Hobby Thread - February 1, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread and we are rolling out the red carpet.

We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and apparently it was feeling seasonal and recreational. It said WINTER SPORTS. Here we go!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (182) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Ace of Spades Pet Thread

[Photo HT Hrothgar's relative with a Rat Terrier]

*****

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. I cut my teeth with this thread going on 9 years ago. It was handed off to KT who gladly took it on. Unfortunately KT is ill and won't be your Cob today. You get stuck with me.

Just one simple rule. Leave all politics and current events out at the front curb. Don't even think about bringing them to the front porch. Thank you.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 03:00 PM | Comments (114) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Gardening Thread

Good day and welcome to KT's The Gardening Thread. Unfortunately, KT is recovering from a stroke she experienced earlier in the week. So until she grace's us with her return you are stuck with me.

So gardening in the Frozen Tundra is pretty much a thing of the past. Unless you have a green house. In the past 10 days we had 3 consecutive days where temps never crossed above 0.

Difficult to think about gardening even with the arrival of the Jung's Seed Catalog.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 01:03 PM | Comments (86) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Chuck Schumer POS Extraordinaire (Your Thread Before The Garden Puttering Thread)

Normally Saturday is our very own KT Day. She has been doing yeoman's work for may years on Saturday.

Unfortunately KT suffered a stroke earlier in the week. I spoke with her on Thursday and she sounded upbeat considering all. But, she did manage to tell me that because of her condition that she was unable to fulfill her Saturday threads.

I told her we all wished her well and a speedy recovery. And somehow her threads will limp along. But, we want her back!

Now onto the story at hand......................

When the subject matter is the "common man" Sen. Chuck U. Schumer of New York is a man who knows how the common man lives.
Granted, this photo is from June of 2024. Yet, after all this time it cracks me up.

How dare the environmental fascists come after Chuck with his raw meat and gas grill?

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 11:00 AM | Comments (338) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

*****

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Happy February, the days are getting longer and the Commie Libs are crying. Yup, it's going to be a good month.

Just a few house keeping matters to go over with before the Prayer Revival (Rulz for those of you in Nekoosa.)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate away.
2) Be kind. Be nice. And please no jumping on the furniture.
3) Running with sharp objects without a back up plan is an invitation to be laughed at.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:34 AM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 1 February 2025

Top Story

• The Minimal Phone is a minimal phone. (Liliputing)
  
  Well, technically it's a minimal smartphone. It runs Android 14 and has an 800x600 display and supports 4G - though not 5G. And it has a camera - optionally two - and USB-C.
  
  And a physical keyboard and a genuine headphone jack and a microSD slot, all of which are becoming less common. And the screen is a relatively tiny 4.25".
  
  Also less common is the use of an e-ink display, which gives much better battery life but is not great for watching videos or checking your photos, since it's black and white. The video review attached to that article suggests it's not the most responsive device ever created either, likely directly tied to the slow e-ink display.
  
  Price is $399 despite the lower-end specs, presumably because phones that aren't bloated and annoying don't sell.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (198) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Fault, Dear Brutus, Is Not In Our Stars, But In Our ONT

Howdy folks! Welcome to Friday night. Time for some memes!

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (501) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fri-YAY!!! Cafe

The Devil's Bridge, Germany
All cafe photos this week from Architecture & Tradition

Fluffy navigator. That song is here.

Puppy discovers his Evil Twin.

These deer are having a full-on MMA fight and it's weird.

Speaking of deer:

Snow-white deer.

Rare piebald spotted deer.

And to round it out, here's a supposedly rare black deer.

Dog won't let his master pet the cat. He may love the cat. He also might hate the cat, and may be trying to isolate him. We'll keep an eye on the situation.

One cool cat.

Bugs Bunny voice on: "Don't ferget yer rubbahs!"

A duck makes fun of Jm J. Acosta.

Mommy won't let kitty have no fun.

Penguins are very excitable.

This dog's right ear is working hard.

Telegram.

Me-ow so horny.

Dog living his best life.

All dogs want to be working dogs.

The evolution of computers.

Steve Inman's Crash Derby:

Low IQ, low impulse control are a dangerous combination.

Some freelance amateur street-cleaning.

Three moped street-robbers think they got away but then out of nowhere Oh No They Didn't Get Away. Sudden Violence Warning Recommendation!

I think this woman needs the Cat Whisperer.

Compilation of thugs getting tackled to the ground, hard.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (381) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Karoline Leavitt: Many Media People In This Very Room Attacked Trump as a "Conspiracy Theorist" and Lied About Covid's Origins

I was working on a MAHA post but I'm tired and want to knock off early.

Here, here's a zero-effort post. Apologies. I just want to stop working today.

Posted by: Ace at 06:46 PM | Comments (265) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Trump Administration Keeps Giving the Media Simple, Direct, Candid, Straightforward Answers.
The Media Keeps Rejecting These Answers and Demanding Different Answers.
Update: FBI Firings Yuger Than First Reported

One nice thing about pursuing a popular agenda is that you don't have to, as the leftists and corporatists like Mitch McConnell are forced to do, lie and equivocate about what your actual intentions and plans are.

You have the public on your side. You told the public exactly what you intended to do, and they voted in favor of your doing it.

You therefore don't have to engage in mealy-mouthed, worm-tongued equivocations and half-truths.

You can just tell the full, plain truth without adornment or apology.

As Border Czar Tom Homan says he'll continue doing.

New border czar Tom Homan on Monday defended the immigration raids that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers carried out over the weekend, and said he will continue to carry out the raids "without apology."

Actress Selena Gomez posted a tearful video online Monday, which has since been deleted, where she apologized to her fans for the mass deportations, claiming she wished she could do something for the children impacted by the raids.

Homan told Fox News that he was not aware of families being deported, and that the administration was focused on deporting national security and public safety threats.

"Look, President [Donald] Trump won the election on this one issue: securing our border and saving lives," Homan said. "This, what happened on the southern border the last four years, is the biggest national security threat this country's seen, at least in my lifetime."

Homan said he expects that the continued operations will result in lethal fentanyl overdoses decreasing, a decrease in crimes by illegal immigrants, and a decrease in sex trafficking.

"We're going to do this job. And we're going to enforce the laws of this country. If they don't like it, then go to Congress and change the law. We're going to do this operation without apology. We're going to make our communities safer," Homan said. "It's all for the good of this nation, and we're going to keep going. No apologies. We're moving forward."

I've seen reports claiming that 10% of the criminals in a city are responsible for 75% of all crime. I can't make predictions, but I am optimistic about how big a drop we see in crime over the next few years.

Over the weekend, the ABC Groomer Propadanda network dispatched the funereal hag Martha Raddatz to bother Border Czar Tom Homan.

She just kept asking the same questions:

You're not really going to fly criminal aliens out of the country on military planes, are you?

You're not really going to fly those planes every day, are you?

You're not really treating criminal aliens as criminal aliens, are you?

Martha Raddatz was utterly perplexed by Homan's answers, which she was not expecting and did not know how to counter:

He just kept saying "Yes."

No caveats, no apologies, no explanations.

Just: "Yes."

Posted by: Ace at 05:50 PM | Comments (345) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump Orders Senior FBI Officials to Retire, Resign, or Be Fired By Monday

JUST IN: Senior FBI officials have been ordered to retire, resign or be fired by Monday -- CNN.

Oh no. How terrible.

Also: Federal fake pronoun use to end at 5pm Eastern today.

Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok

BREAKING: Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by 5pm today

Trump has imposed a further sanction on the Spies Who Lie: Not only are their security clearances stripped, but they are forbidden to enter any federal building.

They are national security risks and possibly traitors, and yes, they should not be permitted to meet with their fellow subversives on federal grounds.

The Daily Wire:

President Donald Trump is taking further action against the 50 former intelligence officials who falsely suggested Hunter Biden's laptop was "part of a Russian disinformation campaign," instructing agencies to also ban those individuals from stepping foot in secure U.S. government facilities, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Wire.

The Jan. 29 cabinet memorandum, first obtained by The Daily Wire, expands Trump's day-one executive order, which revoked the security clearance for the 50 individuals. Sent "on behalf of the President," it orders the country's top national security agencies to "revoke unescorted access to secure U.S. Government facilities from the 50 former intelligence officials named in the Executive Order."

Trump sent out a mass-email to federal workers with the subject line, "Resign."

He's telling them that if they resign voluntarily, they will get eight months of pay with no further work demanded of them.

And he's letting them know, as Vincent Coccotti said, that's as good as it's gonna get and it won't ever get that good again.

The White House will issue a memo Tuesday offering to pay federal workers who don't want to return to the office through Sept. 30, as long as they resign by Feb. 6, an administration official tells Axios.

Why it matters: It's an acceleration in President Trump's already unprecedented purge of the federal workforce.

What they're saying: "The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration's plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards. We're five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable," a senior administration official tells Axios.

The White House expects 5% to 10% of federal employees to accept the offer, which would potentially mean hundreds of thousands of people.

The administration projects the buyouts could ultimately save taxpayers up to $100 billion a year.

Zoom out: The offer applies to all full-time federal employees, except for military personnel, the Postal Service, and those working in immigration enforcement or national security.

Between the lines: Many federal workers are already feeling scared about the administration's crackdown on DEI, its return-to-office policy and the effort to reclassify civil servants.

That unease could increase take-up on this new offer.

Politico reports: The federal "work" force is in "panic."

"Chaos, mistrust, confusion," said one employee at the Department of Justice who, like others, was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation without fear of retribution. "There's also a deep suspicion, especially among people who think they may be on the chopping block, that this is the last lifeboat in town."

Trump, who spent years decrying the "deep state," has long wanted to reduce the government's footprint. Frustrated over what he saw as overly lenient work-from-home policies nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, Trump has empowered Tesla CEO Elon Musk to help streamline government. But the vague order has nearly ground the massive bureaucracy to a halt, and has the potential to create the kind of crisis that might backfire politically.

"The blanket approach, which is pure Elon Musk, is going to have unintended consequences down the road," said Elaine Kamarck, a government studies fellow at the Brookings Institution who oversaw President Bill Clinton's initiative to reform government in the 1990s. "What if a third of the nation's air traffic controllers take this buyout? Or all the CDC scientists leave for the private sector and then there's a tuberculosis epidemic? That's the risk with the way they've done it, sort of using a blowtorch for a very small issue."

The email, sent Tuesday evening by the Office of Personnel Management, offered recipients the option to resign and be paid through September but offered no guarantees about future employment if they chose to stay. Although it was sent unsigned by the agency's human resources department, many of the federal employees conferring about it over phone calls and group texts saw the fingerprints of Musk, who applied the same slashing approach after taking over Twitter.

In fact, the subject line was the exact same one he used in 2022 when giving staffers at Twitter a similar ultimatum to either become more "hardcore" or leave the company: "Fork in the road."

Mark Halperin says that his sources say that Kash Patel has the 50 Republican votes needed for confirmation. He also says that RFKJr. is on the bubble -- he doesn't have fifty votes yet, but he also doesn't have fifty votes against him yet. Note that liberal "Republican" Bill Cassidy of Louisiana basically declared himself a "no," of course, saying that he would vote "no" to, get this, protect Trump. He claims that if someone dies due to not getting vaccinated, this will "blow up" in the press and cause political damage to Trump.

See? He's super-MAGA, everybody. He continues to work with the Democrats to thwart MAGA but he's really doing it all just to protect us, because we're too fucking stupid to think for ourselves and need arrogant leftwing bullshit artists like Cassidy to guide us.

Kennedy may have a single Democrat vote -- Sheldon Whitehouse, who is actually a personal friend of RFKJr.'s and who might, maybe actually put his venomous politics aside for the sake of friendship.

I doubt it, though.

Halperin said that Gabbard is in trouble. Which Josh Hawley confirms:

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (379) | Trackbacks (Suck)

CBS's Parent Corporation Paramount In Talks to Settle Trump's $10 Billion Election Interference Claim, Based on the Deceptive Editing of Kamala Harris's Word Salad Fake Interview

They don't want to reveal the transcript and the tape of what Kamala Harris really said, before CBS's crew of election-riggers went at it with scissors and tape to make it sound nearly coherent.

CBS owner Paramount is in settlement talks with representatives of President Donald Trump over a lawsuit launched by Trump over what he has said is a deceptive edit during an interview with his former opponent, Kamala Harris.

Paramount is seeking a merger with Skydance Media, an entertainment company that is owned by Larry Ellison and controlled by his son, David, according to the New York Times. When Trump launched the lawsuit, it was dismissed by some as far-fetched, but now that Paramount is seeking to merge the media company, government permissions with the FCC may stand in its way.

Settlement discussions between Trump and Paramount have been underway, according to the outlet, citing multiple sources familiar with the negotiations. The majority shareholder of Paramount, Shari Redstone, has reportedly been in favor of the settlement and stands to get billions from selling her shares of the company.

During a 60 Minutes interview for the 2024 campaign, there was one condensed version of Harris' answer to a question on Israel presented in the full-length interview that aired on 60 Minutes, but when it was advertised on Face the Nation earlier in the day, the clip had Harris giving something of a "word salad" answer.

60 Minutes claimed that the accusation of a deceptive edit was "false" and that the show instead "gave an excerpt of our interview to 'Face the Nation' that used a longer section of [Harris'] answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response."

The lawsuit from Trump is seeking $10 billion in damages and accuses the network of "election interference" because of the "deceptively doctored" interview.

I don't know if this suit has real merit, because I've never heard of "election interference" as a cause of action. But I guess someone at Paramount thinks it has some merit.

I'm sure Trump would drop the case for peanuts -- specifically, if CBS released the transcript and unedited tapes.

But they don't want to do that. That would expose them.

And I bet they had an agreement with Kamala Harris that they would never release the unedited tapes.

And why would they agree to that? And why would Kamala Harris demand it?

You know why.

Posted by: Ace at 03:49 PM | Comments (332) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Under Pressure From Voters, Newsom Walks Back His Plan to Spend $50 Million of Taxpayer Money to Sue Trump for... Whatever

From Ed Morrissey: Even California Democrats have had their fill of Gavin Antoinette's "Let Them Eat Ideology" theory of governance.

From the Sacramento Bee:

California legislators were tight-lipped about their decision Thursday to delay votes on a pair of bills that would provide up to $50 million combined for the state Department of Justice and organizations that provide legal services to respond to actions taken by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The Assembly was set to take up the bills after they were approved last week in the Senate. But Democrats were called into a closed door meeting shortly after their work for the day began.

When they emerged roughly an hour later, the measures were not voted on before the body adjourned for the week.

From Politico:

But the decision also comes amid concerns about who would be able to access $25 million in legal aid to avoid deportation. Democrats -- newly sensitive to perceptions of being soft on crime -- this week faced criticism from Republicans who noted that the legislation doesn't explicitly prohibit nonprofits from using the money to help undocumented immigrants with criminal histories.

Los Angeles Democrats are so angry at incompetent ideologues engineering yet another city-clearing wildfire that they're considering the unthinkable, John Sexton reports.

From the California Globe:

According to a new poll released over the weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass' approval rating of her wildfire response reached a new low of only 37%, with a whopping 43% of likely voters in the city now saying that they would consider Republican leadership instead.

Since January 7th, Bass has received scorching criticism for her handling of the wildfire emergency, leading many to call for her resignation. Amongst Bass' many criticisms tied to the fires includes her cutting $17.5 million from the LAFD in the 2024-2025 city budget, deciding to travel abroad in January despite knowing that a major emergency could happen with high speed winds being expected, giving a minimal response to the fires on the first day, refusing to answer press questions, having promised to never travel abroad as Mayor yet doing it anyway, and showing an overall general mismanagement of the fires once she returned to L.A.

John Phillips at the Daily News writes that Los Angeles Democrats are so angry that the usual Democrat Party tactic of partisan key-jangles aren't working.

Los Angeles is a Democrat-run city, with a Democrat mayor, not a single Republican on the City Council, and a dominant Democrat Party that decides which candidates get the official blessing and which ones get cast out to the wilderness.

LA's version of ideological diversity is a healthy mix of left-wingers, far-left nut jobs, and Nithya Raman.

This lopsided political arrangement means that it doesn't matter how incompetently the local officials responded to the fires that ravaged the city, because there are never any consequences for Democrats from city voters.

No water in the reservoir? That's global warming.

Forgot to tell the fire department that there's no water in the reservoir? File that under, "Global warming is worse than you think."

Cut the fire department's budget? That's different. You can blame that on climate change.

Texted all the wrong people to evacuate? Repeatedly. Um, has anyone mentioned global warming?

And once you've gone down the list, everything else is Donald Trump's fault.

We good here? Everybody good? Okay, that's lunch!

Sure, none of it makes any sense, but for a highly partisan audience like LA voters, it was always good enough.

Except now, that might be changing.

A new poll says that voters significantly disapprove of Mayor Karen Bass' job performance on wildfire response.

According to a new survey of likely Los Angeles city voters conducted by pollster David Wolfson on behalf of the consulting firm Madison McQueen, 54 percent of Angelenos disapprove of how Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is handling the wildfires in Los Angeles, compared to 37 percent who approve.

If the 2026 election for Los Angeles mayor were held today, Bass would lose to her 2022 challenger, real estate developer Rick Caruso by 7 points, with Caruso sitting on 43 percent and Bass with 36 percent.

Also, if the election were held today, Bass would probably be attending a presidential inauguration in Africa.

Even 43 percent of voters said they would now consider Republican leadership in LA county and/or the city of Los Angeles.

Karen Bass' performance during the fires was so pathetic that highly partisan Democrats are starting to look for alternatives.

Bonus question: Is New Jersey in play?

Answer: New Jersey is in play.

Of the 1,000 registered voters Emerson surveyed, 48 percent viewed President Trump favorably, besting Mr. Murphy's [the current Branch Covidian Democrat governor] 44 percent. Mr. Trump's unfavorable tally was 46 percent versus 42 percent for the governor. Given the poll's three-point margin of error, only the president could claim statistically significant approval.

Mr. Trump is already focusing on New Jersey, issuing an executive order halting wind farms off its coast. A pet project of Mr. Murphy, they're unpopular along the Jersey Shore, plagued with problems, and a priority for just 24 percent in the state according to a Stockton University poll in October.

Owner of a golf club at Bedminster, New Jersey, Mr. Trump has improved his showing in the state each time he's run. He lost by 16 percent in 2016, 14 percent in 2020, and just under six percent last year, when he grew his support in all 11 counties.
Mr. Trump came closer to winning New Jersey than any GOP candidate since President George H. W. Bush, who lost by 2.4 points in 1992's three-way race. New Jersey last went Republican, for Bush, in 1988. Previewing his reelection loss, Democrats claimed the governorship the following year.

...

New Jersey Democrats enjoyed a one-million voter edge over Republicans when Mr. Biden took office, but that advantage has dropped below 900,000. The New Jersey Globe's editor-in-chief, David Wildstein, reported earlier this month that the state has gained 184,026 Republicans since January 2021 against just nine new Democrats.

This election is in November.

Posted by: Ace at 02:33 PM | Comments (386) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump Appoints New Acting Head of FAA

A good pick, says the former acting head.

The former acting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Billy Nolen said during an interview that President Trump made an "excellent choice" in tapping Christopher Rocheleau as the agency's next leader.

"It's a great decision. Chris, when I joined the FAA, was my No. 2. I think the world of him, and I think the president has made an excellent choice," Nolen said during his Thursday appearance on NewsNation's show "The Hill."

Trump also ordered an investigation into the crash and issued another Executive Order instructing the FAA to elevate "competence" over DEI.

What an idea, that the people in the towers keeping airplanes from hitting each other should be there do to competence and qualifications and not based on whether they read Ibram X. Kendhi or not.

As you know from yesterday, the FAA has been criminally understaffed for a year (or more) due to Biden refusing to hire qualified white candidates, leaving hiring open only for minorities.

This is a fact; the understaffing of the FAA has been reported since at least as early as February, 2024, and there is a lawsuit of 3,000 candidates for Air Traffic Control jobs who passed test to be hired, but who were then put on hold so that the FAA could change the test to be "biographical," i.e., they ask you about your race and what your race has taught you about guiding planes in to a runway safely. The 3,000 white candidates who passed the real test failed to pass the "Are you Black?" test, because they're not.

This was all by design. The FAA can claim that its Racial Ratios are "improving" because they're just refusing to hire white traffic controllers.

And if the towers are manned by half the staff needed? Oh well. It's more important to make the DEI numbers look good!

CNN's witch-faced megac*nt Kaitlin Collins demands Trump stop bringing up this highly-relevant fact:

Posted by: Ace at 01:22 PM | Comments (417) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Buh Bye: Chuck Todd Gonezers at MSNBC

Happy Friday, everyone. We did it!

Give yourselves all a head pat.

More leftwingers are getting s-canned.

It's a beautiful, beautiful day in America.

Chuck Todd, the former moderator of "Meet the Press," is leaving NBC News.

Todd, who has become a noticeably less visible presence on the network after he was replaced as "Meet the Press" moderator by Kristen Welker in 2023 after nine years in the chair, announced he would exit NBC on Friday.

"Today is my last day... at NBC," Todd said on his podcast.

"I am leaving a bit earlier than we had all originally planned, but there is a reason for it. I'm pretty excited by a few new projects that are on the cusp," Todd added. "The podcast is coming with me and it's not going away."

Todd said he would go on a "little hiatus" and then select a new home for the podcast.

So no offer from a Real Journalism Network then, huh?

Maybe he can become a health and beauty influencer.

Posted by: Ace at 12:15 PM | Comments (525) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Free Trade Pundits Who Advocate for Offshoring American Jobs Can Now Have Their Own Jobs Outsourced, Thanks to AI

“Tariffs are a tax on consumers” we are often told by Principled Free Traders, concurrent with their promotion of outsourcing and offshoring as many American jobs as possible. This lowers consumer prices, we are assured.

Well good news! There is no longer a need to continue paying “conservative” advocates of unilateral free trade to write these op-eds extolling the benefits of shipping American jobs overseas. Thanks to AI, those op-eds can now be written for free! All the Principled Free Traders at America-last publications can now enjoy the new opportunities created by losing their jobs in a dying industry, while also saving their employers that much labor cost. The savings will surely be passed on to the consumers of those publications.

As I frequently mention, my derision of “free trade” is a result of 21st century Principled Free Traders hijacking the historically understood definition of free trade, that being reciprocal free trade (which I generally supported), and replacing it with advocacy for non-reciprocal “free trade,” which is actually a unilateral surrender to foreign mercantilism, even when the economic surrender is to foreign nations that are hostile to the United States.

David Harsanyi is particularly passionate about the benefits of offshoring American jobs without any tariff protections, and without requiring reciprocal free trade. He also has a disturbing enthusiasm for foreign laborers being exploited and working in horrible conditions, as I’ll get to. But in this AI era, why should America-last publications even bother to pay an actual American citizen to write its pieces advocating for putting Americans out of work? AI can do it. So, I decided to have Grok give it a go.

Specifically, I requested of Grok: Write a paragraph in the style of David Harsanyi advocating for non-reciprocal free trade that lowers consumer prices. I’d say that Grok nailed it:

From Grok: Let's get one thing straight: the notion that we need reciprocal trade agreements to protect our economy is a relic of a bygone era. Non-reciprocal free trade, where we open up our markets without demanding the same from others, isn't just good policy—it's a game-changer for the average American. Why? Because it slashes consumer prices. When we don't shackle our trade policies with the tit-for-tat of reciprocity, we give our consumers access to a global bazaar of goods, from electronics to apparel, at lower prices. And let's be clear, this isn't about giving away the store; it's about unleashing the power of competition. Tariffs and protectionism are just fancy ways of saying "higher prices" for the folks back home. By embracing non-reciprocal free trade, we're not just boosting our own economy—we're standing up for the consumer, ensuring they get more bang for their buck in a world where every penny counts.

I realize that I am not being particularly respectful of the “conservative writer” David Harsanyi, who has many friends in conservative pundit circles. But just days before the 2024 Presidential election, Harsanyi wrote in one of his free trade columns that those of us supporting Trump’s America-first economic policies were engaged in “idiocy” and that we were “dead eyed zombies” who “will just repeat whatever Trump says.” Yeah, no respect given, none returned.

Now, compare a sample of Harsanyi’s actual writing with that from Grok. This little sample is from David Harsanyi’s piece in the Washington Examiner in late October 2024 titled “Trump’s Tariffs Would Put U.S. Last.”

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The cloud
Odd Nerdrum

I will brook no complaints this morning! You should have seen the one I originally planned!

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (436) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 1/31/25

Good morning kids. Well, the big story is of course the aftermath of yesterday's horrific air disaster over Reagan National and the Potomac in DC. As an aside, can anyone who writes (that is manipulates a crayon) TV news stop using the adjective tragic whenever a disaster like this strikes. Either that or provide an example of a hilarious airplane crash.

In any case, the daily soap opera (as the late great Rush Limbaugh called it) is shifting because Donald Trump is now president and because he dared use the incident to call out the evil insanity of DEI. Bad move? Wrong place and time? As I've pondered this, I've come to the conclusion that NO, it wasn't. Aside from the fact that he did not place the sole blame on DEI for what happened. Considering the actions of the Obama/Sponge Brain-Shits-Pants junta to specifically in the case of the FAA declare that too many air traffic controllers were white and that was intolerable. So towers were understaffed because there just weren't any qualified non-white male heterosexual normal ones available. Regardless of whether that played any part in what happened Wednesday night, all one has to do is stand in the smoldering ruins of what once was the beautiful community of Pacific Palisades to see what DEI, and all its attendant ideologies, beliefs and pathologies have wrought.

No doubt the black boxes on the airliner and the helicopter will be recovered and we'll at least have a record of both the communications of the aircrew as well as how the ships were behaving mechanically and aerodynamically at the time of impact. If we have honest, unbiased, true independent investigators who won't be intimidated or threatened by the usual political actors in the administrative state and politicians themselves, then we will indeed get to the bottom of this. And if either the air traffic controllers, or the blackhawk and airliner pilots displayed any sort of ineptness not only here but certainly in the past, then our worst fears and Donald Trump's assertions will be borne out.

The raging disgusting hypocrisy of the Left in both blaming Trump for what happened and in supposedly politicizing the tragedy is vomit inducing considering the fact that every time there is a mass shooting somewhere, these people are shoving each other aside to see who gets to be first to stand on top of the still warm bodies of the victims to shriek about the evils of the Second Amendment.

Moving ahead. . . I'm no great fan of Matthew Continetti, mostly because of his familial ties to Bill Kristol which over the years have turned more political as we've seen in his writings, so I have avoided him entirely for many years now. And yet he does have some very salient observations with this essay. And it ties in directly with Trump's referencing DEI and his and our crusade to eradicate wokeism:

The welfare state Trump seeks to reform is a misshapen layer cake of liberal ambitions. The rusted instruments of FDR's New Deal, such as unemployment insurance and Social Security, sit at the bottom. LBJ's Great Society—Medicare and Medicaid and the civil rights apparatus—is in the middle. It's the top layer—the woke revolution—that is the least appetizing. Liberalism's radical turn began in Barack Obama's second term. The MeToo movement and anti-Trump Resistance, COVID-19, and the death of George Floyd in 2020 catalyzed the intemperate demands of BLM, Greta Thunberg's climate hysteria, the 1619 Project, Defund the Police, Abolish ICE, and the transgender rights movement into the worldview of most Democrat elites. Former [so-called quote-unquote] president Joe Biden embedded these revolutionary ideas within the federal bureaucracy. Where earlier welfare states delivered benefits, Biden's welfare state became a crusader for economic, social, and cultural change. In Biden's vision, America would adopt a Net Zero economy. Mass immigration would produce economic and demographic growth. DEI and gender ideology would make America a more diverse and equitable place. And if people didn't like it, well, they would face censorship, cancellation, and prosecution. . .

. . . Now comes the hard part. You exorcise wokeness from government by tackling spending, for sure. But you also wrestle back control of the bureaucracy through hiring freezes, a return to the office, Schedule F, offers of early retirement, moving federal agencies outside the Beltway, and attrition.

Just don't expect it to be easy. The snafu over the OMB memo was a reminder that de-wokeifying the government isn't a matter of snapping one's fingers. The federal workforce backs Democrats both politically and financially. Powerful interests are invested in the status quo. The response to the spending freeze revealed the extent of government dependence. Only careful planning, precise language, consistent messaging, and effective legislation will rein in the federal Leviathan. And wipe the smile off Schumer's face.

Continetti makes some good points. But you have to not only engage in battle to win it, but to recognize the fact that we are not only in a battle, but that it is indeed an existential struggle between those of us who want to restore sanity to preserve whatever chance the next generation has of a real future and the Democrat/Left who want to enslave and/or eradicate us to satiate their perverse nightmare vision of what the world should look like.

By Trump mentioning DEI in this incident, he at a minimum puts it out there in the public consciousness. Then couple it with the open borders insanity and the wildfires and suddenly the narrative and who controls it starts to shift.

And this of course brings us to the ongoing confirmation hearings for Trump's cabinet picks, which the Left hope to turn into struggle sessions and then torpedo his picks. Especially those they view as traitors like RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. Both of them, along with stalwart Kash Patel managed to hold their own and even expose their inquisitors for their hypocrisies and bullshit.

"In his hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, FBI Director-designate Kash Patel put on a clinic in dispelling the vicious smears and lies perpetuated against him in recent months — and demonstrated exactly why President Trump nominated him to reform the FBI and make our communities safer.
“I have been endorsed by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to become the next director of the FBI — so let’s ask them,” Patel fired back after lies from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) about his record supporting law enforcement.

Director of National Intelligence-designate Tulsi Gabbard’s appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was equally as impressive. After enduring months of outrageous lies about her patriotism, credentials, and allegiance, Gabbard made clear where she stands: on the side of Americans demanding an end to the politicization of the intelligence community.

“[My opponents are] accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet … The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet,” Gabbard said in her powerful opening statement.

In his second hearing in as many days, Secretary of Health and Human Services-designate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., doubled down on his commitment to ending the chronic disease epidemic, restoring transparency to public health, and improving health care for Americans as he implements President Trump’s agenda.

“All vaccines are dropping because people don’t believe the government anymore — [and] I am going to RESTORE trust,” Kennedy said.

President Trump has nominated the most qualified cabinet in modern history, and it’s time for the Senate to finish the job of confirming them.

And when speaking of the status quo, there are quite a few RINOs that want to see Trump and perhaps the greatest political movement in American history that he engendered destroyed. Because the cause of American restoration stands in direct opposition to their making a profit off of its dissolution.

On a positive note, Doug Bugrum has been confirmed to head up the interior dept. and Chris Wright's nomination as Energy Secretary has advanced. These are biggies as they will be on the cutting edge of our drive to restore and expand our Fossil Fuel exploration and exploitation.

On a more reflective and somewhat somber note, In light of the fact that this past Monay was International Holocaust Rememberance Day, Daniel Greenfield has a sobering essay about what we've learned and more o his point, what we have yet to or refuse to learn.

What death ought to teach us is how to live. And how to survive in the face of certain death. The greatest challenge for the Jewish people remains complacency in the face of evil. If that is to change, the momentum will not come from leaders or organizations, but from individuals who see the threat. Death, no matter how vast or brutal, alone will not change complacency into awakening. To wake up, we must remember who we are. That is what Zionism at its best did by allowing us to imagine ourselves as more than the fallen state we had been reduced to. The Holocaust could not change who we are. Only we can change ourselves.

Make Never Again, NEVER... AGAIN, for real.

Have a great weekend!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• We’re never going to have peace and security on our southern border until we deal with the corrupt and criminal elements that run Mexico.
  It’s Time To Start Treating Mexico Like A Hostile Foreign Power
  
• Daniel Greenfield: The real lessons are those we still haven’t learned.
  The Holocaust Didn’t Really Change Anything

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:30 AM | Comments (454) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 31

Top Story

• If you were waiting for an RTX 5090 or 5080 - which you weren't if you've been reading the reviews - they're gone. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Micro Center is sold out of both cards at all stores, though they only had 233 5090s in the entire country. Taiwan, where the chips are made, received an allotment of just 84.
  
  In Australia, meanwhile, there aren't any. Not that many people care with a starting price of A$4000 for the cheapest model.
  
  The 5080 - half the price for a chip half the size with half the memory - is more plentiful in the sense that there were a lot more for sale initially. It is also completely sold out.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (226) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Why, ONT, It Doth Bestride The Narrow World

Good evening fellow Morons. Been quote a while since I've seen an administration start off like this, if ever.

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (597) | Trackbacks (Suck)