The Frankish Reich

As a child of the 70s (born in the last year of the Baby Boom in the 60s), I must applaud you for this list. You generally nailed it. Just one correction: those ridiculously underpowered Camaros were really a thing of the 80s. PJ O'Rourke said the 60s were a "decade without quality control." The line was good, but it applied to the 70s, not the 60s.

Just finished a really good read on Crypto, SBF, etc. No, not Michael Lewis's latest starstruck profile. It's this one: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/711959/number-go-up-by-zeke-faux/ Not a dry read. Really entertaining (I listened to the audiobook, only about 6 hours) with lots of things I never knew about crypto and its scammers. The author talks about traveling around El Salvador and offering to pay for things in Bitcoin. All the merchants just roll their eyes at him. On the other hand, El Sal has for a long time used the USD as their "stable" currency.

This is paywalled so I haven't read more than this long clip. And having done so, I have to say: what the hell is The Spectator writer trying to argue? Because the way I read it, it goes something like this: - Tucker Carlson is being excoriated for interviewing war criminal Putin - But this isn't the first time an American journalist interviewed a (proto) war criminal. None other than William Randolph Hearst interviewed Hitler himself! So ... we should excuse Tucker because Hearst exhibited equally horrid judgement back in 1934? Because after all, that Hitler guy was just misunderstood, and likely Putin is similarly misunderstood? I repeat: what's the point here?

Mitterand, Marcon. Pelosi, Haley. Whichever way you cut it, we're doomed.

Actually, the number of Salvadorans coming thru our southern border has declined very substantially. No doubt this is a consequence of an improved law and order situation. This is why I'm kind of conflicted on this issue. Yes, I would love to see a perfect rule of law, in which there is strong evidence supporting everyone accused of a crime. El Salvador has clearly rounded up thousands of presumed gang members based on appearance, including tattoos, without evidence of an actual crime being committed. But on the other hand, gang violence was completely out of control there. I have worked on many matters in which people fled because the gangs continued to extort them - kind of like an Uber mafia in which you can't do anything without gang approval. And yes, anyone getting MS 13 tattoos is clearly advertising to all "I am a member of a criminal cartel and I'm coming for you." We'll see what happens. For now, I am inclined to give Bukele a little more leeway, simply because the human rights violations of the gangs themselves far exceed any violation his crackdowns have caused. (By the way, the Bitcoin thing is pretty much a failure so far)

Not surprisingly, Bill Kristol's comment goes way, way over the heads of "the people's pundit" (whoever he is) and our very own copypasta pals. Here he's parroting Trump's Muslim Ban - the very scholarly "until we find out what's going on" should have been a clue. I remain, in the famous words of Tommy Boy, a Cognitive Dissident. (That one would've been clever if it had been on purpose...)

It's happened to me a few times.

There was no saving her, pal. Textbook takedown shot. Threat neutralized.

Of course it's a win for Trump, since delay accrues to the benefit of almost every criminal defendant, particularly a guy running for President. My point: despite what obviously confused "lawyer" DC Draino sez (and really, who wouldn't trust a guy named DC Draino? I mean, it's way more professional than Cat Turd), this has absolutely nothing to do with stripper-adjacent Rep Luna's letter. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/31/trump-trial-immunity-delay-00138688

Former Gentlemen's Club Worker, Rep. Luna, is now merely an attention *****. The case was taken off the docket because the Supreme Court will not decide the immunity claim before the previously scheduled trial date. In other words, it's not about your little letter.

No. No such thing happening. I'm still not convinced that we'll have a "soft landing." That is, no recession. But it's enjoyable watching Trump and his ilk in a panic that Biden (and congressional Dems) may very well be able to run on a platform of a strong economy. We are still in the denial phase: "The numbers, they must be wrong!" I'm waiting for you to start the count of Jewish - sounding surnames at the BLS. The moral here: Nixon was wrong. He tried to deny that the economic numbers were awful, and then he tried to find a scapegoat by issuing one of the most repugnant orders any President has ever issued. Oh, and yeah: his henchmen went ahead and carried out that order.

You are from the Nixon school of "let's kill the messenger." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Jew_count#:~:text=The "Nixon Jew count" of,of Labor Statistics (BLS).

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20111220/BLOGS03/111219779/recipe-for-a-good-holiday-party-lamb-chops-hangover-and-names-like-axelrod-rauner Wait, is that David Axelrod at lobbyist John Kelly and food writer Julie Kelly's holiday party? Probably the biggest hoax perpetrated on all the Trumpist fools is that he and most of his shameless stooges are somehow "outsiders." Julie Kelly was a "political consultant" (campaign chief) in a lot of local races in Illinois. She is part of the political class. Her husband is a top lobbyist in the Chicago world. She's running a world class grift now by acting as some kind of concerned mom. Meanwhile, Trump the Outsider and Vanquisher of All Things Davos sends his two sons-in-law to Davos to hobnob with the Arab Despot of the Month.

About Julie Kelly - we've joked about the stay-at-home mom/food writer thing. But as usual, there's more to the story, and it's not exactly difficult to find it. This outsider, anti-corporate control renegade is ... wait for it ... married to a lobbyist for ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), the agribusiness giant. And the husband's lobbying firm also does work for Blackstone group and some of those other Davos conspirators. And she got into this whole political tweeting business by defending Roundup/glyphosate producers from claims that it is a carcinogen. So from now on for me it's not "housewife and nonlawyer Julie Kelly." It's "corporate lobbyist's wife and nonlawyer Julie Kelly."

We had a case in Colorado where 5 people died in an apartment from fentanyl overdoses. They got together to snort some lines of coke. It was cut with fentanyl somewhere along the distribution chain. My guess: something like that happened in KC. And yes, good luck tracing the distribution chain.

Using illegal drugs has always had some element of danger in it. What's it cut with? Does something in it that we're not aware of interact with alcohol? Who knows? But this is now a new and incredibly dangerous thing, lacing all kinds of drugs - pills, powders, whatever - with fentanyl. Ahh, the good old days when the worst that could happen is that you'd buy some inert crap....

When did Alex Van Pelt start looking like Nathaniel Hackett?

December was a huge month, so on an annualized basis we'd be looking at 3 million plus. Unsustainable.

There's a number of posters here who mocked Janet Yellen for saying "don't expect prices to fall."

To everyone who's been calling for deflation - this is what deflation does. I've been saying for a long time that commercial real estate will lead the next financial crisis. And still, where I live, I see new commercial office space projects being built all over the place. COVID didn't create the flight from the office; circumstances were already ripe for that to happen. It just sped up the inevitable transition. It won't be reversed.

Lots of Cognitive Dissidents here.

No. It's Rochester.

Words of wisdom from Il Piatto della Spazzatura.

The same defensiveness as Trump when anyone asks a question about his intellect or mental acuity. Telling. For both.

AOC graduated from BU, a pretty competitive school, so I imagine she did just fine grade-wise and on the SAT. Meanwhile, I'm not sure Boebert can even spell G-E-D-