Hey, Colt, Get a Clue

Guys, this isn't hard to do, in concept:

Step One: Take a Cobra.

Step Two: Put a 2.5" vented barrel on it, like the old Diamondback.

Step Three: Market it with photos of this guy:

Step Four: Watch the gunternet go nuts and spike demand for years to come.

But, because that may make some kind of sense, Colt won't do it.

You Can Buy a Stake in a Buggy-Whip Factory!

The Los Angeles Times newspaper plans to go public within the next year, its owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said in a television interview, aiming to give the public ownership of the 143-year-old publication.

"We're literally going to take LA Times public and allow it to be democratized and allow the public to have ownership of this paper," Soon-Shiong said on "The Daily Show" in a taped interview with the host, Jon Stewart, on Monday.

The shitbird billionaire who owns the LAT has pretty much run it into the ground, gutting the newsroom and shifting the paper towards being a propaganda organ for the billionaires' project of turning the country into a autocracy. So now he's setting up an arrangement where the other billionaires and hedge fund pirates can control what's in the paper.

Which means that they'll be pouring more and more money into the paper as the subscriber base disappears.

In other "Oligarchs Control the News" news, Bezos may buy CNBC.

CBS News to Hire a Zampolit

Skydance has told the Federal Communications Commission that once its acquisition of Paramount Global is complete, it will initiate a “comprehensive review” of CBS to ensure that the network is operating in the public interest, and that it will hire an ombudsman that will report directly to the president of CBS News and “who will receive and evaluate any complaints of bias or other concerns” at the news division.

In short, they will hire a political officer to ensure that nothing goes on the air at CBS News that will annoy the Aged Orange Toddler. "The public interest", in this case means "Trump's interest."

The oligarchs are going to ensure that nothing airs that will upset their scheme of having an autocracy that serves their interests.

If you are a journalist at CBS News, your certification as a gutless quisling will be sent in the mail.

Combating These Down, Here

Bondi and GOP Senators Protecting Trump's Pals on Epstein

There are trails to be followed to discover who was active in Epstein's circle of molesters, but Republicans have not shown any interest in going down them.

It's pretty clear from Trump's desperate attempts to throw out distractions and Bible Mike's abprubt recessing of the House that there is really something there to support the suspicion that ol' Donny's a pedophile.

The Cowards Are Fleeing the Hill

House Speaker Mike Johnson is rebuffing pressure to act on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, instead sending members home early for a month-long break from Washington after the week’s legislative agenda was upended by Republican members who are clamoring for a vote.

Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday morning that he wants to give the White House “space” to release the Epstein information on its own, despite the bipartisan push for legislation that aims to force the release of more documents.

MAGA and QAnon created this monster, which threatens to devour their Orange Godling. So Bible Mike, the World's Most Hypocritical Christian, is trying to give the Lead Clown of Mar-a-Lago time to come up with other distractions.

Meanwhile, they're trying to fix it so Ghislane Maxell both keeps her yap shut about Trump and smears dirt against anyone Trump doesn't like. My guess is that her payoff will be a full pardon no later than the third Tuesday of November in 2026.

Snuffling These Down, Here

Corrupt as the Day is Long

Several top Trump administration officials sold off stock market holdings in the days leading up to the president’s announcements of sweeping tariffs that sparked fears of a global trade war and rattled financial markets.

Sales by top officials, including Cabinet members, their deputies and senior White House officials were clustered in two 10-day periods leading up to President Donald Trump's major tariff announcements Feb. 13 and April 2, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 20 officials’ publicly available transaction forms. Of the stock and stock fund sales administration officials reported between Jan. 20 and April 30, 90% fell within 10 days of the tariff announcements.

Of course nobody will look into it, as the Trumpers control every entity that might care to see if it's corrupt.

But it looks corrupt and smells corrupt. So they'll hide this matter in the same room with the Epstein files.

Trump Tries for Some Distraction from Jeffry Epstein

The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.

The release involves an estimated 200,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Pedo President is so desperate to get people to stop talking about him and Epstein. So, yes, this release is no coincidence.

If We Are a Just Nation, One Day, The People Running These Places Will Be In Jail, Themselves

Starting with Discount Goebbels, himself, Stephen Miller.

Migrants at a Miami immigration jail were shackled with their hands tied behind their backs and made to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates “like dogs”, according to a report published on Monday into conditions at three overcrowded south Florida facilities.
...
Degrading treatment by guards is commonplace in all three jails, the groups say. At the Krome North service processing center in west Miami, female detainees were made to use toilets in full view of men being held there, and were denied access to gender-appropriate care, showers, or adequate food.

The jail was so far beyond capacity, some transferring detainees reported, that they were held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot. Men and women were confined together, and unshackled only when they needed to use the single toilet, which quickly became clogged.
...
When the group was finally admitted into the facility, they said, many spent up to 12 days crammed into a frigid intake room they christened la hielera – the ice box – with no bedding or warm clothing, sleeping instead on the cold concrete floor.

ICE is showing itself to be just an evil organization, committng human rights abuses willy-nilly, with a percentage of the population cheering them on.

We are not much different than the good little Germans who turned their backs on what was happening in the 1930s.

The Paper That Should Have Been

QOTD

The United States is run by a pedophile gangster whose campaign was funded by a nazi drug addict.

Your Sunday Morning Rotor Noise

A Mosquito Air:

To roughly quote what a long-gone friend once said about the J-3, it'll fly fast enough and high enough to kill you.

Trump to World: Go Somewhere Else

The Addled Autocrat had tacked on an additional $250 fee for visas.

The message is clear: If you want to visit the U.S. and you need a visa to do so, go somewhere else.

(In the main, visas are not required for citizens of majority-white countries.)

Current EVs May Be Worthless in Five Years

Li-ion batteries may be obsolete in the near future. If solid state batteries pan out, current EVs are going to be junk.

Caturday

One escaped from the meme-posting queue.

Because It's Friday

A live-steam show:

The Craven Broadcasting Company Bends Its Knee, Again

CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May, shuttering a decades-old TV institution in a changing media landscape and removing from air one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent and persistent late-night critics.

Thursday’s announcement followed Colbert’s criticism on Monday of a settlement between Trump and Paramount Global, parent company of CBS, over a “60 Minutes” story.
...
In his Monday monologue, Colbert said he was “offended” by the $16 million settlement reached by Paramount, whose pending sale to Skydance Media needs the Trump administration’s approval. He said the technical name in legal circles for the deal was “big fat bribe.”

So, CBS cancels the number-one show in its timeslot and says that it's a "business decision".... yeah, right. Tell me another one. Things haven't changed at that cowardly network since they canceled the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

The Administration of the Syphilitic Felon has been politicizing the supposedly independent FCC; CBS is so afraid that the World's Oldest Toddler will have a fit of pique and mess with the Paramount-Skydance deal because he doesn't like what Colbert says each night.

Look for Comedy Central to engage in similar acts of political purity to try and stave off the childish wrath of the Demented Führer.

Also, this:

The #1 way to explain America working properly is by saying “comedians can make fun of he President on TV.” A good way to explain fascism is “the President forces companies to fire those comedians as a condition of allowing them to conduct business.”

— Ken Tremendous (@kentremendous.bsky.social) July 17, 2025 at 9:07 PM

They might as well run the local news at 11 (or 10), play the National Anthem, show the T-38 flying to a recitation of "High Flight" and then go dark until it's time for the farm report at 4am.

The Far Right Hits the Bottom of the Well of Dumbness and Begins Digging

An “anti-government militia” called ‘Veterans on Patrol’ told News 9 on Tuesday that it is “targeting” Oklahoma weather radars, days after an individual vandalized News 9’s weather radar.
...
"They can embed their technology and civilian infrastructure in every home and every household utilizing the phones and their network towers to not only control the weather, modify the weather, but they can [target] individuals,” [Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, the founder of Veterans On Patrol] stated.

It takes a real special level of stupid to believe that bilge.

Extruding These Down, Here

Desperate for Distraction, Trump Ed.

Trump bleats about sugar in Coke, Newsom the Tool nailed it:

Krasnov the Demented is also muttering about firing Jerome Powell (Fed Chair) and blaming the guy who appointed him.

It would appear that the Old Orange Pedo is so eager to move the conversation away from his long friendship with Epstein that he's about to crash the markets. Whether or not he has Ka$h Patel's goons covering up his cavorting with underage girls is a question.

DoJ-- No Ethics Zone

When one remembers that Pam Bondi took a $25,000 bribe campaign contribution from Trump and then dropped an investigation into Trump U., it should be no surprise that the last thing she wants is people in her office who believe in ethics.

Trump's Goons

As Rodney Balko lays it out, we're past the point of discussing the militarization of the police. Now, we're at the point of discussing whether or not the cops are going to be loyal to their oath, to the Constitution, or if they are going to throw that all aside and swear fealty to Donald Trump.

I believe that, in much of the country, that debate is also over. They are backstopped by a supine Supreme Court that uses the shadow docket to approve of whatever Trump does without once having to sign their names to it. The Republicans in Congress have lined up to suck the Orange Mushroom Dick.

The guardrails are down. Maybe we can re-erect them in 2026 and 2028.

But no matter how we repair things, we will always have those repaired cracks in our national psyche. No matter how we fix things, the rest of the world will always know that our dedication to freedom and liberty and civil rights is thin.

And, in the meantime, as Trump wrecks our trade relationships with his TACO tariffs, the rest of the world is adjusting to trading with each other and cutting out out the United States.

Meanwhile, stand by for a market crash.

The Epstein Missing Minute

It's closer to three minutes.

I'd just like to point out how weird it is that places with hundreds or even thousands of reporters — the NYT, WaPo, CBS, NBC, AP, etc. — are all getting pummeled on every major story by the dozen computerboys at Wired. To fumble the bag this consistently is, at some point, cowardice and a choice.

[image or embed]

— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) July 15, 2025 at 4:54 PM

BadTux has an explanation for a missing minute, but I don't know if it works for three minutes.

The journalistic question is why is a small news organization like Wired beating the big guys on this.

Tenting These Down, Here