These dumb****s have no clue what their job is

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POS as usual:

Hours before the start of a federal government shutdown, President-elect Donald Trump doubled-down Friday on his insistence that a debt ceiling increase be included in any deal — and if not, let the closures “start now.”

Trump, who is not yet even sworn into the White House, issued his latest demand as House Speaker Mike Johnson arrived early at the Capitol, instantly holing up with some of the most conservative Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus who helped sink Trump’s bill in a spectacular Thursday evening flop. The clock is now racing toward the midnight deadline to fund government operations.

“ff there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now,” Trump posted on social media.

Trump does not fear government shutdowns the way Johnson and the lawmakers see federal closures as political losers that harm the livelihoods of Americans. The incoming Trump administration vows to slash the federal budget and fire thousands of employees. Trump himself sparked the longest government shutdown in history in his first term at the White House, the monthlong closures over the 2018-19 Christmas holiday and New Year period.

More importantly for the president-elect is his demand for pushing the thorny debt ceiling debate off the table before he returns to the White House. The federal debt limit expires Jan. 1, and Trump doesn’t want the first months of his new administration saddled with tough negotiations in Congress to lift the nation’s borrowing capacity. It gives Democrats, who will be in the minority next year, leverage.

House Republicans were quickly cobbling together a new plan, which could involve splitting up the previous efforts — government funding, disaster and agricultural aid into separate votes — with debt ceiling potentially later. They were preparing to meet privately during the lunch hour to discuss next steps, with a shutdown 12 hours away.

“Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted — increasing his demand for a now five-year debt limit increase. “Without this, we should never make a deal.”

Johnson is racing behind closed doors to prevent a shutdown, but his influence has its limits. Trump, and billionaire ally Elon Musk, unleashed their opposition — and social media army — on the first plan Johnson presented, which was a 1,500-page bipartisan compromise he struck with Democrats that included $100 billion in disaster aid for hard hit states, but did not address the debt ceiling situation.

A Trump-backed second plan, Thursday’s slimmed down 116-page bill with his preferred two-year debt limit increase into 2027, failed in a monumental defeat, rejected in an evening vote by most Democrats as an unserious effort — but also some three dozen Republicans who refuse to pile on the nation’s red ink.

On Friday morning, Vice President-elect JD Vance arrived early at the speaker’s office at the Capitol, where a group of the most hardline Republican holdouts were meeting with Johnson. The speaker has insisted on finding a way forward.

Government workers have already been told to prepare for a federal shutdown which would send millions of employees — and members of the military — into the holiday season without paychecks.

“Welcome back to the MAGA swamp,” the House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted.

“That is why our country is on the brink of a government shutdown that will crash the economy, hurt working class Americans and likely be the longest in history.”

Jeffries was communicating with Johnson on the path forward, according to multiple people in a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting. But there was no discussion in the meeting on whether a deal is being discussed or the details of legislation.

In the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats for a few more weeks, there are talks of trying to push forward the original package, the bipartisan compromise that Johnson, Jeffries and the Senate leaders had negotiated to strike a deal earlier this week. That would be difficult, but not impossible.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the original agreement “the quickest, simplest, and easiest way we can make sure the government stays open while delivering critical emergency aid to the American people.”

“I’m ready to stay here through Christmas because we’re not going to let Elon Musk run the government,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chair of the Appropriations Committee who was instrumental in that first deal. “We had a bipartisan deal—we should stick to it.”

President Joe Biden, in his final weeks in office, has played a less public role in the debate, drawing criticism from Trump and Republicans who are trying to shift the blame for any shutdown on him.

Johnson faces an enormous task as he tries to keep government running, appease Trump — and save his own job.

The speaker’s election is the first vote of the new Congress, which convenes Jan. 3, and Johnson will need the support of almost every single House Republican from his razor-thin majority to ensure he can keep the gavel. Democrats will vote for Jeffries.

As the speaker twisted Thursday in Washington, his peril was on display. At Turning Point USA’s conservative AmericaFest confab, Trump ally Steven Bannon stirred thousands of activists with a withering takedown of the Louisiana Republican.

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“Clearly, Johnson is not up to the task. He’s gotta go,” Bannon said, drawing cheers. He smiled and cocked his head at the response, “President Trump? These are your people.”

Outside the speaker’s office, next steps were uncertain.

Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a former Freedom Caucus chairman, came out and said that he would be surprised if there was a vote Friday on any path forward. Moments later, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert said that Republicans were making progress and having Vance in the room is helping move things toward a resolution.

“I think President Trump was possibly, sold a bad bill yesterday,” the Colorado lawmaker said. “I did not want to see a failure on the House floor for the first demand that President Trump is making.”

"Senate Democrats introduced a bill to abolish the Electoral College. Democrats hate middle America– they want the coastal elites to choose the president of the United States."

Pregnant Kentucky woman cited by police for street camping while in labor​

Officer detained woman and confiscated mattress from under a Louisville overpass after she said her water broke

A homeless woman in Kentucky was cited by police and had her mattress confiscated and destroyed as she went into labor on the streets of Louisville, local media reported.

Body camera footage obtained by Kentucky Public Radio from the city police force showed Lt Caleb Stewart walking up to a pregnant woman under an overpass in the city’s downtown area.

The visibly pregnant woman, whom the radio station is not naming, told the officer that her water had broken. “I might be going into labor, is that OK?”

“I’m leaking out,” she added.

The woman told Stewart her husband was calling an ambulance but Stewart also called one for her. As the woman walked to the street to wait for help, Stewart demanded that she stop.

“Am I being detained?” she asked the police officer.

“Yes, you’re being detained,” he replied. “You’re being detained because you’re unlawfully camping.”

Kentucky has a new state law that bans street camping, meaning no person may sleep or set up camp on public property, including sidewalks. Homelessness rights advocates say the law does little to solve the social problems faced by the unhoused and leads to increasing interactions with law enforcement.

Stewart walked back to his car to write the citation as city workers put the woman’s mattress into a garbage truck. The camera caught Stewart remarking to himself: “So I don’t for a second believe that this woman is going into labor.”

The woman gave birth later that day, according to her attorney, the public defender Ryan Dischinger. The family is now in a shelter.

“The reality for her, and for anyone who’s homeless in Kentucky, is that they’re constantly and unavoidably breaking this law,” Dischinger told the radio station. “What she needed was help and compassion and instead she was met with violence.”

Right? I mean, you shouldn't... right? Is it ok to be sorta glad someone else did?

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Yellow shredded cheese and what looks like bottled Ortega “taco” sauce?

WTF IS wrong with you people!? 😳

So my nieces are here and they love the WWE. So it is basically women’s drama now with women bitching about each other.

Also this Alexa Bliss is a hottie.

Dumbass bastards:

House Republicans on Tuesday said their one-time colleague, former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, should face a criminal investigation for her role on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A 128-page report from the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight said Ms. Cheney should be investigated for witness tampering. It accuses her of colluding with Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide who became the committee’s star witness as it examined Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The report — released as Mr. Trump, now the president-elect, has been promising retribution against his political enemies, including Ms. Cheney — accused Ms. Cheney of using the select committee as a tool to attack Mr. Trump. It was spearheaded by Representative Barry Loudermilk of Georgia, the chairman of the oversight subcommittee.
Ms. Cheney defended her work on the select committee in a detailed statement, and called the Republicans’ report “a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth.”
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She said the select committee had heard from “scores of Republican witnesses, including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration” and produced “a highly detailed and meticulously sourced 800-page report.”
Ms. Cheney said Mr. Loudermilk’s interim report “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did.”

Puppet President​

by William Kristol

At midday yesterday, as debate raged about continuing resolutions and debt limits and a government shutdown, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, put out a statement.

Her important but unnamed topic: Elon Musk.

For the preceding twenty-four hours, Musk had been at the center of the Republican universe. It was he who was getting the credit, the blame, and above all the attention for his decisive role in killing the continuing resolution negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson. Trump, by contrast, had praised Johnson earlier in the week, and had been relatively silent as Musk wreaked his havoc. Trump only weighed in against the CR after the deed was done.

It seemed, as Nick Catoggio of the Dispatch put it, to be “the first time since Trump took over the party that some other populist has managed to impose his will on it.”

That perception couldn’t be allowed to stand, so Leavitt hurried to set the record straight. “As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

And in her protest I spy a ray of hope.

As Catoggio writes, what’s striking is that Musk’s incitement of a grassroots rebellion against the CR “succeeded so spectacularly that even Donald Trump was caught off-guard.” Furthermore, “the obsequiousness that some members of Congress showed Musk as he pushed them around was also striking, as that sort of thing is typically reserved for the cult leader.”

Catoggio sums up the implication of what we all saw:

Never before in the Trump era has another populist commanded the political and financial capital needed to credibly threaten Republican politicians into doing his bidding. This is entirely new. . . . For the first time, there’s a possibility that Trump will be out-Trumped.

Click to expand...

This thought has undoubtedly occurred to Trump. And Musk is undoubtedly aware Trump’s had this thought. That’s why Musk hastened to post, “First of all, I’m not the author of this proposal. Credit to @realDonaldTrump, @JDVance & @SpeakerJohnson.” It’s why, overnight, Musk posted again, accusing Trump’s critics of trying to drive a wedge between him and the president-elect by giving him the title “President Musk.”

The man doth protest too unconvincingly.

So what lies ahead on this front? Can Musk co-exist with Trump? Does Trump try to clip Musk’s wings? Does Musk try to edge Trump aside even as Trump has the Oval Office? Can he? Out in the country, could DOGE gradually replace MAGA as the ascendant authoritarian movement?

Could Musk run, as a Republican or as an independent, for president in 2028? He’s not a natural-born citizen. But why would he and his supporters let a phrase in a centuries-old document stand in his way? The will of the people is what matters. As Musk has tweeted more than once, Vox populi = Vox dei.

Trump seems, judging from his 3:00 am tweets, to be staying awake nights. He should be. It’s his movement. Or, at least, it has been his movement. He’s Lenin. But Stalin loiters in the wings.

Jaro Pelikan was one of the foremost, if not the foremost, contemporary scholars of Western civilization and Christian doctrinal history. The referenced book describes how Christ "fit in" to and reflected the cultural milieu of each of the last 20 centuries - ie, it's not a book about religion, but about cultural history and how the view of Christ has changed over that time, and how it was reflected it in art, literature, etc. So pretty interesting stuff, from a former Jefferson Prize winner, AAAS president, and the translator of the motto of the Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary & Labrador Retriever Benevolent Association ("Keep your powder, your trout flies and your martinis dry") into Latin (Semper siccandae sunt: potio Pulvis, et pelliculatio).

In any event, I really enjoyed this introductory paragraph as among the best book setups i've ever read:

"Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of supermagnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left? It is from his birth that most of the human race dates its calendars, it is by his name that millions curse, and in his name that millions pray."

I did get to wondering though whether there will be a 21st century of preeminence.

When President Biden dropped out of the race in August, I wrote a letter to Dr. Jill Biden thanking her for her service.

I just received a typed card with her signature. I think it's her real signature.

CSB.

The letter reads:

"Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. Serving our nation as First Lady has been the honor of my life and the President and I are grateful for your support.

Sincerely,
Jill Biden

Robert Reich warned us what was coming. Did enough people listen?

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Couple quick things before I write or post any more videos.

-Aaron Graves is for sure coming back next season -- thought he was going to.
-Hank Brown and Jimmy Sullivan are joining the team for bowl prep. Haven't practiced with the team yet, but they will be starting today and going with the team to Nashville.
-Sounds like Sully is fully healthy and good to go. Stratton said he and Brendan are splitting reps right now, though.
-KF was also super critical of everything going on in the portal and across the NCAA right now.

More to come story-wise.

Here's KF's availability:

Wasn't sure how to word the thread title correctly, but what are some top notch movie or TV scenes that you remember or stick out that are truly made BECAUSE of the music or song playing?

I have 3 submissions (two of which are Coen Brothers or Coen Brothers influenced):


Fargo Season 3 - Entrance to the Bridge Tournament:

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Big Lebowski - Jesus Bowling Scene:

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Dazed & Confused - entrance into the Emporium

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What else you got HBOT?

Glad I’m setting the parking brake in 3 hours and done until mid January. Going to enjoy watching the chaos (if no deal) from the cozy confines of home with popcorn and hot cocoa.

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In one instance, the chief executive of a shelter provider paid himself more than $1 million in one year. That provider, CORE, was almost entirely funded by the city, according to the report.

Friday Dec 13 Update:

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ORIGINAL POST:


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I realize we have the Rex Chapman thread but half of that is broken twitter links, it seems. Let's make this the thread for funny memes you come across while experiencing the interwebz.
OP's mom memes are fair game, btw.

I'll start:

Iowa +2.5 o/u 43

Yet another Biden mess that Trump and the R’s will need to clean up.

First Step: Speaker of the House Elon Musk.

The groundswell among Rs to make Musk the next Speaker of the House is growing. Rand Paul (despite having moved to the Senate) is for it. MTG is for it. If Josh Hawley signs up, it could be a done deal. (I say that because he probably wants the job for himself; so if he steps aside, that may end any serious objections.)

Does anyone know if Musk wants the job?

Musk is unlikely to know how to do the job, but he could easily hire/bribe/delegate - so cluelessness isn't an obstacle. And, like him or not, he does seem to be a quick study.

I'm sure Newt Ginrich would jump at the chance to join Musk as unofficial co-Speaker.

I'm also sure Musk would not be held to any ethical standards or have to put his holdings in trust or any of that good-government silliness.

Second Step: Eliminate the "Natural Born" Restriction to Becoming President.

It's a stupid rule that should have been amended away a long time ago. With Musk pouring billions into getting the amendment passed and ratified, what's stopping it?

Third Step: Eliminate Presidential Term Limits.

The American people should be able to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Fourth Step: President for Life Elon Musk.

Neil Cavuto, a business journalist who hosted a weekday afternoon program on the Fox News Channel since the network began in 1996, signed off for the final time on Thursday.
Mr. Cavuto, 66, also hosted two programs on Fox Business, but is best known for “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” which was in the 4-5 p.m. slot for 28 years. He did not give a reason for leaving but said he was not retiring from journalism.
“I got to do what I love here — report the news, not shout the news, not blast the news,” he said, before signing off. He said that Fox had given him a generous opportunity to stay, but he declined.
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He was behind the anchor desk for 12 hours of programming each week, including “Cavuto: Coast to Coast,” on weekdays and “Cavuto Live” on the weekend. Beginning Friday, those shows will drop the Cavuto name, becoming “Your World,” “Coast to Coast” and “Fox News Live,” a Fox spokesperson said Thursday night. They will have rotating hosts.
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Mr. Cavuto could be an outlier on Fox News, often criticizing President Trump and his policies, and crediting the Covid-19 vaccination with saving his life.
In 2019, Mr. Cavuto said on the air: “Mr. President, we don’t work for you. I don’t work for you. My job is to cover you, not fawn over you or rip you. Just report on you — to call balls and strikes on you. My job, Mr. President — our job here — is to keep score, not settle scores.”
“You’re entitled to your point of view, Mr. President,” he continued. “But you’re not entitled to your own set of facts.”
In early 2022, Mr. Cavuto disappeared from his programs for over a month. When he returned, he told viewers that his absence was because of the coronavirus, which had sent him to an intensive-care unit. “I’d like to urge people of all sorts: Please get vaccinated,” Mr. Cavuto said at the time on another Fox News program.

​

Mr. Cavuto received a diagnosis of cancer in the 1980s, of multiple sclerosis in 1997, and he had open-heart surgery in 2016.
“Neil Cavuto’s illustrious career has been a master class in journalism and we’re extremely proud of his incredible 28-year run with Fox News Media,” the network said in a statement. “His programs have defined business news and set the standard for the entire industry. We wish him a heartfelt farewell and all the best on his next chapter.”
Mr. Cavuto was an anchor on CNBC, which he joined upon its launch in 1989, before leaving for Fox News in 1996. He joined Fox Business when that channel started in 2007. Earlier, he was the New York bureau chief for PBS’s “Nightly Business Report.”
“I’m not leaving journalism,” he said during his last show. “I’m just leaving here.”