A.M. Links: Tillerson Confirmed as Secretary of State, Trump vs. Australia, Happy Groundhog Day

• 

  Todd Kranin

  Rex Tillerson has been confirmed as secretary of state after a vote of 56-43 by the U.S. Senate.

• "Australia's prime minister insisted Thursday that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement 'dumb' and vowing to review it."
• British Prime Minister Theresa May has released a 77-page Brexit plan.
• Inmates at Delaware's largest prison continue to hold correctional workers and fellow inmates hostage after seizing control of a prison block on Wednesday.
• "The GOP's incredible, shrinking Obamacare repeal."
• Today is Groundhog Day.

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Today is Groundhog Day.

I got you babe.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[Slammer]

Rufus, I need help. I know curling…but wth is crokinole?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Oh sure, why don’t you just ask me if I live in an igloo while playing shinny and drinking hootch all day.

Ha. No clue.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Well, do you?

[chemjeff]

So you’re saying you *don’t* chew walrus blubber?

[Florida Hipster]

Fact: Narwhal skin is the primary source of vitamin C for Canadians.

[Billy Bones]

Everyone in my curling club love crokinole. I have watched them play but never was interested in playing myself.

Rufus–You are a curler? Where do you curl? We just opened a dedicated curling facility here in Atlanta.

[Rufus The Monocled]

NO, I DON’T CURL!

Fucken Slammer.

But I did play outdoor curling on a couple of occasions. One of those times a few of us were slightly intoxicated and stoned.

[Billy Bones]

Intoxication is a prerequisite.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

I take it that crokinole is one of those designer drugs that makes you crave Canadian face?

[Chips&Salsa]

Not on Shabbos, that is for sure

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

Damn, Rufus! Be proud of your Canukistani heritage. It’s not like we pick on Canadians here. *sweeps some trash into a dust pan and has thoughts on a good game for hosers

[Chip Woodier]

I curl slightly to the left.

[Detroit Linguist]

Wow! I haven’t thought of crokinole since I was a kid. I grew up in Toronto and everybody I knew had a board It’s a board game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crokinole

with rules similar to those of curling.

[Slammer]

6 more months of riots

[That's A Bingo!]

Four more years of Trump.

[Free Society]

It’s interesting how Trump was browbeaten into telling his supporters to cut out all the violence… that wasn’t actually happening. Erstwhile Sandernistas, Clintonians and Obamans are rioting, looting, burning shit down, censoring speech and attacking demographic groups they deem to be Trump supporting, and not one god damn disavowal or call for calm from the aforementioned leftist scumbag politicians, nor any demands for such from the media class.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Well, the media are on the side of the protesters and rioters.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

The most violence we typically saw from Trump supporters was the occasional guy going after rally disrupters–like the black dude who beat down the white hipster dressed in a KKK outfit. For the most part, the lefty protests have been peaceful, save for the BLM and Antifa-organized ones, who get off on violence.

[Isaac Bartram]

I wonder if The Southern Poverty Law Center got a twofer on Trump supporter who beat down the white hipster dressed in a KKK outfit. I wouldn’t be surprised since they have been counting “[swastika]RUMP” and “Heil Trump” graffiti as evidence of an upsurge in Trump-supporting white supremacy.

[Drave Robber]

Obamans

Obamaoists.

[Free Society]

That is much better, yes.

[CatoTheChipper]

Obamaumau.

That incorporates both his Kenya roots and his commie sympathies.

[socially signaling]

“Hate speech is not free speech!”, or something like that..

*looks over at pic of kids & wonders what the world will be like for them as adults

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

6 more months…

Aren’t we supposed to wait for the rioters to stick their head out of their burrow and look for their shadow before we make this call?

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Andi MacDowell: terrible actress, or the worst actress?

[Swiss Servator]

She is as enthralling as a glass of lukewarm skim milk.

[Florida Hipster]

How can you call McDowell “worst actress” in a world with Heather Grahm? Also they’re “actors” now, sexist.

[Private Chipperbot]

Heather wasn’t afraid to show her kit. Win by default?

[Zeb]

I have no complaints about her performance as Roller Girl.

[Florida Hipster]

Then Sasha Grey is the greatest know actor.

[socially signaling]

Heather Graham in her prime.. yowza.

Hell, Heather Graham today, still yowza.

[Zeb]

So, they’re getting rid of separate gender categories for the Oscars, etc?

[UnCivilServant]

But then the women wouldn’t win half the awards! The collective would throw a fit.

[Florida Hipster]

They should, but they won’t. Also, I post these social tidbits so you won’t embarrass yourself at the next cocktail party, Zeb.

[Zeb]

What’s the point of drinking if you can’t embarrass yourself?

[Florida Hipster]

That’s the duty of the women. You should wear a smart suit and be terrible sorry for your lush of a wife. Do you even WASP, bro?

[Zeb]

My wife doesn’t drink, which throws the whole thing off.

[Monty Crisco]

DUDE!!!! Mena FUCKING Suvari…..

Also, Natalie Portman in the Star Wars prequels….

[DJF]

Everyone in the prequels including the CGI ones

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

They were ALL CGI!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Okay, you cannot blame the actors in those movies. I contend that no one could have pulled off that dialogue.

[JR Robble Dobbs]

Bad director and Bad dialogue, you’re right. But there are brilliant directors, like Joel and Ethan Coen that make John Goodman look Shakespearean. Now they could have made all that hamfisted mess sound like prose.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Whedon is also good at that.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Whedon is also good at that

No, the only thing Whedon’s proficient at is making 30-50 year-olds sound like a clique of passive-aggressive 15-year-old girls.

[Florida Hipster]

I like John Goodman. He seems like a good dude.

[JR Robble Dobbs]

Don’t get me wrong, I like him too! But depending on the director his performance can be all over the play, King Ralph? Am I right?

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

He was great in Lebowski. Loved him in Roseanne. Monsters Inc. was the only Pixar movie I have enjoyed. He was super in Argo. So-so in Evan Almighty, but fit the part well. O, Brother, Where Art Though? – great.

Safe to say I think Goodman is top-notch.

[Florida Hipster]

Portman gets a pass for “The professional”.

[AnonCowHerd]

^ +1

[commodious rebrands]

+12, perv.

[DenverJ]

Would

[Not a True MJG]

Graham can be funny.

MacDowell’s daughter is pretty good, though there might be a reason she was kinda sidelined in The Leftovers.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Her performance was completely serviceable in that movie.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

She was better than Karen Allen’s character in Scrooged.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Karen Allen’s acting in that movie was extremely adequate for the role.

[Zeb]

There is always a worse actress.

[Rhywun]

Ahem… Ione Skye.

*drops mic*

[Monty Crisco]

Get the fuck outta Dodge, dude – she was perfectly fine in the only film anyone ever saw her in, which was “Say Anything”…

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Ione Skye was perfect in “The Rachel Papers” Full frontal, outrageous sex scenes.

The movie was barely serviceable.

[commodious rebrands]

…just what were you getting serviced?

[Chipwooder]

She was OK in River’s Edge

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Oh definitely the worst. The worst by far.

-Tara Reid

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

She was pretty good in Log Jammers.

They fixed the cable.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Gimmie a break…the worst

[Florida Hipster]

I have fond memories of “Multiplicity” so I might have a blind spot for McDowell. I’m not saying she is good, but worst…eh.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

“She touched my pepe, Steve.”

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Graham Norton, on the other hand…

[Slammer]

Hollywood is 95% good looking people who can memorize shit.

If they fuck up a line, they stop filming and then re-shoot. It’s the easiest job in the world for beautiful idiots.

[Monty Crisco]

I like the cut of your gib, sir. Also I would like to subscribe to your newsletter…

[Zeb]

Hollywood is 95% good looking people who can memorize shit.

Well, memorize shit and recite it in a more or less convincing way. If it was just memorizing shit, then some Rain Man type idiot savant would be the best actor in the world.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Are you saying that Tom Cruise is not some Rain Man type idiot savant?

[Zeb]

Are you saying that Tom Cruise is the best actor in the world?

[Tybus]

Yes. But not necessarily on film.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

C’mon. That ‘taking with the dolphins’ scene in Hudson Hawk is gold.

[Zero Sum Game]

Yep, she’s a pretty good dolphin.

[Monty Crisco]

My message to the pants-shitting msm, regarding the past 8 years:

Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet r?gime, or any other r?gime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.
-George Orwell

[Tejicano]

Hey, that goes a little too far. I’ve known some whores who did retain a good level of humanity. No need to besmirch the qualities they managed to retain by comparing them to journalists.

[Monty Crisco]

*hangs head*…..

You’re right. My bad. Whores actually have some redeeming qualities…

[Glide]

A whore can sometimes make you feed good about yourself.

A journalist is only ever going to make you feel worse about someone else.

[DJF]

UK wins the lottery and gets to pay 500,000 pounds medical bill for Nigerian Woman who was not allowed into the US and on the flight home stopped off in Britain and dropped her load

This was under the good Obama administration so who knows how the evil Trump admin will handle the next case

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/hea…..lets.html.

Reason writers are heartbroken because under their “broken window” theory of immigration. the more immigrants the better everything is because not only is it FREEDOM but a boost to the economy. Just think how that 500,000 pound bill will boost British GDP.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Open borders or a welfare state. Pick one.

I used to be wondering which Reason writer was going to be the next to continue in the grand Weigelan tradition of padding their resume and wallet before jumping ship to a “respectable” JournoList publication, with access to apparently much more fabulous cocktail parties, now it seems like the whole shebang ending up as a Vox subsidiary is what they’re going for.

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Balko went to HuffPo and then on to WaPo. And he’s gone full shit-flinging leftist against everything Trump has done, is doing and might possibly do in the future.
Hell, of his last 100 entries on his twitter feed, he has about 98 bitching about Trump, one that’s a hit a beer commercial (and the impending backlash) and one is about a teacher who does elaborate handshakes with his students (a retweet).
And the fucker didn’t even have the courtesy to email me back and say to fuck off when I asked if he could help out with my mom’s police beatdown. Because, you know, I never sent him a lead in my whole life.

[HaiI Rataxes]

The part of your story that sounds like bullshit is getting in the ref’s face when she was giving the kid first aid.

The two are completely incompatible and mutually exclusive.

And since getting in the ref’s face is what got her slammed, she can blame herself for not focusing on what’s important.

Of course, if she wasn’t an attention whore, she wouldn’t have gottent involved in the first.

“Hey look I get to play hero!!!”

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

Do not feed.

[deepspeed]

“Of course, if she wasn’t an attention whore, she wouldn’t have gottent involved in the first.”

The troll doth project too much, methinks.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

DO NOT FEED

[deepspeed]

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I concede.

[HaiI Rataxes]

You both want to avoid the truth of my comment.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Hi Mary!

[HaiI Rataxes]

Kike gonna cry?

Die in an oven kike.

[Florida Hipster]

+6 million.

Wait… that’s not how the plus thing works. Sorry

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Yeah. Besides, wouldn’t it be -6 million anyway?
-pedant

[Zeb]

Did something get deleted here?

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Yeah………I’m gonna walk away from it.

[HaiI Rataxes]

if your mom had done that she wouldn’t have gotten slammed

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Still walking away.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Like your mom would have been if she wasn’t a whore for attention.

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

::whistles past the troll::

[HaiI Rataxes]

I’m sexy I know.

What does that have to do with your mom being an idiot attention whore.

I can hear her befuddled screeching as she was correctly and righteously slammed.

“But, I’m a nurrrrrrrrse!!! I pretend that I’m in charge no matter whaaaaaaaaaa *boom* ow my face”

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

^^This is why we need the reasonable plugin for Safari, dammit!^^

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Thanks, Reason. You don’t need that shit polluting your comments section.

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

Hail is gone? Yay! I don’t block anyone but that one was really close.

[HaiI Rataxes]

“Oh I can’t feel my face cuz I got slammed

And I deserved it

I deserved it”

/sloopysmom

[HaiI Rataxes]

“Hail is gone? ”

Yup gone as fuck.

Cry more now.

[HaiI Rataxes]

“Thanks, Reason. You don’t need that shit polluting your comments section.”

keep walking

Oh wait, you learned from your mom you can’t walk away either

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Hi Mary!

[HaiI Rataxes]

Hi person who is obviously upset.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Oh Mary, you so crazy.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Oh, whiny baby, you so easy to upset.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Oh projecting Mary, you so easy to goad.

[HaiI Rataxes]

“Oh, I can’t feel my face cuz I got slammed

And I deserved it..

I deserved it”

/sloopysmom

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It’s a damned shame. Balko used to be quite good, despite not being a doctrinaire (or, alternatively, principled) libertarian. Unfortunately, not all have been blessed and cursed by nature to not give a shit about peer group approval, even after the millionth time somebody attempted to browbeat them with “you just want the poor and old to die in the streets if you don’t support socialized medicine”-type arguments.

I’m assuming something of that nature happened because I’ve seen it repeatedly. Like I keep saying, I hope the cocktail parties and “access” to MSNBC/etc. are worth it, you chucklefucks.

[Zero Sum Game]

“you just want the poor and old to die in the streets if you don’t support socialized medicine”

To which the only correct answer is:

What roads? There won’t be any if the state doesn’t build them.

[dan'o en barrel]

In my quiet mountain town, a natural gas company decided to pave over and maintain what was a dirt road because it was in their interest. Now I (and others in my neighborhood) have a faster route to the freeway.

[dan'o en barrel]

In my quiet mountain town, a natural gas company decided to pave over and maintain what was a dirt road because it was in their interest. Now I (and others in my neighborhood) have a faster route to the freeway.

[dan'o en barrel]

In my quiet mountain town, a natural gas company decided to pave over and maintain what was a dirt road because it was in their interest. Now I (and others in my neighborhood) have a faster route to the freeway.

[dan'o en barrel]

In my quiet mountain town, a natural gas company decided to pave over and maintain what was a dirt road because it was in their interest. Now I (and others in my neighborhood) have a faster route to the freeway.

[dan'o en barrel]

They also provided an army of squirrels

[Swiss Servator]

Or at least a squad.

[Threedoor]

Just a fire team. Super secret squirrels are known to travel in packs of four.

[Slumbrew]

Balko: For at least the next four years (in all likelihood), the White House will be occupied by a narcissist with a proclivity for authoritarianism.

Uh, the _next_ four years? Not, at least, the last 8 as well? I feel like the old Balko would have pointed that out as well.

[commodious rebrands]

Is “but ‘Bama” the new “but BOOOOOSH”?

[Stormy Dragon]

So I take it Radley Goldberg is today’s two minute hate?

When everyone you used to respect is suddenly on the other side from you, maybe the explanation is not “everyone except me has gone crazy”.

[commodious rebrands]

What about “Trump’s country now” don’t you understand? We don’t have to listen to you prog cucks anymore. And anyone still hedging their articles is going to get a nasty case of commenter herpes.

[kbolino]

That’s a nice fusion of the appeal to authority and appeal to popularity fallacies. But you’ll need to coin a catchy name for it.

[Azathoth!!]

I REALLY think that everyone should be saying –‘holy fuck, Stormy Dragon’s on my side–I must have missed the turn off.’

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

You know the old saw: “Any organization that isn’t explicitly right-wing eventually becomes left-wing.”

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics:

1. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.
2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.

[Chipwooder]

And, of course, Iowahawk’s lefty playbook:

1)Identify a respected institution
2)Kill it
3)Gut it
4)Wear its carcass as a skin suit while demanding respect

[Drake]

“We Simply Cannot Allow for People to Pour in, Undocumented and Unchecked”

– Barack Obama

[Rufus The Monocled]

That was different! HE EVOLVED!

[Free Society]

So racist.

[Zeb]

Those are some fine looking strawmen.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Cry more, bitch.

[Hail Rataxes]

Hi again

[Zeb]

Reason really needs to switch to a serif font.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

I have a small bit of javascript running in GreaseMonkey that changes the handles to a serif font. If anybody wants it, download here.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

Here’s how to install it in Chrome

[Not a True MJG]

lol “freedom” wtf

[Juice]

Sounds like she was trying out the anchor baby thing.

[commodious rebrands]

‘It’s only money. Money can’t buy life. The last bill I had was ?331,000 but ? even if I worked every day ? I would never earn that much money. My kids are priceless.

Fortunately they were half-off.

…too soon?

[Fist of Etiquette]

… despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.

Sounds like you got your review. “Dumb.”

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

It does seem pretty stupid to actively import foreigners that have already been rejected by Australia.

[straffinrun]

Trump dubs the agreement? I’d prefer to see it with subtitles.

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[straffinrun]

I deserved that. But tell me you wouldn’t love to see Trump dub the greatest political speeches of all time.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

We will never, I’m telling you never, we will never give in…

There will be peace in our time, and it’s gonna be great, the best place you ever seen…

[Monty Crisco]

The only thing we have to fear is ….. NUTTIN’!!!! We ain’t gotta be afraid of NOTHIN’!! Cause I’m gonna get this thing turned around and whip this Jap guy and Hitler guy’s ASSES!!!

[DenverJ]

“ask not what your country (great, great country. The best. Absolutely the greatest) can do for you…”

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

He dubsmashed that agreement, yo.

[ant1sthenes]

Put it in a blurb on the back of the agreement.

[Bee Tagger]

“The GOP’s incredible, shrinking Obamacare repeal.”

It’s the new repeal of roe v wade

[Lee Genes]

Cowards

Rand put a replacement out there last week. I haven’t heard squat about it since. The GOP chickens are ruling the roost.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The president himself, after talking to Obama, went soft on repeal.

[Certified Public Asshat]

He is a great orator after all.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

I did hear some whinging about that from the left, but even they have been atypically muted about this. Curious.

[Drake]

Tow things are obvious:

1. Paul Ryan and that group truly didn’t think Trump was going to win, so they were preparing to feign disappointment and surrender to Hillary. They put literally no thought into what a repeal and replacement would look like despite talking about it for an entire election cycle.

2. They don’t really want to repeal it, they aren’t conservative in the least, they are in fact the new opposition party. A party realignment will probably occur in the next couple of elections.

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

3. They don’t want to repeal it because they don’t want to take ownership of the replacement if it turns out to be unpopular.

Let’s be honest. This is the reason most bad things in Washington stay on the books.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

Bingo. They’re cowards who are more interested in their jobs than doing what’s right.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

And the party that created it has openly said that they will make the party currently in power own anything that happens as a result of changing that.

[ant1sthenes]

Their base should remind them that if they have complete power over Congress and the veto, and yet do nothing to the law, that Obamacare will become Ryancare.

[MikeP2]

Which is why smart politicians would stay the hell out of things best left to the public space.

Getting involved in the healthcare industry was stupid for the republicans and they should have known better. Dems knew exactly what they were doing….creating another ‘third rail’ like SS that is political suicide for the other side to pull back.

[Bill Dalasio]

How the hell do they think they are not going to share ownership of it if they do nothing?

[Monty Crisco]

Of course they’re OBVIOUS – you can see them trailing along right behind the pick-up truck!!!

[chemjeff]

Oh give me a break. Paul Ryan et al. are conservative. They just aren’t knee-jerk populists. They are also politicians who want to keep their jobs and are more cautious than they ought to be, IMO.

You will recall that in 2008, Democrats were not united on what health care reform ought to look like. Oh sure they could all tell you that they wanted single-payer health care in the end. But in the mean time, would there be an individual mandate? public option? etc., etc. It’s not at all surprising that in 2016, Republicans weren’t united on what their version of health care reform ought to look like either. People on the right want instantaneous immediate repeal. That isn’t going to happen and probably isn’t wise either, because if it did, the replacement will probably be some bigger mess that has been rushed through. And yes I know libertarians generally just want to get rid of the whole damn thing and not replace it with anything at all, but neither the public at large nor Republican voters in particular would favor that.

[MikeP2]

“but neither the public at large nor Republican voters in particular would favor that.”

I think that assessment is incorrect. ACA is deeply unpopular with the taxpaying public, particularly those that are seeing their employer funded healthcare cost listed on the W2 now. Prelude to taxation and everyone knows it.

All the Republicans need to do is release some nice charts showing the healthcare cost trend/projection under the existing ACA. the public will be ready to tar and feather the architects of that monstrosity.

[KDN]

Because if there’s one thing voters love it’s charts and graphs. Hence the staggering popularity of Al Gore.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

Then you sunset it two years out and develop a replacement in the meantime.

[Chip Woodier]

I don’t know why an obviously unconstitutional federal program needs to be replaced by another obviously unconstitutional federal program.

[KDN]

Oh give me a break. Paul Ryan et al. are conservative.

You didn’t get the memo. The alt-right and its sympaticos have declared Ryan to be an enemy of the movement and declared that he must be purged for being insufficiently aggressive or something.

The way that the yokels have turned a smart but ordinarily doctrinaire conservative like Ryan into a stalking horse for the total state and the sole responsible party for any setbacks the Republican party encounters is one of the saddest developments in recent politics. It proves that the right wing base is just a funhouse version of the progressive left.

[Drake]

Give me some citations. When has Paul Ryan aggressively tried to cut spending? When did he fight to eliminate an unnecessary government program?

[Robert]

2. No, they are conservative, for real, and the ACA’s part of the status quo they want to preserve.

[ant1sthenes]

Otherwise, someone’s grandma might die, and we’d never hear the end of it (even if they died a week before the repeal was passed).

[Just a thought not a sermon]

284) I have mentioned in the past the Washington Post’s penchant for putting every instance of racist or Nazi graffiti spray painted in the area on the front page of its Metro section, as if it’s evidence of a vast racist conspiracy lurking just under the surface of our seemingly tolerant society, rather than a teen-age prank. But now, the perpetrators of one of these serious, frightening crimes have been apprehended, in the case of a historical black schoolhouse that was vandalized.

So, they must be deranged Trump voters bent on instilling fear in local minorities, right? Or maybe alt-right activists taking the first steps to purifying the homeland?

No, just some local teens, “motivated more by teenage naivete than by racial hatred? three of the [five] boys are minorities themselves.”

Kudos to the judge, by the way, for his eminently reasonable punishment: assigning the boys to read books from a list of black and Jewish authors and write an essay on them, as well as interviewing a former student at the school they defaced.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

But, they must have done it because of Trump’s rhetoric.

[John Titor]

Rueda’s reading list includes “The Beautiful Struggle,” the memoir of Ta-Nehisi Coates; and “Night,” Elie Wiesel’s searing account of Auschwitz. She also included two works by Afghan author Khaled Hosseini

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…

[Monty Crisco]

STOP BEING RACIST ABOUT MITT ROMNEY’S FAMILY PHOTO!!!!

[Citizen X - #6]

Yeah, they’re all fictional except Night.

[John Titor]

Least Hosseini is open about his being fiction, and his experiences as a Afghani refugee being “I got out with no problems, and man does it suck there now.”

[Monty Crisco]

Comment go BOOM!!!!!

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

JATNAS, FWIW I think you might actually have been on H*hn’s list of top fascist commenters. That third entry, the one beginning with “j” which nobody recognized as a handle of anyone here, may have been meant for you.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I knew if I just kept having my thoughts, and numbering them, that someday I would make a difference in someone’s life.

[Monty Crisco]

lmfao

[American Memer]

*stands up and applauds with tears in eyes*

[Citizen X - #6]

I don’t think so. “JATNAS” barely looks anything like “jubistar.”

Then again, Hihn is insane.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Yeah, I don’t know why I care so much about this.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Because you finally matter to someone.

[straffinrun]

You’re up there with some of the biggest cunts I’ve seen online.

[Free Society]

Easily.

[Free Society]

uhhhh seems like Hail Retaxes comments got deleted somehow? Makes it look like Straffinrun is calling Tonio a cunt, which I don’t recall being the case.

[straffinrun]

I was drunk. High on meth. There was an earthquake. I didn’t mean it.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

No worries. I’ve been called worse by better. 😛

[Free Society]

Also, I agreed with straffinrun about the person’s cuntiness, so I felt the need to point out that I’m not calling you a cunt either.

[Hail Rataxes]

Serifs, how the fuck do they work.

[commodious rebrands]

There’s less white space than before, but now the comment margins are wonky.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Well, he wouldn’t be wrong.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Truth hurts I see.

[Red Rocks Dickin Bimbos]

Hi Mary!

[SugarFree]

Awww…. trolly go bye-bye.

[straffinrun]

It’s like when I go to a gay bar and don’t get hit on. Gotta say that it hurts a little regardless.

[HaiI Rataxes]

Thanks for admitting I was right.

[MikeP2]

“Kudos to the judge, by the way, for his eminently reasonable punishment”

Nonsense. That is proggy crap that the judiciary has no business enforcing on those kids. A “reasonable” punishment would have been requiring them to pay for the remediation.

[Robert]

Agreed.

[Robert]

Kudos to the judge, by the way, for his eminently reasonable punishment: assigning the boys to read books from a list of black and Jewish authors and write an essay on them, as well as interviewing a former student at the school they defaced.

What good’s any of that supposed to do? Did the judge think they were graffiting those messages out of ignorance? Obviously they knew they would upset people, so what good does it do to try to explain to them how they would upset people? If I were one of them, I’d think, “Great! This shows I struck a nerve!”

A friend of mine told me how he & some activists he was associated with graffited a Boston neighborhood as an outsider at night with “Niggers out!” messages. The object was to make the locals think their neighbors had created the messages. The object was not to create a reaction vs. the messages, but to spread the idea that their neighbors had such sentiment, and that therefore it was OK to have &/or express such sentiments.

[UnCivilServant]

Donno if this showed up in the comments yet, but it appears that the subject of yesterday’s emotional pablum died before the ban! So not only were we correct that she would not have made it to the states, she was already dead before there was any possibility of being prevented from coming back.

After the story aired on FOX 2 and was posted on FOX2Detroit.com, we received many questions about the validity of Hager’s claims that his mother died waiting to be approved to come home. FOX 2 has confirmed that his mother died five days earlier.

According to Al-Hussainy, Hager’s mother had kidney disease and was receiving treatment in Michigan – where she lived – before traveling to Iraq to visit family. The Imam said she passed away on January 22, 2017, five days before President Trump instituted the travel ban.

“That’s true. The 22nd of January, his mom died,” Al-Hussainy said. “She did die but that was a couple weeks ago – before the ban.”

Al-Hussainy says Hager contacted him on January 19th to tell him his mother was very sick with kidney disease and he was going to Iraq to be with her. She died there on January 22nd and another mosque in the Detroit area here even held a prayer service in her honor.

Personally, I think that makes reason‘s publishing of an emotive argument based upon it even worse.

Also, dude, way to disrespect your mother.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

::sad trombone::

[Just a thought not a sermon]

premature expiration

[BigT]

The immigrant ban doesn’t exclude corpses from coming here. Duh!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Was he trying to get his mother to Cleveland? Because he really let her down on last time.

[Tejicano]

You see! Trump is so evil that he even causes people to die retroactively! Pure evil!

[Free Society]

I don’t care what the facts have got to say. TRUMP KILLED GRANDMA

[Florida Hipster]

This was my complaint. If you want to criticize a policy, do it with rational arguments, not appeals to emotion. Had the criticism been based on logic or principles it wouldn’t matter if the story was fake.

[ant1sthenes]

Look, Reason is all about caring about people’s grandmas, except for the grandmas of people that they use for fundraising.

[Free Society]

zing

[chemjeff]

Oh good, there’s the Reason article mentioning Trump. I was a bit concerned that there wouldn’t be one today.

[BigT]

Remember that day in the past 8 years that Obama wasn’t mentioned? Neither do I.

[John DeWitt]

October 3, 2014. Everything was about EBOLA!!!!

[BigT]

Oh, the other plague!

[Bee Tagger]

British Prime Minister Theresa May has released a 77-page Brexit plan.

Just a reminder that the Br stands for British not Brief

[Fist of Etiquette]

Uh, considering the complexity of the disentanglement, I’d say that is brief. (I don’t know why Tonio isn’t here to scold you.)

[Bee Tagger]

Aw c’mon, don’t get your briefs in a bunch

[Fist of Etiquette]

What am I? Twelve? Boxers.

[John DeWitt]

Boxer briefs then? Because the one thing I hate about loose fitting boxers is how they bunch up.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

Boxer briefs FTW.

[Fist of Etiquette]

No. I need to swing free.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

“Present.”

[robc]

All connections to the EU are null and void.

I did it in one line.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

Mitch McConnell’s plan was 12,342 pages long.

Nancy Pelosi’s is 77,254.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Rex Tillerson has been confirmed as secretary of state after a vote of 56-43 by the U.S. Senate.

Saving their no votes for DeVos?

[Citizen X - #6]

Probably.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

Sure, but Sessions will sail right on through.

[straffinrun]

Time to Crack That Whip.

[Chinny Chin Chin]

ugh

[Drake]

I hope they reject DeVos. Then in a fit of rage, trump takes personal control of the Department of Education and fires every last employee.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Someone on here yesterday said that Michelle Rhee was also on the short list, and would probably be the backup nominee. That will outrage progs almost as much as the DeVos nomination, but I can’t recall the senate ever rejecting two successive nominees for a cabinet post. Maybe DeVos was a stalking horse and the deep strategy was to use her to get Rhee in.

[John DeWitt]

My favorite line of hers:

“I have appreciated the opportunity to share my thoughts on education with the PEOTUS,” Rhee’s message said, using an acronym for President-elect of the United States. “Interestingly many colleagues warned me against doing so. They are wrong. Mr. Trump won the election. Our job as Americans is to want him to succeed. Wishing for his failure would be wanting the failure of our millions of American children who desperately need a better education.”

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Rhee earned her stripes as the school tzar in DC, which is a one-party state. They seemed to like her enough back then (though there was some opposition to her, but not enough to scuttle her)

[Jerryskids]

Apparently there are still three Democrat dinosaurs who still seem to think the President is entitled to have whoever he wants in his cabinet, whose thinking hasn’t “evolved” since back in the long-ago ancient times when Barack Obama was the President in question due deference in the matter until more recent modern times when Donald Trump is the President in question.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

“Australia’s prime minister insisted Thursday that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.”

Say what you will about the blowhard, but the brash dismissive reaction is hilarious.

[Private Chipperbot]

That actually does sound like a dumb idea. If they aren’t good enough for Oz, why the hell would we take them?

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Because feelz, I guess.

[invisible furry hand]

The reason we’ve rejected them is not because we think they’re a threat, and you need to understand some background to truly comprehend how dumb this deal was.

We have a pretty generous refugee intake per capita. We like to run it in an orderly fashion, with applicants coming via certain channels overseas. These guys paid people smugglers for a long boat ride from Indonesia. The boats are shitty, and when they get into distress we then have to mount sea rescues, and some die. If they survive, these irregular boat arrivals, as government here terms them, jump the queue.

To take the honey off the table, we pay our impoverished neighbours to take them into offshore processing centres, and also say that even if they are legitimate refugees they will never be resettled in our comfy first world welfare state. Generally they get resettled in our impoverished neighbours.

This has generally been successful in stopping the boats, but of course there is a backlog of legit refugees to be settled, and our neighbours have taken as many as they can. So where can these guys go, given that we don’t want to reward them by letting them come to Australia? Why, we strike a deal to send them to the US, which puts the honey right back on the table.

[UnCivilServant]

Burn the boats, drop the people back off wherever they set sail from. Give no aid. They will stop coming.

[invisible furry hand]

Actually we turn back boats if they’re close enough to Indonesia to do it safely, and burn boats of people smugglers. But if they’re in open waters and in distress we have a duty to rescue them under international treaties, and also to process refugee claims.

Facts and figures here

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

Furry,
You should try siccing Dingoes on them next. At least the babies.

[invisible furry hand]

our top scientists are trying to fit teeny-tiny floaties onto them so they can patrol our seas

[Free Society]

Have the coast guard fire a couple shots across the bow. Maybe one or two migrants take a hit, then two thousand more don’t drown in the next few years. But defending one’s sovereignty takes balls that are sorely lacking the western countries of late.

[invisible furry hand]

Thanks for the free advice, but our measures actually have stopped the boats. The people in question arrived before we got all tough.

[Free Society]

I was just assuming the honey was put back on the table.

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

This is one of those euphemisms I keep hearing about, right?

[Unreconstructed (Sans Flag)]

This is one of those euphemisms I keep hearing about, right?

[BigT]

It takes two to disentangle.

[John Titor]

Are you ready for fifteen more articles about the refugee executive order that say the same bloody thing? I am!

[Monty Crisco]

OH, THE HUMANITY!!!!!

[John Titor]

In hindsight it was a bad idea to transport refugees via dirigible.

[Swiss Servator]

ZEPPELIN!!!

[Just a thought not a sermon]

*plays Jimmy Page guitar solo from Heartbreaker*

[John Titor]

All zeppelins are dirigibles, but not all dirigibles are zeppelins.

/Pedant

[Swiss Servator]

“It’s not a balloon, its an airship”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQyrd1BwusQ

[DJF]

Reason will move on and have a dozen articles arguing that the US should take in Muslim refugees that were rejected by Austraila.

[Zeb]

I’m ready for an article about Sloopy’s mom.

[Rufus The Monocled]

What I find most unbecoming is there are no shortage of police abuse articles at Reason but somehow they draw the line at this one?

[Zeb]

Yeah, I don’t get it.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

And it’s a perfect illustration of the “it can’t possibly happen to me” problem. We have an older white lady with a professional background, and she, too, is subject to police brutality.

[John Titor]

Well let’s check the board!

Show me Police Abuse Story About Sloopy’s Mom!

*BUZZ*

Oh, sorry there Zeb, not on the board, well let’s see what was!

Campus idiocy, refugee articles, Stossel not retiring, Chapman being dishonest, and Dalmia trying to hide her thinly veiled hated of white people.

Better luck next time!

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

While I think that Reason over-covers the campus beat the Berkely incident merits notice because it was an actual violent protest against free speech.

[Monty Crisco]

Doesn’t have to be either/ or….

[Zeb]

I like the campus beat. It allows me good practice at being an angry old man utterly baffled by the kids today who just can’t stay off my goddamned lawn.

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

+1″get off my lawn” always wakes up my aging red blood cells

[Swiss Servator]

*joins Zeb in yelling at cloud*

[Lord Rollingpin]

Let me fix that for you:

Refugee articles, Campus idiocy, refugee articles, Stossel not retiring, refugee articles, Chapman being dishonest, refugee articles, Dalmia trying to hide her thinly veiled hated of white people and refugee articles.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

I’m not, so that balances out.

[Cynical Asshole]

Yeah, has anyone actually linked to an article about it? And has anyone actually, I don’t know, maybe tried emailing the reason editors the story? Or is everyone on board with just whinging about an unconfrimed* story in the comments section and using reason’s lack of coverage of said unconfirmed story as proof positive that they’re a bunch KOZMO CUCK FAGGITZ.

I mean, if someone has posted a link and sent it to the editors and they ignored it in favor of more Trump outrage porn, then fine, whinge away, but all I see a bunch of whining and bitching about an unverified story.

*Maybe someone posted a link in a thread yesterday, I don’t read every comment thread afterall, so apologies if the story is confirmed. I’m not trying to a dick and if Sloopy’s mom really was beaten up by cops then my sympathy goes out to them both and I hope she can get a good lawyer and sue the living shit out of them.

[John Titor]

I believe multiple people have contacted them about it.

[Zeb]

Yes, a bunch of people have been emailing Reason editors directly with plenty of info about the incident.

[Cynical Asshole]

Very well then, I guess they really are a bunch of cosmo fagz.

[Zeb]

One must remember that what the blog commenters care about may not be the most important thing in the world to the editors.

But this at least warrants a brickbat, I would think. It’s not like people are demanding a full article in the magazine. A blog post would take someone about 10 minutes. Maybe they really do hate us.

[commodious rebrands]

Maybe?

Welch gave a shout out on TFC, basically: JFC people, we’re libertarians, of course we oppose what the president does.

[Riven]

Shouldn’t have been surprised to read this comment and think, “Wow, what a cynical asshole. Who posted this? … Oh.”

[Cynical Asshole]

I do tend to live up to my screen name.

Apparently it was posted about in last night’s PM Links (which I didn’t hang around for), and others have pointed out that several folks have contacted Reason about it and they chose not to cover it (yet some guy in Canada gets a bogus fine and that warrants a Brickbat). Pretty shitty of Reason’s editors. Maybe if the cops had beaten her to death they’d run a blurb about it.

So, like I said, wasn’t try to be a dick, I just tend to take unsubstantiated comments/ claims with a grain of salt until I see some proof.

[Riven]

Maybe in the future you’ll do a little research in the form of simply asking a question or two instead of being some kind of 100% asshole right out of the gate.

You might get better results, and people won’t have a first impression of you being a complete dick.

Because from now on, anytime I see your name, I’m going to think of that post…and what a fucking cunt you were.

There’s taking something with a grain of salt and then there’s what you did. You may not have been trying to be a prick, but you certainly achieved it and then some.

[Cynical Asshole]

I realize that by now this thread is dead, and I’m probably going to come off like an unhihnged Micheal Hihn type, but I have to get this off my chest:

Maybe in the future you’ll do a little research in the form of simply asking a question or two…

I thought I was doing just that. I guess I thought maybe I was being funny, but I guess I’m just not. On some level I realized that what I was saying could come off as dickish, which is why I included the aside stating as such, but again, I didn’t think it was that bad. I mean, it’s not like I called anyone a fucking cunt…

…from now on, anytime I see your name, I’m going to think of that post…and what a fucking cunt you were.

I really, honestly, don’t see how what I said was any worse than 90% of the rest of the crap that gets spewed out on these comment threads on a daily basis. I really mean that. Maybe I’m just some kind of undiagnosed Aspie or some other kind of (semi) high functioning autistic. Or maybe I’m just a socially inept douchebag. I honestly don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. I wish I did, maybe then I could be a better person and not such a “fucking cunt.” Maybe I’m just a useless, broken person and total piece of shit. In all likelihood even my “friends” probably secretly hate my guts. I honestly don’t know.

[invisible furry hand]

Hey CA

Just my opinion… the reaction is both to what you said, and how you said it. Yes, we’re frequently brutal about stories or claims made by strangers. But sloopy is a long-term commenter. He does not have a rep as a liar or a scoundrel. If he isn’t a friend, he’s at least not a stranger, and has not given us reason to doubt him in the past. Different rules of engagement apply – when one is dealing with someone one sorta knows, the standard might be more “trust and verify”. And since people find being doubted a bit confronting, a more polite tone takes some of the edge off and stops them from being defensive.

Now let’s add in the story he tells. Others believe him because they have no reason not to. On top of that, they have a visceral reaction to the idea that an older lady was beaten and arrested in those circumstances, and also to Reason’s silence.

So not only is he someone who might generally deserve the benefit of the doubt, but here he’s reporting something that people have a bit more of an emotional reaction to.

[invisible furry hand]

You then say “all I see a bunch of whining and bitching about an unverified story”, it appears to others that:

* you’re assuming sloopy can’t be trusted and is lying about his mother’s being assaulted, which is a dick move (an assumption they think is unfounded) – or that they are propagating bullshit themselves
* you think our reactions are stupid and irrational, and/or don’t feel you need to be polite – which to irate people is just going to piss them off
* you don’t have all the facts, can’t be arsed discovering them, but don’t think that should stop you from commenting.

So even though you ended with your hopes for justice if it were true, everything before it was interpreted as aggressive, inflammatory, rude and dismissive. And yeah, many of us do that all the time, but not to or about someone we kinda know who is talking about something sensitive and upsetting.

BTW, I don’t think you’re a useless, broken person and total piece of shit. You just read the mood wrongly. And we all have done that at some point – that’s how we learn the rules of social engagement. Hope this helps.

[commodious rebrands]

Why are you being so cunty, ifh?

[invisible furry hand]

For the lulz.

I took pity on someone who seemed to have fucked up, and explained to him why what he said pissed people off. If that is cunty…

[commodious rebrands]

Now I feel cunty.

[invisible furry hand]

As long as its owner has given you permission, then you can feel cunty all day

[Slumbrew]

Obligatory

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

You should see the letters and flowers from team members and parents who were in the stands, as well as the comments from witnesses that the local news site deleted. I have. Reason could if they made the effort.

[Zeb]

Oh, is that why I couldn’t find the article where Ken was commenting. That’s pretty shitty.

Do you know of any news reports besides this one: http://www.jaspersuntimes.com/…..upt-finish ?

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

Nope. That’s what makes it easy to keep this buried, there’s only local coverage and the news reporter has her tongue firmly planted on the anuses of the local PD. Small towns can be quite insular and corrupt.

[Free Society]

The comments were more informative than the article….

[Riven]

So… just like Reason?

[DEG: sloopy's mom story soon?]

Yeah, has anyone actually linked to an article about it? And has anyone actually, I don’t know, maybe tried emailing the reason editors the story?

I e-mail links to the story to KMW.

[BakedPenguin]

Yes, there were links to a couple published stories. Sloopy then pointed out that writing was lazy – the guy just took down what the cop(s) said. However, there were over 200 witnesses who saw the cop attack his mom.

[Riven]

Sign me up, too, Zeb.

[DEG: sloopy's mom story soon?]

Likewise

[Monty Crisco]

That article with the picture of McConnell…. Jesus, that dude looks like a frog’s penis!!! WTF?!?!?

[Just a thought not a sermon]

What’s green, elderly, and no good if you tear it in half?

[straffinrun]

The US dollar?

[UnCivilServant]

Yoda?

[BigT]

US currency, of course, except that it’s no good even if you don’t tear it in half.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

Kermit’s middle finger?

Oh wait, wrong riddle. Never mind.

[That's A Bingo!]

“The GOP’s incredible, shrinking Obamacare repeal.”

If your repeal last longer than four hours, call the media.

[Citizen X - #6]

If you like your repeal, you can keep your repeal.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

People didn’t like the new Obamacare policy, it didn’t have enough repeal.

[straffinrun]

It was a pre existing condition.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

Personally, I think it’s awesome that the GOP was against the very idea of government sponsored health insurance until it became their turn to run it.

[Bee Tagger]

Rex Tillerson has been confirmed as secretary of state after a vote of 56-43 by the U.S. Senate.

Did this happen late at night? Was it surprising? Don’t answer, just let me have this: Rexy’s Midnight Stunners

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Menendez and Heitkamp crossed party lines.

[Mike Schmidt]

Heitkamp already came out saying she’d vote against DeVos, so this is her trying to save her ass. In fact, Betsy might be the only one she votes against. She’s up for reelection next year in a VERY red state.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

School choice seems to be a dumb hill to die on. I don’t get it.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It’s all about that captive pubsec teacher voting bloc.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

[ant1sthenes]

The commidrassas are -the- hill to die on.

[Robert]

I especially don’t get it when what does the US gov’t have to do w public school choice? Justt symbolic?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Cum on Heidi…

/Rexy’s Midnight Stunners

[Monty Crisco]

*Stands to applaud*

[DJF]

“””a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States “””

I expect to see at least a dozen stories today at Reason which argue that taking in Muslim refugees that were rejected by Australia is all about Freedom and will boost the US economy and society

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

All immigrants are a net asset, this is known.

[Free Society]

Always, everyone, everywhere, and anytime they are a gain for society.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Inmates at Delaware’s largest prison continue to hold correctional workers and fellow inmates hostage after seizing control of a prison block on Wednesday.

Situation ended a couple hours ago.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

ATTICA ATTICA ATTICA

[UnCivilServant]

Attica, home of the only supreme court case on the 3rd amendment.

[Swiss Servator]

GATTACA?

[Florida Hipster]

I have some urine and blood if you’re in the market…

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Situation ended a couple hours ago.

Then I’ll eagerly await the Reason piece next Monday on how Trump is still starving out the “prisoners rights protesters.”

[Bee Tagger]

despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.”

Maybe we can make a deal with him where he can call anything and everything dumb and we’ll all nod our heads and say “so true” but he’s not allowed to do anything about it.

[DJF]

So you are saying the US should take in Muslim refugees that were rejected by Australia?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Bust a deal, face the wheel. We’re talking about Down Under, you know.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

WHO RUNS REFUGEETOWN?

[Private Chipperbot]

Who runs Trumptown?

[Private Chipperbot]

Dammit, Lee!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Well, ain’t you a pair.

[Bee Tagger]

Oh, I go to great lengths to never say anything.

[SugarFree]

“Have you heard about this groundhog?” Donald asked the crowd of careful chosen people. “Have you heard about this dirtpig that thinks he controls the weather? Supposedly saw the shadow of a black guy and got all scared. I don’t know.”

The crowd laughed dutifully as the applause sign blinked overhead. The hair squirmed around so much he was afraid Donald would clamp his hand down.

“This giant rat thinks he controls the weather. The wea-a-thur. I don’t think so. America controls the weather. I control the weather. Elections have consequences, rodents.”

Kellyanne stood beside him, ramrod straight, her slack face sliding downward like her deflated breasts. She stifled a sigh and peed just a little. Her pelvic floor was a horrid ruin.

“It’s Black History Month and I don’t think Pugilnastion Phil or whatever his name his should be saying that black people scare him. The inner cities are horrible places. Humans can barely live there. And we have Iran firing in-ter-con-tin-en-tal ballistic missiles full of weather-controlling groundhogs at black people to send them terrible weather. So much for global warming.”

Behind Donald, a homeless alcoholic from a film noir sway side-to-side and smiled as he watched a heavily-armed drone circle the city. Steve knew that Steve was going to be alright.

[Just a thought not a sermon]

I think you should do more with this Steve character. Maybe give him a love interest.

[Citizen X - #6]

How do you think Kellyanne’s pelvic floor got so messed up?

[Swiss Servator]

*turns green, staggers away from keyboard*

[Citizen X - #6]

Wonderful.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

a homeless alcoholic from a film noir

No comment.

[Swiss Servator]

Her pelvic floor was a horrid ruin.

*shudders*

[Mr Drew]

She stifled a sigh and peed just a little. Her pelvic floor was a horrid ruin.

I don’t know how you do it. There is always some seemingly small line that will haunt me for days.

[Swiss Servator]

Ah, you are now part of the club!

*1000 yard stare*

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Kellyanne stood beside him, ramrod straight, her slack face sliding downward like her deflated breasts. She stifled a sigh and peed just a little. Her pelvic floor was a horrid ruin.

Just…fantastic.

[invisible furry hand]

bravo

[jack sprat]

*Applause

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

I peed a little. *stands to applaud while trying to hide wet spot*

[Azathoth!!]

Shub-nigguraths’ tits– that was a disjointed mess.

It doesn’t further the horror, it doesn’t extend the narrative

and this–

Behind Donald, a homeless alcoholic from a film noir sway side-to-side and smiled as he watched a heavily-armed drone circle the city. Steve knew that Steve was going to be alright.

What the hell does this even mean? Were you having a seizure while writing it?

I expect a keyboard covered in vomit and blood when these things are posted.

I barely burped.

[Monty Crisco]

“The popular progressive understanding of the Republican party and conservative movement is something like this: It is, at heart, a conspiracy of corporate oligarchs who use a collection of so-called social issues ? religion, bigotry, racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment ? to stir up the rubes in support of its own parochial economic agenda, tricking them into “voting against their own interests” in the popular progressive phrase. Wall Street guys pulling the strings and writing the checks, foot-washing snake-handlers manning the barricades.”

Gotta admit – THAT IS ACCURATE!!

[Zeb]

Yes, that does describe the popular progressive understanding quite well.

Actually it’s not a completely inaccurate description of either party.

[colorblindkid]

Well it looks like the Senate might sink DeVos and approve Sessions. Retards.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

This is why I fucking hate politics. Cop-sucking racist shitbag: cool. Innocuous woman who believes parents should be able to choose their children’s schools: not cool.

[Mr Drew]

^^^ Amen sister.

[Swiss Servator]

Cop-sucker, to be sure. Racist? I thought that had quite thoroughly been debunked?

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Stupid mythspropaganda dies hard. Like Bruce Willis.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

The way he’s supported and prosecuted the drug war, calling for the death penalty for repeat “offenders”? The WoD is rooted in racism. You know, all those brown guys seducing pristine white women, etc.?

Anyone who supports and defends the war on drugs is a racist. It has obviously and disproportionately affected black and brown folks. Ehrlichman literally said the Nixon push for more drug war was race-based.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Pretty much. I don’t get the impression that most of the people screeching allegations of racism about Sessions had that in mind. There’s little focus on the WoD angle, as usually.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

Facebook told me they are all the devil.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

They still need two more GOP defections since Pence would cast the tiebreaker. I’m amazed at how much is being made of DeVos given how utterly useless and unimportant the Department of Education is. It’s not like she’s being nominated to run something crucial like State or DoD.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Public education is the American religion, and she is a heretic. It’s pretty simple actually. They want to stifle any one who wants school choice to be mainstream.

[John DeWitt]

I think just one. The two Senators from Alaska are saying they won’t vote for her, alluding that they’ll vote against her. That makes it 50-50, giving Pence the option to break the tie.

[TheZenomeProject]

I think that one of the Alaskan senators, Dan Sullivan, will vote for DeVos. Only the 2nd Alaska senator, Murkowski, won’t vote for her, along with a well-known Maine RINO Susan Collins.

[Free Society]

“Australia’s prime minister insisted Thursday that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.”

These migrants are such good folk that they got rejected by a former penal colony.

[Free Society]

“Australia’s prime minister insisted Thursday that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.”

These migrants are such good folk that they got rejected by a former penal colony.

[straffinrun]

Anchor baby squirrel.

[Swiss Servator]

*stands, applauds, awards Order of the Golden Acorn*

[Free Society]

I think the commentariat is overdue in having our own meritorious order of knighthood.

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

I dubs it “Free Thinker”

[Private Chipperbot]

And the squirrels won’t have them either!

[Juvenile Bluster]

Dear liberal idiots I keep seeing justify the Berkeley riots last night:

You keep saying that Trump is Hitler? If so, why the fuck are you helping him out? The Brownshirts came about ostensibly to protect the party from antifa violence. Don’t fucking help Orange Cheeto Monkey this much.

[ant1sthenes]

That timeline doesn’t really make sense; if the fascist were a reaction, then there wouldn’t be a fa to be anti. They were just anticas at that point. And still are, if we’re being honest.

[Azathoth!!]

The brownshirts and Nazi thug squads formed to attack the pre-Nazi government so that it could be replaced with fascists–the same thing the ‘antifas’ are doing.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Today is Groundhog Day.

This is one of those moments where television really fails to capture the excitement of a giant rodent predicting the weather.

[UnCivilServant]

Maybe this year the mayor of New York City won’t murder the groundhog.

[Drake]

Killing one of those nasty pests is the best thing that guy has ever done.

[Lord Rollingpin]

I’m surprised this didn’t get more attention at the time. I guess the next groundhog will pay its dues.

[Swiss Servator]

I think we should replace the ground hog in PA with the Pizza Rat in NYC.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

You want a prediction about the weather? You’re asking the wrong Phil. I’m going to give you a prediction about this winter? It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be dark and it’s going to last you for the rest of your lives!

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank Pi?a Coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over?

[John DeWitt]

Racist

[Free Society]

Anti-Milo Yiannopoulos Rioters Burn UC Berkeley | True News

The University of California at Berkeley was in flames on Wednesday after violent leftist rioters shut down the finale of Milo Yiannopoulos’s college lecture tour. Innocent supporters of President Donald Trump were assaulted, property was destroyed and free speech disgraced on the infamous site of the 1960’s student Free Speech movement.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

There was a whole late-night article on that here.

[SugarFree]

Not enough, Tonio. There’s a bloody shirt to wave and it’s going to be waved, goddammit.

[Swiss Servator]

Is it a truly fabulous bloody Milo shirt?

[SugarFree]

He’s the ultra-stylish Stella K?bler of the alt-right.

[Slammer]

Milo shirt

[Free Society]

I wasn’t on here last night, too busy banging the wife. I just heard the news this morning.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Fire is speech.

[straffinrun]

I like to criticize a book while some fascist is burning it. It’s called being balanced.

[Free Society]

Fairness doctrine.

[Juice]

Goddamn Citizens United.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

The going theory from the left is that the agitators were agent provocateurs from the alt-right.

[Swiss Servator]

Well, Berkeley is full of Righties…

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

I know, right?

And then there was this from the mayor right before the speech.

Using speech to silence marginalized communities and promote bigotry is unacceptable. Hate speech isn’t welcome in our community.

[Slammer]

Eventual National Guard or Federal troops ain’t gonna be welcome, either

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

In the end it will be feeds cause we know California doesn’t issue real bullets to their guardsmen.

[straffinrun]

Based on nothing more than “Well, duh. It would help him.” These guys are crazier than Alex Jones.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

This is what happens when your only investigative tool is “who benefits?”

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, on Reddit the agents provocateur narrative is literally side-by-side with thousands-upvoted comments calling for violence against the Nazis and “alt-reich” (defined as anyone a hair’s breadth to the right of Pol Pot), and that speech is violence but property destruction and physical maiming and murder of wrongthinkers is not/is moral.

Every time I see that shit I play through the ol’ game of “useful idiot or intentionally intellectually dishonest?” in my head.

[The Grinch]

If it comes to a true leftist vs alt-right bloodletting the left will be absolutely crushed. They need a sober actor to bring them back from the brink but I’m not sure one exists.

[ant1sthenes]

Maybe. That Status 451 made a good argument for why the advantage falls to the left, though. We’ll see.

[Col. Chestbridge]

Reddit has been unbearable lately.

[Swiss Servator]

Lately?

[Free Society]

The going theory from the left is that the agitators were agent provocateurs from the alt-right.

The whole false flag attacks thing, that’s more of the left’s modus operandi, even if we are talking about the alt-right.

[Rufus The Monocled]

So we’re back on the the rhetoric causes violent wagon are we?

When Obama said stupid, sophomoric things that wasn’t seen as inciting or unhelpful.

Nope. It was either ignored or spun otherwise. Besides, how dare you question his wisdom on race relations (i.e. class warfare), right?

[Just Say'n]

http://www.theamericanconserva…..eley-riot/

Here is a link to Rod Dreher’s piece discussing riots at Milo’s speech yesterday. I post this for those who were upset with Robby using SJW ‘to be sures’ throughout his piece. I don’t think there are two people more different than Rod Dreher and ‘the hair’, but even Dreher prefaced his attacks on the rioters by saying that he doesn’t support Milo’s language.

Anyways, give the kid a break. Anyone who is willing to call out these SJW fascists should be applauded

[Juvenile Bluster]

I never get why people are upset when Robby (or anyone else) says that. Hell, it makes me feel better. The epitome of free speech is supposed to be “This person is a fucking idiot but he has the right to say what he says”. Milo is an asshole troll. If people didn’t react like this to him he’d still be a nobody on Twitter.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

I think the issue is more with unsupported assertions that Milo says things that are horrible and out of bounds without ever giving specific examples of this horribleness. Maybe he does say truly horrible things rather than just express an opposing viewpoint, but some evidence would be nice for a change.

[John]

What exactly make Milo so horrible? No one ever seems to explain that. it is one thing not to agree with him. It is quite another to pretend his views are somehow beyond the pale.

[Free Society]

Milo uses icky words like “faggot” and spouts off hate facts. Of course Robby Soave is perfectly justified to inject his virtue signalling at every turn. He can’t just come out and condemn the behavior of the leftist rioters without first signalling his own disapproval of the target of the leftist attacks. Otherwise someone might think Robby is a nazi too!

[kbolino]

Although I don’t engage in much Robby-bashing myself, the problem to me is not the disclaimers but who and what he chooses to insert disclaimers for. I do try to contextualize it with his intended audience (which is very much not the Reason commentariat, for the most part), hence why I don’t get too riled up about it. But to call Robby unbiased or at least neutral on the left-right spectrum would not jive with how he writes.

[straffinrun]

I don’t give a shit what you think I think about Mein Kampf. Don’t fucking burn it. Once you stop doing that we can have a discussion about the content. Until then, you’re my enemy.

[straffinrun]

*Not you Just say’n. That’s for protesters that use violence to shut down free speech and assembly.

[Just Say'n]

Agreed

[Lord Rollingpin]

‘but even Dreher prefaced his attacks on the rioters by saying that he doesn’t support Milo’s language’
Where? I didn’t see it in the article you posted.

[Just Say'n]

You’re right. I read this article from a link of a previous article that he wrote about another violent effort to silence Milo. In his past articles he’s said that he doesn’t agree with what Milo says. That’s my fault.

[Zero Sum Game]

Anyone who is willing to call out these SJW fascists should be applauded

Anyone else find it a bit odd to call a bunch of communists “fascists” as if fascism is the dirtier word?

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

So still no link or article about sloopy’s mom being beaten by the cops and the efforts locally to cover it up?

Oh yeah, I forgot. No Trump. Insert bridge joke here.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Trump’s rhetoric regarding law and order is responsible for sloopy’s mom getting beaten and arrested for trying to save someone’s life. There, maybe now they might notice.

[The Fusionist]

Can anyone link me to the story about the Senate ratifying that refugee agreement with Australia? Because we’re told the U.S. and Australia have an agreement, and the Senate has to ratify treaties by a 2/3 vote, so presumably that vote was mentioned in a news article at one point, I just can’t find the article.

[Juvenile Bluster]

What? Next you’re going to tell me that Congress has to declare war, and that the President can’t do it himself!

[Ken Shultz]

There was none.The deal was struck in secret between Turnbull and Obama after Trump won the election.

By the way, these refugees have already rioted, there are reports of gang rapes from the refugee camps, and they’ve all bee offered (and rejected) resettlement in Cambodia.

They don’t want Cambodia. They want Australia or the U.S.

[Ken Shultz]

Here;s when the deal was made–a few days after Trump was elected.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us…..c-islands/

Here’s Congress demanding that Obama reveal the terms of the secret deal

http://www.washingtontimes.com…..australia/

[Suthenboy]

One nasty, hateful thing after another. That is Obama’s legacy. He did everything he could to fuck America.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Then the correct answer is “fuck them”.

[The Fusionist]

“Dear Aussies,

“I’ve been reviewing the deal you signed with my distinguished predecessor, and I observe that my predecessor failed to submit the deal for the approval of our Senate, as required by the U.S. Constitution. I’m afraid this means the deal has not been properly approved and does not bind us. Sorry for the misunderstanding. If you have ideas for another deal which could make it through our Senate, please get in touch and we can see if we can work something out.

“Maybe some day we can go out and have a drink of cream soda together.”

“Yours,
“Donald Trump.”

[Ken Shultz]

Here’s an indication of what these people are like:

“Asylum seekers who were transferred to a processing center on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru after arriving in Australia as refugees may be moved again because of endemic sexual assault, rape and child abuse.”

—-Time Magazine

http://time.com/4018253/abuse-…..-refugees/

The refugees are raping women and children–and Obama agreed to bring them here?

If it’s too dangerous to leave women and children with the other refugees–how can the refugees be safe enough to bring here in our communities?

[Libertarian]

If refugees are so dangerous that AUSTRALIA (asylum of hideous poisonous snakes and car-sized spiders) won’t take them, I’d say we need to take another look at the deal.

[invisible furry hand]

We did not reject them because of rioting or rape.

[Ken Shultz]

It would be political suicide for Turnbull to resettle them in Australia after the riots and rapes–and after the riots and rapes, it should be political suicide to resettle them in the United States.

Whatever rationalizations are given in the press, if Turnbull brought them to live in Australia today, he’d be out on his ass tomorrow.

[invisible furry hand]

Ken, where did I ever suggest the contrary? I am merely clarifying for you and others that the criminal behaviour is a bit of a red herring when it comes to why we rejected them. Even if they were saints we will not let them into Australia for the reasons I set out. Furthermore, as I explained, for the purposes of Australian policy, our deal with Obama was counter-productive, and Trump is very right to call it dumb.

[Ken Shultz]

“I am merely clarifying for you and others that the criminal behaviour is a bit of a red herring when it comes to why we rejected them.”

That may have been the legitimate reason for why they weren’t admitted into Australia initially.

However, after the rapes and riots, the rapes and riots are figuring a lot into everyone’s calculations on this–everyone except Barack Obama.

[Suthenboy]

You are wrong Ken. They figured into Obama’s calculations too.

I have an idea for resettling those guys.

Hey, sharks gotta eat too.

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

Perhaps it was a small subset of the Paris Accord. You know, maybe that’s the left’s next move. Some of them already blame climate change on the rise of political and religious violence. Why not start calling these people climate refugees too.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I’ve already seen that happening.

[Ken Shultz]

“Australia’s prime minister insisted Thursday that a deal struck with the Obama administration that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the United States was still on, despite President Donald Trump dubbing the agreement ‘dumb’ and vowing to review it.”

I’ve been talking about this deal here at Hit and Run since Obama made it.

We’re talking about refugees that Australia REJECTED as too much of a security risk. This deal between Obama and Turnbull was struck–in secret–after Trump won the election.

Why would Obama accept refugees (reports I read say they’re from countries Trump later put on his seven nation suspension list) after Australia rejected them as too much of a security risk? The answer is that Barack Obama was a vindictive SOB, who cared more about refugees (among other things) than he did about American security or his legitimately libertarian responsibility to protect our rights from foreign threats.

Turnbull’s motivation for insisting the deal should still be on is to save his own political career. He became PM by backstabbing the PM who won the election inside his party, and he’s been touting this deal to his own people as his only achievement (dumping these refugees on the U.S.), and if the deal doesn’t go through, his political career is over.

[Juvenile Bluster]

The answer is that Barack Obama was a vindictive SOB, who cared more about refugees (among other things) than he did about American security or his legitimately libertarian responsibility to protect our rights from foreign threats.

No. He’s a narcissistic SOB who cares about making himself look good.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Or maybe Obama and the Democrats want a bunch of security risks here so they can point to violent incidents happening under the watch of Trump and the Republicans, who “failed to protect us”.

[Ken Shultz]

The reason is that Barack Obama thinks America is racist and bigoted, and we have to make sacrifices like this to atone for our sins.

[John]

Maybe I miss it when Australia became a hot bed of white supremacy and nativism? If Australia won’t take them, there must be a good reason. More importantly, if Obama would, what does that tel you about his vaunted “vetting program”?

[invisible furry hand]

If Australia won’t take them, there must be a good reason

Yes, but it’s not the reason you think it is

[Ken Shultz]

“On 19 July 2013 a riot occurred at the detention centre and caused $60 million damage. Police and guards had rocks and sticks thrown at them. Four people were hospitalised, though their injuries were minor.[36] Other people were treated for bruising and cuts.[37] The riot began at 3 pm when the detainees staged a protest.[38] Up to 200 detainees escaped and about 60[39] were held overnight at the island’s police station.[40] Several vehicles[41] and buildings including accommodation blocks for up to 600 people, offices, dining room, and the health centre were destroyed by fire. This is about 80 percent of the centre’s buildings.[36][39] 129 of 545 male detainees were identified as being involved in the rioting and were detained in the police watch house.[36]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Nauru_Regional_Processing_Centre

That’s at one of the two refugee camps Obama accepted. Obama agreed to bring them all here.

If Trump didn’t take a closer look at this deal, he would be an incompetent jackass–and so is anyone else who accuses him of bigotry for second guessing this deal.

[Isaac Bartram]

Maybe I miss it when Australia became a hot bed of white supremacy and nativism?

What, never heard of the White Australia Policy?

It was only completely overturned in the 1970s.

The point system that replaced it is designed to accept immigrants who match the cultural values of Britain* and Western Europe even if they do not have white skin.

*Although there are Australians who think that the Poms and the Irish are a bunch of “welfare bludgers”. And above all the system is designed to keep out “welfare bludgers”.

[Ken Shultz]

That was 40 years ago.

“In 2011, 24.6% of Australians were born elsewhere and 43.1% of people had at least one overseas-born parent;[230] the five largest immigrant groups were those from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, China, India, and Vietnam.[3] Following the abolition of the White Australia policy in 1973, numerous government initiatives have been established to encourage and promote racial harmony based on a policy of multiculturalism.[231] “

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia #Demographics

[Isaac Bartram]

Ken, they have simply stopped using racial markers and started using cultural markers.

[Ken Shultz]

What does that mean?

[Isaac Bartram]

It means that they use culture-based criteria to determine who they want as immigrants instead of racially-based criteria. The fact that their point system closely follows values that they perceive to be held by white people is purely coincidental (riiiiiight).

Also the quote you gave from Wikipedia on Australian Demographics reads like a press rellease from the Ministry of Culture (or whatever the strylyuns call it). Endless subsidies to native dance troops and ethnic food, music and art festivals but absolutely no effort to actually understand how other people think and feel.

[Rhywun]

This will get interesting.

Garbage Barge II: This Time it’s Personal

*grabs popcorn*

[Free Society]

The answer is that Barack Obama was a vindictive SOB, who cared more about being seen to care about refugees (among other things) than he did about American security or his legitimately libertarian responsibility to protect our rights from foreign threats.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Happy sucktastic day. Looks like we’ve lost RC. While I may have had my personal differences with him I respected him for the most part and he had some clever and interesting things to say. Ken posted that RC had been on here from day 1 back in 2003 – I thought the site had been here longer than that, but RC is one of the people who has always been here.

Reason has really started to go downhill what with all the virtue-signalling and all. And the lack of interest in a certain other matter (see my handle) is also annoying. Bad timing, people.

I’m considering putting up an alternate site for people who don’t want to pump up Reason’s hit count and who are tired of providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ. Anyone else interested?

[John]

We lost RC? Really? That is terrible if true.

[Private Chipperbot]

Tonio, alt site, por favor. I come for the comments.

[Suthenboy]

Seconded.

Jebus. We lost RC? The guy is the heart of the commentariat. He is one of the top reasons I come here.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

Thirded. An alt site is definitely needed.

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

forfed

[Col. Chestbridge]

Fifth Columned

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

What happened to sloopy’s mom?

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

And what happened to RC?

[Swiss Servator]

The explosion of TRUMP IZ KILLIN’ REFUGEES AND IS HITLER got to him, and he finally bailed out.

I guess like any institution that is not explicitly anti-Left, he feels it will inevitably get hijacked by the Left.

[Slammer]

RC said he would still lurk, just not contribute

[LynchPin1477]

We’re like a drug. You can’t just quit cold turkey.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

Beaten by the cops while she was trying to render emergency care to a patient. Then arrested and jailed for bruising the cops’ fists with her face. Reason doesn’t want to cover it because it’s “too local.”

[Swiss Servator]

Damn your still speedy fingers!

[invisible furry hand]

What does “too local” even mean? If they mean it happened in too small a town to care about, then what is the population number that magically makes it worth covering? Kelly Thomas died in Fullertown (pop. 135,161), so is that the cut-off? It’s still not a large city, so you could say that was just a “too local” police department going crazy. That didn’t stop Reason from (very rightly) covering it.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

What does “too local” even mean?

No Trump/immigrant, LGBT toilets, or grievance-pyramid. It might even take work to cover, since the local paper will only run the cops’ statements, so it isn’t an easy, facile link.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

What does “too local” even mean?

It means that she wasn’t black.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

(forgot the sarc tag… Reason is actually pretty good at the cop abuse beat most of the time)

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

Yeah, it’s “too local”, but a traffic ticket in Canuckistan is somehow worthy of coverage.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Ridiculous. As if reason hasn’t covered local stories of libertarian interest, like every single fucking day.

Philly soda tax.
Rhode Island sun screen law.
El Monte pension article.
Los Angeles sidewalk vending.
UPenn whiny SJW article.
CalExit
Oklahoma Surgery Center
Texas gay marriage law
NC hospital certificate of need article
Texas execution drugs article
Georgia tattoo parlor article
Juggalo article
Milwaukee Sheriff article
Paper airplane arrest in SC
Georgia medical cannabis
Baltimore child tooth-pulling article
U Kansas School of Social Welfare article
Fayetteville, NC escaped toddler article
Hawaii Air BnB article
Illinois soda tax
Texas teacher consuming pot in Colorado article
Ohio ballot access article
Louisiana resisting arrest hate crime
Virginia liquor laws
Connecticut solicitation law
Iowa mom jailed after baby’s accidental death article

And that’s just from the last week.

[commodious rebrands]

The H&R revolution will not be blogged.

[Juvenile Bluster]

tbf I think in this context “Too local” means “It involves somebody here”. There’s lots of journalistic issues with that.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Then they should have said “conflict of interest”.

“Too local” implies “small potatoes”.

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

I was told it was too hyperlocal and the person I talked to said they had him/her on other stuff this week.

I don’t think it referred to me being part of the commentariat seeing as I have nothing to do with what happened. I took it as meaning local interest.

And this came from a writer here that I have the utmost respect for and do not think would be flippant about it under any circumstance. There was genuine concern when we discussed it. I just think they’ve had a severe directional shift here in what gets covered. And it’s really a shame.

[Swiss Servator]

Sloopy’s Mom is a nurse who was trying to help a kid who was having an asthma attack/couldn’t breathe at a basketball game – the ref wouldn’t stop the game, she told him off and a couple of cops beat her down, locked her up for the night.

Reason considers the story unworthy of coverage so far.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

1) Sloopy’s Mom is a nurse who was tending to an injured player at a HS basketball game. She was arrested by police for telling the ref to stop the game so the EMTs could get to her patient. More details, including links in PM Links from yesterday.

2) RC – According to comments on yesterday’s late night Milo article, RC has jumped ship because of the increasing TDS here.

[Cynical Asshole]

More details, including links in PM Links from yesterday.

I don’t suppose someone could re-post the link here? I wasn’t around in last night’s PM links and all I’ve seen this morning is people using joke handles to call attention to it and whining in the comments without providing any substantiating evidence.

Also, has anyone sent an email to Reason’s editors asking them if they could cover it? If so, was Reason’s official response really “too local?” If that’s all true then, yeah, that’s pretty shitty of them. I would have thought at least a Brickbat or an AM/PM links blurb about it would be warranted. Especially considering this morning’s Brickbat was about some guy from Canuckistan getting a bogus ticket. He didn’t even get beaten down, just a bullshit fine.

[Cynical Asshole]

Never mind, there’s a story posted above in another subthread.

And fuck Reason’s editors too.

[Juvenile Bluster]

The constant “REASON SUX NOW BECAUSE THEY DON’T LIKE TRUMP!” from the commentariat is more annoying to me than Reason’s virtue signaling.

[John]

RC is hardly a Trump supporter. And it is not that they don’t like Trump. It is that they refuse to articulate anything but the usual MSM hysteria for doing so. It is not hard to write interesting and even handed anti-Trump articles. Why is reason not up to the task?

[LynchPin1477]

IMO it seems to mostly be Robby, Suderman, and Dalmia that are quick to follow the more popular media/twitter line. They are still light years ahead of most outside the reasonsphere. The rest of the staff and contributors are usually pretty grounded.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

And John hits the ball out of the park! I shouldn’t have to read 15 articles on the same subject to glom together enough information to understand why Trump is wrong. More immigration EO articles had the phrase “petty cruelty” in them than had an actual explanation of what the EO was going to do.

The difference between clickbait and quality journalism can be found in the impression you have after reading it. After reading clickbait, you get the impression that you could’ve written something better if you had 2 hours and an internet connection. After reading quality journalism, you get the impression that the writer has given you a firm grasp of the situation and some things to think about. Reason is still a mix of both, but I feel myself cringing after more and more articles these days.

[Stormy Dragon]

I keep running into these people who constantly assure me they’re not Trump Supporters but then who completely flip out at even mild criticism.

[John]

They have medication for that now Stormy. You should try some.

[UnCivilServant]

All I ask is that there be some modicum of rationality from people who have decided to call their rag “reason”.

[straffinrun]

Thank god it’s 11:30 pm here. *Grabs another beer*

[Swiss Servator]

LUCKY SOB!

*looks at coffee cup*

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Well, they are both annoying. And I know that everyone is having a sucky time of it, but Reason seems to be going out of their way to make things worse. About the only thing I can figure, and this is lifted from one of the comments on the Milo / Berkeley is Burning article, is that Reason is deliberately writing so as to minimally offend proggie sensibilities in hopes of peeling off some of the more rational ones who are scared of the increasing violence of the SJWs. It’s not like liberty lovers are going to abandon liberty over this but we might abandon this organ. I had long been skeptical of claims that Reason was trying to create the fabled liberaltarian moment, but I’m re-evaluating that.

[Stormy Dragon]

Maybe Reason finds a bunch of the commenters to be an embarrassment and is hoping they’ll take the hint and go hang out at Taki’s Mag or Breitbart.

[Swiss Servator]

And take their donations and pageviews with, eh Stormy?

[Stormy Dragon]

Since neither of us access to that data, we have no way of knowing if the commenters have been a net positive or negative to the organization’s finances.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

IIRC we are known as one of the most loyal and insightful commenter bases out there. I think a lot of the press corps lurks here – like that WaPo chick who published that thing that was highly imitative of Sug’s fiction. Our comments and analysis add value to the site. The staff have always had a love/hate relationship with them. We brought them the hassle of Chippergate, but we also brought publicity and notice.

[Swiss Servator]

Check the crawl when the fundraiser is going on.

[Volren]

I always thought that appealing to leftists was the only reason they ever published Chapman and Dalmia, who are generally terrible even by cosmo standards.

[Cynical Asshole]

They’re at least equal. At this point I’m starting to hate everyone (literally, every single human being on this God forsake planet) even more than ever. Musk’s one way Mars colonization effort can’t come fast enough at this point. Actually, if I could go live on Mars by myself that would be fucking awesome.

[Free Society]

I don’t know of anyone demanding that they favorably cover Trump, just that they stop acting like CNN and MSNBC hyperbolic shit weasels when they cover Trump. You should have seen Anthony Fisher’s article yesterday if you didn’t. Even the most ardent anti-Trump commentarians were seething with anger at the naked display of Buzzfeed meets Salon style of coverage being posted at H&R.

[SugarFree]

I don’t know of anyone demanding that they favorably cover Trump

HA!

[LynchPin1477]

Internet lost or real lost?

[Swiss Servator]

Internet, thankfully only internet.

[SugarFree]

What thread did him in? Was it Robby? It was Robby, wasn’t it.?

RC Dean and I frequently disagreed, but he always argued in good faith and intelligently. He will be missed.

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

It was the “Trump killed a Muslim Grandma” fake story that did him in.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

I can see that. That story reeked of bullshit from the beginning, jumping on the bandwagon was a stupid idea.

[John]

Did Reason ever print a retraction?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It being bogus is a recent development, so I’ll not chastise them for no retraction yet. However the Trump Derangement Syndrome getting increasingly worse with no signs whatsoever of slowing down or stopping does not bode well for the quality of future Reason articles.

[SugarFree]

Not a retraction article, but they have updated the original article to point out it was a hoax.

[John]

I can forgive them falling for the original story. It seemed legit. But I cannot forgive them for not cleaning up their mistake and printing the truth. Not just memory holing the original article.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

I’m looking for the article, but I can’t find it. It would be unfortunate if Reason memory-holed it.

[SugarFree]

It’s still there.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

ah good….

[John]

If they updated. That is good enough.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Here it is.

[Cynical Asshole]

I saw that they updated the blog post yesterday afternoon once they found out it was fake. I don’t think they made a second blog post saying “out bad” though.

I’m pretty pissed about that one too. They should have at least waited a while or maybe done some more checking to make sure it was legit before rolling with it, but I guess it was more important to join the rest of the media on the outrage train instead.

[Free Society]

Anthony Fisher didn’t, as of yesterday evening, post any kind blurb on Twitter about the falsehoods of the story even after promoting it on that platform.

[straffinrun]

It was Megalo Monocle that welcomed me here the first time I posted. Yeah, he’s a good guy and will be missed.

[Fist of Etiquette]

He’ll be back. Oh, yes, he’ll be back.

[rubbing hands sinisterly]

[BakedPenguin]

RC Dean and I frequently disagreed, but he always argued in good faith and intelligently. He will be missed.

Second.

[Swiss Servator]

Tonio – I would be interested.

Um, you will bring the foil, yes?

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

I will SO bring the foil, buddy. And heavy duty foil at that.

[Mr Drew]

That’s a big Yes, Tonio. Tell us more.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

I’m gauging interest and doing research into what type of commitment of time and money that would require. Also, whether to provide content (an even bigger time-suck).

[commodious rebrands]

Start an IRC server, get that groovy 90s feel.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

Or we could hit the usenet,

…maybe a Yahoo Group? (on second thought, no to that one)

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

Could you set up a free WordPress blog, and grant editor/author access to commenters that have expressed interest in writing shit?

[sonofmombeatenbycopsinTEXAS]

We can reopen the Slap N Jog blog. I still check it once in a great while. And I still get the occasional comment from Kizone Kaprow.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

If that exists and you want to run it I’d be down with that. Happy to help with admin, contribute to cover costs, etc.

[Lord Humungus]

Not that anyone cares – but I’m out too. Last post.

It’s been fun, guys n gals. I hope you can get along without my derpy off-topic posts and general hand-wringing.

“Main force Patrol. Were out of the game unable to continue pursuit. You better send a Meat Truck. Charlie’s copped a saucepan in the throat.”

I’ll go out with A Song

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

RC, Humungus, Hamster of Doom…this is a great track you’re on, reason.

[straffinrun]

Lordexit. Take care.

[invisible furry hand]

Peace out, my Lord

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

Farewell. Please do lurk and keep up with your fellow commenters outside of this forum.

[tarran]

Fair winds and following seas.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

May you always have your fill of guzzoline.

*pours octane booster on the ground for Humungus*

[Ken Shultz]

Please remember that if you change your mind and come back, only the trolls will call you out for it.

The rest of us will celebrate your return–if you ever, hopefully, change your mind.

[Slumbrew]

Please remember that if you change your mind and come back, only the trolls will call you out for it.

Very much this. Everyone loves a triumphant return.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I will permit you and anyone else who feels they need it a brief sabbatical. But in a month or two I’m going to need every swinging dick back in the field.

[Swiss Servator]

SHANE! COME BACK!

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Yeah, I’ve gone from somebody whose daily ritual involved reading almost everything Reason put out to just skimming and checking in from time to time. The market is pretty saturated for moaning and groveling while uncritically accepting progressive concepts, so I hope the Koch money keeps rolling in, because my donations no longer are.

[Slammer]

Best wishes LH! Hopefully read you again soon

[bacon-magic stands w/sloop]

You will be missed. Stay in touch.

[Slammer]

Tonio I’m interested

[commodious rebrands]

Let’s all swamp SF’s blog.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

Or torment Ken White…

[SugarFree]

I could turn the comments back on…

[straffinrun]

I can bring the socks.

[commodious rebrands]

And registration off?

[SugarFree]

I can turn it off to. I had to lock it down when Reason’s shittiest troll kept posting on it. (And doing some other stuff I’m not going to say on the board.)

[Col. Chestbridge]

Not . . . the g-word?

[SugarFree]

Groping?

[invisible furry hand]

Grovelling?

[See Double You]

Gamboling?

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Ssh, you weren’t supposed to actually say it. You’re the character in a horror film that says the Latin phrase from the book bound with human flesh out loud and dooms us all.

[Swiss Servator]

In Trump’s America, SF’s Blog swamp you!

[Hail Rataxes]

providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ

They should thank us for our shitposts!

[Swiss Servator]

Don’t worry, I am sure the commentariat being reduced to a handful of the likes of you here will increase traffic and donations at fundraiser time!

[Hail Rataxes]

Pretty sure y’all already made your point about how “valuable” you were during the last round.

[Swiss Servator]

Shouldn’t you be telling kikes to burn in an oven? Or do you regret that one?

[Hail Rataxes]

That was my friend Haii.

[Florida Hipster]

Yeah, I kind of regret my donation now. Hopefully Reason will respond to economic pressure.

[Free Society]

I’m considering putting up an alternate site for people who don’t want to pump up Reason’s hit count and who are tired of providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ. Anyone else interested?

Possibry, yes.

We also lost Hamster of Doom, lest we forget. Due to the Reason staff’s social signalling spree yesterday we lost two veteran commentarians, and that’s not counting the half dozen or so regular commenters we’ve lost in the last six months as Reason’s appeal and credibility has continually deteriorated due to their TDS, that spread here from the rest of the media.

[Banjos]

They mostly lost me. I’m not necessarily boycotting Reason, I have just chosen to use my ever decreasingly amounts of free time reading books or fucking around on Twitter.

[commodious rebrands]

fucking around on Twitter

My thoughts and prayers are with you.

[Col. Chestbridge]

It’s better than fucking around with books and reading Twitter.

[Swiss Servator]

….good point.

[Col. Chestbridge]

Interested. Hell, I’d probably contribute every now and again. I’ve been trying to write more lately.

[Michael]

Oh, goddammit. RC Dean left? That’s a fucking bummer. I’ve been lurking here since around 2005 or so, and RC has always been one of my favorite regulars. I have to agree with the assessment of the magazine and site as of late though – it’s going downhill fast. I’ve initially defended Robby when he first came on board but then gradually tempered my expectations after he started polluting the site with Buzzfeed style clickbait headlines. The to-be-sures are now pushing me over the limit. I’m starting to think that Robby and certain other recent additions that shall remain nameless were some sort of hipness quotient affirmative action hires because reason felt they needed to fill out their millennial roster, but the powers that be didn’t stop to think that no one that matters actually gives a flying fuck about millennials or what they think.

[Robert]

I’d like to know what Bob Poole thinks about all this. Or Virginia Postrel. Or even Nancy Postrel. Maybe we could s?ance Tom Szasz.

[GSL in E]

I’m considering putting up an alternate site for people who don’t want to pump up Reason’s hit count and who are tired of providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ. Anyone else interested?

Yes.

[Illocust]

Damn, I’ll miss you guys if you go. The comments are the whole reason I stick to this site.

[The Elite Elite]

“I’m considering putting up an alternate site for people who don’t want to pump up Reason’s hit count and who are tired of providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ. Anyone else interested?”

I know I’m not a long time commenter here, but I’d be very interested. I’d say my main reason for constantly coming here has been the thoughtful analysis of the commenters, not the articles.

[GSL in E]

I’m considering putting up an alternate site for people who don’t want to pump up Reason’s hit count and who are tired of providing free, insightful content to an increasingly ungrateful organ. Anyone else interested?

Well, if you wanted to quickly and easily recreate the commenter community in another forum, you could just create a Slack group and let everyone know how to contact you for invites.

[John]

So I wonder if reason is going to say anything about the events last night in Berkley. You would think Trump tweeting about it would get them interested if nothing else.

A lot of people dismiss Yiannapolis as a “troll”. No, he is an agent provocateur. And as such he provides a valuable service. Yiannapolis provokes the left into dropping the mask and revealing exactly who they are. What happened in Berkley last night was shocking. Cruise twitter and look at the videos of it. It wasn’t a protest or really even a riot. It was a bunch of violent thugs out attacking people. And the Berkley city government and UC authorities did nothing to stop it. I am unaware that any one was arrested.

Yiannapolis has opinions that a lot of people don’t like. But understand, he has never advocated violence or harmed anyone. All he has ever done is express unpopular opinions in frank and often funny and insulting ways. And because he is unpopular with the left, gangs of violent thugs show up and attack people trying to hear his speeches. And the authorities in many cases stand by and let it happen and then use the attacks as an excuse not to let him speak. That is the issue here. And that should be discounted by dismissing Yianniapolis as just another “troll” as if that is somehow relevant to the discussion.

[John Titor]

There’s already an article up, where Robby does his Robby thing.

[John]

Boy you are not kidding

By engaging in such tactics, anti-Yiannopoulos protesters effectively distract from the fact that Yiannopoulos’s own views are loathsome. They turn Yiannopoulos into a free speech martyr, which is exactly what he wants. When Milo is censored, Milo wins.

“It was a 500 person event, that’s like the max occupancy of the room,” Kevin Quigley, a freshmen at UC-Berkeley, told me over the phone. “if it was just 500 people going to hear him talk it wouldn’t be in the news, but when you have thousands of people gatheing in the streets… they’re just making him more famous.”

By the way, Yiannopoulos’s old Breitbart boss, Steve Bannon, is now a top advisor to President Trump. I wonder whether Bannon would rather Yiannopoulos’s speech go off without a hitch, or be shut down by violent protesters? Which outcome is better for the law-and-order policy positions of the Trump administration? It’s not actually a question: the president’s narrative is obviously better served when irate students resort to violence to silence an alt-right speaker.

No Robby, the fact that Milo says provocative things distracts from the fact violent thugs attacked a peaceful speaking event. God is awful.

[Slammer]

God is not awful, John 😉

[John]

But Soave is. Maybe God is awful for creating him.

[John Titor]

Some tribes in Papua New Guinea worship Robby’s hair as a god, so close enough.

[Lord Rollingpin]

God created the hair, the rest is the debils work.

[LynchPin1477]

I’m not one to pile on Robby but this one stood out to me:

Anti-Yiannopoulos protesters described themselves as anti-fascists and anarchists. “We reject fascist America,” the said.

They don’t so much reject it as enable it.

They don’t so much enable it as embody it. I know little about Milo but from what I do know he is 1) speaking and 2) seems to almost be engaging in a type of performance art. Regardless, nothing I’ve seen would lead me to label him a fascist. I don’t know that the protesters really fall into the camp of fascism, either, but they at least are the ones engaging in violent suppression of views that they don’t like.

[John]

What exactly has Milo done that can be described as fascist? Not like the new Ghostbusters movie?

[commodious rebrands]

He supported Brexit. He writes for Breitbart. He’s rude to people. Look, do I have to spell it out for you?

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

The protesters are actually using no-shit violent brownshirt tactics to shut down opposing speech.

[Rhywun]

Gosh, nobody saw that coming at all.

[John Titor]

There’s an argument to be made that, by continuing to engage in violence and pull everyone else onto the other side out of fear for their own safety, the long term pessimistic future is lefties facing a firing squad once general rule of law breaks down. But that’s not inherently fascist, and the term fascist has been so overused as to be bloody meaningless.

[Citizen X - #6]

Yo.

[John]

Yeah. And he didn’t disappoint. The only thing that upsets him about what happened there is that it make the left look bad. Presumably if these tactics were popular, Robby would be just fine with them because Breitbart or something.

[chemjeff]

“The only thing that upsets him about what happened there is that it make the left look bad.”

can you be any more disingenuous, John? Robby himself calls the riots a “despicable display of violence and censorship”. That really doesn’t sound like “oh, all that rioting is justified because Milo’s a meanie”.

[commodious rebrands]

John’s an attorney. He’s not disingenuous, he’s litigating.

[John]

He says that. But he refuses to admit what it says about them. To Soave, it is just another bad tactic and one of those things.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“A lot of people dismiss Yiannapolis as a ‘troll’. No, he is an agent provocateur.”

So… you want us to use your PC term for troll??

[John]

No. I want you to see the difference between the two words. I troll exists to disrupt the other side and prevent it from expressing itself. An agent provocateur wants the other side to express itself. And does this by provoking it to drop the mask and show its true self.

Milo doesn’t want to shut down the left. If he were a troll he would show up at leftist events and disrupt them. Or he would pretend to be a leftist and engage in false flag operations. He does none of that. All Milo does is show up and peacefully say things the left finds offensive in places where they can’t ignore him. That is not trolling.

[Citizen X - #6]

The Virginia Zoo is still missing a red panda.

[John Titor]

*looks up from eating drumstick, pushes tanning rack with red pelt out of the frame*

I’m sorry, what?

[Swiss Servator]

Be a shame if someone said something…. Got any ribs?

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

*picks tooth next to JT*

You can’t prove anything and I had the last one.

[Swiss Servator]

Dammit!

[Swiss Servator]

Dammit!

[MikeP2]

Finger Ling Ling good.

[Swiss Servator]

*narrows gaze*

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

These euphemisms….

[John]

Maybe he can get together with the bobcat that escape the Washington National Zoo and we can have some red panda bobcats running around.

[commodious rebrands]

There’s enough commies in this country already.

[Krabappel]

If I find it first, I’m keeping it.

[The Fusionist]

They warned us that if Trump were elected there would be violence against women, and now look!

[WTF sloopysmommatters]

They had to pepper spray her because they support feminism.

[Juice]

The GOP’s incredible, shrinking Obamacare repeal

They’ve secretly liked it all along. They wish they had passed it. No, seriously.

[John]

They don’t know what they like other than for the media to say nice things about them. To the extent they did like it, it was because it has been such an electoral boon for them. No matter what they think of the legislation, they have to be sorry to see it go and for them to actually be responsible for something.

[The Fusionist]

Trump stands up for free speech at Berkeley in a way that will probably get their attention

(contains autoplay video)

[Juice]

(contains autoplay video)

Not in my browser.

[AddictionMyth]

Good morning my sweet little anarch0-frankentrumpkencucks. 🙂

[AddictionMyth]

I know I said I was leaving and going for good because I can’t stand Reason and their constant Trump-bashing. But then I just couldn’t stay away for long. I kinda missed you lugnuts. Will ya take me back??

[AddictionMyth]

I don’t get why the gays don’t appreciate that we are putting our lives on the line and fighting and dying so they can have buttsex with each other and marry girls that look like guys. I mean, what the hell is freedom for anyway if you can’t do stuff like that? I’m starting to feel unappreciated.

[commodious rebrands]

Charles Murray: “Watch Groundhog Day repeatedly.”

“Why is it a good thing to understand this movie so well? Because it will help you live a good life. Absorbing the deep meaning of the Nicomachean Ethics will also help you live a good life, but Groundhog Day will do it with a lot less effort.”

[John]

They were saying on Mike and Mike this morning they should release a squeal but have it be the same movie. That would be awesome and sadly far too witty and fun for Hollywood to actually do.

[commodious rebrands]

I haven’t actually seen the movie since… whenever it came out. I think I was ten. But I remember Murray giving that advice in a podcast a couple years ago. Been meaning to watch it.

[The Fusionist]

I don’t remember seeing that movie.

[commodious rebrands]

I remember the Xena episode better than I remember the movie.

[Lord Rollingpin]

Every morning you will wake up not remembering seeing that movie. Until you live the perfect day, then you will remember seeing it,

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

There’s nobody currently in Hollywood talented enough to make that kind of movie again. Bill Murray has aged out of playing those kind of characters and Harold Ramis is dead.

[Libertarian]

So is Timothy Leary.

[MikeP2]

Wait, Harold Ramis is dead!!? When did that happen?

[SugarFree]

The shitty new Ghostbusters killed him.

[commodious rebrands]

It nearly killed Bill Murray, by the look of it.

[John Titor]

Sony threatened to sue him if he didn’t appear in it and give interviews about it, so I can see why he came off as pissed as hell.

[commodious rebrands]

It really says something that even Sony couldn’t pay him enough to stump for that godawful flick.

[John]

Thankfully, I think he died before that was released.

[John]

A few years ago. It was a tragic loss. And Grand Moff is right. No one in Hollywood today is creative enough to make a movie like that. And even if there were, it would never get funded.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

We are out here. We’re just not in the club.

[Libertarian]

If Hollywood is intent on releasing a squeal, then they should do it with Deliverance, not Groundhog Day.

[straffinrun]

Replace Ned Beatty with a black tranny? That might change the dynamics a bit.

[See Double You]

[T]hey should release a squeal but have it be the same movie.

This is just one of the reasons I like you a lot, John.

[straffinrun]

I listen to Murray and know that he is dumbing his language down for the benefit of people like myself. I don’t even mind it because there isn’t an ounce of smug in his body.

[commodious rebrands]

I like Murray. I liked Coming Apart. I reread Losing Ground now and again as an abject reminder of what a clusterfuck of stupid the Great Society was.

[straffinrun]

He can actually have conversation with Bill Kristol. That’s impressive restraint.

[commodious rebrands]

I get that impression that Murray authentically likes talking to people, which blows my mind. Who does that? Who’s into that sort of thing?

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

I can’t believe Kristol didn’t once slip into his once-popular Fernando character.

[Fascism Forever]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..rever.html

[simplybe]

So immigrants that can’t or won’t be allowed into Australia should be allowed entry into our country. Who on earth would make a deal like. Only the Nancy Pelosi’s of the world aka senile liberal democrats. I believe Progressives are more dangerous than guns.

[Libertarian]

“The GOP’s incredible, shrinking Obamacare repeal.”

My god, it’s as if all those previous repeal votes done under Obama, knowing they would fail to pass, were just GOP grandstanding. Who could have seen this coming?

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

You mean voting didn’t actually end up changing anything?

[Juvenile Bluster]

Sarah Silverman, idiot:

Sarah Silverman Verified account
?@SarahKSilverman

Sarah Silverman Retweeted Jeff Mueller

WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE. ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE????

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

Wow

[Libertarian]

Indeed. Until very recently, I did not take such ranting seriously. But now I’m beginning to think, “well, the end times have to start somewhere.” Scary.

[commodious rebrands]

It worked for Westeros.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

I wish kids based their arguments in actual history rather than pop culture. But that would require them knowing history.

[commodious rebrands]

History consists of Hitler and WW2, slavery (but only American slavery), and genociding natives.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

That’s a big if

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US

I’m guessing the military will never be with you assholes.

[(((Renegade)))dicksoutforkaren]

I’d still stick my dick in that crazy.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Judging by her comedy, she will claim this was just part of her act when it backfires.

[commodious rebrands]

I liked her in Way of the Gun.

You like to fuck baby heads? You like to fuck boys?

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

He’s not even gay and he’s gonna fuck YOU in the ass!

[GILMORE?]

I liked her in Way of the Gun.

Isn’t that what she says right before she gets punched in the face?

[John Titor]

And again I repost the Kratman article about what’s going to happen to progressives if there’s martial law.

It involves firing squads.

[AddictionMyth]

U STUPID GAYS U WILL LEARN TO APPRECIATE THE PEOPOLE FIGHTING AND DYING FOR YE.

[Juvenile Bluster]

(Seriously all: This is my place. The one place I can come and not be called a Trump-loving idiot for daring not to hate everything he does and thinking that Obama was awful too and thinking that the world will likely not be ending due to Trump’s election. I hope all this stupid infighting stops and we can get back to making shitty jokes in the comments. Love y’all.)

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

I’m with you JB, I’m sick of it from both sides. I sometimes worry we got a little too drunk on prog tears.

[straffinrun]

Wait till Trump tries to put his trade policies into effect. You’ll see Trump savaged here. At least that my guess.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Don’t get me wrong, I see it from both sides.i was on vacation this weekend so I was spared most of the immigration panic, but my one thought goes back to, is this where you want to pick a stand? With a guy who you don’t even like on a poorly thought out policy? I mean us”purists” were often told to take a chill pill about Gary Johnson wanting to force baskets to make Nazi cakes, so if that’s not a hill worth doing on, this seems like a strange place to make a final stand.

But I can see it from both sides, like I said I wasn’t paying much attention over the weekend, so I’m less sick of reasons constant blathering about it than the rest of the.

[straffinrun]

I have a dog in this fight. Foreign wife and foreign in laws. Nuanced, well researched articles on complex issues that suddenly pop up in the culture warz are not easy to do. I’ll cut them some slack. I can always go back to Mises or private facebook groups that discuss these matters.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

I mean us”purists” were often told to take a chill pill about Gary Johnson wanting to force baskets to make Nazi cakes, so if that’s not a hill worth doing on, this seems like a strange place to make a final stand.

That was an absolute dealbreaker for me and I didn’t vote for Johnson in 2012 either.

Bleh, Johnson, Johnson, Barr. Somebody bring back Badnarik or an equivalent rather than a Republican carpetbagger or wishy-washy weedman.

[commodious rebrands]

My worry going into this presidency was Trump blowing all his political capital on immigration, but I’m not sure that calculus even holds up anymore. This was supposed to be the red line for the left, the most monstrously racist thing a Republican could suggest, and Trump went ahead and crossed it and they fumbled the response. It’s like they went to pull the ace from their sleeve and discovered it’s an Uno card. I think that’s what riled up posters here, that there’s just no there there. It wasn’t a well thought-out policy, it was implemented poorly, but the reactions from the staff went well beyond critiquing Trump’s amateurism.

[Trshmnstr hates nurse beaters]

I mean us”purists” were often told to take a chill pill about Gary Johnson wanting to force baskets to make Nazi cakes, so if that’s not a hill worth doing on, this seems like a strange place to make a final stand.

I think that’s when the smoke started turning into a fire. That’s when barriers started breaking between the typical “cosmo” v. “yokel” crap and it started turning into commenters v. Reason. Reason savaged Rand Paul and then shoved Gary “black hole” Johnson and Bill “gun control” Weld down our throats. Ever since then, the fire has been building and building, and it’s turning into a firestorm.

Let me just put this out there to clear the air. I don’t like Trump, I didn’t vote for Trump, and I think Trump is a garden variety cronyist authoritarian. However, when Reason spends all of its journalistic energy diving into the MSM progressive muck to go after him, they don’t emerge free of muck. They’re covered in it, and no matter how hard they scrub, the stench of postmodern social justice leftism won’t go away. There is a good libertarian case for opposing Trump on many of the things he has done and promises to do. Unfortunately, few Reason writers have gone that route.

Many of us are pissed because Reason used to be much better at this. They’d have their prog panics on occasion, but that was the exception to the rule. They had blindspots, but were reasoned enough writers to minimize the impact. Now they’re a libertarian-ish BuzzFeed.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

^This. Very well-put.

[Emmerson Biggins]

Ditto.

[Glide]

Hell, I think Forbes of all places has been a better read for principled anti-Trump sentiment than Reason lately.

[Not a True MJG]

Unditto. I just think that’s a highly biased read of Reason’s coverage. The only people to regularly cover the LP were Matt, Nick, and Brian. Nick could be a sassy cheerleader, but Matt and Brian weren’t shoving them down anyone’s throats. The “worst” they did is not denounce them for some of their mistakes.

J&W’s deficiencies, and Reason’s focus on them during an election season, were part of the dynamics of this “firestorm,” but there’s a whole lot of other factors, many of them from stupidity and hyperventilating among some commenters.

Which is not to say the HnR blog hasn’t deteriorated somewhat. But it kinda has always been a libertarian BuzzFeed – it’s supposed to be about culture as much as politics, and the name itself is suggestive of what’s now called clickbait. I just haven’t ever taken this blog to be too serious or rigorous a place, though I’d certainly appreciate it if it would be. The magazine and ReasonTV are different.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Agreed 100%. Prog tears are delicious. But I think some here have allowed that to blind them to the reality going on around them.

tl;dr: I hate it when mommy and daddy fight. Just get back to the “old” Reason I loved so much.

[chemjeff]

I am with you as well. I’m a refugee from conservative-leaning political blogs which, during the election, basically expelled anyone who wasn’t firmly on the #MAGA Trump train. But neither am I a “I’m With Her” Hillbot.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Ride the train

[Slumbrew]

Goddamn, that remains a catchy-ass song.

[John Titor]

I hope all this stupid infighting stops and we can get back to making shitty jokes in the comments.

Meh, the infighting is just another version of the great cosmo vs. yokel “You’re not a real libertarian” contest that’s being going on forever. It’s not going to go away, but it’s probably going to be toned down when say, Reason isn’t obsessing over refugee stories or other divisive subject matter.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Everyone knows the real answer isn’t yokels or cosmos, but the ancaps are the TRUE libertarians.

[John Titor]

*Proceeds to have dozens of ancaps scream ‘statist!’ at each other over how their brand of ancapism is the one true Ancap*

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

We must only allow our version of anarchy to exist…. Maybe we form some entity to enforce it.

[Swiss Servator]

ANCAP MILITIA!!!

[American Memer]

XKCD #1095 seems relevant here.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

So I see a lot of solidarity for sloopy and his mom going on. Out of curiosity, is there a way that I can properly signal that, while I think sloopy is a decent guy, I don’t really care about his mother or the fact that Reason won’t do a story on her?

[Juvenile Bluster]

You’re not allowed to say that you disagree with something anymore. It’s virtue signaling.

[tarran]

is there a way that I can properly signal that, while I think sloopy is a decent guy, I don’t really care about his mother or the fact that Reason won’t do a story on her

On Tuesday, you can have a conversation with the other people who don’t care about her. 😉

[commodious rebrands]

Libertarians doing mass demonstrations? That ain’t right.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

I think you just did so. But if it wasn’t obvious enough, maybe you need to set up a twitter account.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

There’s no way I’m going near that Twitter shit.

[John]

I care about his mother. I don’t know the women but I can’t help but care about anyone fucked over by the cops that badly. Do you just not care about the people that happens to?

[Juvenile Bluster]

I care about her, but I care about a lot of people who get screwed over by the cops. It happens every day. It happens a lot of times every day. Can’t cover them all.

[John]

You are right. If I got upset about everyone who gets fucked over by the cops, I would end up shooting myself in despair. But I can get upset over a few of them. So why not sloopy’s mom?

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

Check this out. I don’t care that people care. I understand that people want to feel solidarity for someone who they think of as at least a mild acquaintance.

But I also don’t care that Reason doesn’t care. I have no ill will towards sloopy or his mom, I just don’t care that the Reason staff isn’t covering the story.

[John]

I don’t care that reason doesn’t care. They can’t cover every story. But I don’t blame sloopy for hoping they will.

[John]

And I don’t feel any solidarity with Sloopy. I just think what the cops did was wrong. I don’t need to feel solidarity with someone or know someone to be troubled by injustice.

[commodious rebrands]

Insisting on solidarity is something better left to the left and their bizarre maoist social humiliation rituals.

[$park? is totally a Swifty]

Ok. Then just accept that my comments weren’t specifically directed at you.

[Tonio cares about Sloopy's Mom]

You just did so, for the second time. And in a passive-aggressive fashion. You’re really just coming across as butt-hurt that others are expressing interest. There are a lot of things and people here who I ignore; another just got added today. You have a scroll wheel; learn how to use it.

[Suthenboy]

Why would Obama agree to accept refugees rejected by Australia? It’s a puzzle.

Keep stomping your feet Malcolm. Try holding your breath.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says he regrets the decision by Democrats in 2013 to trigger the “nuclear option” for most presidential nominations.

Looks like you hit paydirt with that 1600 SAT score, asshole. A real walking brain, this guy. Elections have consequences.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Who could have seen that happening?!?! Short term gains never have long term consequences.

[John]

But they were supposed to have a permanent majority. They honestly thought there would never be another Republican President. How they convinced themselves of that in the midst of a drastic national decline of the party and when their black President was leaving office and they were trying to replace him with one of the most unpleasant people in the history of politics, is one hell of a mystery.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

Furthermore, Schumer is really picking up Reid’s mantle of being the most insufferable cunt in the Senate. Gotta hand it to this asshole.

[John]

He should be pissed at Reid. What did they get for doing that? A few cabinet members that left with Obama and a hundred or so lower court judges. Meanwhile, Trump and the Republicans are going to fill I think 118 lower court slots that are currently vacant, replace Scalia and likely either the Notorious RBG or Kennedy or maybe both on the Supreme Court and there is nothing they can do to stop them.

Hell of a job Harry.

[Pompey:? Class Mothersmucker]

::claps furiously::

[Somalian Road Corporation]

This is where I make a depth perception joke, right?

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug

[The Grinch]

Reap what you sow smart guy.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Need to buy one of these for when I hear things like that.

[Swiss Servator]

“I won”

[commodious rebrands]

Something pen something phone.

None of this is going to seem remotely worth it in four years.

[american socialist]

The EO articles…if you want to have 3, 4 maybe 5 fine. That should cover all of it and then any new developments. Make sure to get the facts right first and what are the legal issues….immigrant vs non immigrant visas for instance. I like actually reading content that has substance.. I want to read who what when how where and why, and then if they want to add their own commentary on it fine.

But 16+ or whatever it was about the same topic? It is just rehashing and grasping at that point which diminishes quality.

Two of which were a sob story about a grandma which may have been fake and Pete saying trump is tough on immigration because he wants to direct entitlements to his supporters which doesn’t really make sense. Trump ran on not touching medicare/SS (which is not impacted by any immigrant welfare) and those programs are popular amongst most political persuasions….even people who have disdain for trump. The only entitlements he proposed are maternity leave and child care tax credits. Everything else appears to be status quo.

Quality will always trump quantity. These publications seem to prefer the latter for clicks these days due to all the competition. They just throw crap out there and sort it out later.

[Lee wishes he made the list...]

This

[Col. Chestbridge]

It’s so jarring, reading a reasonable comment from that handle.

[Robert]

STEVE SMITH NOT BOTHERED!

[John]

That is a well thought out post and a good description of what is wrong with Reason’s Trump coverage.

Hey Reason, when you have lost American Socialist to such an extent he is now making sharp and valid criticisms of your writing, you may have a problem. Just saying.

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

If you were serious John, this is a different guy squatting on the name american socialist.

[commodious rebrands]

And not in the way he likes!

Heyooooo

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Zing!

[John]

I need to get a scorecard and keep score at home of our resident trolls. Who is this guy then? And what happened to Amsoc?

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Amsoc changed his name after someone made an “americansociaIist” account that used a capital I instead of a lowercased “L” and used it to troll the hell out of Amsoc. Amsoc went to “californiasocialst” or something like that, and someone grabbed Amsoc’s original name after that.

[John]

Thanks. I think all of the troll franchises we have are run by the same one or two people. Occasionally a regular will just decide to fuck with the board and troll. But mostly I think there are a couple of really dedicated shitbag leftists who are behind all of the well known leftist troll accounts.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

It’s kind of funny, I’ve been spending more time on the various Reddit libertarian communities and there’s a similar phenomenon of “concern troll or outright troll who somehow has 14 hours a day, every single day, to shit the place up, who doesn’t get banned because of libertarian principles”.

[John]

Serious question; is there every anyone from the right who does that kind of shit? It seems to be a tactic exclusively used by the left.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The leftists purge anyone would would try that faster than you can say “nine grams”, also there are less people with mental issues on disability or that have a job where they can goldbrick all day who’d be getting their jollies doing that kind of stuff.

It’s the sheer fucking volume and consistency of output that surprises me and leans me more towards believing that the folks doing this are primarily in the former group.

[John]

I never believed the stories about Soros and various leftist groups hiring professional internet trolls. This last election made me reconsider that however. All through the summer and fall there were all sorts of Never Trump conservatives posting on instapundit and PJ media and NRO and other rightwing sites I would visits. They were always obnoxious and forever insulting posters and doing everything they could to incite infighting. And of course every one of them were convinced Trump was going to lose in a landslide. That wasn’t anything special. What was interesting, however, is that about 90% of them disappeared the day after the election. I don’t mean sulked for a few days or weeks to avoid the rhetorical beating that awaited them on the boards. I mean dropped off the face of the earth. It is pretty clear they were all fake accounts created by leftists trying to troll, discourage and disrupt the opposition. That there were so many of them and they disappeared so abruptly makes me think they were a paid operation.

[Hangin' with Agent Cooper]

At Althouse, there are different trolls with different handles each week, all saying basically the same thing. None of them have actual Blogger profiles.

[commodious rebrands]

amsoc was podpeopled a week ago.

[american socialist]

the real amsoc is now like voldemort in the first harry potter. his soul is wandering aimlessly around the interwebz without a body.

i also took over the name he went to in California socialist on a different email.

The real amsoc may be the one with “I” instead of an “L” now (amsock)

[american socialist]

or he is American socialist

[Swiss Servator]

Not cool – let ‘im have his handle back.

[Just Say'n]

Spike’s take on Left-wing fascism that we witnessed last night

http://www.spiked-online.com/n…..JNRFvkrI2w

[Rhywun]

That’s why, as FSMer Bettina Aptheker told me in 2014, they fought for free speech alongside right-wing students, some of them supporters of Barry Goldwater, the Trump of his day: ‘The only requirement was that they believed in freedom of speech.’

I have to wonder if she’s not engaging in some selective memory there. I wasn’t around back then but I’ve heard enough to be suspicious that right-wing students were granted the level of suspect she’s claiming.

[Rhywun]

er, suspect “respect”

[Swiss Servator]

Heh, heh – that was a good johno.

[Mike Laursen]

British Prime Minister Theresa May has released a 77-page Brexit plan.

Just drop off the key, Lee.

[Tyler.C Sloopy's mom matters]

Make a new plan Stan.

[Swiss Servator]

*stands to cheer and throw things in the air*

Just hop on the bus, Gus…and set yourself free.

[Cdr Lytton]

ex Tillerson has been confirmed as secretary of state after a vote of 56-43 by the U.S. Senate

I always thought it was a bit of an anticlimax when he finally shows up in Empire Records.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

So yesterday, after the Frederick Douglass flap, I posted a bunch of quotes from him related to freedom, property rights, and gun rights. My lefty friends loved them.

I’m wondering if those lefty friends actually read them, though?

[John]

If they did, they didn’t understand them. They just saw “some black man said this” and that was enough.

[commodious rebrands]

Shame that doesn’t apply to Sowell.

[John]

Sowell isn’t black black. If you ever want to have some fun, hit a gun hating prog with some Malcolm X quotes about gun ownership. Head will explode, Spitting and rage will ensue.

[commodious rebrands]

That was different. Malcom X was fighting white power. Whites are in a privileged position. They don’t need guns. And since gun ownership is always going to favor whites, who just want to use guns to oppress blacks, we need to get rid of guns.

[Kurmudgeonly Kristen]

One of my European friends hadn’t heard of him and said she was going to pick up his autobiography. Since she’s a Euro lefty, I don’t think she’ll like it too much. He’s one of my personal heroes, which means she’ll hate him.