Prevent trouble before it arises.
Put things in order before they exist.
Adam Carolla: White Privilege
Melancholy hypochondria. It is a terrible disease: it makes you see things as they are. — Gérard de Nerval
Traveling Alone
Oh, If I had a son
I would make him laugh, I would teach him something
I’d say, “Son, you gotta hold your own
And it’s good to have a taste for traveling alone”
Thomas Jefferson on Preemptive Pardons
My fellow Americans –
In his final hours as president, Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, and the lawmakers and staff who served on the January 6 committee. He also issued pardons to a number of his own family members, in addition to the previous pardon of his son Hunter.
These are all preemptive pardons, for unspecified crimes that those receiving the pardons have not actually been convicted of or even charged with.
This is a cowardly act. After years of lawfare against President Trump, and after expressing his displeasure over his attorney general’s failure to put Trump in prison before the 2024 election, Biden explained the pardons by saying this:
“Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.”
Even making allowances for the man’s senility, that is one of the most brainless statements I’ve ever heard.
The central theme of the 2024 Democratic campaign was that Democrats are the defenders of democracy. They trust our judicial system, judges and juries, they respect the rule of law, not like Trump, who wants to destroy our sacred American institutions.
On May 31, 2024, Joe Biden — or whoever operates the Joe Biden account on X — posted “No one is above the law.”
Except Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, everyone involved with the January 6 committee, and anyone named Biden.
Although he waited until the last possible moment to do it, almost as he was walking out of the White House for the final time, Biden had to give expansive pardons to his family members to prevent investigation into crimes related to influence-peddling.
Because Hunter Biden already has a sweeping pardon covering all of his activities over an 11-year period, he no longer has a Fifth Amendment privilege from self-incrimination. He could not refuse to testify about the potentially criminal activities of others.
Biden also said in issuing the pardons that they “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgement that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,”
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Burdick v. United States stated that a pardon carries “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” The Court also held that a pardoned person could reject a pardon, but no one pardoned by Biden has exercised that option.
Adam Kinzinger, one of the J6 committee members has said, he would reject a pardon, but to my knowledge, has not done so.
It’s an appropriate end to the Biden administration: everyone slinking off into the sunset, refusing to take responsibility for anything they’ve done.
Indeed, the whole of our social arrangements may be likened to a perpetual comedy; and this is why a man who is worth anything finds society so insipid, while a blockhead is quite at home in it. — Schopenhauer
All the High School Sweethearts
All the high school sweethearts
from this year and last yearand every other year are gathered
in the gym. You remember her.You remember him. The band
plays every couple’s honor songbut nobody takes the floor
except the King and Queenof Memory. Maybe a few
sweethearts are still in lovewith each other but everybody
else is just sipping nostalgiafrom a plastic cup. Funny
how beautiful our scarsbecome. After the band plays
one last ballad, a few stragglerslinger at the door, wanting
more, please, a little more,but everybody else will say
goodbye to their favorite ghostand travel home, fast or slow,
to whom they treasure most.
Thomas Jefferson on Oligarchies
My fellow Americans –
It’s the oligarchy guy again (video below). I don’t remember his principled denunciation of George Soros receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Or Mark Zuckerberg serving as Biden’s personal censor. Or Google for rigging search results to the Biden admin narratives. Or Reid Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg, Howard Schultz, Tom Steyer . . .
Oh, he means REPUBLICAN oligarchs . . .
Oligarchy is the enemy of democracy.
As Louis Brandeis said, “America has a choice. We can either have great wealth in the hands of a few, or we can have a democracy. But we cannot have both.”https://t.co/wvSxNhYrKc pic.twitter.com/kYMni0HDZM
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) January 18, 2025
2024: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2024, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.
It wasn’t a great year. I didn’t read enough and what I did read wasn’t as good as I would have liked.
That said, Bluets, by Maggie Nelson, is one of the most exceptional books I’ve read.
You Gotta Have Faith
No, I don’t really agree. WFH has tradeoffs like everything else although LI posters tend to gloss over those.
For example, it’s easier for me to communicate with someone who works 10 feet away from me than if I’m at home and they’re at some distant point in time and space. Synchronous vs. asynchronous.
I also glean a lot of valuable project information from conversations floating around if my team members are in close proximity. I can’t do that from the South Pole.
There are other tradeoffs. Cybersecurity, that’s an easy one. WFH is not just trust people and everything will be okay.
Thus spoke The Programmer
Half a Life
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half the way will get you no where
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life.
Budget Cuts Are a Diversion from the Real LA Fire Incompetence
The budget cuts are a total diversion from policies that emphasize everything except competence and results.
The cuts were $17.6 million. I've seen countless news stories on this, some of which describe the cuts as "slashing" the budget, but none of them mention what the annual…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 11, 2025
Political Fallout from LA Fires?
Adam Carolla predicts the political fallout from the LA fires:
You guys all voted for Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles. You all voted for Gavin Newsom, and now you fucking get what you get, now that your house is on fire. So here’s what’s going to happen. All these people who are deep blue Democrats are now going to have to pull a permit to rebuild, and they’re going to get the 28-year-old bitch from the Coastal Commission telling them to go fuck off, and then they’re going to vote for Trump or whoever’s Trumpian next.
Parent vs. School Board
Catholic Abortionists
This Catholic thing irks me. If you don't believe in the teachings of the Church, find a new religion.
If you don't believe in God at all — and if you feel like you can flout Church doctrine with no consequences, you probably don't — be an atheist.
You can't be a successful…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 4, 2025
The Most Delicious of Moral Treats
The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior “righteous indignation” — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.
The New York Post is the Paper of Record
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 3, 2025
The article contains photos of Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates, as well as Biden’s multiple denials that those meetings ever took place.
The New York Post remains the paper of record in my opinion.
Why the National Archives couldn’t have released these photos before they became totally irrelevant, I do not know.
I’m Anti-Incompetence
"A $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household.
"Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47…
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) January 3, 2025
Lie of the Year 2024
PolitiFact’s ‘Lie of the Year’ and its impact on the Ohio town caught in the middle | PBS News https://t.co/ICRRswZ3DE
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 31, 2024
According to PolitiFact, the Lie of the Year is that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH, were eating dogs and cats.
First of all, I’d like to see someone convince me that statement is a lie. I can’t prove that it’s true, but I have seen videos of Springfield citizens at city council meetings saying that it’s true.
How can PolitiFact say definitively that it’s a lie? There aren’t any missing cats or dogs in Springfield? What happened to them?
And secondly, even if it’s false, it’s trivial.
Here are some candidates for Lie of the Year, selected by me.
- “I will not pardon my son.” This was said by Joe Biden, then propagated by other Democrats and the media to exemplify that Biden is a true American who believes in democracy, not like Donald Trump. And then Biden pardoned his son anyway.
- Joe Biden’s decision to step aside as a presidential candidate was an act of selfless patriotism. Actually, party elites and mega-donors took him behind the barn and shot him.
But by far the biggest lie of the year, and perhaps the most ambitious coverup in the history of the country, was the lie that Joe Biden was mentally competent to be president, to fulfill the duties of the office, to serve and protect the American people.
Who’s been running the country?!
Who’s been making decisions to send tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to fund shooting wars in Ukraine and the Middle East? Who’s been handing out record numbers of presidential pardons?
I now feel my use of the word “coverup” to describe this scandal was inadequate. Everyone saw the daily videos of the president falling down, mumbling incoherently, wandering around lost and confused. We were told that those videos were fakes, posted by far-right conspiracy nuts. Behind closed doors, out of camera range, Biden was sharp as a tack, can’t keep up with him.
Maintaining this web of lies required the active cooperation of countless government officials and media members. As Matt Taibbi has said, “Is there even a word for fraud on that scale?”
PolitiFact also has a readers’ poll for Lie of the Year. The winner of the readers’ poll? Also the dogs and cats story, with 54 percent of the vote.
Of the three options I’ve listed here, the only one in the readers’ Top Ten is the “I will not pardon” lie, with 6 percent of the vote.