Puzder Confirmation Hearings Move Closer, Texas Asset Forfeiture Reform Legislator Not Discouraged by Trump Attack Offer, Obama Goes Kite Surfing: P.M. Links

• 

  Jack Brockway/Virgin.com

  The Senate labor committee has received ethics paperwork on Labor Secretary nominee Andy Putzer, so confirmation hearings could be scheduled soon. The White House press secretary said President Trump had every right to stand up for his family after Trump tweeted that Nordstrom's was treating his daughter Ivanka, who he said always pushed him to "do the right thing," unfairly. Spicer insisted it was "unacceptable" to take out concerns about Trump's policies on family members.

• Texas State Sen. Konni Burton (R) said Trump's comment to a sheriff opposed to asset forfeiture reform would not discourage her efforts. Another senator who sponsored a bill, Democrat Juan Hinojosa, said he did not think the sheriff, for whom Trump offered to destroy the career of an asset reform advocate, was talking about him because he'd never heard of the sheriff before.
• A man in Chicago who was shot five timed during a 2015 traffic stop is suing the city and the officers, accusing the police department of dragging its feet on discipline after the shooting was ruled unjustified.
• The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says they are running out of options to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.
• Suspected ISIS gunmen killed at least four Red Cross workers in Afghanistan.
• The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.
• A Russian court has barred opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in 2018 after he was convicted in a retrial of a 2013 case.
• Barack Obama is done with you people.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.

The only kind of president to have.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hello.

[Ted S.]

And as a Somali he can’t enter the US.

[Free Society]

And as a US citizen, he in fact can. That and his status of being a head of state.

[Zunalter]

#Libertarianmoment

A regular Libertopia, amirite?

[Certified Public Asshat]

Thousands of cheering Somalis quickly poured into the streets in jubilation, chanting the new president’s name.

Streets???

[Zunalter]

They didn’t build that, that’s for sure.

[Pan Zagloba]

Pirates stole them from other governments.

[mr simple]

Did the opposition make him produce a birth certificate?

[Fist of Etiquette]

Barack Obama is done with you people.

He’s going back to his native country!!!

[BigT]

The feeling is mutual.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Barack Obama is done with you people.

If only.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

No! The Republicans need a focus for their two minutes of hate. Who will Rush and Alex get worked up about? Gay frogs only take you so far.

[Zunalter]

#projection?

[Zunalter]

From your keyboard to God’s eyes, Ed.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Texas State Sen. Konni Burton (R) said Trump’s comment to a sheriff opposed to asset forfeiture reform would not discourage her efforts.

Flame war: ON!

[mr simple]

If she really wanted to get under his skin, after being told of Trump’s comments she should have replied with: Who?

[Chip Woodier]

Trump finally does something fascist, but all the wolf-criers have already done their work. Democrats can’t criticize him for this because Obama never did anything to stop it either. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Cyto]

That doesn’t even slow them down.

Judd Apatow was on with Adam Carolla talking politics. He was effusive in his disdain for Trump, noting that Trump is historically, amazingly, unprecedentedly awful. Apatow went on and on about Trump suggesting that the Senate should drop the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees.

“He has no long term vision. Everything is shortsighted with him. It is like he doesn’t even realize that a democrat could take office after him and use the same rules.”

Really. He was concerned at Trump’s unparalleled evil in suggesting that the senate drop the 60 vote requirement for supreme court nominees…. because, unlike every rational human before him, he doesn’t realize that his successors might be from a different party.

He had absolutely no clue that his personal savior His Holiness B. H. Obama and all of the saints he worships in the Democratic Caucus engaged the nuclear option for his appointments. He really was concerned that no president had ever done such a thing.

This is just weird. Apatow is extremely smart. He’s also old enough that he was a middle aged man of great success and political involvement at the time Obama and Team D enacted the “nuclear option”, so it isn’t as if he is ignorant of the facts.

It is just that confirmation bias and motivated reasoning are so immensely powerful that you can literally convince yourself of anything that you want to.

[Citizen X - #6]

Barack Obama is done with you people.

It’s mutual, friendo.

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

“You people”??

[Private Chipperbot]

Huh?

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

What do you mean by “Huh?”, huh?

[jack sprat]

I’m just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

[Anomalous]

That’s his white privilege speaking.

[Ted S.]

Texas State Sen. Konni Burton (R) said Trump’s comment to a sheriff opposed to asset forfeiture reform would not discourage her efforts. Another senator who sponsored a bill, Democrat Juan Hinojosa, said he did not think the sheriff, for whom Trump offered to destroy the career of an asset reform advocate, was talking about him because he’d never heard of the sheriff before.

But we know Trump was just joking, and anybody who disagrees is just a cuck.

[Just Say'n]

Definitely. Anyone who questions God emperor is clearly a cuck. This is known.

[Jerryskids]

Donald said it himself – he never kids. Although he may have been kidding when he said that he never kids.

[jack sprat]

You go Barry! Little people are so yesterday’s campaign.

[Ted S.]

Well, all of the Munchkins are dead, I believe.

[paranoid android]

Speaking of odd segues, I highly recommend the show Emerald City to anyone who wants to have a laugh at what unconscious self-parody network television has become. It’s that fresh take on the Wizard of Oz mythos that you always never wanted, where the Munchkins are a barbarian warrior race, the Wizard is a war criminal, and the Wicked Witch of the East dies by getting shot in the face. It must be seen to be believed.

[Ted S.]

When I think Billie Burke, I don’t think Glinda; I think Dinner at Eight.

[BigT]

It’s that fresh take on the Wizard of Oz POTUS mythos that you always never wanted, where the Munchkins Libertarians are a barbarian warrior race, the Wizard Prez is a war criminal, and the Wicked Witch of the East, Mrs Clinton dies by getting shot in the face. It must be seen to be believed enjoyed.

[Eternal Blue Sky]

“Libertarians are a barbarian warrior race”

“MISES, WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE??”

“To crush your enemies by providing better products at lower prices, to see customers flocking before you, ant to hear the lamentation of the Socialists.”

[mad.casual]

“To crush your enemies by providing better products at lower prices, to see customers flocking before you, ant to hear the lamentations of their Socialists nannies.”

FIFY

[Episteme]

You sir, have pushed the giant wheel of my heart…

[mad.casual]

Speaking of odd segues, I highly recommend the show Emerald City to anyone who wants to have a laugh at what unconscious self-parody network television has become. It’s that fresh take on the Wizard of Oz mythos that you always never wanted…

So, maybe you weren’t aware of this, but somewhere around the late 70s pretty much everything having to do with Oz was co-opted by SJWs during the Gay Rights Movement. Nothing cements your legitimate and serious claim to being oppressed minority like seizing the symbolism surrounding a fictional story of a teen girl who got hit in the head.

[Episteme]

My favorite use of Oz was a panel at one history/culture conference where at a professor when through the film’s depiction of the Emerald City and showed which Beaux-Arts and Early Modernist pieces of architecture (many from designs at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair) the film’s artists used to create a 1930’s audience’s idea of a fantastical city (and presumably one suggested of what Dorothy had heard of Chicago and the Fair, given how the rest of Oz is designed).

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Suspected ISIS gunmen killed four Red Cross workers in Afghanistan.

Wouldn’t have that problem if it was the Red Sickle Moon. Christians must be the problem.

[jesse.in.mb]

Why not both?

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

^That’s what I’m talking about! Inclusion rocks.

[jesse.in.mb]

I’m actually surprised that they weren’t operating under the Red Crescent in Afghanistan.

Although after this, I’m kind of surprised more medical aid workers aren’t gunned down.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Perfect example of why we should stay out of other countries affairs as long as they stay out of ours.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

The crescent is eating the cross!!!!

[BigT]

the crescent looks like a sickle, and the cross a hammer, of course. Together you have….

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Mind. Blown.

[The Last American Hero]

Someone’s been reading The Creature from Jekyll Island again.

[Just Say'n]

From what I read in the Washington Post, they were shot because they did not fully ‘check their privilege’. Silence is violence, you fascist

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Bash the fash.

[Holger da Dane]

Shove it up your gash, it’s time to flash that trash!

*Starts furiously writing rap lyrics*

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

I read that last part as “starts fapping to furious lyrics”. Now that’s metal.

[Holger da Dane]

The human mind is a curious thing 🙂

[Episteme]

No one ever shoots the Blue Cross. They need to a Red Shield to the Red Cross.

[John Titor]

To be fair, this immediately came to mind.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says they are running out of options to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Maybe they should… Sioux.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

You heep big racist, Fist of Squawking

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Go on warpath?

[We are all Sloopy's mom (RBS)]

This sounds like a straight to DVD Steven Segal movie

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Maybe they should… Sioux.

I don’t think a Ghost Dance is the solution here.

[Rufus The Monocled]

‘Barack Obama is done with you people.’

/Waves piece of paper. “That’s right. And here’s my real birth certificate suckas!”

[The Fusionist]

“The Islamic Republic of Screwyouistan?”

[Zunalter]

He was Canadian, all along…

[John Titor]

Don’t you dare try and pin this on us, Cruz is totally our bad though.

[BigT]

Ture-dough enough

[BigT]

True-dough

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Turd-dough

[Zunalter]

I would take 1000 Cruz’s over 1 Obama, even though he sounds like he is doing an impression of Dana Carvey doing an impression of George HW Bush when he speaks.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Agreed. That smarmy face though…

[Libertarian]

how long before we see his transcripts?

[BigT]

If it were proven he was not American born, would that imperil all his acts, ie ex orders? or whatever in any way?

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Nah, it would take a majority of the House and Senate to do something like that. There’s not enough evil Republi…hey wait a minute!

[TheZeitgeist]

The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.

Next DNC Chairman?

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

“And if elected, I will keep our cities, our townships, and our countrysides free of roads!”

[Eternal Blue Sky]

Libertarian Moment!!

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

Suspected ISIS gunmen killed four Red Cross workers in Afghanistan.

ISIS isn’t killing people in Bond-villain style deathtraps anymore? We’re winning, folks.

[Rich]

The ICRC said it was putting its work in Afghanistan on temporary hold. “We need to understand more clearly what happened,” ICRC Director of Operations Dominik Stillhart said.

But if *Trump* does it — “NOOOOO!!”

[Fist of Etiquette]

A man in Chicago who was shot five timed during a 2015 traffic stop is suing the city and the officers, accusing the police department of dragging its feet on discipline after the shooting was ruled unjustified.

The only thing CPD does quick is put five bullets into you.

[Juvenile Bluster]

Look, the cops were punished enough. Their shooting was “unjustified”. That means they have to pay for the drinks when they brag about it to other cops. it’s cruel!

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

How do you know it was quick?

How many times did they have to shoot and reload to hit him 5 times?

[Holger da Dane]

You should have seen the dumpster he was hiding in front of. Swiss cheese I tell you.

[mr simple]

Yeah, exactly how many of them were shooting at him and how many other passersby got shot?

[Col. Chestbridge]

Since not everyone visits the AM Links:

The continuing adventures of the back-up Danger 5, the international team of spies with a number of people who are probably dangerous to something somewhere somehow.

Part Three

Parts Four & Five are finished and will be posted in tomorrow’s and Friday’s AM Links, respectively.

[Citizen X - #6]

The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.

Libertarian moment!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Farmajo? Farmer Joe?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Far-ma-ho?

Farm-a-ho

[Rich]

Check Out What Barack Obama Has Been Up to Since Leaving Office

No, thank you.

[Citizen X - #6]

Binge-watching Netflix and smoking mad bowls, mostly.

[Slammer]

Don’t forget selfies!!

[John]

http://pjmedia.com/trending/20…..torylines/

Marvel comics gives up the SJW mantel. Who could have seen that SJW polemics might not sell?

[SimonD]

Marvel is still owned by Disney, so I’ll believe it when it actually happens.

(I’m not holding my breath either)

[Wasteland Wanderer]

I thought Disney only acquired the movie rights?

[Wasteland Wanderer]

*Iooks it up*

Huh….I guess they did buy the whole shebang.

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

I’m shocked. I assumed everyone loves a good scolding when they purchase entertainment.

[The Fusionist]

That depends on whether you’re one of the fetishists who’s into that kind of thing.

[The Fusionist]

Look, I know that Spiderman is Marvel and Superman is DC, and I know a few of their stories from the 1970s, and I watched some superhero movies, and that’s just about nerdy enough for me, don’t ask me to figure out their convoluted plotlines much less take their politics seriously.

[John Titor]

don’t ask me to figure out their convoluted plotlines much less take their politics seriously.

Short version: Comics got really, really stupid recently.

As opposed to their usual moderately stupid.

[lafe.long]

All you need to know is that Iron Man is now a teenaged Black girl named RiRi Williams.

[The Fusionist]

I checked Google just to make sure you were joking…and you *weren’t.*

[Eternal Blue Sky]

I don’t get why more minorities don’t find this insulting. Nope, minorities and women don’t get to have their OWN superheroes, they get the hand-me-downs ONLY.

[Pan Zagloba]

It’s just goddamn soap opera. Not in comics, the meta-narrative of “SHOCK: Red Skull is Trump! SHOCK: Captain America is a Nazi! SHOCK: Captain America is not a Nazi! SHOCK: Red Skull is not Trump!”

[Zunalter]

Considering the huge amount of derp shoveled onto our children on a daily basis (for at least the last generation), this actually surprises me.

[mad.casual]

I think the only reasonable response is [Unsolicited Opinions On Israel]. I mean nothing makes for great writing and groundbreaking imagination inspiring stories like [a lot of mysogynist filth].

It’s almost like, with Deadpool, they discovered that writing [ceci ne pas une pipe] doesn’t make you Rene Fucking Magritte.

[Ted S.]

Lost in translation.

[Rufus The Monocled]

The image has tits that seem a tad wide apart and that’s quite the gaping hole there.

What kind of freaks are we talking about here?

[Ted S.]

Icelanders aren’t freaks!

[Rhywun]

Don’t they have their own perfectly good language to post signs in…?

[The Fusionist]

Shut up, you cosmo cuck. USA! USA!

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Everyone who speaks Icelandic already knows to dip their naughty bits into meat broth before bathing.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The White House press secretary said President Trump had every right to stand up for his family after Trump tweeted that Nordstrom’s was treating his daughter Ivanka, who he said always pushed him to “do the right thing,” unfairly.

Was it a question of rights?

[Just Say'n]

My God, what would he be like without Ivanka ‘pushing him to do the right thing’?

[The Late P Brooks]

Ah-haaa!

In a media year dominated by coverage of the presidential campaigns and the election of Donald J. Trump, the unapologetically progressive monthly Mother Jones, edited by Clara Jeffery, was named Magazine Of The Year today by the American Society Of Magazine Editors. And in an equally stunning awards ceremony, ASME sent The New Yorker home empty-handed despite nominations in five categories and its full-on coverage of the Obama Administration and the transition to the Trump era.

———-

“In a year that rocked our country and challenged our industry, Mother Jones found new ways to engage audiences and continue its practice of fearless journalism,” the ASME Magazine Of The Year citation read. Mother Jones also won the highly competitive Reporting category, for “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard,” by Shane Bauer.

Maybe next year, reason, maybe next year.

[John]

In a year that rocked our country and challenged our industry, Mother Jones found new ways to engage audiences and continue its practice of fearless journalism,

Maybe this woman has been out of the country and missed it but someone needs to tell her that Trump won the election. They spent the entire year operating with the single purpose of keeping Trump out of the White House and dragging Hillary’s wrinkled ass into it and they failed.

[UVaGrad]

That prison guard story was really, really good.

But Mother Jones as “unapologetically progressive” under Jeffery in 2016, rather than “just another house organ of the DNC”? Sure thing.

[paranoid android]

“In a year that rocked our country and challenged our industry, Mother Jones found new ways to engage audiences and continue its practice of fearless journalism,” the ASME Magazine Of The Year citation read.

Don’t ASME no questions, don’t tell me no lies.

[Raven Nation]

In a year that rocked our country

And, by country, I mean the small group of like-thinking people that I talk to.

[Ted S.]

Did reason get any nominations?

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Is there a magazine?

[Trolleric the Goth]

impostor ASME, the real one only cares about boilers and pressure vessels and such, not shitty magazines

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

And rigging.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

The real AMSE is just jealous of the SAE.

[Holger da Dane]

My local grocery store basically uses Mother Jones as a way to make it look like they are not almost sold out of the “AR-15” magazine. There’s always just one or two left, sitting on top of a 10+ stack of MJ.

[JayU]

There’s a fairly unintelligible message on my voicemail that sounds like the person is saying it’s from “Kampf Enterprises.”

What do I do?

[Rich]

Um, delete it?

[jesse.in.mb]

If it’s important they’ll call back, but maybe make sure your finest brown shirt is crisply pressed, just in case.

[Ted S.]

I hope he has something from Hugo Boss.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Just say nein.

[Pat (PM)]

Authoritarianism Is Not Confined To One Political Party

None of Barack Obama’s wrongdoings over the past eight years absolve Donald Trump of his in the coming eight. Period.
If we want to get serious about the scourge of “norm breaking,” though, we can’t ignore when those norms were first shattered simply because it’s politically convenient for some people to reset history.[…]

Anyone genuinely concerned about the corrosion of constitutional processes has to view politics as a continuum. In the same way Obama blamed George W. Bush for the economic difficulties he faced in 2008, those who are troubled by executive overreach can point out that many of Trump’s actions were normalized years earlier by the same people warning us that the republic is collapsing. They want power, as well.
One of the few aspects of Obama’s legacy likely to survive the Trump years is his mainstreaming of the notion that the executive branch has an authority to do whatever it likes if the law-making branch “fails to act”[…].

Whatever your views of immigration policy are, for example, if you believe it was acceptable for Obama to change the legality of millions with a pen, but that Trump is Joseph Mengele for temporarily banning travel for a few thousand potential refugees, you’re not really concerned about executive abuse or process.

[Pat (PM)]

This is going to be a very long post, so either bear with me or hit that scroll wheel.

I know my thoughts, musings and opinions are about as well received as a hemorrhoid around here. And I know that part of that is because I have it within my personality to act like a colossal asshole, which I tend to work out in the relatively low-risk environment of the internet rather than in real life where it might get me punched in the mouth. But it’s also in no small part because I’m frequently tagged as a “yokel”, Republican partisan, social conservative or otherwise a phony libertarian whose true sympathies lie with the right and the GOP to the exclusion of all else. Bearing in mind Jonathan Swift’s observation Reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired, I believe it is almost certainly futile to try to change that perception among those who hold it. But for what it’s worth, the above piece tidily summarizes my personal viewpoint on government generally and current events in particular, as well as what I view as a failing with the broad Reason editorial stance and at least some element of the commentariat (not that there’s much left of it after the die off). (cont’d)

[Pat (PM)]

I first started reading Reason as an occasional indulgence in the early 2000s, but only started lurking the comments and eventually posting with increasing frequency during the 2nd term of GWB. There’s others who have been here as regulars for a much longer length of time, and perhaps that gives them a better perspective than mine on the overall ideological trajectory of the mag and website. But it has been my perception, right or wrong, that during the Obama years, and the 2nd Obama term in particular, the emphasis has been on particular policy outcomes to the near-exclusion of process and principle. At the same time, social issues seemed to me to have become the primary focus of most of the writing and commentary rather than more substantive, if boring, analysis of policy and process. The shift in focus seemed to me to correspond to a shift in the commentariat as well. People who once might have found substantial points of agreement on certain libertarian principles became divided into cultural boxes with no possibility of good faith conferred to those on opposing sides. At various times I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone else, so don’t mistake this observation as exempting or excusing myself. (cont’d)

[Pat (PM)]

Libertarianism as I was introduced to it and still prefer to conceptualize it can potentially be very ideologically ecumenical because the only real rule, in terribly simplified form, is: Don’t hurt other people and don’t take their stuff. The NAP doesn’t dictate any particular social orthodoxy ? only that those of differing persuasions agree to not fuck with each other. But as Reason became more and more focused on outcome rather than process, with the editorial stance of the magazine often (in my opinion) taking the culturally liberal or libertine position with little or no regard for the means by which it was achieved, the divisions went from the usual libertarian esoterica like deontology vs utilitarianism into the standard “goodthink vs. badthink” divisions from the broader political environment, and generally reflecting the left of center position as the correct one. Opposing the Obergefell decision = badthink. Opposing Obama’s executive action on immigration = badthink. Opposing TPP = badthink. Opposing ENDA = badthink. No manner of explanation from real or pretended principle could not be sufficiently waved off as the clumsy excuse making of a bigoted religious right wing interloper here to shit in the proverbial left-libertarian punch bowl. If you weren’t part of the centralized federal government solution, you were a part of, if not the source of, the problem. (cont’d)

[Pat (PM)]

All of the above has been a source of annoyance and frustration to me lo these many years, but something I chalked up to the price of admission. Reason is (at least culturally) left-leaning, I’m not. Reason is willing to support left-leaning policies I wouldn’t. When I’m at Reason, in order to participate in the conversation I have to pretend as if Hobbs Act privileges exempting extortionist violence by unions from prosecution have some analogue on the opposite side of the spectrum when they don’t, or that there are mobs of 20-something white nationalists who maxed out their parents’ credit card at the local Army/Navy store burning down coffee houses and beating on people to silence dissenting speech just like the black bloc assholes when there aren’t, or that Christian terrorist attacks are equally as likely in Western society as Islamic terrorist attacks when that’s not the case. “A pox on both their houses!” I’m supposed to recite as if it were a religious litany without regard for the context or the truth. It’s never stopped me from whinging about it, but que sera sera. That’s just how it is here. (cont’d)

[Pat (PM)]

But the 2016 election and the burgeoning Trump presidency has, in my opinion, sent a substantial number of the Reason staff (and some portion of the commentariat) directly off the deep end. Policies and processes that were ignored, excused or even applauded during the Obama and Bush years have been given a fetishistic level of negative attention. The doublethink has been obnoxious, if not particularly surprising. But one thing I never thought I’d ever see, even notwithstanding ENB’s sad apologia for Black Lives Matter riots and the constant equivocation and false equivalence regarding the left’s means to Reason’s preferred ends, was a Reason senior policy analyst outright and unreservedly condone and encourage political violence. With all due respect and sympathy to sloopy’s mom, in the grand scheme that is far worse. We’re really through the looking glass here. It’s one thing to justify your support for big government and a unitary executive with tu quoque about past overreach by your nemeses. Quite another to say that the only alternative to bad speech is violence. (cont’d)

[Pat (PM)]

Rounding back to where I started, I do not belong culturally or socially to the left and never will. I reject categorically both the stated and revealed aims of the social justice movement. I don’t fit neatly into the cultural right either, but I think there’s an awful lot of good to be said for moderation, temperance, family, and “old fashioned” Enlightenment values. I know that will always alienate me from the not-insubstantial portion of the Reason commentariat who, like the overwhelming majority of the staff, do belong culturally and socially to the left and will always see me as some irredeemable bumpkin. But for whatever else may be said about me, I believe unequivocally that with the sole exception of self-defense, it is always and everywhere unquestionably and inexcusably wrong to hurt other people or take their stuff. I think that makes me a libertarian, despite my preference to drink cheap bourbon, make crude jokes, have exclusive heterosexual relationships, and live in the suburbs rather than smoke pot, censor my language, have libertine non-binary sexual relationships and live in a loft in the city. I reckon that if I’m not a libertarian, neither were Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, Albert Jay Nock, Friedrich Hayek. I’d rather be whatever those fellows were in any case. And I sure as shit don’t want to be whatever it is that Reason has turned into when its senior staff calls for violence against its political enemies. (cont’d)

[Galt1138]

Amen!

Although, I think it worth sticking around to prod and poke the nonsense coming from some (alas, most these days) of the Reason staff.

There’s nothing wrong with sticking to principles, nor pointing out hypocrisy. Being practical and realistic to situations at hand doesn’t require the relinquishment of one’s ideals or integrity.

[Pat (PM)]

Therefore, I will henceforth be trying to reduce my presence here as I no longer feel there is any place for my perspective (if there ever was), and I do not wish to support or be associated in any way with any organization that would tolerate, let alone encourage, non-defensive violence in furtherance of politics ? most especially not an ostensibly libertarian organization doing so as a response to speech it doesn’t like. I cannot guarantee I will succeed, since for whatever reason this site keeps attracting me back like a fly to a turd (it’s probably my unconscious desire to drive SugarFree to yokel madness). But this is, at least for now, my swan song post.

(inb4 “cool story bro”)

[Citizen X - #6]

You SugarFree’d the link.

[greasonable]

Da link

[Rufus The Monocled]

I just come here to be immature.

[jack sprat]

^Seconded

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Same here. I am not sure what Pat expects to get out of participating in these comments but perhaps his bar is not low enough.

[OneOut]

You’re doing a great job Rufus.

The best, believe me.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Aw.

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

Now THAT’S a farewell post. Even by your lofty standards, that post was exemplary.

I mean, STFU you goddamn yokel!

[Just Say'n]

I completely agree on the justification of violence against speech by a senior Reason writer. If defending natural rights against aggression is not a line that should not be crossed ever than the word ‘libertarian’ truly has no meaning.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Well put. I think if you leave you’re only letting them win. I enjoy most everyone’s thoughts on this site but reserve the right to agree/disagree with them.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I will tell you what I have told others:

1) Emotions are running high right now, and no one but yours truly is immune. This publication and its contributors will soon enough self-correct.

2) Libertarians will never be in lockstep, but yokels and cosmos have common ground enough to at least debate in good faith, even if it’s to no resolution. Echo chambers are for the weak-minded.

3) Quitters never win. You leave, you forfeit all your arguments, past and present.

[Just Say'n]

There can be no ‘debate’ on individual rights. ‘Speech’ is non-negotiable

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

^This. I hope you aren’t the first person to say that on here.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

*in reply to Fist

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Nicely put, Fist.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Is that the speech Crosby gave the Pens last year before going on their run?

[Playa Manhattan.]

As someone who has respect for most of the commenters who still choose to post here, I owe it to you guys to stay away. Some of these articles are so fucking awful that there’s no other choice but to talk shit.

If I have to choose between bowing away gracefully or turning into SIV, I choose the former.

Even so, there will come points where I just can’t contain myself. Robby and Dalmia need to fucking go, and I won’t be shy in saying so.

[John]

It is pretty remarkable when you consider the diversity of opinions on this board that pretty much everyone except for the lefty sock puppets agree that Soave and Dalmia are awful. How fucking awful does someone have to be to get you, me, SIV, and the rest of this board to agree that you are awful?

That is a pretty good trick.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Ha!

I dissent then.

Because.

[OneOut]

Why do you feel that you owe it to others here to stay away?

I enjoy most of your podts and respect you opinion.

I’m here mostly for the yuks and I prefer differing opinions.

This place would be boring as hell if it turned into just another discuss echo chamber.

Ignore the articles have fun with your internet friends.

There will be another contribution drive soon enough. The Kochs are #neverTrump and now that Bezos has envoked Alinski style tactis to infiltrate and destroy the institutions his big money seems to have shifted Reason to the hard left.

That’s OK

They will have to pay all the bills due to keep the joint open going forward.

[Playa Manhattan.]

Think about how people react to SIV.

I don’t want to be “that guy”.

And if I was, I’d be a lot better at it.

[VG Zaytsev]

So you don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’.

Guess what, that makes you a pussy, not heroic.

If you, as a semi anonymous internet commenter owe anyone anything it is a voice of reason to the random visitors that come here.

[Galt1138]

Seconded.

[PapayaSF]

I understand what you saying, Pat, but I’m sorry to see you go. There is the invite-only Reasonoids Google group, which I am in, but I don’t think I have the power to invite you. If none of the admins see this and invite you, send me an email at my handle + gmail.com and I’ll pass it on.

[Raven Nation]

Wait, there’s a Google group?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Shhh. Here’s the real number for 911.

912.

[Playa Manhattan.]

There’s all sorts of secret stuff.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

*pretends to know sign and flails around

[jesse.in.mb]

KING MIDAS HAS DONKEY EARS

[We are all Sloopy's mom (RBS)]

I’m always left out of the secret stuff.

/kicks pebble

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I’m always left out of the secret stuff.

I’m part of a secret club you may be interested in. Our members meet up in the basements of pizza parlors across the land, where we discuss geopolitics and enjoy youthful entertainment. Let me know if you want an invite.

[jesse.in.mb]

Old Juggler With Candy?

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Old Juggler With Candy?

I would never juggle old candy.

[jesse.in.mb]

Which brings us back to my Eleventh Hour reference.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I don’t the reference, so I am insulted. I will also buy the book for a child at some point, because of your recommendation.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I don’t *understand* the reference. Sheepers.

[jesse.in.mb]

SPOILER ALERT:

It’s a standard murder mystery, but for children, so the sumptuous feast has been completely eaten by dinner time. All of the various characters overtly deny the deed except the mouse who says “not one mouse could eat it all” or something to that effect. If you were paying attention every page has barely hidden silhouettes of mice scurrying behind the scenes. The mouse told the truth, but was still responsible for the act. Actually looking for photos to illustrate this I’m noticing how many puzzles and hidden bits of text I didn’t even see when I was younger. I might have to dig a copy up and look it over again.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Thanks, Jesse!

[Rufus The Monocled]

It would help to turn you handle orange.

[Raven Nation]

Yeah, I know. I need to set up another e-mail account. I was worried about becoming troll bait.

[Playa Manhattan.]

I was unaware of any email off yours. If you have a throwaway, I’ll refer to the committee.

[Episteme]

Pat, all else fails, do what I (another libertarian-leaning conservative part-time commenter with the same concerns that you have) do: spent 80% of the time here making bad puns and the like, and only occasionally respond fully with a complex answer.

Good thoughts, though.

[GILMORE?]

Is there a “Book on Tape” version of this? Or should i wait until the mini-series appears on Lifetime?

[GILMORE?]

this is, at least for now, my swan song post.

Good stuff. well written.

You manage to sum up a lot of the assorted complaints in one holistic argument, which i think is solid. The point about “Reason became more and more focused on outcome rather than process” i think covers a lot of it, tho i don’t know if i’d have realized that before you said it.

also, the endless false-equivilencies is pretty spot-on too;

I have to pretend as if Hobbs Act privileges exempting extortionist violence by unions from prosecution have some analogue on the opposite side of the spectrum when they don’t, or that there are mobs of 20-something white nationalists who maxed out their parents’ credit card at the local Army/Navy store burning down coffee houses and beating on people to silence dissenting speech just like the black bloc assholes when there aren’t, or that Christian terrorist attacks are equally as likely in Western society as Islamic terrorist attacks when that’s not the case

I’m pretty much saving your Swan Song post for future reference, so that i can steal the best parts and claim it as my own.

but don’t be a stranger

[Mr Drew]

Pat, that was excellent. I fell like I should say more that that sums it up.

[VG Zaytsev]

While I agre with your analysis, I reject your conclusion of self ecitio mon favor of fervently trolling these pseudo-libertarians for the sake of influencing random libertarian leaning Pelegr?n that stumble upon the site.

[Hihndication]

Corpse fucking the thread but…

Millions of likes I would give this if I could

[Pat (PM)]

Perhaps it’s fate that I SF’d my link on this of all occasions.

Authoritarianism Is Not Confined To One Political Party

[Citizen X - #6]

You also SugarFree’d this one.

[Pat (PM)]

Okay, fuck it. Google search the title. It’s Dave Harsanyi via Federalist.

[John]

How much of that is Hysranni and how much of it is you? You SugarFree’d the entire post.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I WILL NOT. YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Thanks for taking the time to write in all seriousness.

[PapayaSF]

The link.

[Just Say'n]

Harsanyi writes some columns for Reason, too. They definitely need more of him and less Shikha

[PapayaSF]

Indeed. As most know, I have long been annoyed at Shikha’s “all immigration is forever good, you haters” position, but her Tweet that tried to blame Milo for the Berkeley riot was startling bad.

[Just Say'n]

It was disgustingly offensive and illiberal

[Holger da Dane]

+ a million this

[mr simple]

Of course a fascist magazine like the federalist would say that. I mean, what’s more fascist than federalism? I bet they don’t even support enforced intersectionalism.

[PapayaSF]

*snort*

[Ted S.]

Cool link, bro.

[Hyperion]

“The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says they are running out of options to block the Dakota Access Pipeline”

Have they not called upon the Great White Squaw yet? For a few millions donated to the cause, she will go on the warpath to defeat the Great Orange Trumpallo!

[Volren]

Until she’s told to sit down and shut up amirite

[Rich]

Why These Scientists Fear Contact With Space Aliens

“There’s a possibility that if we actively message, with the intention of getting the attention of an intelligent civilization, that the civilization we contact would not necessarily have our best interests in mind,” says Lucianne Walkowicz, an astrophysicist at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

“Why, they could be fucking *Republicans*!”

[John]

With cookbooks.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

“How To Cook Humans”

[John]

“How to Serve Man”.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

[tries to extinguish Jesse signal]

[jesse.in.mb]

Kinky.

[UVaGrad]

This is the basis of the plot for Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, which is fantastic and you should all read it.

[John]

Any civilization capable of practical interstellar travel would necessarily posses technology and power that would make us look like one of those lost stone age tribes of the Amazon facing an armored division. We would be entirely at their mercy. I don’t think that would work out too well. I think we should leave the rest of the universe alone.

[PapayaSF]

Although the question would be: if they are so powerful, why bother with us? What could we have that a star-traveling species would want to take from us by force?

[John]

Who knows. Maybe they would like our women. Maybe they would blast us without even knowing they did. Maybe they are just assholes and would stomp us the way a child stomps and ant hill.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

May be they like chubby women. It would be a win-win for everyone. Well, almost everyone.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

May be they like chubby women.

Are you implying that John may be an alien? An illegal alien?

[Galt1138]

“Consideration for your fellow man
Would not hurt anybody, it sure fits in with my plan
Over the border, there lies the promised land
Where everything comes easy, you just hold out your hand”

[John Titor]

Self-preservation, long term resource management. If you’re next door to another sentient species capable of spaceflight and expansion it might be better and more efficient to just wipe the slate now than deal with a bigger problem a couple hundred years ago the road.

[PapayaSF]

Kind of like Western civilization vs. Islam right now, huh…?

[John Titor]

Can I get a confirmation on your pro-genocide stance?

[PapayaSF]

Just making an edgy joke, son.

[John Titor]

Tis hard to tell with you sometimes.

[jesse.in.mb]

That “sometimes” is generous.

[PapayaSF]

I live on the edge….

[UVaGrad]

The novel actually does a good job of explaining that, but I don’t want to spoil too much.

[Holger da Dane]

What could we have that a star-traveling species would want to take from us by force?

Orifices to lay eggs in? A compelling flavor? The ability to breathe the air in the deuterium mines of some distant planet?

[jesse.in.mb]

Orifices to lay eggs in?

You can prepare for a future with an egg-laying overlord race now! With the ovipositor splorch from Primal Hardwere (sic)

Video is theoretically SFW, but if someone catches you it’ll be awkward.

[Holger da Dane]

*Watches the first 3 seconds – cringes*

Rule 34..

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

That’s a very libertarian attitude, John. Well done.

[John Titor]

The old internet story is that SETI finally gets into contact with another nearby alien species. The operator is frantically trying to decode the message, and then realizes it’s basic code for English they called from radio waves. The message is:

“QUIET DOWN, THEY’LL HEAR YOU.”

[The Last American Hero]

All I know is that if they look like the gals from the V reboot, I’m selling all of you guys out and joining the lizard people.

[John Titor]

Noted. The Last American Hero, likely alien sympathizer, prepare strike force plan, target elimination.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Absolutely. I highly recommend the whole trilogy. My favorite was the second book: The Dark Forest.

[Raven Nation]

Hawking said much the same thing three or four years ago.

[Episteme]

Hawking is just afraid on account of that “you don’t have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun the other guy” rule in his slow-ass chair!

[Chipper Morning Wood]

I am pretty sure he has secret jet blasters installed under that chair.

[BigT]

Hawking of all people should recognize that give the immense distances involved interstellar travel is essentially impossible for anything with mass. Now, if they could transmit enough info to re-create part of their civilization on a nearby planet that could be different. The times involved would still be very significant, and we would have at least many years warning.

Hawking, die already and let people remember you for your good work not your senile ramblings.

[John]

The energy involved and the distances make it as you say. That assumes that our understanding of space and time is complete and there isn’t some other way to do it by folding space to shorten the distance.

From what we know, interstellar travel outside of the nearest stars is practically impossible. But what we know might not be the entire truth.

[The Last American Hero]

My opinion of Hawking decreased significantly after watching that dude politely tear him a new one on Through the Wormhole.

[John Titor]

The scramblers from Blindsight are listening in on this and are really, really confused.

[MikeT1986]

Man I can’t wait to find alien life.

Odds are as a species they’re going to suck, and it’ll be good times.

[John Titor]

You’re going to be really disappointed when it’s silicon-based bacteria.

[JaimeRoberto]

Even if they have our interests in mind, the diseases they might carry could be a disaster for us. Like what happened to the Indians after contact with Europeans.

[John]

http://heatst.com/politics/cur…..iz-warren/

Curt Shilling hates Indians. The big racist.

[BigT]

He had a great record vs the Indians…and Braves.

[Bobarian (Would Chip Her)]

Who’s Putzer, Ed?

[Citizen X - #6]

Shut the fuck up, Donnie.

[GILMORE?]

Yer brudda is der putzer!

[Rhywun]

The chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says they are running out of options to block the Dakota Access Pipeline.

You mean inviting a bunch of professional liberals to squat on your land and trash it didn’t work?

[John]

250 dump truck loads of trash just thrown out on the ground. That protest went on for months. That means that trash pile sat there for months. Tons of trash and human waste sitting out on the ground and not in any kind of lined landfill. I am sure nothing leached into the groundwater or anything.

More than anything, these people are retarded, spoiled children.

[TheZeitgeist]

Winter’s almost over, so the tourist season should be starting up again soon out there.

[Episteme]

Have they tried giving gifts of blankets* to the Army Corps of Engineers?

_____
*these blankets would be infected with red-man diseases

[Chipwooder]

You can give someone alcoholism via a blanket?

[Episteme]

A quilt where each square is a happy hour drink coupon?

[GILMORE?]

The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.

One step closer to Libertopia. If only we can now get the presidency to be run as a corporate joint-venture.

[Gojira]

Woman divorces husband of 22 years because he voted for TrumpMecha-Hitler

[Gojira]

Sorry, of 21 years. I posted fake news!

[Gojira]

2nd correction: he didn’t even vote for Trump. He just voiced some support. But it was enough for her to throw off his husband oppression.

Sorry, I promise to RTFAs before I post them in future.

[We are all Sloopy's mom (RBS)]

This is much better and more ridiculous.

[GILMORE?]

I posted this yesterday.

You missed the important color-details, like how she was a former Prison Guard who identified as a Socialist.

[The Last American Hero]

Don’t they all? Oh wait, that’s all socialists who believe that the country should be run like a prison, and they should be the guards.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Well played, soon-to-be-free man. Well played.

[PapayaSF]

LOL

[Chipwooder]

This amused me mainly because my brother in law closely resembles the police chief from Stranger Things.

[Jerryskids]

The White House press secretary said President Trump had every right to stand up for his family after Trump tweeted that Nordstrom’s was treating his daughter Ivanka, who he said always pushed him to “do the right thing,” unfairly.

He certainly has the right, but you must admit it’s kind of unseemly to have the POTUS whining like a little bitch-ass punk on the twitters about how “unfair!” shit is every damn time you turn around. People made fun of Obama’s mom jeans – Obama is Chuck Norris compared to this whiny-ass crybaby. You know Putin can read your little “Dear Diary, Today a big old bully said some really mean things to me and really hurt my feelings” shit don’t you, Donald? You think Vlad cries big fat tears into his cellphone at night, you little pussy?

[Rufus The Monocled]

Obama did his fair share of whining – it was more subtle. It’s all nauseating.

But what is wrong with these stupid companies? What the fuck are they thinking? I won’t go to Nordtrom now because I don’t give a shit about their fucking political stance. SELL ME CLOTHES AND FUCK OFF.

[UVaGrad]

FWIW, Nordstrom maintains that they told Ivanka about this over a month ago, and it’s solely because her shoes didn’t sell in 2016.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Okay. If so, I retract. They have every right to do so.

[Rhywun]

I’m glad I work for a company that’s all business. I would hate to get one of those “Dear Employees” emails about the election.

[Holger da Dane]

Those emails are still flowing where I work every time Trump is caught scratching his ass. The assumption is that everyone who works here has the same cookie cutter political views because of the market and location we’re in. Much tolerance, I can’t even.. so woke.

[Adam330]

Dropping a line because it’s not selling well is a perfectly fine business reason. Nordstrom didn’t cite any political reasons for its decision. Nordstrom didn’t make this political; Trump did.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Thus proving we have to proceed cautiously where Trump is concerned.
In other words, like under Obama.

[paranoid android]

What I find weird is that Trump’s whole shtick during and after the campaign was that he was on this big crusade for those salt-of-the-earth working class types. Do those people care about a rich New York socialite getting in a spat with a fucking department store?

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

Do those people care about a rich New York socialite getting in a spat with a fucking department store?

Apparently.

[GILMORE?]

re: this headline =

DeVos’ first assignment: Mend fences with education foes

needs strapline

Alternatively: Destroy Them, Salt The Earth

[John]

In a government populated almost entirely by Progressives, the Department of Education has by far the most progressive leaning work force. The butt hurt and anger at that agency at having to work not just with but for Devos must be epic and wonderful.

[Rufus The Monocled]

I wish they’d shut a few agencies down. That way people would see the world won’t end and we can begin the process of purging us of the progressive scourge.

DEHORS! As we say here.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Don’t bother I say.

They won’t care.

[The Grinch]

It’s got to be window dressing. She’ll try to mend fences, they’ll tell her to fuck off, and she can proceed with the apocalypse. No one expects it to succeed I would think.

[Juice]

What can I say? Trump just loves fences.

[Slammer]

Bing bing bing!

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

That’s funny.

[BigT]

Trump hates Google!

[John Titor]

Barack Obama is done with you people.

Apparently not done enough not to pose for a photo-op.

[GILMORE?]

I may soon get to fulfill my long-held dream of becoming a Girl Scout

the article features this paragraph

U.S. doctors and parents are increasingly embracing the identity of transgender children as soon it starts to become obvious, sometimes around age 3.

I’m pretty sure that doesn’t actually square with any recognized pediatric consensus, or is based on any survey of parent, or any rational basis at all other than “This is What Is Editorially-Correct To Believe”

[JayU]

Three year olds struggle to tell the difference between a dog and a cat.

[Episteme]

That dog is a transcat. You can tell because he’s eating from the cat’s dish!

[MythicalLibertarianWoman]

When I was 3 years old, I really wanted to be a mermaid and would cry every night because I kept praying to wake up one day and find the whole world underwater and all of us as merpeople and it kept not happening. Three-year-olds are not rational, and it’s really unsettling to see people treating them like they are capable of making these decisions.

[Rufus The Monocled]

And? Do you still think it?

[MythicalLibertarianWoman]

I gave up on the mermaid dreams when I saw how gross underwater creatures look in reality rather than cartoon form. Particularly crabs.

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

My crabs are pretty sweet looking.

[The Last American Hero]

It’s just as well. By 17 you would have given up your mermaid tail and abandoned your father for the first good-looking sailor that gave you the time of day. I saw that in a documentary.

[John]

Saying a three year old child is a “transgender” is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard in my life. These people are sick. That is straight up child abuse and frankly is or should be criminal.

[The Grinch]

I’d have to agree but if a few prog kids have to be ruined for life so their parents can feel good about themselves so be it.

[mr simple]

Exactly. Studies show that between 80-90% of people who think they are trans when young grow out of it. Usually they are gay, lesbian, have problems adjusting to their changing bodies, are trying to escape themselves after abuse or something like that. There are many people online who have shared their story of starting to transition and now regret it.

[Jerryskids]

Suspected ISIS gunmen killed at least four Red Cross workers in Afghanistan.

Allegedly killed four Red Cross workers. “So-called” Red Cross workers. Reportedly in Afghanistan.

[Episteme]

“alleged” Afghanistan

[lafe.long]

Chelsea Clinton Sick Twitter Burn

[GILMORE?]

that’s going to leave a mark

[Rufus The Monocled]

Burrrrn.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Can you transcribe? I’m firewalled out of social media. I don’t know why. *continues posting on Reason

[Slammer]

Chelsea: “Glad everyone ok in Louvre atteck…and Bowling Green Massacre (fake news). Don’t make up attacks

Answer: “Glad to see your mom survived the Bosnian gunfire”

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Oh snap.

[lafe.long]

Bacon, it’s just a link to a jpg, not to the Twatterverse.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Lol, sorry. I assumed it was a link to twitter. Thanks.

[BigT]

I’m firewalled out of social media. I don’t know why. *continues posting on Reason

Obviously Reason is an anti-social medium.

[GILMORE?]

“A tragedy no one saw coming“

[The Fusionist]

They were “injured in fall” and we’re just hearing about it when it’s winter? I blame global warming.

[Libertarian]

No one gets injured in a fall. It’s the landing that does the damage.

[jesse.in.mb]

News grrizzlies can use: France’s Macron laughs off gay rumours

“Those who want to spread the idea that I am a fake, that I have hidden lives or something else, first of all, it’s unpleasant for Brigitte,” Macron told supporters late on Monday.

“She shares my whole life from morning till night and she wonders on a basic level how I could physically do anything!” he joked.

I was going to make are reference to a children’s book called The Eleventh Hour, but realized nobody would get it. Whatever: Not one mouse could eat it all.

[grrizzly]

I knew it!

[jesse.in.mb]

I’m kind of amazed the non-denial denial is still a thing. Do straight people not pick up on that?

[UVaGrad]

That book was great!

[jesse.in.mb]

Buy it for a younger kid in your life, but read it before you give it to him or her. They’re still visually engrossing as adults. I do the same thing with just about anything Chris Van Allsburg does.

[jesse.in.mb]

Jeez, I’m in a rough patch reading comprehension wise, I thought you said looks great.

[paranoid android]

Mad respect for Graeme Base references, jesse. I got my nieces Eleventh Hour, Sign of the Seahorse, and Animalia for Christmas a year or two back. They’re still a little young to read the stories but what self-respecting child could keep themselves from getting lost for hours looking at those illustrations?

[jesse.in.mb]

Yeah loved them as a kid. The visual intricacy was a delight. I’ve gotten Animalia and Eleventh Hour for various nieces and nephews over the years. I’m not familiar with Sign of the Seahorse.

The resolution for Eleventh Hour made me much more attentive to paltering before I knew there was a word for it.

[GILMORE?]

“So, how’s that War We’re Totally Not Fighting In Iraq going“?

something something coalition, training, non-combat mission, etc etc.

[Libertarian]

” . . .since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence.”

http://www.washingtonsblog.com…..-1776.html

[Chipper Morning Wood]

“See? Wars are good for the economy.” – Left and Right together

[The Late P Brooks]

But for whatever else may be said about me, I believe unequivocally that with the sole exception of self-defense, it is always and everywhere unquestionably and inexcusably wrong to hurt other people or take their stuff.

Hear, hear. I like to think of myself as a “golden rule” libertarian. I would not try to impose my preferences on anybody, because I sure as Hell don’t want them imposing theirs on me.

Thanks, Pat.

[lafe.long]

Kim Zolciak-Biermann Under Fire For Letting 4-Year-Old Hold Gun

The 38-year-old was documenting a day in her life through a series of Snapchats. One such snap revealed her young son Kash’s school survey. Keen eyes will notice one line of the survey reads “I love him [my dad] because he lets me hold his real gun,” Kash wrote of his father Kroy Biermann.

[John]

But they would have celebrated her if she had signed the kid up for a sex change operation. Our civilization deserves to die some days.

[Free Society]

Yes

[Episteme]

Let’s let Kash kill civilization with his dad’s gun. The kid sounds like he’s got it put together.

[JeremyR]

I got my first gun when I was 4. A .22 Colt Revolver.

Didn’t get bullets until I was 12.

[The Fusionist]

True story: I was behind a Prius which had a “love trumps hate” bumper sticker and an “I [heart symbol] [Hillary “H” symbol]” bumper sticker.

At least I *hope* the “H” stood for Hillary.

[The Late P Brooks]

U.S. doctors and parents are increasingly embracing the identity of transgender children as soon it starts to become obvious, sometimes around age 3.

My working knowledge of three year olds is admittedly pretty spotty, but how does “MINEMINEMINE!” translate into gender identity?

[John]

It translates if the kid has Prog parents who want a transgendered trophy child to show off to their friends.

[ant1sthenes]

African orphans are sooooo last year.

[Broswater]

So my brother has been an officer in the Canadian Army for about 20 years now.
He has been a staffer in Ottawa on some project or other (I can’t follow through all the alphabet soup) for the last 10 years.

He used to be your typical bourgeois boh?me (Those rich bastards! Me? I’m not rich, I’m poor! What? I’m in the top 5%? You sure!?) NDP type of guy. But he is starting to see the problem with proggy thinking.

Now this made him snap a bit :

https://tinyurl.com/ja2cmdl

A nice SJW course that everyone in his division has to take.

Yup, even the military now has to gobble up SJW bullshit.

Be careful Canadian public workers, it’s coming to you too!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Tabernak.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Eh, it gives them something to do.

[Broswater]

I think that’s all the bastard deserves for double-dipping once he retire from the military in a few months.

[John Titor]

Oh god, this bullshit. I knew it was coming when I tried to get some paperwork figured out on base and the clerk asked me if I identified as male, and then gave me a look of “please don’t make a big deal out of this, I’ve been dealing with this shit all day.”

You want a military coup guys? Because this is how you get a military coup.

[Rufus The Monocled]

At some point you have to reckon people will cease tolerating the bull shit and just go loco.

[John Titor]

It’s going to be the same scenario as the anti-sexual assault classes, they’re going to lecture everyone, everyone will take it but roll their eyes later, nothing will change, some complaints will be made because someone was insulted somehow, and the process will start all over again. The military continues to think they’re being treated like shit by Ottawa, Ottawa continues to think they can just do whatever they want the military will keep taking it.

(The real solution to actual sexual assault in the military is collective punishment, by the way)

[True Scottsman]

If anti sexual assault training isn’t collective punishment, I don’t know what is.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

We’re taking over the place, hosers. Don’t make us unlock the gun cabinet, eh? /Canadian Special Forces(what do you guys call them…goalies?)

[John Titor]

Joint Task Force 2, and now that you know they exist one is currently behind you with a knife to your throat.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

*pulls out bigger knife with made in U.S.A. stamp and swats butter knife shaped like a hockey stick out of goalie’s hands

[John Titor]

Fool, you’re already dead!

[Rufus The Monocled]

Who designed that awful logo?

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

It’s you guys against the world. Fascists.

[Rufus The Monocled]

The knife screams, ‘We’re Canadian, eh? Can we please stab you?’

[John Titor]

The early 90s.

[dantheserene]

It makes the same amount of sense in English and French, and I have zero knowledge of French.

[Juice]

GBA+ isn’t as powerful as Python.

[BigT]

GBA?? GBA??
Maybe they are really passing out GBL so you can appreciate women without all the talking!

[PapayaSF]

So, is there a libertarian position on dual-citizenship? It makes me a little uncomfortable, being a bit of a nationalist, but I wonder if there’s an argument for it beyond “borders are bad.”

[robc]

My position is if I have the disposable income to pull it off, I will also be a citizen of St Kitts.

[John Titor]

“I love America, but for tax purposes I’m a citizen of the Dutch Antilles.”

[Basketball Uber Alles, Jr.]

I’ve got my eye on the Faroe Islands.

[JaimeRoberto]

Their gene pool sure could use some freshening up. They should welcome you with open arms and legs.

[Chipwooder]

I have dual US-Italian citizenship via my great-grandfather. Got it to be able to travel and work easily in Europe. Of course, I have no money so I’m never actually going to travel to Europe anyway.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Great-granda? I don’t get these rules. My father is born in Italy and I can’t get one.

[Free Society]

You have to notify the government of the kid’s birth and all that. My kids got their dual-citizenship with the Netherlands but that gubmint was a pain in the ass about it. We had to submit birth certificates and biometric stuff and my wife’s citizenship info three times. I don’t mean in triplicate, I mean “we have no evidence that you submitted any paperwork”. Too bad my kids aren’t Muslims.

[Rufus The Monocled]

No, it didn’t work like that…at all in my case. They traced me back on my maternal side and because I missed all their arbitrary cut off dates (your great grandparents had to be married before this date and shit like that) I didn’t qualify. I’m third generation Canadian on my maternal side. In the 90s they offered a brief window to extended citizenship by repatriating my father but he refused to sign the papers consenting to give me citizenship. He doesn’t trust government.

[Free Society]

Your father sounds like a good man. But until every country has a FATCA equivalent my position is basically the more legal rights in more jurisdictions the merrier.

[Chipwooder]

Well, this is very late so it will probably never be seen, but just in case – the reason I qualified was because my grandfather was born in the US before his father became a naturalized American citizen. Under Italian law, this means my grandfather was an Italian citizen at birth, and neither he nor my father ever renounced their claim to Italian citizenship.

The rules for a maternal claim are different and more restricted for some reason. No, I don’t get it either.

[Episteme]

Those of us whose families have been here since the early 1600s should, in the Age of Trump, be able to apply for dual US-US citizenship (with a free bald eagle) since we’re just that American!

[Free Society]

It’s mostly a tax cattle classification system.

[MythicalLibertarianWoman]

#TheStoriesWeTellMatter: The Hagiography of Elizabeth Warren

[MythicalLibertarianWoman]

It’s absolutely incessant.

[The Fusionist]

O, I get it, Senate rules are sexist.

And I bet she campaigned to repeal that rule she violated, right?

I mean, it’s not like she had no problem with the rule up until the time it affected her, when she suddenly was shocked to find that she was expected to follow it?

[Episteme]

I’m guessing that now she’ll pretend to be part Taiwanese too ? that way she can pick fights in a legislature as part of her cultural heritage!

[The Fusionist]

Which one is Senator Warren?

[Slammer]

#siddownandshaddup

[Juice]

Ok, the memes sucking her dick are a bit over the top, but McConnell is the true asswipe here. And Sessions. Aw, fuck they all suck so much. Why do I even bother paying attention?

[MythicalLibertarianWoman]

The thing that has been frustrating to me since Trump took office is that I’m really not happy about a lot of stuff that’s gone on, but the leftists are being so over the top about everything (like here) that it’s difficult to keep perspective. I mean, it’s absolutely INCESSANT. It’s like the boy who cried wolf, they’ve screamed so much that people are not going to pay attention anymore. EVERYTHING is a crisis, EVERYTHING is a disaster, EVERYTHING is an outrage, and so now those words are meaningless.

[BakedPenguin]

This.

[The Fusionist]

Exactly, it will get to the point where Trump could (to take an example at random) kill someone in the middle of Times Square and when you criticize him for it, the reaction will be like “yeah, yeah, whatever, I get it, you don’t like Trump, just get over it, he won, and the guy he killed probably had it coming.”

[PapayaSF]

Yup. Sooner or later, the anti-Trump types are going to regret turning it up to 11 so early. Some already do. I’ve read a few op-eds along the lines of: “Gee, for generations we’ve called every Republican a Nazi Racist, and now when a real Nazi Racist comes along, nobody believes us!”

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

In reference to last evening links: Bacon Magic talking to ladies. Probably NSFW, but it’s just a song, you know? Dumb works.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

Oh yeah. *throws panties (size 11enty) at CJ#2
(I hate punk)

[Crusty Juggler - #2]

I posted that because you go to gay bars to meet women.

[Bacon-Magic et tu Reason?]

I threw my pantie because you’ll go anywhere to meet anything. *looks at time and notates hinh corpse thread similarity(noooooooooooo GIGGLES)

[Juice]

The former prime minister and dual national U.S. citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo won the limited franchise presidential election in Somalia.

He’s the captain now.

[Free Society]

King of the Pirates

[Episteme]

Yeah, I’m actually guessing that a “limited franchise” vote for the President of Somalia is pretty much just that scene from the third PIRATES movies where all the captains vote for their new king.

[GILMORE?]

A very interesting American artist died a few days ago – David Axelrod

He was sort of a cross between Tom Dowd (engineer), Phil Specter (producer), and Arif Mardin (arranger/musician) in the 1960s/1970s music scene. He produced and arranged music for many many people, but his own music is probably the most interesting stuff he did.

His sound actually came to become hugely influential in the mid-1990s as hiphop producers/DJs started to get more sophisticated about their source material.

I first heard him before i knew he had any influence on modern music; my impression of his stuff was “psychedelic music meets-classical-ethos”

Basically, psychedelic music played by very technically proficient studio musicians, recorded with very high production values and rigidly-arranged structure (none of which was typical of psych)

But even that’s probably insufficient. He did everything from straight jazz (cannonball adderly) to psych rock to vocal pop (lou rawls) to movie-soundtracks to folk, but it all managed to sound like “him” no matter what. He was best known for a combination of ‘moody, lush environments’ meets ‘bitchin’ drums’, which naturally made his music attractive for sampling.

Some examples

RIP

[american socialist]

That obama thing is cool

[The Late P Brooks]

Speaking of the Best Magazine in America…

Sometimes a gag is the best megaphone.

Senate Republicans banded together Tuesday night to block Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) from reading a letter Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote to oppose a judicial appointment for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) more than 30 years ago. But the move ignited a firestorm of resistance from Democrats, ensuring widespread attention to the letter itself. Prohibited from reading the letter in the Senate, Warren first discussed the episode on MSNBC and then, shortly before midnight, read it on Facebook Live to an audience of more than 2 million people. The hashtag #LetLizSpeak, as well as #CorettaScottKing, was trending on Twitter.

Republikkkins hate Coretta Scott King and will stop at nothing to silence those who would speak truth to power.

[Free Society]

Well if Coretta King says something, it must be true. Even if it’s a bullshit lie.

[mr simple]

We all know that enforcing procedural rules in the senate that almost no outside of it listens to is the same as completely silencing dissent. They’ve literally put a gag in her mouth and know no one will know the important information she was going to give them.

[Episteme]

It’s like not wearing your hat in church or not putting your feet up on the kitchen table. Most adults realize that given spaces have customs of decorum, and that that doesn’t mean that, “you’re oppressing me, Dad!”…

[Volren]

?A Russian court has barred opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in 2018 after he was convicted in a retrial of a 2013 case.

They’re even hacking their own elections.

[mr simple]

You can’t parody this stuff:

Cal nixes Kansas series talks over LGBT law

Cal has ended talks with the Kansas Jayhawks about a potential future home-and-home series because of an anti-discrimination law passed in California in 2015, according to a report.

According to the Lawrence World-Journal, the law, which took effect Jan. 1, does not allow public colleges or universities to visit teams in other states that have laws that allow discrimination against the LGBT community. Kansas has a “religious freedom” law that allows student groups to be discriminatory in their membership practices based on those groups’ beliefs, the World-Journal reported.

[JaimeRoberto]

Cal probably didn’t want to suffer two more losses.

[american socialist]

Dont a whole other host of states have religious freedom laws?

Can someone explain how they are allowing of discrimination?

[The Fusionist]

That’s the genius part of California’s law – it doesn’t apply to states which authorized “discrimination” prior to June 26, 2015.

So if a state passed an “anti-LGBT” law in, say 2013, then that state is exempt from the boycott.

An “anti-discrimination” law which discriminates – what *will* they think of next?

[The Late P Brooks]

Kansas has a “religious freedom” law that allows student groups to be discriminatory in their membership practices based on those groups’ beliefs, the World-Journal reported.

MEGA-HITLERIAN.

[Rich]

“religious freedom”

Nice album name.