America's Worst Previous President, Jimmy Carter, Dead at 100

America's current president is the worst. Jimmy Carter's passing opens an easy lane for Biden's entry into the Hall of Shame on the first ballot.

"Jimmy Carter is a good Christian man" is a lie I've heard my whole life.

He wasn't. He was a Terrorist Simp.

And he was an election denier and dangerous disinformation peddler:

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (397) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Government is Paying Manufacturers to Produce Electric School Buses, and Then Paying School Districts to Buy Them

There have been some ridiculous market distortions imposed by our government in its effort to replace vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel with those powered by electricity, but perhaps none is more ridiculous than the various subsidies designed to electrify America’s school bus fleet.

The federal government is providing multi-million dollar subsidies to school bus manufacturers for producing electric school buses, and the government is also providing multi-billion dollar subsidies to local school districts to buy these electric buses. One school bus manufacturer, Blue Bird Corporation, is riding high right now, as both streams of free federal money are flowing into its coffers.

To put it more simply, Blue Bird is receiving federal grants to manufacture electric school buses, while the revenue it receives from selling these school buses is also being provided by federal grants. There would be no market for this product without the government subsidizing all aspects of its manufacture and sale.

In a July 2024 press release, Blue Bird proudly announced that it was receiving an $80 million grant from the Department of Energy to expand its electric school bus operations. The money comes from an appropriation under the Biden administration’s “$2 billion investment to convert long-standing automotive facilities to manufacturing electric vehicles and components, retain and expand good-paying manufacturing jobs, and bolster domestic supply chains.” Per the Blue Bird press release, the funds will be used to convert a plant in Fort Valley, GA that was idled in 2019.

In a separate press release from November 2024, Blue Bird announced strong full year results, driven by delivery of more than 700 electric school buses. Funding for these buses came from the EPA’s “Clean School Bus Program” which awards money to local school districts, which in turn use the money to buy electric buses from Blue Bird. At approximately $375k per bus, those 700 federally funded buses brought in revenue of around $260 million.

There are three phases to the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, totaling $5 billion. Only one phase, at $1 billion, has been completed. Blue Bird is already accumulating orders for additional federally funded EV buses. CEO Phil Horlock stated that another 630 EV buses have been ordered and are in Blue Bird’s backlog, all to be funded by EPA grants to school districts. For those doing the math, that’s another $200 million or so of Blue Bird revenue that will be provided by US taxpayers. For comparison’s sake, Blue Bird’s total revenue in 2022 was about $800 million.

Prior to tapping into this gusher of free federal money, Blue Bird had been recording losses and hemorrhaging money, forcing it to downsize other operations. Per a May 2022 article in the Macon Telegraph, “On the heels of reporting a $12.1 million loss in its fiscal second quarter, Blue Bird Corporation laid off 115 production workers at its Fort Valley manufacturing facility.”

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Officer and Laughing Girl
Johannes Vermeer

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (375) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 12/30/24

Good morning kids. On this penultimate day of 2024, a year of mixed blessings for many of us, it is with a heavy heart that I report the passing of . . . Linda Lavin.

The accomplished actress of stage and screen (big and small) leaves the world a better place for her artistic contributions that helped enrich our culture. I have no idea what her politics were, but that said she should be admired for keeping it to herself. Insofar as I cannot recall anything she said or posted that would put her among the usual braindead fools of the entertainment industry, that's good enough for me that I can mention her passing without the need for snark or quoting some horrid opinion she might have had in the past.

And so, while "Alice" may not live here anymore, sadly MALICE still has much of the world by the throat as we prepare to ring out 2024. And one of Malice's greatest exponents has finally, and mercifully, at the age of 100, drawn his last breath.

I am of course speaking about Jimmy Carter, ex-president, founder of Habitat for Humanity and a legacy as an Habitué of Inhumanity, both here and to a very large extent around the world, particularly in the middle east.

The curtain has finally come down on one of the longest acts in American history: after lingering in hospice care for nearly two years, Jimmy Carter is dead at the age of 100. Now, as we all learned in Latin class, de mortuis nisi bonum, that is, only say good things about the dead, and by most accounts, Jimmy Carter was a decent fellow who tried to do the right thing by his lights. There is no Latin maxim, however, about not speaking ill of a dead president’s time in the Oval Office, and on that score, a great deal can and should be said about Jimmy Carter.

Although Carter was the longest-lived president of the United States ever, it is a shame that he didn’t live even longer. The second Trump administration promises to put an end to the long, slow decline of the United States and the now well-established habit of betraying our allies that Carter did so much to initiate, and it’s too bad that Carter won’t be around to witness America’s resurgence — if, that is, the late president’s friends and ideological kin don’t manage to block any such rebound.
. . . As president, Jimmy Carter was as sanctimonious as he was inept. America is still paying the price for the damage he wrought during his presidency. It is a shame that he will not see efforts to reverse the effects of his disastrous legacy.

I have an outstanding 10-part series from IBD editorials about Carter's legacy that was published back in 2007, during the run up to as the lamented Rush Limbaugh of blessed memory called it "the Immaculation" of Barack Obama, to counter the the campaign to slime Dubya as the worst president in US history. IBD no longer exists, as it is now Issues & Insights but the editorial is no longer available. I have a PDF that I shall try and post in the sidebar or otherwise make available to anyone who wants to download it. In the sidebar and linked here!

It's entitled "Profile In Incompetence, A 10-Part Series on the Worst President in American History." You can find it posted in excerpts here and there, on some websites that we try to avoid as you will likely discover. Here are the intros to each section for a nice taste.

Part 1: So Jimmy Carter calls the Bush administration "the worst in history." This from the man who wrecked the world's greatest economy and made a nuclear Iran and North Korea possible.
Part 2: When it comes to economic performance, there's no contest: Apart from the early years of the Depression, Jimmy Carter's brief tenure as president was the worst in the 20th century.

Part 3: After being told over and over by President Jimmy Carter that America's ability to influence world events was "very limited," the Soviet Union believed him and invaded Afghanistan. And al-Qaida was born.

Part 4: In the name of human rights, Jimmy Carter gave rise to one of the worst rights violators in history — the Ayatollah Khomeini. And now Khomeini's successor is preparing for nuclear war with Israel and the West.

Part 5: resident Jimmy Carter's watch, more territory was lost to tyranny than at any other time since Yalta. And he'd have us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

Parat 6: When men of strength are presented with difficult problems, their responses are firm and decisive. Jimmy Carter spent four years as president of the United States responding with weakness.

Part 7: In foreign policy, Jimmy Carter proved his presidency the worst ever by subordinating U.S. interests to his vague "human rights" policy. All he did was enable dictators to take him to the cleaners.

Part 8: It's often asserted that while Jimmy Carter's presidency was marred by error and incompetence, the peace deal he brokered at Camp David was an unmitigated triumph. Time to pop that bubble, too.

Part 9: Of all the errors Jimmy Carter committed, none has earned him more well-justified scorn than his handling of the 1970s energy crisis. True enough, he didn't cause it. But he did make it much, much worse.

Part 10: n 1976, Americans thought they were sending an outsider to the White House. Today, the same policies so thoroughly discredited by Jimmy Carter's disastrous presidency define the Democratic Party.

In light of that last sentence, I give you this:

It took a brutal electoral beating, but non-delusional Democrats are finally recognizing the putrid stink coming off their party.

But will the left let them do anything about it?

In an interview with The New York Times’ Frank Bruni, former Pete Buttigieg adviser Lis Smith, a veteran of New York politics, put it vividly: “The Democratic brand is in the toilet.”

Yes: Between the obsessive demonization of President-elect Trump and his supporters, the rank incompetence of the Biden administration and the constant push toward race-and-gender-war lunacy, Democrats have transformed their party into a soup of hazardous sludge.

Americans now associate Dems with high crime, high prices, migrant gangs taking over cities and biological men in women’s sports — which has about as much appeal as expired milk.

Yet the trouncing of Kamala Harris proved that their favorite distraction tactic — screaming “Trump is Hitler” and his supporters are vile rubes — is a massive dud.

As lefty Timesman Ezra Klein put it on his podcast to a listener complaining that he platforms Trump allies, The Donald “has been elected or almost elected president three times now,” so “Don’t expect this show to be a resistance show.”

The Democrats’ way back starts with a return to common sense.

One such leader is Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who spent the last year loudly supporting Israel and denouncing the Hamas-lovers; back in June, the lifelong man of the left announced he no longer claimed to be a “progressive,” saying “that label left me.”

He made it clear after Trump’s win that he’s “not rooting against” the incoming administration and told his hysterical fellow Democrats to “chill out.”

Progressive extremism — insane energy policies, inflation-goosing spending sprees, pro-crime “justice reforms,” divisive and hate-fueling “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” nonsense and so on — is now the face of the Democratic Party and will remain so until leading Dems unmistakably reject every bit of it and show they mean it.

That likely means actively seeking parts of the Trump agenda they can support in the face of the hard left’s fury.

If Democrats don’t move rapidly toward the center, they’re looking at decades in the wilderness.

Emphasis mine, because it's not about messaging, not about having fossilized coprolite octogenarians as your political leaders or that Trump is literally Hitler. It's about policies that provably turn the stomachs of normal people – that is those who have been labeled as EVIL. If the Democrats want to win and actually did in fact will have to become the mythical leopard that changes its spots. That is reject and abandon everything they believe in and have done for the past 200-plus years in their quest for absolute power and control. That and beg our forgiveness. Plus WE THE PEOPLE demand REPARATIONS!!!!!

It's why when the estimable Robert Spencer states about Carter "by most accounts, Jimmy Carter was a decent fellow who tried to do the right thing by his lights." I cannot disagree strenuously enough. Were he decent he never would've believed nor advocated the things and policies that resulted in rivers of blood and destruction. For me, Carter was an horrendous anti-Semite and did everything he could to dismantle the State of Israel. In later years, he wrote one of the most notorious anti-israel screeds of all time entitled "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" which lefty Jew-haters masturbated over for years. And no doubt still do.

For that alone, he should be consigned to the infernal reaches.

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. Have a great weekend! 

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• . . . commuting the death sentences of 37 federal death row inmates — has sparked widespread disapproval. But is this only the tip of the iceberg? (Mumia Abu Jamal and Nidal Hassan? - jjs)
  Is Joe Biden Saving His Worst Decisions for His Last Day In Office?
  
• “If that happens, this program could become one of the largest federal surveillance databases overnight without authorization from Congress,” said a bipartisan group of Senators in a letter to the DHS Inspector General. (Thank you and fuck you George W. Bush! - jjs)
  TSA Facial Recognition Scanning Spreading, Part of Planned ‘Across The Board’ Biometric Future

  Carter Expires, Goes to Meet His Planter

• Daniel Greenfield: And not just because he's dead.
  The Carter Era is Over
  
• Shrewd move? Knowing anything he praises means the kiss of death from the Left - jjs
  Donald Trump reacts to Jimmy Carter’s death with heartfelt statement: ‘We all owe him a debt of gratitude’ 

Carter was considered a long shot for the Democrat presidential nomination in 1976. But his evangelical faith and humble origins provided a wholesome antidote to the cloak-and-dagger politics of the Watergate era. (Klan Robes + Burning Crosses > cloak and dagger, I guess? - jjs)
Former President Jimmy Carter Dies at 100; Oldest President in U.S. History

Revisiting the cringey gushing over Jimmy Carter
20th Century’s Worst President Dead at 100 (LBJ as bad, and then Wilson and FDR - jjs)

Robert Spencer: Although Carter was the longest-lived president of the United States ever, it is a shame that he didn’t live even longer. The second Trump administration promises to put an end to the long, slow decline of the United States and the now well-established habit of betraying our allies that Carter did so much to initiate, and it’s too bad that Carter won’t be around to witness America’s resurgence — if, that is, the late president’s friends and ideological kin don’t manage to block any such rebound.
It’s Too Bad That Jimmy Carter Didn’t Live Even Longer

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:30 AM | Comments (398) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 30 December 2024

Top Story

• Canadian online accounting firm Bench has 35,000 US customers, the company announced, immediately before shutting down and leaving them all in the lurch. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Customers will be able to download their data.
  
  Soon.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (126) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - December 29, 2024 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings, and welcome to the fifth and final Sunday of December. Thanks for stopping by. You have a lot of options when it comes to where to spend your time. The fact that you chose to be here says, well, umm... Anyway - glad you're here!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (456) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Post Christmas and Pre-New Year 2024 Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be Post Christmas and Pre-New Year of 2024? Why it seems as though just the other day it was May 20th, or August 12th, or September 3rd, but no ways does it feel like the end of the year!

So how was all y'all's Christmas or Hanukkah? Did you get any guns or ammo? How about accessories? Any cleaning/maintenance or reloading stuff? Were these things you had asked Santa to bring you or a surprise? Please let us know in the comments!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Raccoons, Brisket, And Latkes...A Match Made In Heaven!

America took the brisket to the heights of culinary excellence when we figured out how to smoke it. But that is the gold standard of barbecue, and there are lots of examples of mediocre, dry, bland, stringy smoked brisket to be had in barbecue joints across the nation. Not so much in Texas, but even there it isn't always perfect.

Braising brisket is another thing entirely. Braising in general is pretty easy, but when you start with a cut that has a fair amount of fat, and needs a lot of time to become tender, braising is the way to go.

However, it seems like brisket is the red-headed stepchild of braising. Pot Roast is America's sweetheart, and everyone's mother made it. That's usually a chuck roast, or even shoulder (clod). How come brisket isn't in the forefront? It is an inexpensive cut, is forgiving, and comes in large sizes so it is perfect for big dinners.

I made one for Hanukkah, and it turned out very well. No particular recipe, other than using a lot of onions (2+ pounds!) and carrots and celery. And I cheated and used some homemade beef stock (remember the Yorkshire pudding from last week...). It was tender and tasty and the gravy (sauce?) was flavorful. Just about exactly what I wanted.

But...there is a ton of gravy left over! All of those vegetables converted very nicely into liquid, so what's a fellow to do?

Of course I just bought a couple of pounds of chuck and am in the midst of making a stew. That's what a fellow should do!

So from one brisket I am getting about 20 meals. Not bad!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (482) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

I have absolutely no idea what that is. I found it on the floor, and couldn't figure out where it is from.

The house is still standing, so it clearly isn't an integral part of the foundation. We still have power and heat, and the internet still works (fitfully, but that's a discussion for another day).

Admit it...many of you have a jar or drawer that has several objects of unknown origin and function, yet you are constitutionally incapable of discarding them!

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (259) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Progressives Love Lawfare...Payback Is A B*tch!

The NCAA is all in on trans lunacy, and even when the athletes themselves push back, citing absolutely reasonable objections like fear of being injured and the outrageousness of being forced to disrobe in front of men pretending to be women, the sleazy tools of the progressive movement that control the NCAA tell them to stuff it.

But sanity prevails in Texas! And the technique that Ken Paxton is using is delicious. It's false advertising!

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Pax­ton Sues NCAA To Pro­tect Women's Sports and Pre­vent Bio­log­i­cal Men from Decep­tive­ly Com­pet­ing in Sex-Spe­cif­ic Competitions

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA” ) for engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as “women’s” competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.

That only biological women will compete in the events is an important reason consumers choose to support women’s sports. By falsely marketing and selling competitions as “women’s” sports only to provide a mixed sex event, the NCAA violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act which exists to protect consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick them into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised. The NCAA further misleads consumers by failing to disclose which participants in its “women’s” competitions are biological males.

Attorney General Paxton requested the court grant a permanent injunction prohibiting the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events in Texas or involving Texas teams, or alternatively requiring the NCAA to stop marketing events as “women’s” when in fact they are mixed sex competitions.

Good. Go after the NCAA's desire to destroy the primacy of women with every tool available. They are part of the war on our culture, and if Ken Paxton can expose them for the frauds they are, then there is hope for women's athletics, and hope for our society to return to a reality-based view of men and women.

Make no mistake...the trans movement has nothing to do with the vanishingly small number of psychiatric patients who want to be the opposite sex, and everything to do with destroying traditional culture.

If the post-modern progressive movement can destroy women's place at the top of our society, then they can destroy anything. Women play a unique and vital role; carrying children and raising them is the most important thing that humanity does. Diluting their uniqueness and creating a society in which women are no longer at its pinnacle dehumanizes all of us. We are not interchangeable cogs in a great machine, but breaking down the biological and religious lines between men and women is the goal of the left.

Feminism blurred the lines between wage earner and homemaker. Abortion shifted the biological and cultural imperative for child rearing. Homosexual Inc. made procreation a punchline. And now the battle is for the very definition of Man and Woman.

Ken Paxton is taking the fight to the progressives, and it is obviously part of the resurgence of traditional culture that Donald Trump and MAGA is driving. That culture was rocked back on its heels in the 1960s, and only now has it recovered. It remains to be seen whether we can continue to fight an offensive war, but people like Paxton deserve our support.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (232) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-29-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(now 100 proof!)

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, undeck those halls, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (454) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 29 December 2024

Top Story

• Giving people money doesn't stop them being poor. (Yahoo)
  
  Another UBI study fails without even asking the fundamental question of where the money comes from.
  
  
  
• Neither does taking their money. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Lyft is suing San Francisco for overcharging the company $100 million in taxes.
  
  
  
• Neither does charging interest on their loans. (MSN)

  All told, Warner borrowed a total of about $60,000 for her two advanced degrees. The amount seemed reasonable given the career trajectory that both credentials promised, but that path never materialized. Working a series of low-wage jobs, she went in and out of forbearance before ultimately defaulting. The balance ballooned to the current $268,000 total over the years due to collection fees and interest capitalization.

  Warner was 30 when she took out the loan for her law degree. In the 1980s.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (323) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Overnight Open Thread - December 28, 2024 [TRex]

[Photo: Dom St. Peter, Regensburg, Germany]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:55 PM | Comments (479) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread: Random Cuts From Random Bands

[Found outside of Garrett's kitchen, next to a bowl of Grape Nuts]

Who knew The Ramones did a Christmas song!

To me The Ramones are the quintessential rock band. They never took themselves seriously, had an absolute blast, and their music was punchy and loud and short.

U2 they ain't, and thank God for that!

Posted by: CBD at 07:25 PM | Comments (312) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - December 28, 2024 [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.

We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it perked up and reminded us that this was the LAST HOBBY THREAD of the year. Goodness.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (129) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, December 28

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:08 PM | Comments (87) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 28

'Yuletide' Camellia, courtesy Norman Winter

Happy Holiday Weekend! Anything going on in your yard or garden? Decorations still up or coming down, or are you still enjoying them? Wildlife making an appearance?

*

Posted by: K.T. at 01:12 PM | Comments (53) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Weird Words - like Grok

GROK 2

Grok and Deconstruction

Maybe this is a coincidence or maybe not. Yesterday I was prompted to consider the damage caused by the invasion of the deconstructionists into academia decades ago. I looked up Iowahawk's old piece, College Profs Denounce Western Culture, Move to Caves.

Lo and behold, the first example of a professor to take deconstruction seriously in his own life named himself Grok:

Posted by: K.T. at 11:01 AM | Comments (290) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Good morning Horde. Glad you joined us for the last Coffee Break thread of 2024. From Casa Misanthrope we wish you a Very Prosperous and Happy 2025.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:18 AM | Comments (324) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 28 December 2024

Top Story

• A new Chinese AI called DeepSeek V3 outperforms ChatGPT on standard tests while costing a small fraction of the price to train because - apparently - the developers stole the ChatGPT training data. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The evidence for this is that the model is convinced it is ChatGPT.

  "Obviously, the model is seeing raw responses from ChatGPT at some point, but it's not clear where that is," Mike Cook, a research fellow at King's College London specializing in AI, told TechCrunch. "It could be 'accidental'... but unfortunately, we have seen instances of people directly training their models on the outputs of other models to try and piggyback off their knowledge."

  Cook noted that the practice of training models on outputs from rival AI systems can be "very bad" for model quality, because it can lead to hallucinations and misleading answers like the above. "Like taking a photocopy of a photocopy, we lose more and more information and connection to reality," Cook said.

  Training AIs on AI-generated data leads to insanity in as little as three generations. It can improve results on specific standard tests because it biases the AI very, very heavily towards those tests, throwing everything else out the window. After setting it on fire.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (166) | Trackbacks (Suck)