler Cycle

Posted on May 23, 2024May 23, 2024 by Mike

A refresher course on how history just keeps on repeating itself.

WTF is Happening to America & What Are You Going To Do About It?
The title of this piece is a question I always hear (and ask). What the fuck is happening to this country?

From listeners, neighbors, friends, family, and even those whom I despise on the opposite end of the political spectrum, it’s obvious to anyone paying attention that this country is a complete mess. The natural follow-up question is, how did we get here?

It’s not hard to answer.

It simply took 248 years for our government to bloat itself to what we are witnessing today. That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our founders understood this, and Benjamin Franklin wondered aloud when Elizabeth Willing Powell asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” They knew what we are experiencing today was inevitable. That government naturally evolves to seek unbridled growth and total power over the people. What no one knew was how long it would take to lose it, and here we are today, in our lifetimes, living through what may very well be the end of our constitutional form of Republic unless we decide to “keep it” and “keeping it” my friends, is not a foregone conclusion.

To understand this requires a glance back to the work of Lord Alexander Tytler, a Scottish historian who lived between 1747 and 1813. Tytler wrote what has been referred to over the centuries as the “Tytler Cycle,” outlining the eight stages of a democracy or a democratic republic such as ours. His words were prophetic indeed. He believed that every society began in bondage and progressed through the stages below:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.

He professed that our form of government’s average life is 200 years.
While the Roman Republic survived nearly 500 years before its collapse, we’ve outlived his theory by 48 years. Washington, under Democrat leadership, is pushing us through stage seven en route to its goal of total control, or as Tytler put it, bondage. We are closer than at any time in our history to our eventual disintegration.

This is the “fundamental transformation” of America referred to by Marxist Barack Obama.

Indeed so. Seems like there oughta be some way we could thank the slope-shouldered sissymary properly for that, but then that’s where the second half of the title question comes in, I suppose.

Free markets, free enterprise? No thanks, we’re Amerikans

Posted on May 21, 2024May 21, 2024 by Mike

An amusing story that illustrates perfectly how very far from anything resembling small-business-oriented laissez-faire capitalism we’ve come.

How to Murder a Popular Restaurant Chain With This 1 Weird Trick
Following the unexpected closure of dozens of locations last week, Red Lobster completely expectedly filed for bankruptcy protection this week — and how the seafood chain ended up in Chapter 11 restructuring is a fascinating story of bad decisions, spastic leadership, and shortsighted greed. It’s that last element that really tells the tale.

Reb Lobster “temporarily closed” 87 restaurants last week, but as USA Today reported, some of them have “their kitchen equipment up for auction on an online restaurant liquidator.” Temporary, eh?

CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn wrote Monday that the chain’s “misguided endless shrimp promotion drove it into bankruptcy.” If you missed the news — I knew about it but my efforts at getting back into shape couldn’t afford it — last summer, Red Lobster made their $20 all-you-can-eat shrimp special a permanent menu item.

“The plan, as far as I can tell,” Luke Winkie wrote for Slate, “was for guests to fill up on just enough shellfish to preserve Red Lobster’s profit margin. It backfired spectacularly: The restaurant’s clientele scarfed down enough shrimp to accumulate an $11 million operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2023.” But that $11 million loss was only a small fraction of the company’s overall $72 million loss last year.

There’s so much more to the story than a money-losing menu item.

Business analyst Trung Phan posted to X that “the interesting part” behind the all-you-can-eat shrimp “is that one of the chain’s owners is Thai seafood firm Thai Union… and it may have used Endless shrimp to dump its own shrimp supply through the 578 restaurants in North America.” Restaurant Business Online reported that bankruptcy court documents question “whether the control Thai Union exerted over the supply chain process drove up costs for the chain, worsening its financial condition.” Quality control was reportedly an issue, too.

“Quality”? At Red Lopster?!? The McDonalds of seafood restaurants, first-choice favorite of Neegrows nationwide and hardly anyone else?

Now you’ve heard everything, right?

Wrong.

There’s still more.

And of course there is, Stephen wouldn’t lie about a thing like that. Thankfully, down South we’ve always been blessed with enough old-school “fish camps” that no sensible person had to even think about resorting to dumps like Red Lopster *shudder* for their seafood needs anyway, so no great loss.

BREAKING: B’rer Rabbitt to be thrown into briar patch!!!

Posted on May 21, 2024May 21, 2024 by Mike

Shocking, horrifying, awful news. Whatever are we going to do without these two Great American Patriots?

JUST IN: Stormy Daniels’ porn star husband says couple will ‘vacate the country’ if Trump found not guilty
“I think if it’s not guilty, we got to decide what to do. Good chance we’ll probably vacate this country.”

In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Barrett Blade, spouse of adult film star Stormy Daniels, revealed on Tuesday that they are seriously considering relocating abroad if former President Donald Trump is found not guilty in his ongoing Manhattan criminal trial.

Not to worry, sleazebag: a jury made up entirely of Trump-hating NYC shitlibs, instructed by the most slippery-slimery crook of a presiding judge ever to befoul the bench? Yeah, the chances Trump won’t be found guilty on all counts, plus several more charges made up on the spot by court kangaroos, hover somewhere between None whatsoever and Please, please, stop, yer killin’ me ovah heah!

Blade expressed concerns about the intense scrutiny and negativity directed at his wife.

“If Trump is found not guilty, I think there’s a — I mean, either way, I don’t think he gets better for her. I think if it’s not guilty, we got to decide what to do. Good chance we’ll probably vacate this country. If he is found guilty, she’s still got to deal with all the hate that feel like she’s the reason that he’s guilty from all of his followers. So I don’t see it as a when situation either way. I know that we would like to get on with our lives. I know that she wants to move past this. We want, we just want to do what I guess we would say normal people get to do and some aspects, but I don’t know if that ever will be, you know,” Blade said.

I have only two (2) responses I can make to this bullshit whinging:

And:

Of course, like all those crybaby H-wood types who have solemnly sworn to flee the country after each and every Repugnicunt victory since George W Bush got them soiling their Underoos back in 2000, but who never bother to follow through, these two oxygen thieves aren’t going to actually leave either—which I consider to be extremely unfortunate, quite frankly.

Incentives, disincentives, and suicidal folly

Posted on May 18, 2024May 19, 2024 by Mike

No more self-gassing-Jew histrionics, no more land-for-peace swaps, no more “cease-fire” blackmail mandated by treacherous FederalGovCo baglappers.

What incentives does Israel have to cease counter-Hamas operations?

Nations, like individuals, historically (not always) operate off a series of incentives.

Net positive = do it

Net negative = avoid it

An easy concept to understand but not simple in practice.

There is no shortage in calls for Israel to implement a ceasefire with Hamas, despite the fact that the current conflict is a direct result of the October 7 Hamas attack where over 1100 Israelis were killed, many of them civilians.

To date Israel has resisted these calls, including those from the U.S., for an operational stand down.

But why?

As a student and practitioner of war I find myself asking, what incentives does Israel have to bow to international pressure?

This is NOT a political commentary, merely a thought experiment on incentives vs. disincentives.

Below are three reasons why Israel has no incentive to stop short of total victory:

Like the man says, he has three, although the last one is enough, t’will suffice.

3. Lastly, with Hamas stating that they will repeat the October 7th attacks as many times as necessary why would Israel stop short of their total destruction?

Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ political bureau said, “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge (the name Hamas gave its Oct 7 onslaught) is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.…”

Pretty unambiguous.

I’d say so, yeah. Then again, the Paleosimian swine have been perfectly unambiguous since at least the days of s’faccim Yassuh “Nawssuh” Yassuh Arafat pleading piteously for a “two-state solution” for the news cameras, then rejecting every proposal on the QT, if not even farther back than that. Your implacable enemies, in both the ME and the West, are no longer bothering to even try to hide their “kill all the Jews!” program behind the phonus-balonus mask of rationality, accomodation, and honest good faith. It’s all up-front and in the open now, their genocidal fanaticism laid out naked and unashamed—pridefully, even—for all to see.

So again: ignore the anguished wails of Jewphobic historical illiterates who are gonna hate you no matter what and just git ‘er done, Bibi—whatever it takes, no restraint, no pulled punches, no mercy. Maybe you could look into covering Gaza with one of those big-ass tents used to fumigate suburban houses and annihilate every last one of those cock-a-roaches.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

Another one they aren’t making any more of these days

Posted on May 18, 2024May 18, 2024 by Mike

That would be gifted actor, horseman, Marine veteran, Hollywood stuntman, ranch hand, jazz singer, blacksmith, and world-champion poker player Wilford Brimley.

Anthony Wilford Brimley (September 27, 1934 – August 1, 2020) was an American actor. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and working odd jobs in the 1950s, Brimley started working as an extra and stuntman in Western films in the late 1960s. He became an established character actor in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as The China Syndrome (1979), The Thing (1982), Tender Mercies (1983), The Natural (1984), and Cocoon (1985). Brimley was known for playing characters at times much older than his age. He was the long-term face of American television advertisements for the Quaker Oats Company. He also promoted diabetes education and appeared in related television commercials for Liberty Medical, a role for which he became an Internet meme.

Brimley joined the Marines in 1953 and served in the Aleutian Islands for three years. He also worked as a bodyguard for businessman Howard Hughes as well as a ranch hand, wrangler, and blacksmith. He then began shoeing horses for film and television. At the behest of his close friend and fellow actor Robert Duvall, he began acting in the 1960s as a riding extra and stunt man in westerns. In 1979, he told the Los Angeles Times that the most he ever earned in a year as an actor was $20,000. He had no formal training as an actor, and his first experience in acting in front of a live audience was in a theater group at the Los Angeles Actors’ Theater.

His first credited feature film performance was in The China Syndrome (1979) as Ted Spindler, a friend and coworker of plant shift supervisor Jack Godell (portrayed by Jack Lemmon). That same year, he appeared in the Robert Redford/Jane Fonda feature film “The Electric Horseman” cast as simply “The Farmer” while assisting Redford and Fonda’s characters evade troopers while transporting the horse in a cattle hauler. Later, Brimley made a brief but pivotal appearance in Absence of Malice (1981) as the curmudgeonly, outspoken Assistant Attorney General James A. Wells. In the movie The Thing (1982) he played the role of Blair, a biologist among a group of men at an American research station in Antarctica who encounter a dangerous alien that can perfectly imitate other organisms.

Brimley’s close friend Robert Duvall (who also appeared in The Natural) was instrumental in securing for him the role of Harry in Tender Mercies (1983). Duvall, who had not been getting along with director Bruce Beresford, wanted “somebody down here that’s on my side, somebody that I can relate to.” Beresford felt Brimley was too old for the part but eventually agreed to the casting. Brimley, like Duvall, clashed with the director; during one instance when Beresford tried to advise Brimley on how Harry would behave, Duvall recalled Brimley responding: “Now look, let me tell you something, I’m Harry. Harry’s not over there, Harry’s not over here. Until you fire me or get another actor, I’m Harry, and whatever I do is fine ’cause I’m Harry.”

It was Brimley’s showstopper star-turn as AAG James J Wells (not James A Wells, as Wiki erroneously has it above) in Absence of Malice that sent me down the Wilford Brimley rabbit hole today, after re-watching Brimley’s riveting performance on YewToob. Interesting thing about the apparent James J/James A flub: Brimley’s character may very well have been James A in the script (don’t know, didn’t check), judging from what appears to be his momentary hesitation when giving his name as James J in the AoM final cut:

Note ye well that Mr Brimley, a relatively unknown bit-player-cum-character actor at the time, just walked in, sat down, riffled some papers, opened his mouth, and proceeded to steal the entire film from screen titans Paul Newman and Sally Field, without so much as breaking a sweat. By God, that there is what you call acting, bub. Ahh, but how very typical of Wilford Brimley: Kurt Russell, Robert Duvall, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon—running scenes with all of these fine actors and many more, he refused to be intimidated or overawed, nonchalantly holding his own with all those marquee names, making it look not just easy, but effortless.

More rich, buttery Brimley goodness from AoM:

One more time:

Over the years I must’ve seen Absence of Malice about, oh, I dunno, forty or fifty times—enough that I’ve long since had every word of Brimley’s dazzling five minutes or so of screentime towards the end down by heart, anyway—and still ain’t no way tired of the flick. If you’ve never seen the movie, I urge you with all my heart not to let another sun go down before you rectify that gap in your cinematic education. They ain’t making movies like Absence of Malice anymore, nor actors like Wilford Brimley, nor sturdy, versatile, by-God American men like him, for that matter.

Anybody else thinking, as I just was, that the AAG Wells character, in fact pretty much all the G-men in the above climactic scenes, represents another long-gone American totem: the competent, reasonable, and trustworthy public servant? Not to mention Sally Fields’ newspaper reporter, who, although she lost her way temporarily and compromised her professional ethics in pursuit of a red-hot scoop, nonetheless proves herself to be basically decent in the end, deeply regretful for betraying her integrity and resolved that she will NOT let it happen again.

As Wells says of the DA ensnared in Michael Gallagher’s clever trap: “Yeah, he’s a nice guy, he just forgot about the rules.” When the dust has settled, the wayward but basically well-meaning are chastened, the corrupt and malifecent made to face serious consequences, and AAG Wells has somebody’s ass in his briefcase, as promised.

Today, though, is there anyone left among us so naive, so unworldly, that he seriously expects such unflagging virtuousness from his “public servants,” even in a fictional movie? Yep, the past is a different country all right.

Quote of the day week month year decade century millenium

Posted on May 17, 2024May 17, 2024 by Mike

“The left has the ability to understand reason and the law about as well as my spoon understands the difference between mint chocolate chip and rocky road.

“Presenting them with facts and evidence on gun control is met with remarks about penis size. Talking about case law is like banging your head against a wall. Talking simply won’t work with them.“

Which is EXACTLY why we need to stop even bothering to pretend to try; it wastes your time, and annoys the pig. The one, the only language they understand is violence, of the “swift and blinding” variety. So be it, then. Govern yourselves—or, y’know, not—accordingly.

Constitutional course of instruction

Posted on May 14, 2024 by Mike

Roth Renegade discovers one of Porretto’s favorites, the uncompromising champion of human liberty Lysander Spooner.

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the Constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but “the people” then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind any body but themselves.

It cannot be said that the Constitution formed “the people of the United States,” for all time, into a corporation. It does not speak of “the people” as a corporation, but as individuals. A corporation does not describe itself as “we,” nor as “people,” nor as “ourselves.” Nor does a corporation, in legal language, have any “posterity.” It supposes itself to have, and speaks of itself as having, perpetual existence, as a single individuality.

Moreover, no body of men, existing at any one time, have the power to create a perpetual corporation. A corporation can become practically perpetual only by the voluntary accession of new members, as the old ones die off. But for this voluntary accession of new members, the corporation necessarily dies with the death of those who originally composed it.

Legally speaking, therefore, there is, in the Constitution, nothing that professes or attempts to bind the “posterity” of those who establish it.

S’truth, strange though it may sound to contemporary ears; no less august a personage than Thomas Jefferson himself implicitly affirmed this thesis years before, with these stirring words:

God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.

The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independant 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state.

What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And 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.

Bold mine, and a hearty amen to that.

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