She Chose Poorly

Hana Horka, a Czech singer, deliberately contracted Covid so she wouldn't have to be vaccinated. She died of Covid.

T**** Is, Once Again, The Biggest Loser in Court

In a rebuff to former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court is allowing the release of presidential documents sought by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The justices on Wednesday rejected a bid by Trump to withhold the documents from the committee until the issue is finally resolved by the courts. Trump’s lawyers had hoped to prolong the court fight and keep the documents on hold.

Following the high court’s action, there is no legal impediment to turning over the documents, which are held by the National Archives and Records Administration. They include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows.

8-1 vote, including all of "his" justices. The King of Bone Spurs must be feeling very betrayed. The only vote for Trump was by Justice Thomas, who seems to still be working off his butthurt from his confirmation hearings.

Meanwhile, Eric Trump seems to believe that saying more than his name puts him at risk, for he invoked the Fifth Amendment 500 times in a deposition. Back in the day, conservatives would scream that anyone who repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment had to be a really bad criminal, even a mobster. What they claimed was that anyone who had so much to hide must be guilty.

Bet that they've since changed their tune.

Ayup

pic.twitter.com/UBTHmRkH0z

— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) January 18, 2022

Budget High Power

Girsan MC P35, imported by EAA:

One quibble with the video: The magazines of (classic) Browning High Powers do not normally drop out because the magazine safety squeezes the magazine against the back of the magazine well. That's why the "mousetrap magazine" was invented, which has a little spring to eject the magazine (as indicated by the red arrow):

At $400 a copy (1/3rd the cost of FN's new non-clone), I'm interested.

On the other hand, RUMINT has been that EAA's customer service is orders of magnitude worse than Taurus's. If you buy one and it doesn't work, you might have to fix it yourself.

With a Few Minor Alterations, This Fits Putin Like a Bespoke Suit

“There must be no doubt about one thing. Political separation from [Russia] may not lead to deprivation of rights—that is, the general rights of self-determination. In the long run it is unbearable for a world power to know there are [ethnic] comrades at its side who are constantly being afflicted with the severest suffering for their sympathy or unity with the whole nation, its destiny, and its [worldview]. To the interests of the [Russian Federation] belong the protection of those [Russian] peoples who are not in a position to secure along our frontiers their political and spiritual freedom by their own efforts.”

I don't need to tell you who spoke the original version of those words, do I?

As a Jew, I Endorse This Opinon

Because nobody can pronounce "The Protocols of the Elders of Lllwgyddywwglch". https://t.co/9glTzHwOdU

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 16, 2022

(H/T)

FN's New (and Improved) High Power

FN is introducing a "reborn" High Power.

What I see:

• The barrel looks like something out of a Glock. So it locks up on the ejection port (like a Glock) and not into matching cuts in the slide (like the 1911 and the P35).
• 17 round magazines so all of the "legacy" P35 magazines won't fit.
• No magazine disconnect.
• No provision for red-dot optics.
• Separate takedown lever.
• Ambidextrous controls.

It short, it looks like a P35 on the outside, but that's about as far as it goes. Because older magazines apparently will not run in this new gun, I'll just wait to see if Springfield can get the bugs out of their clone.

Especially when I consider that this gun has a MSRP of nearly twice that of the Springfield SA-35.

Covid Testing

The free Covid test site is live on a soft open. It's super easy.

Laying These Down, Here

This and other regularly-scheduled features may be suspended due to an overlap of the Venn circles for "coffee" and "laptop".

We Shall See, MLK Ed.

I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to the manifold tweets and messages today from white Trump-voting Republicans praising equality and justice for all, touting civil rights and love of democracy, and telling us what Martin Luther King REALLY meant.

— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) January 17, 2022

He was right, the very same clowns trying to make it harder for people to vote posted this:

Today we honor the incredible life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. pic.twitter.com/4wnfhaUyQi

— GOP (@GOP) January 17, 2022

I think most of them will try to ignore the day, if not silently cheer on the clown that did this:

https://t.co/oo5Zw8gwKw. And on the eve of MLK day no less. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

— thefieldnegro (@fieldnegro) January 17, 2022

MLK, Jr. Day

Nothing has changed in that regard.

(H/T)

Crazy People With Nuclear Weapons, USSR Russian Ed.

“From the beginning of the year we will have in our arsenal a new sea-based missile, a hypersonic one,” Mr. Putin said, referring to a weapon that travels at more than five times the speed of sound and could likely evade existing missile defenses.

In an apparent reference to the American capital, he added: “The flight time to reach those who give the orders will also be five minutes.”

That is the talk of a crazy person, a lunatic who just happens to be the Russian leader, a man who, unlike the leaders of the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, has no experience in a major war.

Is there a single shred of doubt what the response would be if a missile from a Russian submarine nuked Washington? To even play at saying such things shows a deep irresponsibility unbecoming the leader of any nation that has a military that is larger than Costa Rica's, let alone a significant, if fading, nuclear power.

"Fading" may be what's going on. Russia, as a nation, is fading. It is losing population. The global shift toward renewable energy sources threatens to limit Russia's economic influence. Putin's shenanigans may be a evidence of the thrashing throes of a nation that he knowss full well is sliding into irrelevance. Militaristic nations, like dangerous animals, are most dangerous when they are dying.

I grew up in the shadow of a possible global nuclear war. It appears that Generation Alpha will have that same experience.

Your Sunday Morning Prop Noise

P-40 Warhawk:

Operation Canned Meat II

(Stickied from 1/14/22)

U.S. intelligence officials have determined a Russian effort is underway to create a pretext for its troops to further invade Ukraine, and Moscow has already prepositioned operatives to conduct “a false-flag operation” in eastern Ukraine, according to the White House.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday the intelligence findings show Russia is also laying the groundwork through a social media disinformation campaign that frames Ukraine as an aggressor that has been preparing an imminent attack against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine.

Psaki charged that Russia has already dispatched operatives trained in urban warfare who could use explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces — blaming the acts on Ukraine — if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides he wants to move forward with an invasion.

It is hard to look at this guy:

And not see a modern reflection of this guy:

• Mass overwhelming forces on the border of a far less-powerful neighbor -- check. 
•  Stage a pretext for an invasion -- check. 
• Claim that they are only acting in self-defense -- check. 
•  Claim that they are only protecting the rights of their own ethnic people -- check.
• Right wing groups in the United States parroting the lies of the invaders -- check.
• An Asian dictatorship using the distraction of a war in Europe to carry out their own war -- check. 

Other nations are paying attention and taking their own steps. Russia's aggressive posturing has made it clear to the Nordic neutrals that they will have to choose a side. And they seem to be.

Mike Lindell's Trolley Has Clearly Jumped the Rails

My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell said on Real America’s Voice that he has evidence to put 300 million Americans in jail as he continues his plan to overturn the 2020 election.
...
Lindell says he has “all the pieces of the puzzle.”

“And you talk about evidence,” Lindell added. “We have enough evidence to put everybody in prison for life, 300 and some million people. We have that all the way back to November and December.”

So that's basically every American above the age of what, ten? 300 million people, 2.6 million prison cells. That's a shitload of overcrowding, with every child in the country working as a prison guard and nobody doing anything else.

300 million people. Lindell sounds as though he's building a defense of insanity in advance of his libel trials.

NFL Coughs It Up

The National Football League and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke reached a settlement with officials in St. Louis for $790 million, the city announced on [11/24/21].

The settlement stems from a lawsuit from the Rams’ relocation to Los Angeles in 2016. The city, St. Louis County and the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority sued the NFL and the Rams in 2017. They claimed the league did not honor its own relocation policy and hold good faith negotiations to prevent the Rams’ relocation from St. Louis.

The City sued for a billion, plus. They alleged that the NFL broke its own rules on relocation to let one of their billionaire owners due whatever he felt like doing. That the NFL settled for $790 million suggests that the NFL knew that they were probably going to lose.

The money was paid last month. That whiny little fuck probably won't miss it; all he will have to do is get Walmart to screw over its workers a little more.

Every pro sports team contemplating a move should take to heart the lesson that if they don't follow their league's rules on jerking teams to new locations, it could coust them a bundle. With any luck, the Oakland Los Angeles Oakland Las Vegas Raiders will be sued into dust.

ETA: The Bengals beat the Raiders today in an AFC wild-card game, 26-19.

Caturday

Chip: "Whassup?"

Because It's Friday

Biggest Polar Express, ever!

Good Going, Gavin

California’s governor on Thursday rejected releasing Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan from prison more than a half-century after the 1968 slaying that the governor called one of America’s “most notorious crimes.”
...
Aside from causing Kennedy’s then-pregnant wife and 10 children “immeasurable suffering,” Newsom said the slaying “also caused great harm to the American people.”

It “upended the 1968 presidential election, leaving millions in the United States and beyond mourning the promise of his candidacy,” Newsom wrote. “Mr. Sirhan killed Senator Kennedy during a dark season of political assassinations, just nine weeks after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s murder and four and a half years after the murder of Senator Kennedy’s brother, President John F. Kennedy.”

But for the Supreme Court halting executions in 1972, that little fuck would have been duly stuffed into a gas chamber. Which would have been justice. That asswipe, by shooting RFK, nullified the votes of millions of people and denied the entire country the possibility of voting for Sen. Kennedy in 1968. Arguably, without Sirhan, there would have been no "war on drugs" declared in 1970 and we'd have a lot more of the Constitution intact.

He should have been executed about four million times. But dying in prison is a substitute.

The Wheels Grind On; Insurrectionist Ed.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, authorities said Thursday.

The indictment is available for casual reading.

The reach of the law is extending beyond those who were either inside the Capitol or who assaulted police officers.[1] Those who provided the funds or support for the Insurrection might want to lawyer up before the stainless-steel braclets are snapped on their wrists.
_________________________

[1] Proving that the Right lies when they claim to stand with the cops.

Depositing These, Here

By Request; Gun Ed.

Gun Jesus shoots a Greasegun:

People, Please Quit Snacking on the Cheap Drugs

The batshit crazies on the far-Right are promoting a Clinton-Trump rematch.

Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly suggested Hillary Clinton wants to run for president again and could face former President Trump in the 2024 election.

"Hillary Clinton wants the nomination. She knows the Biden administration is falling apart, which is why you're seeing her surface right now," O'Reilly said Tuesday while appearing on Dan Abrams's primetime show on NewsNation. "So it could be a replay. But voters make up their own mind."

As far as I can tell, all of the "Clinton chatter" is originating from Trumpist media and those useful idiots who suck up to Trump.

Dan Abrams had to have lost his mind since he left ABC in order to be reduced to peddling this crap.

Just the Thing When the In-Laws Come Calling

M-3 "Greasegun":

This Horse is More Useful Than Joe Manchin

Soccer players are taking notes.

Placing These Down, Here

Nice, DoJ, But About 25 Years Late

The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States.

The threat from violent right-wing extremists is not a new issue. Right-wing terrorism has been a problem for a long time. When the DHS began, belatedly, to look at it, the GOP had a cow, because the right-wing terrorists are from their base.

A prediction: The next Republican Trumpist to become president will disband the unit in short order, proclaiming "nothing to see here, folks". You read that here, first.

One Thing Gym Jordan is Good At Doing Is Not Talking About Bad Things He Might Have Seen

Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress, on Sunday rejected a request for an interview by the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

The Mafia could take lessons from Jordan on clamming up. It's what he does.

Veterans' Administration Fuckery; Agent Orange Deja Vu

It's hard to read this article about how the VA and the DoD have been fighting to prevent recognition of lung problems from burning trash and hazardous materials in Iraq and Afghanistan and not be reminded of the decades that the VA fought to deny benefits for those who were affected by Agent Orange.

Denying the results of studies -- check. Preventins researchers from investigating the issue -- check. Censoring research -- check. Not changing position until political pressure was brought to bear -- check.

Same shit, different war.