Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- Trump

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

Karma may sometimes be late to arrive.
But it never loses an address.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

There Is a Reason Why Every Sentient Being on the Planet Despises Comcast (AKA Xfinity)

Their customer service people are liars. They'll make a deal with you, tell you what you are agreeing to, and then change the terms.

Or, even worse, they'll scrub all record of making such a deal. They'll tell you you're getting something and then take it back in the paperwork.

They are scum. Do they not see that their corporate assholishness is why cord-cutting is so popular?

Buffering These Down, Here







Not a Good Feeling About This

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he interfered with the 2020 election, calling into question whether his case could go to trial before the November election.

The very best case scenario that I can see is that the Trumpist justices are throwing the TOFF a bone by delaying his trial until after the election. The worst case is that they are going to rule in his favor to pave the way for a right-wing autocracy.

Not all of a majority of the Supremes are full-bore right-wing hacks who put their ideology over everything else, but enough of them are to make this possible. That four of them agreed to hear their Orange God's appeal is scary enough.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Wishing a Plague of Crotch Fires Upon the Executives at Wendy’s

Wendy’s is looking to test having the prices of its menu items fluctuate throughout the day based on demand, implementing a strategy that has already taken hold with ride-sharing companies and ticket sellers.

During a conference call earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said that the Dublin, Ohio-based burger chain will start testing dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing, as early as next year.

May Kirk Tanner (now there's a waste of a good name for a porn star) contract a series of inexplicable and painful loathesome diseases. Afterwards, may he then die soon, in great agony, and often. May his stock holdings tank and may he live his final days in a refrigerator carton under an overpass of I-70. May his establishments sit idle and be closed for flagrant violations of the health codes.

(Greedy fucker can go get a job more suited to him, such as assistant stunner at a meatpacking plant.)

(Ask me how I really feel about this horrible and greedy concept.)

Bet That For This, Texas Will Want Help From the Feds

Surging wildfires fueled by strong winds and dry grass in unseasonably warm temperatures prompted safety warnings for residents of several towns and at least one evacuation order in the far northern part of the Texas Panhandle on Tuesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 60 counties and ordered the state to activate emergency response assistance to support local firefighters.

Maybe Meatball Ron and those other asshole governors can send fire crews, since they're so hot on helping Abbott with the border.

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts

An outright Nazi is running to be on the Republican state council.

H/T

Sanding These Down, Here




A zero-star review:





Monday, February 26, 2024

Far-Right "Conservatives" Are Enemies of the Constitution

When clowns like this say they want to destroy the United States, believe them.



First off, remember that this clown was the promulgator of "Pizzagate", the wholly-made-up conspiracy theory that sent some low-wattage MAGAite to D.C. to terrorize a pizza parlor with an assault rifle. When Posobiec said his bullshit this time around, people at CPAC applauded. That tells me that CPAC is stocked with traitors and Putinites. They are enemies of the Constitution. They have been for years.

Our fathers, grandfathers, (and for some of you) greatgrandfathers and uncles, supported by our mothers, grandmothers, et al. went to war against those fools.


 

"We must be smart enough and tough enough in the beginning to put out the fire [of fascism] before it begins spreading." We don't seem to be that smart, anymore. The far-right is fascist. They are eagerly supporting fascists in Europe, including one who has started the very sort of war that dragged us into war in Europe in the 1940s.

And we are going to be dragged into another war in Europe because the same political party that was against helping countries fighting Nazi Germany is throwing wrenches into efforts to help Ukraine beat back Russian fascists. We can help now, when all it does is cost us money (and create American jobs), or later, when we have to send our young to fight.

But back to home: Gentle Readers, a lot of you took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. When clowns like Posobiec and Tom Parker of Alabama come for your freedom, what are you going to do?

You may feel this way:

But this is a struggle that you ignore at the risk of losing our democracy. Once it's gone, it's not coming back without a bloody fight.

When it comes to the election, you may feel this way:

But don't let your lack of enthusiasm result in tanking our democracy.

History has a rhyme. If you wondered what you would have wanted our country to do when Nazi Germany was invading other counrtries, you are finding out. If you wondered what you would do when the NSDAP was running for office in Germany in 1932, you are finding out.

You can learn from history or be suffocated by it. The choice is yours.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Updated and Even More Deadly

The S-200, a 55-year old mssile system, which Ukraine allegedly used to shoot down a second Russian A-50.

If you love fascism, if you want to see Russia reconquer most of Eastern Europe, then vote for Republicans. If you believe that the Russians have reverted to being the same evil empire that they were labelled in the early 1980s, then don't vote for Republicans.

It is that simple.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

Lancaster!



ETA: I got fooled. This is all fake footage.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Piss on the Katsaps (and Their American Fellow-Travelers).

Show Ukraine some love.

United Help Ukraine.

Unicef Ukraine.

And spend a little time tonight, damning Putin's Poodles in the Congress.

Scratch a Christian Nationalist, Find a White Supremacist

First off, there's the TOFF, who spouted some really racist shit that his being arrested apeals to Black voters.

Now, to the main event:

When the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are considered children under state law, its chief justice had a higher authority in mind.

By citing verses from the Bible and Christian theologians in his concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker alarmed advocates for church-state separation, while delighting religious conservatives who oppose abortion.

Anyone else remember when Southern conservatives were invoking the Bible to justify segregation, Jim Crow and slavery? Alabama is a racist, Christianist shithole. Remember the state motto of Georgia: "It's always worse in Alabama." Or Mississsippi: "We try to be better than Alabama."

Now, on to the mocking:


Riding the carpool lane:

And this:

Now Your TV Will Give You Ads On Its Own

Walmart is buying Vizio so they can pipe ads directly to the viewers. Vizio TVs are cheaper because they directly feed ads to those who bought them.

Pro tip: If you buy a cheap big-ass TV, you are not the customer. You're the product.

If you're thinking about finding a good old 27" CRT TV, the shows nowadays are shot to be seen on big-ass LCD TVs.

You may have to spring for a non-cheap TV. Stay away from Vizio and any TV branded for a retailer. And then go research how to turn off tracking on your particular TV.

And remember this: Walmart's default settings are "evil" and "rapacious".

Caturday

A guest cat from Grey Wolf:

Friday, February 23, 2024

Yuri, You Lost Another AWACS?

Ukraine says it has downed a Russian A-50 military spy plane - the second such claim in just over a month.

The plane was hit between the Russian cities of Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar, Ukrainian military sources said, over 200km (124 miles) from the front line.

Emergency services reportedly found plane fragments in Kanevskoy district and put out a raging fire.

The ISW reports that Russian military bloggers are claiming that the Russians accidentally shot it down, because it's somehow better for Russian morale if they say that the Russians are so incompetent as to repeatedly shoot down their most valuable and scarcest aviation assets.

Still, that serves as sort of left-handed confirmation that the Ukrainians did, in fact, blow another Russian A-50 out of the sky.

Guilty AF, NRA Ed.

WLP has to pay back $4.3 million of excess benefits. Other have to pay, as well.

I presume that there were statute of limitations issues, for WLP and his cronies grifted much, much more from the NRA.

Meanwhile, in the Hellscape Known as Florida

With a brief memo, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has subverted a public health standard that's long kept measles outbreaks under control.

On Feb. 20, as measles spread through Manatee Bay Elementary in South Florida, Ladapo sent parents a letter granting them permission to send unvaccinated children to school amid the outbreak.

The Department of Health "is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance," wrote Ladapo, who was appointed to head the agency by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose name is listed above Ladapo's in the letterhead
.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases around, yet the medieval-grade witch-doctor who Meatball Ron appointed as surgeon general thinks it's just peachy to send unvaccinated kids into a school where there is a measels outbreak. Because, after all, only a tenth of those who contract measels will lose some or all of their hearing (0.1% will die) and that's an acceptable risk to a political douchebag who prizes ideology over science.

Elect a clown and you get a circus.

Texas Is No Place to be Pregnant

Kelsie Norris-De La Cruz tried not to cry as the doctor in the emergency room delivered one of the most frightening diagnoses a pregnant woman can receive.

The 25-year-old college senior was told she likely had an ectopic pregnancy, a highly dangerous condition where the embryo implants outside of the uterus. Without immediate treatment, the fallopian tube can rupture — and the patient can die.

The law that has prohibited abortions in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned now explicitly allows doctors to treat ectopic pregnancies. But when doctors at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital evaluated Norris-De La Cruz last week, they refused to terminate the pregnancy, saying there was some chance the pregnancy was still viable, Norris-De La Cruz recalled. Instead, they advised her and her mother to go home and wait, according to medical records reviewed by The Washington Post.

Norris-De La Cruz ultimately received emergency surgery about 24 hours later at a different hospital in the area, at which point her ectopic pregnancy had already started to rupture. The OB/GYN who performed the procedure said that, if Norris-De La Cruz had waited much longer, she would have been “in extreme danger of losing her life.”

If you read on in the article, you'll see that even the anti-abortion women-ating cranks who wrote the law in Texas say that she should have been allowed to terminate her pregnancy. If the cowardly doctors at Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital aren't going to at least follow the law in Texas with regards to emergency abortions, then they should either switch to a different specialty or leave the state.

The bottom line is that if you are a woman of child-bearing age in Texas, you should move to a state where you are not considered to be state property.

Meanwhile, the murdering piece of dogshit who is the governor of Texas is blabbering about building a wall on the Oklahoma border to "keep out radical woke". As if that's needed, for nobody with more than a quarter of a brain these days is moving to Texas.

Remember, this is what Republicans have wrought. Don't vote for a Republican, for any job whatsoever.

Because It's Friday

Old footage of CB&Q 4960.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Odysseus Lands At Motel 6

A private U.S. lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, but contact with the craft was weak, company officials said.

There were no immediate updates on the lander’s condition from the company, Intuitive Machines.

Tension mounted in the company’s command center in Houston, as controllers awaited a signal from the spacecraft some 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away, which arrived about 10 minutes later.

“We’re evaluating how we can refine that signal,” said mission director Tim Crain. “But we can confirm, without a doubt, that our equipment is on the surface of the moon.”

The lander, Odysseus, descended from a moon-skimming orbit and guided itself toward the surface, searching for a relatively flat spot among all the cliffs and craters near the south pole.

The old joke is that the south pole of the Moon is like Motel 6: Free ice, no atmosphere.

I don't quite get the enthusiam that people have for the Moon's potential as a base. Yes, it has 1/6th the gravity of Earth. But everything needed, except maybe water, has to be flung up to the Moon from Earth and nobody is really sure that there will be enough water to be usefu.

And even if there is, every swinging-dick of a lunar-capable nation will want a piece of it. We know how that goes here when there is a scarce resource everyone wants-- sooner or later, the guns come out.

She Is So Screwed!

Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency has arrested a woman with dual U.S. and Russian citizenship on charges of treason, accusing her of collecting money for the Ukrainian military.
...
Russia’s Federal Security Service alleges that [Ksenia] Khavana had been “proactively” raising funds for a Ukrainian organization since February 2022 — money that it says was “subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Putin will have his pound of flesh of anyone who crosses him, whther it's a ballerina who gave a few bucks to a Ukrainian charity or a Russian pilot who defected. His forces continue to commit war crimes.

Ukraine is not done. Even though the Republican traitors and appeasers would hope they are.

(Never vote for a Republican for any office whatsoever.)

De-Burring These Down, Here










Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Hypocrites in Cassocks At Work

One afternoon in mid-December, Pope Francis had a meeting that wasn’t on his official agenda or otherwise recorded, that underscored the utter dysfunction of the Catholic Church’s response to the global clergy sex abuse scandal.

In the main reception room of the Vatican hotel where he lives, Francis met for more than an hour with a Spaniard who as a young seminarian was molested by his spiritual director.
...
While Francis’ decision to hear his story was laudable and pastorally sensitive, it was also evidence that the church’s in-house system to deal with abuse isn’t working — from the laws available to punish abusers to its policies for helping survivors. For every victim who has enough well-connected friends at the Vatican who can arrange a papal audience, countless others will never feel that the church cares for them or will provide them justice.

While the Catholic Church mostly turns its collective back on those who were molested and abused by priests and others, they manage to have some outrage left.

The funeral of a renowned transgender activist in a New York cathedral elicited a denunciation of the event by a senior church official, who called the Mass a scandal within one of the preeminent houses of worship in U.S. Catholicism.

On the one hand, they get upset by a transgendered woman having a funeral, but on the other hand, they shrug at the thousands upon thousands of people who were abused by priests, let alone those who were enslaved and brutalized by the Church for centuries, including up to very recently.

The RCC believes it has some sort of moral authority, which is laughable. They're not much different from the Nazis, in my eyes.

Stand By on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts

Accuweather is forecasting an active hurricaine season.

Part of the reason for that is that the oceans are getting warmer. For reasons that the batshit-Trumpist-right refuses to acknowledge.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Cue the Divorce Lawyer

Machining These Down, Here









Why the TOFF Owes Almost Half-a-Billion in Fines

Under the law of the State of New York, the State has the right to sue to protect the integrity of the financial system. That's probably why the TOFF didn't say "yeah, I did it. So what, they all made money." Because if he had, it would have been case close, pay up.

You don't get to lie to the bank about the value of your house in taking out a mortgage, even if you make all the payments. Neither should he.

Cough it up, Donnie, me boy, you guilty fuckwad. (Not forgetting about his oldest sons, who also have to pay seven figures in fines.)

(Also, this.)

Monday, February 19, 2024

Spike This Shit

Capital One Financial is buying Discover Financial Services for $35 billion, in a deal that would bring together two of the nation’s biggest lenders and credit card issuers.

I have seen very few of these horizontal mergers of any stripe that benefit the American people. Such mergers end up with everyone paying more for whatever that industry produces. The only ones those mergers benefit are the vulture capitalists and the banksters, the same pack of economic saboteurs who have been ripping apart and devouring this country's economic base for decades.

If there is any regulatory input on this merger, the regulators should stomp on the proponents's dicks with golfing shoes. Figuratively, of course.

Because hanging them en masse in Battery Park would be wrong.

Extra! Extra! Sneaking These Down, Here

I'm not holding these for a scheduled slot.



He got roundly booed when he tried to pitch his Air Treasons at SenakerCon.

Manwhile, the Trumpanzees are being asked to help pay the court fines of an alleged billionare. Proving that a sucker is born every second.

The TOFF, Who Normally Can't Keep His Yap Shut About Anything, Holds It Firmly Shut to Avoid Upsetting His Boss

He refused to condemn Russia when Putin's henchmen tried to kill Alexei Navalny four years ago and he's not saying anything bad about Putin now.

Nikki Haley called him out on it, not that it matters any:

"Either he sides with Putin and thinks it's cool that Putin killed one of his political opponents, or he just doesn't think it's that big of a deal. Either one of those is concerning. Either one of those is a problem."

Russia is the country most likely to start a global thermonuclear war. The TOFF and his fellow travelers in the pro-Putin Caucus are trying to do whatever they can to dismantle NATO in order to help Russia conquer its neighbors.

I have said this many times and I will continue to say it: The Republicans have not changed one bit since they were the pro-Hitler party. There were in Hitler's pocket until Hitler declared war on America a few days after the Pearl Harbor attack and they will be the pro-Putin party until the nukes start flying.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Back to Jail You Go

A tractor-trailer full of brand-new Corvettes worth over $1.25 million was stolen by an ex-convict looking for a ride home in Arizona on Thursday, police said.
...
Police say he admitted to stealing the truck but claimed that the 10 Corvettes that were onboard had nothing to do with it. He stated that he was just released from prison and needed a ride home.

Now Mr. Critter'll get a free ride back to prison.

Dumbass.

This Loss of a Ukrainian City Is Brought to You By Bible Mike and His Caucus of Appeasers

Ukraine says its troops have withdrawn from Avdiivka - a key eastern town besieged by Russian forces for months.

The decision was taken in order to save the soldiers' lives, said President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday it had taken "full control" of the town, with President Vladimir Putin hailing it as an "important victory".

Its fall marks Russia's biggest win for months, and Mr Zelensky blamed faltering Western weapons supplies
.

This is on the Party of Appeasement. They have done everything that they can do to choke off aid to Ukraine because they think that people who want to remain free should, instead, bend their necks to a murderous dictator. In that regard, they have not changed a bit from their stance 83 years ago.

One of Putin's Poodles is in Munich to argue that appeasement is the proper policy. I suppose he's blind to the outcome of the last time Western politicians went to Munch to argue that the aggressor should be given terrirtory to appease him.

Vance, Johnson and the rest of those useful idiots will be condemned by history for being the appeasement monkeys that they are.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

A Fokker Trimotor:



The original Fokker flew the first flight from the United States to Australia.

The Fokker F.10 that Knute Rockney died in was a variant built by an American subsidiary. That crash pushed the use of all-metal airplanes for airlines.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Special Snark

For this post.

Rhode Island Honors Traitors

For nearly 60 years, the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame has inducted notables into its ranks, providing this tiny state with a boost of pride.

Its honorees have ranged from Roger Williams, Rhode Island’s founder, to Martha McSally, the first American woman to fly a fighter jet in combat, all recognized for having “brought credit” to the state where they lived or were born.

Then came the matter of Michael Flynn.

In December, it emerged that Flynn — a Rhode Island native, retired lieutenant general and former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Donald Trump — would be inducted into the Hall of Fame at its annual banquet this spring
.

Takes some real balls to honor a man who has been paid by the Russians for Lord knows what, pled guilty to a felony, took a pardon from a man who has, in turn, been indicted for felonies and who repeatedly took the Fifth. I wonder if they've also honored Raymond Patriarca.

They did honor Buddy Cianci, who was twice convicted of felonies. So I guess it's not unusual for the Rhode Island Hall of Fame to honor a scumbag like Flynn, since Little Rhody does have a rep for being pretty bent.

H/T

Right-Wing Terrorism Works

For two decades, Shane Murnan worked as an educator by day and a drag queen on nights and weekends at clubs in Oklahoma City. He won awards for his performances as he moved up in his career to become an administrator. He never had a problem with his dual identities, he said, until last year.

At the start of the fall 2023 semester, as Murnan started a new job as principal of John Glenn Elementary School in the Western Heights School District, an anonymous newsletter posted about his drag persona and past criminal charges he had faced. Two days later, on Aug. 31, the far-right social media account Libs of TikTok posted about Murnan, and Ryan Walters, the incendiary state superintendent, called for him to be fired. Soon after, the district and Murnan received bomb threats, according to police records and interviews.

This is how it goes: The Evil Witch running Libs of TikTok posts some bullshit about somebody and then her flying monkeys call in bomb threats. A lot of bomb threats. It's stochastic terrorism, for which nobody ever seems to be arrested.

This guy wasn't harming anyone. He'd been performing drag in his free time for decades without bothering anyone. But then a bunch of busybody Christian Taliban assholes got their mad on and have begun terrorizing drag queens, including this schlub. And they have gotten away with it and they continute to get away with it. Because right-wing terrorists get a pass.

What We Know From The TOFF's Taxes

This one has been in the drafts folder for awhile. Time to free it.

This is what his tax returns tell us:

  • He's a lousy businessman, who mostly generates losses.
  • He lied about being under audit. 
  • The IRS wasn't auditing his taxes each year, as they are supposed to do for sitting presidents.
  • He lied about donating his salary, keeping it in 2020.
  • He's a cheapskate who make fewer charitable donations in 2020 than a library patron putting a couple bucks in the donation box at the checkout counter.
  • If it wasn't for his long-dead father, he'd be fucking broke.

The TOFF Explained in One Quote

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

That was LBJ said to Bill Moyers in 1960. It is what Republicans have run on since then: Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, right up to the TOFF in three elections.

Caturday

Recharging the solar cells!

Friday, February 16, 2024

Barney Fife at Work: Please Go Back to Giving Him a Revolver and One Bullet

A Florida sheriff’s deputy mistook the sound of an acorn hitting his patrol cruiser for a gunshot and fired multiple times at the SUV where a handcuffed Black man was sitting in the backseat, officials said.
...
Investigators viewing the video from deputy Jesse Hernandez’s body camera saw an acorn falling just before shots were fired, an internal affairs report by the sheriff’s office concluded. The acorn bounced off the patrol vehicle’s roof
.

We have some trigger-happy cops in this country. It's time something got done. Popping off a magazine's worth of rounds at a handcuffed and secured suspect because an acorn dropped on the car? He couldn't tell the difference between an acorn and a gunshot *and* he thought he'd been shot?

Good thing he quit, but did he also turn in his POST certificate?

Manchin Either Sees the Light or Feels the Heat

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin announced on Friday that he is not running for president, saying he didn’t want to be a “spoiler.”

“I will not be seeking a third-party run,” he said in a speech at West Virginia University. “I will not be involved in a presidential run. I will be involved in making sure that we secure a president that has the knowledge and has the passion and has the ability to bring this country together.”

Meanwhile, the Original Traitor Joe is continuing his efforts to throw the election to the TOFF, because he hates America:

“No Labels is currently speaking with several exceptional leaders about serving on the presidential Unity ticket. We are continuing to make great progress on our ballot access efforts and will announce in the coming weeks whether we will offer our line to a Unity ticket,” said the co-chairs of No Labels, former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, former head of the NAACP Benjamin Chavis, Jr., and former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.

"No Labels" should be labeled "Trump Sock Puppets". Just like Jill Stein and those other assholes in 2016.

Fraudster-45 Loses, Again

A New York judge ordered Donald Trump and his companies on Friday to pay $355 million in penalties, finding they engaged in a yearslong scheme to dupe banks and others with financial statements that inflated his wealth.
...
Judge Arthur Engoron concluded that Trump and his company were “likely to continue their fraudulent ways” without the financial penalties and other controls he imposed. Engoron concluded that Trump and his co-defendants “failed to accept responsibility” and that experts who testified on his behalf “simply denied reality.”

“This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin,” Engoron, a Democrat, wrote in a searing 92-page opinion. “They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”

He said their “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological” and “the frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience.”

Trump, who built his reputation as a real estate titan, also was barred from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for three years or from getting a loan from banks registered in his native state. His eldest sons, Trump Organization Executive Vice Presidents Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, each were ordered to pay $4 million and barred from being officers of New York companies for two years.

If the TOFF wants to appeal it, he'll have to post a bond to cover the $355 million. By being an asshole and by having a witness who admitted perjury, he made it really easy for the judge to whack him with the Ruler of Justice.

In civil court, so far, the TOFF has been adjudicated as a rapist, a liar and a fraudster who owes almost half-a-billion in damages.

The Man That the TOFF and His Acolytes Revere Does Shit Such As This

Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died Friday in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.

"Felt unwell after taking a walk." Right. He was out on a leisurely stroll. In the middle of winter, north of the Arctic Circle. Care to bet that his walking attire was thin (or no) shoes, a t-shirt, and pajama pants? Is there any doubt whatsoever that Putin had him killed?

Is there any doubt whatsoever that the TOFF wishes that he could do the same thing to his enemies?

I don't know why Navalny went back to Russia after Putin had him poisoned. Did he not understand the road that he was going to walk? Or did he think that his martyrdom would change things? If he thought the latter, was he delusional? Lots of political opponents have been murdered in Russian history and their deaths never resonated to make much of a difference.

Reaction elsewhere:

Because It's Friday

German steam race:



There must be a reason why the locomotive hauling passenger cars has a safety locomotive on the rear, but the one hauling empty hopper cars does not.