Oops

So we thought the main story would be the eventuality of a spike in Delta infections, and while that's still probably the case, here's a shitty little bonus for us.

KIRO Seattle:

Child sex-trafficking sting at 2021 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally nets 9 arrests

STURGIS, S.D. — A weeklong sex-trafficking sting executed at the 81st annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally netted nine arrests, each with some connection to children.

Eight of the nine men arrested, who range in age from 22 to 54, are South Dakota residents charged with attempted enticement of a minor using the internet, a charge which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison upon conviction, the Argus Leader reported.

The ninth man, a New York resident, is charged with attempted commercial sex trafficking of a minor, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison upon conviction, the newspaper reported.

The South Dakota U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed the arrests in a Tuesday news release.

According to the Rapid City Journal, the joint sex operation involved the South Dakota Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, Pennington County Sheriff’s Office and the Rapid City Police Department.

Specifically, law enforcement placed multiple advertisements on online websites and mobile applications to communicate with online predators. Skout, MeetMe and Whisper, as well as the website fetlife.com, were among the platforms targeted, the Journal reported.

The men arrested include:

• Alec Walker Daniel, 22, Rapid City, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Alexander Wayne Basaldu, 35, Rapid City, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Jesse James Young, 36, Rapid City, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Joshua Robert Lehmann, 34, Rapid City, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Christopher Thomas Dahl, 28, Wolcott, New York: Attempted commercial sex trafficking of a minor.
• Stephen Gregory Fontenot, 39, Black Hawk, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Anthony James Kemp, 54, Spearfish, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• James Dean Hanapel, 20, Ellsworth AFB: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.
• Clayton John Paulson, 36, Spearfish, South Dakota: Attempted enticement of a minor using the internet.

The 2021 rally attracted more than 525,000 attendees, substantially fewer than the record-setting 2015 crowd of more than 747,000, but nearly 14% more than the roughly 462,000 who rode in for the 2020 event, KOTA-TV reported.

And the hardest part for me is resisting the urge to profile these fuckin' slugs as the usual "conservative" MAGA Incel suspects who talk shit while doing almost exactly what they accuse other people of doing.

Today's Reddit

The worms have crossed her blood-brain barrier.

 

A Refresher

Idiots with guns - YouTube

Today's Weirdness

Here we are in USAmerica Inc:

Where we have thousands of people driving around with Tupperware containers and plastic grocery bags filled with gasoline, who are afraid to get a vaccination because they think it might be unsafe.

Today's Dumbass Crook

Say hello to anti-vaxxer Thomas Humphrey.

Mr Humphrey was arrested and charged and then released.

I still haven't found a good explanation for why these clowns insist on committing their crimes while bragging about them, and providing us all with video documentation of their crimes.

Is it a safety in numbers kinda thing, where they're convinced they'll be protected because "everybody's doing it and The Deep State can't get all of us"?

Is it just that the need for a dopamine rush from peer approval overrides the instinct for self-preservation?

I literally just don't fucking get it.

It's The Capitalism Stoopid

This should make for some great theater.

The MAGA Gang loves to shit themselves about "freedom" and their right to stand up to the man and such, and how it's a matter of the free market, and then they whine about how the corporations are trying to force them to comply with government regulations, so they expect one government entity to ride in and rescue them from some other government entity, which is actually - of course - owned and operated by the corporations, so we'll just have to shoot it out cuz that's what the founding documents guarantee me the right to do - according to the government - and if you don't like it, well you can take it up with my buddies down at the duly-elected government-funded Sheriff's office.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself - and the story. Or am I?

Axios:

Europe to set a global vaccine passport standard

Europe seems poised to set the global standard for vaccine passports, now that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has signaled that vaccinated Americans will be allowed to travel to the continent this summer.

Why it matters: Opening up travel to vaccinated Americans will bring new urgency to creating some kind of trusted means for people to prove they've been vaccinated.

The big picture:

• There will probably never be a single credential that most people use to prove they've been vaccinated, for every purpose.
• But the EU's system will help set a standard for a proof of vaccination that's both easily accessible and difficult to forge.
• The U.S. is being closely consulted on the European passport, so any future American system will likely use similar protocols.

Details:

• Informal mechanisms like simply asking someone whether they're had a shot can suffice in many situations. A system for international travel will likely be far more stringent. And there's a wide middle, too.
• Other activities that don't need the same rigorous standards as international travel could rely on the CDC's vaccination cards; options like a printed QR code, similar to what's been proposed by PathCheck; or a digital QR code, like the ones created by CommonPass or the Vaccine Credential Initiative.
• There may be some state-issued credentials, like the Excelsior Pass in New York.
• A national credential is theoretically possible, and could be linked to the biometric information that already exists on many chipped passports — the World Health Organization is working with Estonia to develop something along those lines — but that would meet steep political resistance in the U.S.

The bottom line:

• The world of vaccine passports is almost certainly going to end up as a mishmash of different credentials for different activities, rather than a single credential used by everybody for everything.

Go deeper: Americans will likely have to navigate a maze of vaccine "passports"

Cue the outrage.

You know it's coming - they just haven't amped it up on DumFux News yet. 

Today's Dumb

Dumb like a mud fence. Stay for the ending.

Today's Un-Fun Fact

America has more than twice as many guns per person as any other country on the planet.

The US ranks first, with about 120 guns for every 100 people.

Coming in second is Yemen - in the midst of a civil war - with 52.8 guns per 100 people.

What's Up With That Johnson Guy?

Brian Williams at MSNBC has tagged him "RonAnon".

Seems apt.

WaPo: (pay Wall)

Several Democrats have called on Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to step down after he said he didn’t feel threatened in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — but would have been concerned if the mob had been made up of Black Lives Matter or antifa protesters.

In an interview Thursday on “The Joe Pags Show,” a conservative news radio show, Johnson said he “never felt threatened” by the pro-Trump mob that overran the Capitol on Jan. 6 hoping to overturn the results of the election.

The violent siege left five people dead, including a police officer; two other officers who were on duty that day later died by suicide. More than 100 police officers were injured and at least 40 rioters have been charged with assaulting law enforcement officers, who were shown being harassed, beaten and sprayed with gas substances by members of the mob.

“I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned,” Johnson told “The Joe Pags Show,” according to a clip of the interview posted Friday by American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic group, which blasted Johnson for his “blatant racism.”

"...truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law..." ?

Yo, Ron - they killed a cop, you stoopid stoopid fuck.

In the interview clip, Johnson went on to add that he would have been frightened had Black Lives Matter or antifa protesters stormed the Capitol instead.

“Now, had the tables been turned — now, Joe, this will get me in trouble — had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s remarks prompted outrage and calls for him to resign from several Democrats and a handful of anti-Trump Republicans.

“For him to say something as racist as that — it’s ridiculous,” Wisconsin state Sen. LaTonya Johnson told the Associated Press. “It’s a totally racist comment and the insult to injury is he didn’t mind saying it in the position that he holds because for some reason that’s just deemed as acceptable behavior for people who live in and are elected officials in this state.”

Reporting has shown that the rioters on Jan. 6 were predominantly White and drawn to Washington that day by President Donald Trump and their shared grievances over the election.

“We’ve moved from just plain old fringe, extremist rants to fringe extremist and racist rants. This is seriously embarrassing to our state,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) tweeted.

Alex Lasry, a Democrat and Milwaukee Bucks executive who is running for Johnson’s Senate seat in 2022, called Johnson “unfit to serve the people of Wisconsin.”

“There is no missing context here,” Lasry tweeted. “He knew what he was saying, he knew he shouldn’t say it, but this is who he is.”

Johnson’s office did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.

On social media. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), an impeachment manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial, told Johnson that the Jan. 6 mob “would have hurt you if they got their hands on you. That’s why Senators hid that day. Remember?”

“He’s not even pretending this isn’t racist,” said Fred Wellman, an executive director of the Lincoln Project, a political group of anti-Trump former Republicans.

“This is ugly. This is wrong. This is racist. Ron Johnson needs to be defeated,” said Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who announced a primary challenge to Trump in 2019.

Most Republicans, however, have stayed silent so far on Johnson’s comments.

Johnson, a Trump loyalist, has for weeks tried to downplay the Capitol riot and sow doubt as to who was responsible for instigating it. At one Capitol Hill hearing about the response to the riot, Johnson read from a piece in the Federalist that had suggested without real evidence that “antifa or other leftist agitators” had been among the riot crowd. Johnson’s interview Thursday on “The Joe Pags Show” indicated that the lack of evidence must not have been a concern for him.

Johnson also has recently waffled on a previous promise that he would only serve two terms in the Senate, when he told reporters last week that he has not decided yet whether he will run for a third term.

Johnson said keeping his pledge to limit himself to two terms was “probably my preference now,” but left open the possibility of running again, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.

“I think that pledge was based on the assumption we wouldn’t have Democrats in total control of government and we’re seeing what I would consider the devastating and harmful effects of Democrats’ total control just ramming things through,” Johnson said.

In one of his attempts to delay President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill from Senate passage, Johnson forced clerks to stay up all night to read the 628-page bill in its entirety, which took nearly 11 hours.

Today In Dumfuckistan

Those are the flags of the states. The states that make up - you know - The United States.

In the Age of Poe's Law, how are we to make an assessment?

One way is to go to the source, and check the guy's Twitter feed - which I did - which confirmed that he really is just that stoopid.

The Death Of Irony, Part ∞

CNN:

They stormed the Capitol to overturn the results of an election they didn't vote in

They were there to "Stop the Steal" and to keep the President they revered in office, yet records show that some of the rioters who stormed the US Capitol did not vote in the very election they were protesting.

One was Donovan Crowl, an ex-Marine who charged toward a Capitol entrance in paramilitary garb on January 6 as the Pro-Trump crowd chanted "who's our President?"

Federal authorities later identified Crowl, 50, as a member of a self-styled militia organization in his home state of Ohio and affiliated with the extremist group the Oath Keepers. His mother told CNN that he previously told her "they were going to overtake the government if they...tried to take Trump's presidency from him." She said he had become increasingly angry during the Obama administration and that she was aware of his support for former President Donald Trump.

Despite these apparent pro-Trump views, a county election official in Ohio told CNN that he registered in 2013 but "never voted nor responded to any of our confirmation notices to keep him registered," so he was removed from the voter rolls at the end of 2020 and the state said he was not registered in Ohio. A county clerk in Illinois, where Crowl was once registered, also confirmed he was not an active voter anywhere in the state.

Crowl was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of destruction of government property and conspiracy for allegedly coordinating with others to plan their attack. He remains in custody after a judge said, "The suggestion to release him to a residence with nine firearms is a non-starter." In an interview cited by the government, Crowl told the New Yorker that he had peaceful intentions and claimed he had protected the police. Crowl's attorney did not provide a comment about his client's voting record.

But it's not irony at all. Not really. It's a complete abandonment of reason and the very "common sense" these assholes are always posting about on social media.

This is brainwashing at a level unseen for a very long time. And it's not that these clowns are having ideas put in their heads - their brains are being scrubbed clean of any cogent thought at all, so they can be reprogrammed on the fly and sent off to do whatever their handlers tell them to do.

Not The Onion

Today in Stoopid Rube Tricks

Detroit Free Press:

Whitmer kidnap suspect wants out of jail. He's diabetic, and fears COVID-19

After three weeks in jail, one of the suspects charged with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking the judge to reconsider her decision to keep him locked up:

He's worried about getting the COVID-19 virus.

Kaleb Franks of Waterford, a recovering heroin addict who says he has turned his life around after doing time for cocaine and home invasion, has diabetes and high cholesterol, takes insulin daily and fears contracting COVID-19 in jail, his lawyer argued in court documents filed this week.

The filing shed more light on the life of the 26-year-old defendant known as 'Red Hot,' who maintains that he can be trusted not to flee and that he is not a threat to society, despite the judge concluding on Oct. 13 that "he remains a danger to the community."

When The Game Is Playing You

From Business Insider (via MSN):

Angry response to Hawaii Republican Party's defence of QAnon supporters from ridicule and its claims they are motivated by a 'deep love for America'

Hawaii's Republican Party posted a series of tweets that appeared to defend followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The eight-part Twitter thread on Friday night, concluded with a call not to ridicule QAnon supporters.

The tweet read: "We should make it abundantly clear - the people who subscribed to the Q fiction, were largely motivated by a sincere and deep love for America. Patriotism and love of County should never be ridiculed."

In earlier tweets, Hawaii's GOP described the origins of the conspiracy theory that is thought to have fueled the deadly siege of the US Capitol building.

One tweet focused on the conspiracy theory's central belief that a 'deep state' engage in coordinated plots to undermine former President Donald Trump.

It read: "What is the truth? There are highly networked groups of people with specific agendas. Factions and individuals within Government do abuse power - Peter Strozk, Steele Dossier, James Comey, FISA courts, and on."

It continued: "Powerful people do engage in abusive or predatory behavior."

Another tweet said: "People who followed Q don't deserve mockery, the world is a complex place, there are bad actors, injustice, corruption."

The tweets drew criticism from people who felt the Hawaii Republican Party's tweets were attempting to rationalize the disproven QAnon conspiracy theory.

Adherents of the conspiracy were on the front line of the insurrection on January 6.

A QAnon influencer - the 'Q Shaman' - played a highly visible role in the Capitol siege. He has since been arrested and charged with federal crimes.

Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot during the attempted coup, also appeared to be a supporter of QAnon.

Some of the conspiracy theory's adherents believed that storming the Capitol could trigger an event that would result in Trump overthrowing and executing anti-Trump elites.

First, beyond basic respect for them as fellow humans, I don't owe these idiots one fucking thing.

Second: "The defendant, having posted video of himself murdering his parents, thinks he can get off by begging for mercy because now he's an orphan?"

Fuck 'em. Maybe the prison shrink can help unfuck their little pea brains. There are people among us who simply must be removed from the general population - at least until they can figure out how to behave like normal adults.

President Stoopid Out For A Ride

He got bored.

WaPo:

Current and former Secret Service agents and medical professionals were aghast Sunday night at President Trump’s trip outside the hospital where he is being treated for the coronavirus, saying the president endangered those inside his SUV for a publicity stunt.

As the backlash grew, multiple aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations also called Trump’s evening outing an unnecessary risk — but said it was not surprising. Trump had said he was bored in the hospital, advisers said. He wanted to show strength after his chief of staff offered a grimmer assessment of his health than doctors, according to campaign and White House officials.

A growing number of Secret Service agents have been concerned about the president’s seeming indifference to the health risks they face when traveling with him in public, and a few reacted with outrage to the trip, asking how Trump’s desire to be seen outside his hospital suite justified the jeopardy to agents protecting him. Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has already brought new scrutiny to his lax approach to social distancing, as public health officials scramble to trace those he may have exposed at large in-person events.

“He’s not even pretending to care now,” one agent said after the president’s jaunt outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to wave at supportive crowds.

“Where are the adults?” said a former Secret Service member.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.

White House spokesman Judd Deere defended the outing, telling reporters “appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the president and all those supporting it.” Deere said precautions included personal protective equipment, without providing further details, and added the trip “was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions from The Washington Post on Sunday night.

Trump wore a mask as he waved from the back of his vehicle, after announcing he would “pay a little surprise to some of the great patriots that we have out on the street.” But the face covering was little comfort to doctors, who took to Twitter to criticize the trip as irresponsible. Masks “help, but they are not an impenetrable force field,” tweeted Saad B. Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health.

Axios:

White House crises of competence and credibility grew during a botched weekend that left even White House aides dismayed and befuddled.

Many complained bitterly about the leadership of chief of staff Mark Meadows.

After days of internal and external snafus as the virus spread through all levels of the White House, President Trump left his hospital suite just before 5:30 p.m. yesterday, and took an SUV ride outside the Walter Reed gates to wave at the supporters who have lined the road ever since he arrived Friday evening.

• Trump wore a mask, but the stunt risked exposing the Secret Service agents in the Suburban.
• Two senior White House staffers said they thought the P.R. stunt was selfish, and compounded a weekend of horrible decisions.
• White House spokesman Judd Deere said: "Appropriate precautions were taken in the execution of this movement to protect the President and all those supporting it, including PPE. The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do."

Frustration and anxiety built among White House staffers, who say they went days with no internal communication from Meadows about protocols and procedures — including whether they should show up to work — as COVID tore through the West Wing.

• By contrast, the first lady’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, emailed her staff on Saturday advising them to work from home and reminding them of CDC guidance.
• And the vice president’s chief, Marc Short, emailed his senior staff at 3 a.m. Friday with an update on the president’s situation and urged them to work from home. Short also had a conference call with his staff on Saturday to take questions and explain the protocol and situation.

A senior White House official said it was "ridiculous'" that there had been no proper internal communication from the chief or operations officials since COVID started rapidly infecting their colleagues: "A bunch of us are talking about it and just gonna make the calls on our own."

• The White House finally emailed staff with guidance at 8:18 last night — about 15 minutes after Axios contacted the press shop for a story about the lack of guidance. A senior official insisted the guidance email was "pre-scheduled."
• The impersonal email, signed "White House Management Office," mentioned nothing about the new circumstances, and was almost identical to formulaic emails that had gone out to the staff at previous intervals before POTUS and multiple other West Wing officials got sick.

Several staffers told Axios they were furious with Meadows for leaving much of the staff in the dark, at the same time the White House was sending mixed, incomplete and inaccurate messages to the public.

• West Wing staff were privately circulating an unsparing indictment by Politico’s Tim Alberta, "How Mark Meadows Became the White House’s Unreliable Source."

A senior White House official defended the chief: "Mark is extraordinarily accessible and caring for his staff. White House employees know well what to do in the event of exposure to a positive case, and best practices regarding mitigation. He has been working hard to assist the President, keep the public informed, and manage the most famous employment complex in the world."

• Another senior official added: "Peanut gallery criticism like this is absurd and unfair — guidance has long been in place for what to do in the event of a West Wing case, as it has for best practices, testing, teleworking, etc. Meadows has been at Walter Reed with the President managing a million different logistical concerns since Friday. But apologies if anyone had to wait a couple extra hours to receive their updated email on Sunday."

The White House's public communication about the virus has been a debacle of deception and contradictory information.

• The White House physician, Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley, admitted at yesterday's briefing that he had painted an overly rosy picture the day before:
• "I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude that the team, the president, that his course of illness has had. I didn't want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction. And in doing so, you know, it came off that we're trying to hide something, which wasn't necessarily true."

On Saturday, after Conley's pep talk, Meadows took reporters aside and gave (at first anonymously) a more worrisome snapshot, saying Trump's "vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical."

• Yesterday, another briefer, Dr. Brian Garibaldi, said: "[I]f he continues to look and feel as well as he does today, our hope is that we can plan for a discharge as early as tomorrow."

The New Epicenter

CNN:

With more than 2,000 patients hospitalized and hundreds in Intensive Care Units, "Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic," one infectious disease expert said, comparing the South Florida metropolitan area to the city where the pandemic originated.

"What we were seeing in Wuhan -- six months ago, five months ago -- now we are there," Lilian Abbo, with the Jackson Health System said during a news conference hosted Monday by the Miami-Dade County mayor.

The Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, went into a 76-day lockdown in late January after a deadly outbreak infected and killed thousands.

Florida has more Covid-19 than most countries in the world.

The first known cases of the virus were detected in the city in December and by mid-April officials reported more than 50,000 infections. Miami-Dade County has recorded more than 64,000 infections so far, according to state data.

In the past 13 days, Miami-Dade County has seen staggering increases in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized (68%), in the number of ICU beds being used (69%) and in the use of ventilators (109%), the Miami-Dade County Government reported.

Forty-eight Florida hospitals, including eight in Miami-Dade, have reached their ICU capacity, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration.

"We need your help as media communicators to help the community understand that we're just not repeating the same thing over and over just to give you trouble, we really need your help," Abbo said, directing those comments to reporters.

Yo, Guv - we've got video, numb nuts. There's always video.

Gov. DeSantis also says Rebekah Jones is under "active criminal charges" for cyber stalking and cyber sexual harassment.

"I have a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment," Gov. DeSantis says. https://t.co/jTzJmKk8X0 pic.twitter.com/ZL0Vy0NS9o

— WFLA NEWS (@WFLA) May 20, 2020

Ignorance

• The president didn't hear the guy yell "White power"
• The president didn't know about Tulsa or Juneteenth
• The president didn't know how complicated healthcare was
• The president didn't know Finland wasn't part of Russia
• The president didn't know you can't nuke a hurricane
• The president didn't know the UK was a nuclear power
• The president didn't know about the Russian bounties

If we substitute "a regular guy" for "the president", then we're not talking about anything of great import.

But we're not talking about a regular guy. We're talking about POTUS. 

Ignorance is not an excuse - it's an indictment

WaPo:

The White House appears to be homing in on a defense of last resort for President Trump when it comes to the Russia bounties controversy: He doesn’t read.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday claimed Trump hadn’t been briefed on the intelligence that Russia placed bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But when pressed on whether the intel appeared in Trump’s written President’s Daily Brief, or PDB, she declined to directly respond.

There appears to be a reason for that. The Washington Post and others have confirmed that the information has indeed appeared in the PDB. The Post reports that two sources say “the intelligence was considered significant and credible enough that it was included in the President’s Daily Brief.” The New York Times is also reporting that information appeared in the PDB in late February. The Associated Press reported that it appeared in the PDB as far back as early 2019. And GOP lawmakers who were briefed Monday at the White House also appeared to grant that the info was probably in the PDB. “I believe it may have been,” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) told NBC News.

The first thing to note here is the semantic game the White House appears to be playing. They’re suggesting that the President’s Daily Brief document doesn’t itself constitute a “briefing” — despite having “brief” in its name — but that a briefing must be done orally.

Of course, that's not how it works. You can get as pedantic as you want with the word "briefing", but the point here is that we've got a big fuckin' problem because the "president" doesn't know anything.

Let's be clear. This is a guy who knows right from wrong. He knows when he's lying. He knows when he's doing a shitty thing. It just doesn't matter to him. He'll do &/or say whatever he thinks will accrue to his benefit.

He doesn't even care that everybody knows he's lying and that his lies are now getting us killed. His whole thing for his whole life has been all about keeping his name in the news - there's no such thing as bad publicity. And that's continued to be his whole thing for his whole term as POTUS.

"Russian interference? Doesn't matter - I'm the one they're all talking about."

"Pandemic? Doesn't matter - my name is mentioned most in every news story."

"Bounties on American troops? Yeah, too bad - guess whose name they're all screaming."

The guy's gotta go. We've taken some considerable damage points so far, but the probability that America survives as a decent place to live goes in the shitter completely if we "elect" 45* again.

Coming Soon

I'll take "Future Darwin Awards - Duh" for $200, please Alex.

Newsweek:

Former MLB star Aubrey Huff has criticized lockdown measures implemented because of the COVID-19 outbreak, claiming he would "rather die of coronavirus than wear a mask and live in fear."

Earlier this week, the two-time World Series champion tweeted he would no longer wear a mask inside any businesses, saying it was "unconstitutional to enforce."

On Tuesday, he doubled down on the claim, suggesting that while the "liberal left" had criticized him and "guilt-shamed me for threatening the lives of millions of innocent people" most "well-adjusted, sane people" agreed with his stance.

Overheard

• We need clean drinking water
• We should try not to infect each other with a deadly disease
• We should listen to the advice of doctors and scientists and others who know about this stuff
• Don't shit where you eat

Here in USAmerica Inc, in 2020, these are statements of partisan ideology.

How Stoopid Are They?

...pretty fuckin' stoopid.

WaPo:

If all roads in Michigan lead to the state capitol, conservative protesters on Wednesday made sure they were closed.

For miles, thousands of drivers clogged the streets to demand that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) ease restrictions and allow them to go back to work. They drowned downtown Lansing, Mich., in a cacophony of honking. They blared patriotic songs from car radios, waving all sorts of flags from the windows — President Trump flags, American flags and the occasional Confederate flag.

- and the kicker -

But in the massive demonstration against Whitmer’s stay-at-home executive order — which they have argued is excessive and beyond her authority — the pleas from organizers that protesters to stay in their vehicles went unheeded. Many got out of their cars and crashed the front lawn of the capitol building, with some chanting, “Lock her up!” and “We will not comply!”

So these boneheads decided to organize a protest against an order that says they need to stay away from each other, which brought them all together, while admonishing the protesters to stay in their cars and away from each other.

Do we kinda see the fucking problem here?

And we wonder why the Chinese cops were welding people's doors shut - just a coupla months ago.

Men In Black

J: "People are smart - they can handle it."

K: "A person is smart. People are dumb panicky dangerous animals - and you know it."

My dearest conservative brothers & sisters:

When we ask "How stoopid can you get?"

it's a rhetorical question -

please stop taking it as a challenge.

Today At The Cool Kids' Table

There is something very wrong with the president.

Seems like every few days we get a really good look at how supremely petty and grievance-driven 45* is.

We've all seen middle schoolers with more sense than what that asshat exhibits, and there're meth-addicted OCD serial killers with better impulse control.