Wednesday morning links

"Hate crime hoaxes, like Jussie Smollett's alleged attack, are more common than you think": There are so few ACTUAL hate crimes, that we must fake our own hate crimes, just to keep the numbers up. The HORROR!! The horror...

#1 Sam L. on 2019-04-03 11:08 (Reply)

Not only did Smollett fake his hate crime but he had to pay people to commit his fake hate crime.

#1.1 mudbug on 2019-04-03 11:43 (Reply)

And they were immigrants doing a job (white) Americans won't do!

#1.1.1 Christopher B on 2019-04-03 12:27 (Reply)

re If You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse For Chicago...

The 64 gazillion dollar question is whether or not the US taxpayer will bail them out in the end?

Zero Hedge says the markets seem to think that will be the case.

I can only hope they are wrong.

But hey! When you are already over 20 trillion down, what difference is a few hundred billion more going to make?

How much longer can it go on??

#2 feeblemind on 2019-04-03 11:36 (Reply)

Appoint a forensic auditor to investigate Chicago. Where the money went, who did what and why. Refer crimes for federal prosecution.

#2.1 Anon on 2019-04-03 13:45 (Reply)

"Is it Islamophobic to deny that 'Palestine' exists?"

First, avoid that bogus "phobia" word, I always do. It represents a pointed attempt to support a particular political narrative by conflating anti-Muslim bigotry (dislike for someone simply because they are Muslim) with dislike for Islam, all bundled up to imply you have some clinical disorder like agoraphobia. So don't use your opponent's terminology; you've already lost half the battle.

As to the question, there's no doubt that there is a region named Palestine and that there are Palestinians. But much depends on the type of denial.

There is no sovereign state of Palestine and never has been (that's not an anti-Palestinian thing to say, just a statement of historical fact). But to say there cannot be a sovereign state of Palestine is another question; of course there can.

The argument is thus over what that state should look like and I don't doubt that some views on the matter might well be viewed as prejudiced in one way or another.

(It's also easy - and sometimes understandable - to forget that Palestinian is not synonymous with Muslim; though most Palestinians are certainly Muslims, many others are Christians.)

#3 JJM on 2019-04-03 11:37 (Reply)

It's not a phobia but it is a lapse in historical accuracy and during the British mandate it was called Palestine with a flag that looks just like the Israeli flag today but with Palestine written on the flag. I think Palestine goes back to the defeat of the Jews by Rome and their renaming of the country...islam was not yet in existence.

#3.1 indyjonesouthere on 2019-04-03 13:20 (Reply)

How has Maduro survived...lots of loans using Citgo as collateral and selling their gold. By the time Maduro is ousted their won't be anything of value left. Even the people with skills are leaving.

#4 indyjonesouthere on 2019-04-03 13:25 (Reply)

I'm sorry, way off topic I know.
Manatees face new challenge in Florida from harassing, non-native armored catfish.
I just want to remind everyone that NO ONE has done more damage to our native habitats than globalists, multinationals, and their fellow travelers, in the meanwhile they are constantly castigating us over CO2.

#5 Exasperated on 2019-04-03 13:33 (Reply)

Re: the border crisis. Trump should:

1. Build the wall of course.
2. Put troops on the border.
3. Require that no federal money can be spent on anyone in the country illegally. No welfare, no housing, no food, no bus tickets, nothing.
4. Start identifying and fining any employer who hires an illegal.
5. Identify and fine anyone, including family and friends, who aids anyone in the country illegally. That would cover any help at all; a meal, a place to stay, a ride, anything.
6. For any illegal alien using health care require that the hospitals call ICE and that any health care given is charged to the country that the illegal alien is from.
7. Put a 10% tax on any money sent back to their home country.

#6 Anon on 2019-04-03 13:53 (Reply)

"8. Deny a business expense deduction for the costs (salary and benefits) of any employee who cannot affirmatively be shown to be legally in the country."

#6.1 Jim on 2019-04-03 15:11 (Reply)

re Pete Best and The Beatles

I have often wondered about this:

QUOTE:

Still, I enjoyed it — not least for the light it shed on one of the strangest mysteries in pop history: how exactly did a bunch of average (or so Paul McCartney boasted in an early interview) musical talents, ranked even below Howie Casey and the Seniors and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in the early 1960s Liverpool pop hierarchy, suddenly mutate into a world-beating phenomenon?

A combination of alchemy and will to power, I’d say. You see this time and again with pop stars. (That superb documentary on the invention of David Bowie a couple of months ago was another example.) They start off a bit hopeless and rubbish, but the really determined ones keep grinding away regardless until something magical happens. They spend a year or so paying their dues in Hamburg. Their drummer accidentally develops a distinctive backbeat. The leather jackets they wear for reasons of durable practicality suddenly become iconic. The bass player’s German girlfriend comes up with some striking haircuts. Their sets are so long and frequent they realise they’ll have to write songs of their own because covers are insufficient. A nice upper-middle class Jewish boy has faith and doesn’t give up until they’ve got a deal. The one record label that doesn’t reject them happens to have a genius called George Martin working there…

Remove any single one of these ingredients and you wonder: would the Beatles ever have got as big as they did? And does this mean that in parallel universes some of us are actually the rock gods we’ve always wished we could have been, waking to ecstasy our living lyres in a way that in this world cruel circumstances denied us?

#7 feeblemind on 2019-04-04 20:28 (Reply)

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Wednesday, April 3. 2019

Wednesday morning links