Baby It’s Dumb Outside

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

These are some of dumbest things I’ve heard all year, in no particular order.

Yes, most of them are since the election. But they’re so dumb, they have to be dumber than even claiming Trump had somehow arranged to be shot, with centimeters of accuracy and perfect timing that require not a twitch.

The ever-insightful Gay Patriot, whose site used to be one of my daily reads unearthed this gem.

How dumb is it? Let me count the ways:
First – why do they think Trump is going to do anything to stop gay marriages? The man has appointed a married gay man with kids as treasury secretary, has used Rich Grennel as a surrogate during campaign, and hosts gay weddings at Maralago.

Second – if Trump really were a cardboard cuttout of a social conservative, fifiandfoming all over the place, and were going to forbid gay marriage, why on EARTH would you get married in a rush? He’s going to forbid new gay marriages but totally respect previous ones? In what world.

Third – If Trump were really going to put all gays in camps, why would you want to have your union registered, thereby telling the state you’re definitely gay? Is this an attempt to go to the head of the line on being shipped to camps? Oh, guys, I heard they don’t even have pedicurists. And the hair stylists are awful. Barbaric, really.

Fourth – Having kids? You really want to do that if going towards a regime (in your mind) where you’ll be forbidden to live as you wish? Also, please, guys. I know you didn’t pay attention to this in your health classes, but even the best surrogates lack time machines in their wombs. In two months you’ll be lucky to have an embryo implanted. You certainly won’t have a baby.

Second up: Liberal Women Are Undergoing Sterilization and Blaming Trump: ‘Election Tied My Hands’.

Yes, yes, they are getting their tubes tied because they could be raped and get pregnant tomorrow and reeeeeeeeeeeeeee they wouldn’t be able to have an abortion, and how horribad!

Let’s count the ways in which this is stupid….

First – Abortion is not forbidden utterly anywhere in the US, and even the most restrictive states have exceptions for health of mother, rape and incest. (Whether they should have them for the last two is a complicated moral question we are NOT going to debate here.)

Two – Even if you don’t find out you got pregnant before the date at which it’s forbidden in your state, you do realize there are still planes trains and automobiles, right? If you’re rich enough to have an elective tube tying for the heck of it, you certainly aren’t too poor for a bus ticket to another state and a week at the days inn. NOT that it will be needed, but even in this awful land or your dystopic imagination, pre-emptive sterilization is a bit far.

Third – Do we need a third? — rape is still a relatively rare occurrence, though becoming less saw with the third world diverse cultural enrichment pouring over the border (Not race. Culture. No. Westerners didn’t introduce rape to the third world. They might have introduced the concept of rape, because before the idea of women having a right to say no was just not a thing.) Your greatest danger of an unwanted pregnancy is having unprotected sex. And there’s an amazingly good preventive for that. Not having unprotected sex. And accepting that in the case of pregnancy (no method is 100%) it’s just one of those risks you’re taking. Abstinence is neither impossible, nor life blighting as a lot of people know.

Fourth – you do in fact have a choice, and ooh, boy did you choose dumb with both feet and a pair of hooves. Sterilization is an extreme response to a threat that does not exist and you’re going to regret this.

And then, and then there’s THIS: Watch CNN’s Scott Jennings’ Facial Expression When a Lib Said This About Hunter Biden’s Pardon.

What did the lib say? You’ll never guess so I’ll show you.

How do you count the wrong? Apparently Leigh McGowan is a “political influencer” and she should influence herself right down to a medical professional and get prozac or something, because it won’t cure her stupidity but might make her less eager to flap lips and share it with the world.

She thinks Trump could put Hunter Biden in front of firing squads.

First- Yes, treason has a death penalty. BUT–

Second – We’re not at open war with China, so it’s hard to say in selling us out the Bidens were giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Third – there are still modes of selling that fall under the espionage laws. Does Ms. McGowan know that the Bidens committed this infraction? Would she like to share with the world? Did she bring enough for the whole class? (I don’t know. I figure amphetamines.)

Fourth – I’ve already given this more thought than this idiot did and I’m late with the post and feeling under the weather again, so I’d prefer — greatly — not to do research on this. However, I don’t think people would be executed by firing squad for federal crimes.

Last I heard the statutes talked of hanging, I THINK. But as much as we’d all enjoy the show, (no? If they’d committed acts of espionage at that level?) I believe right now it’s lethal injection. Because it’s not cruel and unusual or something like that.

Anyway, dear Leigh McGowan:

Anyway, that’s it for this crop of stupid. But don’t despair. At the rate the left is losing its sh*t they’ll say even crazier things before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, ya’ll be careful.

180 thoughts on “Baby It’s Dumb Outside”

  2. As far as Trump and gay marriage, he’s been on the record in favor of it for decades. Certainly since before the Obama administration, and for that matter before Barack Obama himself admitted to being in favor of it.

    As for the other bits, Trump is going to be President, not Dictator. He can’t unilaterally change the laws, and if there are laws on the books already that would allow him to do the things the Democrats are afraid of then it’s time to repeal those laws. But there are no such laws – we know this because the Democrats haven’t used them against their opponents.

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    1. Bah! He can do whatever he wants when he’s Kin^H^H^H President. “I have a phone and a pen!”

      No, wait, that was some other dude…

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    2. He also had the rainbow flag at the 2016 Republican convention.

      But as I saw noted elsewhere just a short bit ago, the Dems and the MSM ignored Grenell’s posting, and then claimed with a straight face that Mayor Pete was the first gay cabinet official. But members of various groups are determined to go into hysterics, and it doesn’t matter what Trump does to assuage them.

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      1. Mayor Pete is perhaps being counted as the first “openly” gay Cabinet official. Grenell doesn’t count because he doesn’t constantly remind people that he’s gay.

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  3. they believe the worst of Trump because they know what they actually do and, since they’re the good guys, whatever Trump, who’s the bad guy, might do must be double plus not good. The press people though, they’re dumb. They make barking seals look like Einstein because the seals at least get a fish.

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      2. the wife and I were talking about this this morning,, specifically about Himmler’s Posen speeches. The Nazi’s were absolutely convinced they were the good guys, then again so were the Bolsheviks, Khmer Rouge, Jacobins, Taborites, and all the rest of history’s great butchers.

        That’s the problem with the glowies too, we’re the good guys and we want good things so any means, no matter how foul, are justified, after all you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs and all that — did I say I despise these people?

        God knows I have no love for Oliver Cromwell, another of history’s great butchers though perhaps not as grim as Irish memory would have it, but I do have to give him credit for “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

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        1. “Our cause is just and right, so we too must be in the right, and history/G-d will vindicate us.”

          Whenever someone starts to say, “The end is what’s important, no matter what has to be done to get there,” I start edging for the door while looking for a ball bat/firearm/can of bear spray as appropriate.

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          1. The means is what creates the end is a basic summary of how machines work. A lot of academic theory of machines, may or may not be bafflegab, but the stuff that works is gonna touch on sorting through a vast number of options for means for ones that best path to desired end.

            The behavioralists are working with more difficult phenomena, and some of them even do a good job.

            Others… Well, valuing their ideas is an effective way to make oneself into a barbarian and a savage.

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  4. Regarding the self sterilization.

    Yes:

    They are stupid. I don’t care which reeeee reason they are giving.

    They are, very high percentage, destroying their future of having children. Unless they never want biological children and think they will never ever change their minds. Happens. I know of a few of son’s generation. Also know their reasons. It is not any of the listed. (At least two of the families they were raised in had in home day cares. Hmmmm.)

    OTOH they won’t be passing on their genes or their ideas down to the next generations (hopefully, after all aunts and uncles can have an impact on nieces and nephews, etc.) So there is a slight silver lining. Only slight because this is soooooo stupid.

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    1. Between this new nonsense and the transmania of recent years, the Left has sure been pushing sterilization a lot. I even see a lot “not sure if we should have kids because climate change”.

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      1. I think they hate humanity and themselves both, and transmania as well as Zero Population/sterilization are ways to lash out in socially* approved manners.

        *Approved by their society, not the rest of us.

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      2. I haven’t heard that one.

        As far as having children, even my normally liberal democratic nieces and nephews aren’t on that path. One niece has two limited by her current age and medical conditions. Another has a stepson, two biological, three fertilized frozen embryos. Currently planning on at least two if not all 3, but depends on pregnancy goes on the next one. (She had some medical issues with latest with her kidneys that risked her and the baby. Early delivery was the answer. It all cleared up on the birth. Ironically, although 4 more weeks more premature, the youngest was heavier than the older sibling, and slightly longer.

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          1. I’ve heard it pushed on the next generations to not have children because of overpopulation, but not because of climate change. OTOH haven’t had a child in k – 12 since ’07. The last 4 was HS where we got little to no information, unless required. I guaranty this type of information would not be deem “important” by our son. Chatty Kathy our son is not.

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            1. The climate change excuse is part of a general “Things are so bad that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bring a baby into this world!” rationale. *We* know that people who adopt that attitude are clueless for a number of different reasons. But there are some who claim to legitimately believe that.

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        1. May I suggest 8-10 Gray of hard Gamma. You’ll guaranteed be sterile after that, Though you might have a tendency to turn green when you get angry its a minor side effect.

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    4. And women like me, who *can’t* have children, are over here giving those hysterical harpies two big ol’ middle fingers.

      Of course, if they get so hysterical over an election that they opt for permanent sterilization…it’s probably a mercy they won’t be overseeing a child’s upbringing anyway…

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    5. Its like they think they will become Larry Niven’s “Protector” stage humans. Suddenly and highly intelligent, versus the stupid not-quite-sentient “breeders”.

      Nope.

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  5. Thank you, Sarah; on point and well said, of course. But I don’t understand why you would in any possible way discourage these idiots from having their tubes tied. Of course we don’t want to come off as some sort of eugenicists, we should keep a studiedly sad face about their decision. But their taking themselves out of the gene pool would be quite a relief.

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      1. Yeah, but even those lefty parents clearly weren’t bonkers enough to think “I don’t like who got elected so I’m gonna sterilize…myself…” >.> That’s a whole other level of crazy right there.

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      2. They don’t intend to let any children they do conceive live. I do not approve of self-mutilation but it may be the lesser of two evils here.

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        1. Definitely lesser of two evils. Fully informed? Self-mutilation is their call. Abortion involves an innocent party. It is unfortunate that any abortion, spontaneous (miscarriage) or medically required (tubal, outside the uterus, or other reason) happens.

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      1. I knew a couple of guys in college who had the intelligence but not the wisdom. Freshman year, and they didn’t make it to Sophomore. I was lucky; got the clue-by-four early on before my then-abysmal Calculus grade was correctable and realized I had to do some serious work to continue. I did, so I could.

        Not sure of the guy from HS. Wasn’t that close. The other might have been ADD, and Squirrel! If memory serves, he was going to join the Coast Guard. No squirrels. :)

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  7. The ever-insightful Gay Patriot, whose site used to be one of my daily reads unearthed this gem.

    Full circle for me, I’ve fairly sure that my daily read of GP is what first lead me to ATH.

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    1. Same. Glenn Reynolds linked Gay Patriot from time to time, and I discovered that the woman who wrote Draw One in the Dark also wrote about politics. Then one time I clicked on the accordingtohoyt link and discovered that she also had her own blog. Then I discovered the quality of the commenters here, and stuck around.

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      1. Pretty much ditto for me from “…discovered…” on, and I don’t foresee leaving any time soon. Or late.😊

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      2. Not sure how I came to ATH, though it would likely have been Insty or Jerry Pournelle. (Or it might have had something to do with unhappy young canines and the participation of the blogger who shall be nameless. How I came to read him is lost in the mists of time. Why I left him was straight forward. “Boomerphobia/America is Blood and Soil” Nah. Sod off, Swampy.)

        Slashdot got me into some sites, and a co-worker turned me on to Drudge (circa 2001. I left when the site rolled left.)

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  8. Hey if the Left wants to preemptively sterilize themselves, voluntarily, then I’m supportive of their choice. They’ll soon discover it’s a permanent solution to their imaginary problem.

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  9. Between this latest bit of insanity and transmania, the Left has been pushing sterilization very, very hard.

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  11. I think the preemptive sterilization solves all their problems neatly.

    They’ll never have to worry about getting pregnant, and they will still be able to indulge their lusts without using any of the other available prophylactics.

    It will prevent all the future abortions they would have had, and the only thing they have to worry about is dying of all the STDs they’re going to catch… from not using the available prophylactics.

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  12. I wish they did it for fear of rape. I have literally seen women in furious agreement that it’s insane and evil to expect them to exercise some control of their bodies, and that all pregnancies are always the man’s fault.

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  13. …

    …….

    Got it! Here goes…

    Remind the Ketchup Bottle Cosplay crowd that Trump is a huge supporter of IVF. So to -really- escape pregnancy they need to emigrate ASAP.

    You are welcome.

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  14. On the subject of executions in general (this is not about any specific person), I’ve long thought that firing squads should be brought back. There are three reasons:

    First, killing a human being should have some weight to it. You are ending a man’s (or woman’s) life as punishment for the crimes they committed. That’s meaningful. Human life has value and dignity, and the act of ending it should be impactful. Lethal injection is clean and bloodless and doesn’t make you feel the weight of what you’re doing. If you’re going to order someone to be killed, you should feel it.

    Second, while it’s never 100% possible to know whether someone experienced pain in the moments before they died, of all ways to die, death by being shot is probably the best-understood means of death, medically speaking. Lots and lots of soldiers have survived being shot in lots of places, and doctors know just about everything possible to know about what bullets do to the human body. A bullet through the heart (or four or five) will mean the brain runs out of blood and goes unconscious before the pain has had time to properly register. So a firing squad is a humane means of execution, as long as they have been instructed to aim for the heart. (And none of this nonsense about only issuing one real bullet and nine blanks; that’s ridiculous. It’s far more humane to issue only real bullets, so that death is pretty much guaranteed to occur mere seconds after being shot).

    I have a third reason but I’m running out of time, so I’m going to post this now and come back later to add the third reason.

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    1. The third reason is a theoretical one, that wouldn’t be practical in this current age where death row appeals can drag out for twenty years. But if death row appeals were limited to five years or so, then having executions be carried out by firing squads would allow more citizen participation in the process. I would want firing squads to be formed from citizens who have volunteered for the duty, in a way vaguely similar to jury duty (except that firing squad duty would never be mandatory). And the call for volunteers would be for a specific case, with the details of the case published alongside the call for volunteers. Also, the volunteers would be screened by a few criteria, like the ability to aim and fire a rifle competently, and having no personal connection to the victims of the crime. This should help ensure that the execution remains humane, and also help ensure that people are doing it out of a sense of justice rather than vengeance. (Which matters to the state of the soul of the volunteers).

      This could serve as a final check on the process: if you can’t find twelve volunteers to pull the trigger, then the execution is commuted to a life sentence. For someone whose crimes were notorious (such as, for example, someone who set bombs at a marathon or someone who flew a plane into a building) there would be no shortage of volunteers. But for someone who was convicted on flimsy evidence, you might not get twelve volunteers. For this to be practical, you’d need a list of people who have said “Yes, I’m willing to serve on a firing squad if necessary” and then you’d pick about 60 people to ask if they’ll serve on the firing squad for this execution, case details to be found in the attached PDF. If after reading the case details, you can’t get twelve people to say that they agree with this execution and are willing to pull the trigger themselves, then the sentence is commuted. So it takes 12 people’s unanimous agreement to hand out a prison sentence, but it takes 24 people’s agreement to hand out a death sentence (and 12 of those would be agreeing knowing that they themselves would be carrying it out).

      All of that is theoretical, of course. And the reality of today’s political world would probably make it unfeasible. For one thing, that list of people who’ve volunteered to be on firing squads would get leaked and those people would get doxxed and abused (fired from jobs run by liberals, probably mobs outside their homes…) So it can’t be done. But in a sane society, that’s how I would want it to be set up. If a man’s crimes are so heinous that he deserves death, it should not be agents of the state who kill him. It should be citizens, duly sworn to carry out this duty and taking it seriously. That has far less potential to be abused than if long-term government employees are the ones carrying out the executions.

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      1. That’s basically how it is in the Texas of my ‘Republic of Texas Navy’ book series.

        Executions are by firing squad, and that squad is the jury that handed down the sentence. As you said, if 12 people aren’t sufficiently convinced of the defendant’s guilt that they would pull the trigger themselves, then the alternative is life without parole.

        I suspect that if this were done in real life, then executions would be fairly rare.

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        1. I would have said that the jury is also the firing squad, but since appeals can last for a while, it’s possible that the original jury would be unavailable by the time the execution is to be carried out. I’d like to preserve the possibility of appeals, since there are too many historical cases where someone has been convicted based on too-flimsy evidence. A man in prison can be let out and given recompense if he’s later proven innocent, but you can’t un-execute somebody. It’s still possible for a jury to be sufficiently convinced of someone’s guilt by a prosecutor who lied to them, so I want to preserve the possibility of appeals. (But put a five-year cap on it, because beyond five years, it’s vanishingly unlikely that any actual exonerating evidence will turn up, and the current situation can drag things out to a ridiculous degree).

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            1. My great grandmother favored a thin rod of glass inserted into a particular portion of their anatomy (presuming the abuser was male) and then a hammer applied to said rod.

              I…do wonder if she didn’t also have a very specific abuser in mind–but she died when my mother was a teenager, so I don’t know much about her beyond family stories, and they gloss over the darker parts of her life.

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                1. While she did live through WW2, I’m not entirely certain she would have been that familiar with details (or even if they were available at that point in time to someone living in middle of nowhere Wyoming, heh). Maybe she read it later and thought it would be a good punishment for rapists/pedophiles, but ::shrugs::

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        2. Executions are already vanishingly rare. In a country of 320 million people, in which almost 20,000 murders are committed every year, there are, what, a few dozen executions a year?

          What good did it do anybody to keep Manson alive for 50 years? There’s one that really needed the chop.

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          1. That was thanks to the Rose Bird court here in California. Executions were legal here in California, but the California Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Rose Bird, found excuses to block each and every execution that was appealed to that court.

            So Manson got life in prison (*with* possibility of parole…) instead of the death sentence.

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            1. Canada pulls that crap, with the added lunacy that “life in prison” = about twenty years. There’s a few Canadian true crime podcasters I listen to who have some fairly salty remarks about this particular practice, since it has happened NUMEROUS times that the murderer who got “life” gets out in twenty years, and proceeds to kill again…

              I can’t figure out if the lefties who subscribe to this kind of idiocy are so genuinely unacquainted with logic that they think someone who has killed (esp. someone who has killed for pleasure, like, say, a serial killer) won’t be perfectly willing to do it again, or if it’s a feature and not a bug to let killers loose again. I suspect it’s a mix of both, with the feature folks largely being amongst the so-called “elites.”

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      2. Another reason to use firing squads IF you’re going to have a death penalty: some states have had trouble finding vendors willing to provide lethal injection drugs and/or medical professionals willing to administer them. They probably would NOT have nearly as much of a problem finding rifles, ammo, and persons who know how to shoot.

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        1. I could see the Kancel Krew trying to hassle private ammunition vendors and probably the rifle manufacturers. OTOH, various government groups have supplies of suitable ammunition and firearms. (And I’m not including 5.56 NATO as a suitable round…)

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      3. I have always felt that a variant of the firing squad would resolve the 8th amendment issues that some find. Basically the process is as follows

        1. The condemned is seated in a chair where they are clamped in facing away from the firing line and are blindfolded. No Clocks are visible from the seat

        2. at the firing line are 3 (or more) large caliber weapons(.30 caliber or larger, though I favor .50 BMG) firing supersonic rounds. They are aimed at the back of the head of the condemned.

        3. In a closed room are switches where several members of the public (Perhaps even the jury members per some of the suggestions) above are seated. At the appointed time the switches are thrown essentially simultaneously. The signal is sent (perhaps with some small delay to hide which stitch was thrown first and the weapons are fired.

        This cannot be cruel as the condemned can not determine precisely when they are about to die. Blindfolded and facing away the will get no flash to know the weapons have fired. The projectiles being supersonic they will arrive well before the sound and when the sound arrives their brain will be, well shall we say non functional. There will not be time for pain as the pain from the scalp would take 100 to 250 milliseconds to arrive at the brain, but the projectile will take probably less than 2 milliseconds to transit the skull. The brain itself does not feel pain and by the time the messages arrive the brain will be non functional. It does require cremation or a closed coffin, but you did murder someone. And like the guillotine at completion there will be no questioned the condemned is deceased.

        As for unusual I think the originalist argument that founding fathers would have been fine with execution by firing squad and that their intent was to preclude such things as drawing and quartering will have to do.

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      4. Nah, bring back La Guillotine. Practically foolproof, almost instantaneous, and nobody can have any doubt that the condemned is all dead. No chance of mostly dead when you’ve got a severed head in a basket. No need for a doctor to abuse medical ethics by participating in an execution.

        If you want to add your committee of 12 executioners, ‘twould be simple enough to design an interlock so 12 separate levers have to be pulled to release the blade.

        Hey, the French never got any complaints!

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        1. Nah.

          Hanging. It’s the Way.

          Long Drop for certain lower levels of Capital Treason.

          Short Drop for higher levels Capital Treason.

          Pull (people/machines pulling the rope tight) for highest levels of Capital Treason.

          Said hanging to be done in/on/around the area where Treason is committed.

          So, commit treason as a congresscritter? Hung at the Capital.

          At the Pentagon? Hung at the Pentagon.

          Make it horrid, and ‘in your face.’ And let the body hang for a full day or two.

          Apply to most or all other Capital crimes and you’d see a sudden drop in, well, capital-level crimes.

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          1. Have a guillotine permanently installed in the Rotunda. Even when not in use, it would be a constant reminder. Imagine if Schiff-head and Nadless had to walk past a guillotine every day! :-D

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          2. Alas, that kind of thing only works if sensible, patriotic people who would only condemn actual traitors remain in charge.

            The reason the left is currently freaking out about firing squads/whatever? Because it’s what THEY want to do to their political enemies.

            I don’t disagree about it being a deterrent, but there would have to be a LOT of major, largely foolproof checks and balances in place to ensure that only someone guilty of an ACTUAL capital crime gets executed. Especially when it comes to something like treason. Murder, well, DNA–providing that it is both accurately processed AND not hidden if it’s exculpatory, looking at you Kamalalalala–is excellent for that sort of thing. Especially in rape/murder cases. But when we have a political group who has already indicated, whilst in power, that they are perfectly happy to lock up people who disagree with them, and worse…I’d rather not have easily-corruptible execution mechanisms in place for them to twist around to their use. Because we already know the left declares anyone who doesn’t agree with them a traitor and they *already* threaten to kill them.

            (But don’t misunderstand: I am not against the death penalty. It’s just that we’d better make DAMN sure it’s really hard to abuse it, and I honestly am not sure how we’d go about accomplishing that!)

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            1. “I’d rather not have easily-corruptible execution mechanisms in place for
              them to twist around to their use. Because we already know the left
              declares anyone who doesn’t agree with them a traitor and they *already*
              threaten to kill them.”

              If the rats had execution available to them now, not only would every Jan/6 political prisoner been hung by now, but the rats would not have stopped there. Just as well that penalty is a step too far even for them. As it is we were able to reelect President Trump. President Trump will be able to pardon Jan/6 convictions to free the political prisoners. Not sure what the pardons options are post pardon for livelihood, etc., lost, but they are alive to be pardon.

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            2. My argument against the death penalty is Ted Kaczynski. Simply put, they slapped him in Supermax and then we basically heard nothing about him for decades until he died.

              If you make “life in prison with no parole” a real option, like you did for him, then I’m fine with doing that. The death penalty is to protect society, and once you’re capable of locking someone away appropriately, that protects society just fine.

              And yeah, the potential for abuse is a big reason I prefer the Supermax option. You can’t fix dead.

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              1. How much does decades of high-security imprisonment cost us all? Versus the cost of a few bullets. And don’t bring up the horrendous cost of the death penalty; that’s mostly due to grandstanding lawyers.

                If a few criminals are that much of a threat to society, aren’t we all better off without them?

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                1. I’m not opposed to the death penalty–and I do agree it is cheaper. The problem is, we have so, SO many instances of corrupt prosecutors who want a conviction so they can get re-elected, or look good, or because they just can’t be bothered that they HIDE exculpatory evidence and get people sentenced to life in prison (or death row–although that *is* a rarer instance, if only because getting on death row is fairly rare) for a crime they did not, in fact, commit.

                  If they were to make it so that people who do that get EXTREMELY serious penalties. Preferably, the exact same sentence the actually-not-guilty person received. So, land an innocent person with life in prison without parole? That is what you get for hiding the exculpatory evidence. Got them on death row? Congrats, now you are on death row, for the deliberate and planned attempted murder of someone else.

                  That, and to rate the death penalty, I think it must truly be beyond any doubt the suspect did it. Because as was said above: you can’t fix dead. (And if they manage to win an appeal because the prosecution screwed up/was sloppy/lazy/whatever and so they get off on a technicality, then the prosecution needs to face fines and possibly jail time until they learn to do their damn jobs better and cleaner.) And the tradeoff there does need to be MUCH shorter appeal windows. No more spending 20, 30, 40 years on death row endlessly appealing and looking for a technicality. If you land there, it’s because the evidence you did it was overwhelming that you DID do it, and no, you don’t get to spend a few decades trying to wriggle out of it.

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                2. (I’d also note that if we had those major penalties in the form of prison time for prosecutors who hide exculpatory evidence, Kamala Harris would have been in prison a LONG time ago, and likely not out any time soon.)

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                3. I live in California. The cost-benefit analysis is always going to be about life imprisonment vs. the cost of multiple death-penalty appeals AND life imprisonment, with the former always being far cheaper.

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                  1. Like I said. Grandstanding. Lawyers. They get Virtue Points for ‘saving’ the world’s most despicable, evil monsters from receiving due punishment for their crimes. They would have been giddy with euphoric pride at getting Eichmann and Mengele acquitted on technicalities.

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      5. Just as an aside… I believe it was one blank, the rest real. Only the one with the blank would know for sure who wasn’t a participant.

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      6. With respect to blank rounds at a firing squad, I (think I) read somewhere about a situation* where one of the rounds was a blank, the others live. Rifles issued pre-loaded, so nobody knows who got the blank. (We’re going to have to ignore the fact that recoil from a blank-shot is going to be rather less than if it’s a lead bullet.)

        Thinking about it, it provides (maybe) mental cover for a squad participant who had second thoughts afterword. “Well, I might have shot the blank, so maybe I don’t have to feel guilty.” I don’t know if such a person exists, nor why they should get that mental cover.

        On the other hand, it’s twaddle. Use decent firearms with calibers that would ensure a clean kill (none of the 5.56mm stuff, eh?). And, all the rifles have Real Ammunition(tm) in the the chambers. The shooters signed up for it, time to do it.

        End note: Does Utah still use firing squad for executions? Do they even use the death penalty any more?

        ((*)) No recollection if it was real life or somebody’s fictional [redacted].

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    2. On the most crashingly dumb thing that I have herd so far – and this was just today – was noted The View co-host and dumb-a** Ana Navarro claiming that Woodrow Wilson pardoned brother-in-Law Hunter DeButts. Seriously, I wonder now if someone follows her around reminding her to breathe…

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      2. Wilson’s brothers-in-law on his side were surnamed Kennedy and Howe, as well as some unrelated Wilsons. On his wife’s Axson side, there were Axsons, a guy named Elliott, and a guy named Leach/Leech. On the Bolling side, he had brothers-in-law named Bolling, Galt and Maury.

        Amusingly, that one guy’s full name was Alexander Hunter Galt, so the joke wasn’t all that far off from WASP reality.

        On the dark side, I just found out that Woodrow Wilson’s dad came from Ohio. From Chillicothe and Steubenville, respectively. But when the Rev. Wilson moved South, he got totally into slavery, although his Presbyterian branch “only” believed in leasing slaves.

        He actually helped organize the Confederate Presbyterian church.

        The 73rd Ohio was from Chillicothe, and Camp Worthington was in Chillicothe too. The 98th Ohio and the 126th Ohio came from Steubenville, and there was briefly a Camp Steubenville in 1862. Steubenville was a big part of the Underground Railroad, too. But by then, Wilson’s dad had been in Virginia for years and years.

        To be fair, I didn’t realize that Wilson himself actually remembered a little bit of the Civil War, from being a little kid in the Virginia town where the family lived. So I do feel a bit sorry for him there.

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      3. I gather she somehow used AI to “research,” and the AI gave her that name. So, the AI made it up.

        *Sigh.*

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        1. Anyone* who uses “AI” (LLMs) to research anything and doesn’t double-check the “facts” the LLM spits up, after the many stories about LLM hallucinations… deserves the mockery they get. Because either they were stupid enough to trust an LLM to get “facts” right, or they didn’t care about the truth.

          * I’ll make allowances for children and young teens being ignorant of the dangers of trusting LLMs. But not adults, and especially not if their job is to know what’s going on in the world. That’s when ignorance turns into stupidity: when you had a duty to cure that ignorance, and didn’t.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. And in the case of children and teens, this is why we need parents (and good teachers, but really the parents) who get it through their heads from the first time they sit down at a keyboard that AI is not to be trusted, and is nothing more than a toy.

            And academia–which went from “hell no, you can’t use Wikipedia” to “sure Wikipedia is fine” a the college level–needs a purging.

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            1. My 2025 “old car” calendar has AI images. There are some rather unique treatments, including a hood ornament that Timothy Leary (or Salvadore Dali) might have been happy with. No people in the images, so no 7 fingered hands (yeah, the AI seems like “6 fingers? Hold my beer!”).

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              1. we live in an age of miracles. Yesterday I was animating pictures of some of my characters — look, it’s Elly for those following No Man’s Land on substack(s) so it’s difficult — and most of them are wonderful. One of them for no reason I can figure gave the character an octopus hand.

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    4. Sorry Liberals, you can not have a life without consequences. Just as a stone thrown in a pond sends out ripples, so does what we do in life. The waves we get back is a reflection of what we have created. Your life sucks? Well Skippy, put down the wine, croissant and bad attitude, then pick up some work gloves and build something. Trump isn’t the problem, you are.

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      1. Choices have consequences, and if you don’t want particular consequences, then you’d better figure out which choices are most likely to avoid them.

        Then again, the left *really* hates free will.

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      2. Many years ago, I read an article where someone was writing about consequences, and posted a quote they’d gotten from a psychiatrist who had been practicing for decades. It was something like this:

        “In all my years of practice, I’ve never seen anyone truly get away with anything.”

        Mind you, the psychiatrist also pointed out that a lot of his clients didn’t recognize the causal relationship between “what they got away with” and “how their life is now,” but it’s interesting that he could spot the consequences so strongly.

        Liked by 1 person

    5. I have just been informed online, that wealth disparity between rich and poor is worse, in the US right now, than in Paris during the French Revolution.

      Which is why these starving peasants can get online, on their luxurious phones and computers, and leave this gem of wisdom with their frostbitten, emaciated fingers encrusted with dirt and poo.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I wonder how many Internet people realize just how darn hard it is to starve to death in the US today? Not counting those who are addled to the point of refusing to eat, or who prefer chemicals to food. And when was the last time rovings gangs of “beggars” burned down a farm and killed some of the residents because they were not given the “alms” they demanded?

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      2. It’s probably even true, technically, though not the way they think. The rich back in the 19th century didn’t have air conditioning, phones, or automobiles. The gap between the poor and the rich was much smaller back then, because the rich back then had worse living conditions than today’s poor. (Attending balls and wearing fancy clothes don’t make up for the fact that you could die of random illnesses that can easily be cured today). So the poor today are far richer than the rich two centuries ago, while the rich today are unimaginably richer.

        So yes, the difference, in absolute terms, has grown. But what really matters is how much better the quality of life is for everyone.

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      3. The absolute wealth of even the poorest American worker or welfare recipient affords a palatial lifestyle compared to past times. Food scarcity is virtually non-existent, they have access to clean water and sanitation, etc. Our middle class enjoys a standard of living aristocrats would have envied, other than perhaps lack of servants and limited acreage. This doesn’t mean there isn’t great disparity in wealth between the wealthiest and the poorest. But perhaps it means it isn’t something to worry about.

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      4. Okay, that is why Trumpers are a homicidal mob, eager to hang all of the degreed ‘noblemen’ sneering down their noses at everyone.

        Sure.

        Oh, wait. People are angry, but pretty much nobody is that degree of food stress enhanced anger and fear. That is precisely why the French Terror is not easily repeatable, the Russian revolution is not easily repeatable, and the rise of the NSDAP is not easily repeatable.

        Americans understand that they still have a bit of strategic depth to play with.

        That is precisely why the left got upset with the agricultural improvements of the 1960s, and invented environmentalism to rape our productivity and technolgoical improvements with.

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Right. I mean, people are pinched and Americans aren’t used to being pinched. BUT that comparison is ridiculous.
        Also the only society without wealth disparities is one in which the state imposes poverty from above.

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        1. Well, strictly speaking, there was still a wealth disparity after communists destroy much of the wealth.

          Politicians, security services, and people who moved food around ate better.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Indeed, because prices were fixed, the inflation was concentrated in favors, and since a chief of police could refrain from arresting you on false charges without bound, he had effectively unlimited income. Teachers could only recommend so many pupils for elite positions, and so were limited. The riffraff, of course, could not.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. So, this Jaguar thing.

          The ad campaign does not effect my level of interest in the brand.

          Largely because in the first place, I would only be interested in older ICE models to begin with.

          Anyway, Jaguar going all electric seems to be partly location in the UK, and that insanity probably isn’t purely the fault of Labour.

          Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata. I’ve known that mainly as an Indian company.

          The specific religious group behind it, Zoroastrians, were refugees from Iran a thousand years ago, when the Muslims invaded. (Insert decolonize Iran jokes.)

          The Shah tried to build ties back to that group, with some success.

          I think the key thing about Tata, is that it operates in India, and I could buy the Indians as being a wee bit disconnected from a real grasp of how machines come together, and what the real societal implications are. Very ‘well’ trained academically, but pure academia has a weak grasp of this stuff, and I could buy that they don’t get the accidental experiences that some Americans do, which can allow the forming of better models.

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          1. It would be interesting to know for certain, but I am not sure Tata saw anything on this ad campaign. If they did, possibly they only saw the concept drawings with brightly colored costumes, and something hand-wavy about “modern audiences” and “media splash” and “build anticipation for the new launch design”.

            And the car images leaked look just awful, so maybe the video production people were just “THAT is the car? Oooookay, maybe we just leave it out”.

            From statements by the Jag CEO and others, this all seems to be Jag management, like the European management that was over Budweiser down through to the line DEI hire brand managers, operating within their urban Euro social bubble, going full Bud Light all on their own.

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            1. I’m thinking about Tata, and the electric sports car.

              It’s not hard to work out that the electrification push is nuts.

              I suppose the reimaging could simply be writing the effort off to crash and burn.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Heh, if Jag decides to use Lucas Electrics* in their electric- mobile, the batteries in the first one off the production line will probably self-ignite from multiple electrical shorts and burn the factory down.

                *Lucas Electrics: Prince of Darkness (and they weren’t kidding)

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    7. Well, here we are, a month after the election, and they’re still ‘counting votes’. Curiously, only in states where Democrats are in charge of elections.

      On the bright side, Trump just passed 77 million. I’m pretty sure that’s more votes than any presidential candidate in history, not counting the highly suspect 2020 election.

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      1. Don’t know about other outlets but Fox News is to the point of pointing and laughing at California. Also pointing at Florida who has a higher ballot count had it’s ballots counted, verified, and posted by midnight of election night. Also noting that the only delayed counting states were those without required ID to vote.

        Really wish the mocking would result in changes, but they’ll just double down. Unfortunately the change must come from within the state.

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        1. US Constitution specifies “election day”, not “weeks” or “season”.

          Long past time SCOTUS said “Nope. Whatever you managed to count by midnight is what you use. It’s over on Election Day, or it doesn’t count.”

          Liked by 2 people

          1. I’d love to say that lefty heads would explode all over the US, but the reality is that they’d just ignore it, one way or another.

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            1. And the reason they will ignore it is that we calmly accept it…. which is why we’ll probably lose control of the House by the time CA finishes counting.

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              1. Nope. They can’t find that many. They will narrow the margin with “found” ballots from a month later, but not flip it.

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                1. Yes. Flipping the house option sailed thanks to other states. They can narrow the house difference, but they can’t flip to rat control.

                  Liked by 1 person

                    1. They can try, but I really doubt if they’ll succeed; there are too many eyes on them this time around, and the conservatives seem to be learning, and applying, lawfare pretty well. And the USSC seems to be growing a spine (Idiots who bleat “I’m not a biologist” and “the Constitution hamstrings the government” notwithstanding).

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                    2. Cook latest as of today has:

                      Harris 74,992,244
                      Trump 77,275,461

                      I don’t think there are enough ballot sofa cushions in CA left to make up that difference…

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                      2. Apparently the latest talking point is that if you add Harris votes and third party votes, Trump didn’t get the most. Baahhh.

                        Liked by 1 person

                    3. Trying? Yes. Succeeding? Doubt it. Well, okay, if they resurrect everyone for the last 300 years of everyone who has ever died in CA buried there or not. (Cynical me? Nope, not at all.) All we can do is shake our heads, point, and laugh.

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                  1. What I was saying is pretty clear; they ain’t gonna be able to overcome the counts. Gray was already ahead (pending recounts). A-a-a-a-nd, the majority didn’t change. My comments stand.

                    Liked by 1 person

          2. Or 24 hours from polls open, or 8 hours from close, or something like that, as some states keep polls open well into the evening.

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            1. Oregon “polls” are kept open until 8 PM. Even when still had in person voting required. With *mail voting the ballots must be in by 8 PM Tuesday night. Volunteers stand at the ballot box locations and collect ballots as cars drive by. Normally we see/hear all kinds of PA on radio, TV, and even postcard, stating “last day to mail”. Don’t remember seeing those this year. I got my hair trimmed Friday before election day. Asked the stylist if she’d dropped her ballot off. Her response was “going to mail it today”. I told her “No. Too late to mail. Use drop boxes. There is one at … and one at …” gave her two different close by locations (I prefer one outside county offices).

              (*) For presidential, Oregon, can’t say “Fraud by Mail”. Thanks to greater Portland Oregon is going Blue, they won’t risk fraud for that.

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      2. Saw in the news just within the last day or two that Shasta County here in California is fed up with a number of problems in the ballot counting, and has filed a lawsuit over it to decertify the county’s voting results.

        Liked by 1 person

    8. I think we’re seeing profoundly immature people practicing performative virtue. I say immature because I believe they don’t (can’t?) realize their actions have permanent, personal consequences. Of course they’ll never want kids, or if they do there will be some “scientific” (since they’re too intelligent and sophisticated to believe in magic) method to restore their fertility.

      There’s going to be more than enough tragedy to go around…

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    9. There’s a remote possibility that the thought goes deeper than having vaguely heard of firing squads once.

      Firing squads are slightly more associated with military executions. So it could be slightly more creative than the usual ‘Seal Team Six’ idjit.

      Seal Team Six was a poor analysis on the part of Sotomeyer.

      So, yes, constitutionally, the judiciary and legislature have limits on their ability to constrain the executive, in those circumstances (civil war), where the powers of the president were expressly designed to be potent. But, where ordering random political killings is concerned, that does not matter, because the executive signed off on the UCMJ.

      Civil war in America does not mean rule by the strongest arm with the sharpest sword. Civil war in America means that if peace is restored soon, and things don’t become a Balkanistic perma-war (which is maybe unlikely), then you had better be able to show some sort of justification for any acts of violence, and any irregular acts in particular.

      So military tribunals, however irregularly composed, are gonna be hesitant to hand out death warrants carelessly. And, competent shooters are not going to be lining up eager to do stupid things on behalf of some insane politician. Most likely, stuff like the laws of self defense, or the UCMJ, would be weighed carefully.

      Now, I am pretty sure that Hunter Biden actually could fall under the UCMJ. He was in the Navy for like two years during the Obama administration, before his drug habit apparently caused his separation from service. Maybe he could have actually committed some crime that is worthy of capital punishment.

      Maybe there is enough evidence that sane people would even be willing to issue death warrants. But firing squads plural implies multiple criminals, and there is the pardon for the one man.

      In such circumstances, well a) I’m not sure how persuasive that pardon would be b) it would not cover sex crimes against minors that predate the time period of the pardon.

      I’m about ninety percent sure that the loudmouth was simply one of the idjits gone into a panic over Trump. The statement could imply knowledge of crimes and evidence. However, many of the Harris try hards are simply poor thinkers who are careless with words.

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      1. I don’t have any cite, but for some reason I thought an other-than-honorable punched one out of the UCMJ.

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    11. Why would they execute Hunter? He’s got all that juicy information in his head about all those OTHER Bidens who don’t have any such pardon, Including The Big Guy, and all the foreign persons with whom business was done, and since he’s got his full blanket everything even snoring 2014-2024 pardon, Hunter no longer can possibly incriminate himself no matter what he says.

      If Hunter cannot possibly incriminate himself, it seems to me in my I-am-not-a-lawyer opinion that he can no longer refuse to answer questions by invoking his 5th amendment rights against self incrimination for anything he knows about that happened in the pardoned time period.

      Hunter’s brain is a frelling Biden Criminal Conspiracy gold mine.

      And if he happens to lie to a Federal Agent pursuing a Federal Law Enforcement Investigation after the period covered by his pardon about anything at all, there’s 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which makes it:

      ”…a federal felony, punishable by up to five years in prison (or 8 years for a case involving terrorism), to “knowingly and willfully falsify, conceal, or cover[] up any trick, scheme or device a material fact… or make[] any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” in regards to a federal law enforcement investigation. It also prohibits the knowing and willful making or using of any “false writing or documents containing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry.”

      Were I Hunter I’d be concerned, looking over my shoulder for the Bidens, maybe not Joe, but another one with not clean and not pardoned hands, to arrange to pull an Epstein to clean up that vulnerability to the family business. Let me be the first to say it: Hunter Did Not Kill Himself.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. “I don’t remember.”

        “My client was pardoned. You may not badger him. He doesn’t remember.”

        I very much doubt Hunter Biden will ever be called. If called, expect endless reps of the above.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. IRL? Yep. But if things went how they should:

          “Actually, in the course of my investigation I can ask questions all day long, counselor – your totally pardoned client is a material witness to multiple federal felonies and has no remaining constitutional rights to refuse to cooperate, and of course if he obstructs this investigation or lies to me or any of my team, those will be new 18 USC 1001 charges, falling outside the time scope of the pardon. Besides cooperation, we need all of the records and documentation he has in his possession, and any and all electronic devices in his possession as well as all his passwords. No need to make any calls, we’re executing the warrants in raids to gather the devices now.”

          “So what I am saying is, this can go easy, or this can go hard, counselor.”

          Joe should have pardoned Hunter for exactly and only the charges for which Hunter was convicted. The blanket decade-long pardon not only makes it look like there’s more and worse, it opens the door to legal approaches like this.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. those will be new 18 USC 1001 charges,

            Which is precisely why my client continues to assert his 5th Amendment rights. Remember the Scooter Libby case? The man was railroaded into jail on the basis of his recollection of a ten years back conversation being a lie in the prosecution’s opinion.

            Since there’s ample precedent for invented process crimes being based on anything my client says, to avoid incriminating himself under your “new charges”, he’s saying nothing.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Oh, and if you choose to charge “obstruction” on the basis of my client’s silence, then you’ve just invalidated any “right to remain silent” that the 5th Amendment supposedly protects.

              Better think these things through first, Mr District Attorney.

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                1. From the comments over at that Legal Insurrection post re potential civil liability:

                  Hunter Biden has exposure for the civil income tax liability related to some or all of the alleged $24 million that the Biden family took in over the years. If returns were not filed, then the statute of limitations remains open. If tax returns were filed, but there was a substantial understatement, then a 6-year statute of limitations would apply. Civil tax, interests, and civil tax penalties could be draconian. 

                  Furthermore, much has been made of “loans” between various participants in this scheme. Cancellation of loans is considered gross income under Internal Revenue Code section 61.

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                    1. From the same comment to that same linked post:

                      The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the power to pardon “…offenses against the United States.” under the United States Constitution Article 2 Section 2 Clause 1 is for crimes, and only federal crimes.

                      This means while Hunter cannot be prosecuted criminally for the federal crime of tax evasion thanks to the daddy pardon, the U.S. Treasury can sue him as a civil action for the money he didn’t pay, plus penalties and interest. And not just for the tax years he was convicted for criminally, but for everything forever, unless he filed, as his lawyers should have made sure before the criminal trial, recently, then the 6 year statute of limitations for, say, his personal 2015 taxes only started ticking once he finally filed.

                      A civil action is a lawsuit, not a criminal charge, so Presidential Pardons are not relevant.

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                      1. Dig deeper.

                        Its a blanket pardon for federal violations of the law. If he can be prosecuted, he is pardoned. If they cant prosecute, they cant recover or punish. “Pay your tax” is a law.

                        Sorry. Wont work. And absent an amendment, it is ironclad.

                        Can you cite examples where SCOTUS has said a pardon doesnt cover tax law?

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                      2. A Presidential Pardon covers federal tax law, so no federal criminal charges can be brought for anything in those 11 years, but not tax liability.

                        I’m on my iPad now, but I will go find the cite on “pardons cover all federal criminal charges but do not impede civil suits” when I get home.

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                      3. Trying to find a cite now… Supreme Court precedent on the 5th Amendment N/A thing is Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915)

                        Lots and lots of quotes along the lines of “Pardons do have limits; they can only be offered for federal offenses, not state crimes or civil cases, and can’t be granted for impeachment.” all across the legal media and blogging coverage, but I haven’t found any case law cite yet.

                        Still looking…

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                      4. That Burdick opinion is interesting, btw, where it talks about how accepting a pardon is a prima facie admission of guilt.

                        So Hunter is still a convicted felon who has admitted his guilt, just a pardoned one.

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          2. IIRC, when Ford pardoned Nixon it wasn’t for any specific crimes, it was for ANYTHING he might have done during his presidential terms (1/20/69 through 8/9/74).

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Said client *can* be badgered if there’s evidence to show his direct involvement with something. Hunter has been pardoned, so he can’t be punished for anything that falls under that pardon. The 5th Amendment no longer applies. If he gets called into a courtroom to testify about something can be proven he was involved in (say, because a certain laptop left at a computer shop talks about it), and the judge gets fed up with Hunter’s refusal to answer questions, the judge can punish him for contempt.

          However, he shouldn’t be hauled in front of Congress just for the opportunity to embarrass the Bidens. I think a good-sized chunk of the public either genuinely believes that Joe himself wasn’t involved with any of it and those mean Republicans are just trying to slime him, or else think that since Biden’s permanently out of power it should be left to lie quietly. Given that, it would likely be best to reserve Hunter testimony for such time as he can be tied to the corruption of someone who isn’t named Biden. And I’m sure he’s got details on at least a few people like that.

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          1. “I don’t remember”, which is basically untouchable.

            “5th amendment” since you plan to persecute for process crime of error/variance in answer, thus “5th again”.

            Both approaches can and have stood up when Mr Crook gets pardons or immunity.

            besides, “The crackhead doesn’t remember” is already just about bulletproof by longstanding repetitive precedent.

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    12. I have to correct one thing from Mrs. Hoyt here. The top one about gay couples having children is stupid because gay couples can’t have children. Anyone who thinks they can is stupid.

      Only people so stupidly intellectual that they believe that a male and female married couple having children could be gay if one of them has the delusion that they are the other gender would have an excuse to think otherwise.

      Yes, it is clear that Mrs. Hoyt is trying to be kind and generously giving the gay couples* who are trying to “have kids” the benefit of the doubt that they are not crazy but that they mean the phrase in some new expanded way to include adopting children that were made though a heterosexual union. But it does not mean that. The phrase “have kids” clearly means to conceive, gestate, and birth kids in a way that only a real female woman with the help of a real male man** can accomplish. We all know that it does not mean adopting, or kidnapping, or any other way to “acquire” a child.

      Before anyone argues that I’m ignorant of the intricacies and subtleties of modern English or that I’m against people adopting children please imagine yourself in this scenario: A woman of childbearing age you know seems distraught. She confesses to you that after talking with her doctor and getting a second opinion from a specialist she has found out that she “cannot have kids”. She says those exact words “cannot have kids”. Do you in that moment have ANY thought (even the remotest sarcastic hint of one) wondering how her medical doctors could know that she is ineligible to adopt children? No, of course not. You know exactly what she means. We all do. And if she later tells you that “since I can’t have kids, my husband and I have decided to adopt one” do you experience even the tiniest whiff of confusion over how she could manage to adopt a kid when she just said in the same sentence that she can’t have one? If there is ANYONE here who would genuinely be confused by that, please correct me… but I don’t think there is. We all know what she would mean. NONE of us would think she has been prohibited from adopting or that she has proven to be an inept kidnapper or that her HOA doesn’t allow baby goats.

      It isn’t cruel to gays to say they can’t “have kids”; it is just reality. And saying so doesn’t also mean that you think they shouldn’t be able to adopt them or be allowed to raise baby goats or any other creative way someone could deliberately misinterpret that to claim offence. Trump won. We are obviously not in the minority. The lie that normal people are a crazy fringe group and vice versa has been exposed for what it is. Let’s please stop pretending we are stupid and don’t understand plain English phrases that have been in use our whole lives to avoid hurting the feelings of delusional people. It demeans us and doesn’t help them in the long run.

      *if there are any, I admit it is possible that this entire “problem” is some entirely faked story by an MSM reporter who needed to fill space and was too lazy to actually research anything.

      ** and, admittedly, maybe a turkey baster.

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      1. I personally know straight couples and lesbian (=”gay”) couples that had children via donated sperm. And a male gay couple that supported a lesbian friend as a borrowed womb. There are many cases of borrowed wombs for straight infertile couples who have children via surrogates. There is even a biblical account of such.

        The local laws may or may not recognize/approve the relationships, folks may or may not recognize/approve the relationships, but those couples all had children. There wasn’t a kid and now there is.

        And those events will increase with time and technology, so we better keep up better than “No!! they arent!”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Fostering, adopting, purchasing, or farming children is not “having children.” It is acquiring them, yes; that is not and has never been what the phrase “having children” meant when applied to a couple.

          Just as men in a dress are not women, not even if they have been mutilated.

          If you think that one must call the man a woman to “keep up,” you’re welcome to do so, heaven knows you have enough fellow travelers.

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        2. 11B, I think we are talking past each other. I specifically said I was NOT arguing against people adopting children. Nor am I against people owning small goats. My point is that the phrases “having kids” and “trying to have kids” does not mean trying to posses kids. It has a specific meaning that we all understand to mean ‘conceive and birth’ children.

          It is like arguing that someone is wrong to say that Bob and Sally are sleeping together because, in fact, they are going in the bedroom and having sex. Bob actually goes back to his place to sleep because he needs his cpap machine. We all know that “sleeping together” does not mean the concatenation of the separate words “sleep” and “together”. Having kids is the same.

          I am arguing for us to not deliberately blur the language in an effort to claim to be aggrieved. (Or other pointless reasons) When the language drifts it is like moving thousands and thousands of stories out of reach of our descendants ability to appreciate. I didnt say anything about it being wrong for people to adopt or use surrogates.

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      2. Pro tip:

        This forum works much better for discussions if you refrain from first calling potential participants “stupid”.

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        1. True. I recant the second use of stupid, and apologize to anyone who legitimately does not yet know the bird and the bees yet. It was rude of me and I should t have written it.

          The other uses of stupid seem legitimate and for them I do not apologize… but now I regret not saying ‘dumb’ instead to better fit with our generous hostess’s theme for the post.

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          1. look, gay people have functioning gametes. You can disapprove of the way they use them, you cannot claim babies with their genes are not theirs or weren’t “made”.
            That’s, how to say it? Oh, yeah, dumb.
            Arguing in this specious fashion doesn’t make the argument that you think it makes. it doesn’t say that their mode of reproduction is immoral or that it hurts people (both of which CAN be made, but are not prima-facie obvious) BUT it does give us a picture of you with hands over your ears screaming “you’re stupid and I don’t hear you.” That’s not…. going to convince anyone. Sorry.

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            1. Well, Foxfier seems convinced of what I actually said. Maybe we are the same kind of dumb. I don’t know where you got the idea that I said homosexuals are all impotent or that their offspring are not their offspring. I asserted none of those things. The fault is perhaps in my writing, as 11B seemed to think I was asserting homosexuals can’t adopt kids or some such. Or perhaps some readers are spring loaded to defend gays getting kids even when no one is attacking that.

              What I am saying is that when someone writes of a couple “having children” or “trying to have children” that has a very specific biological meaning beyond just the individual word meanings that I assumed we all understood… and two people of the same sex can’t accomplish that. Certainly they could get a child through adoption or they could have a child with someone else who was the opposite sex. But do you really think that is what someone means when they write of a couple “having children”? Honestly. That’s not a rhetorical question. Maybe I am confusing a local idiom for a general one. I’ll trust the hun inputs on that.

              If I wrote “The hospital said Bob and Sally can’t have children”, who here thinks that I mean that they are both necessarily infertile? Or that they are legally barred from adopting?

              And IF that is clear then, why is it suddenly not clear when I write ‘Nature says Bob and John can’t have children’? …unless some people just have a bugaboo about it. Or is that another local idiom?

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            2. Probably pointless. They is also covering eyes saying “not seeing it”.

              My wonderful Niece, “K”, was conceived via sci-fi IVF. God in his mercy and wisdom gave us “K”. Long ago, I gave my word to protect her, and if needed avenge her. Anyone telling me she isn’t the child of my sister and her husband, thus not my kin, may find themself offered a choice of my dueling pistols.

              I do not miss. Blades, however, are lots more fun.

              “K” is my kin.

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              3. The European Union forbids surrogacy. Yes, I do realize it can have issues, like everything involving human bodies.
                BUT because of their stupid laws my beloved younger cousin who wanted ONLY from life to be a mother and have a lot of kids will never be a mother. (She just can’t CARRY them. And is now too old.)
                I can see regulations on not culling embryos, etc. I don’t see forbidden outright a technique that can give someone children, one of the most basic desires of the human being.
                That’s all.

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    13. Somewhat aside, & FWIW, every time I hear some liberal puddinhead clutching it’s pearls and screaming that Trump can’t use the Military to enact Fe(de)ral policy, I ask the screen (or the radio) about Eisenhower sending the 101st Airborne to Little Rock.

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    14. One of the things I ran into, told to me by more than just a couple of people and showed up on several memes discussed seriously by believers of the information, was that Trump’s Project 2025 would take the right to vote away from women and prevent them from working outside the house. A return to pre-1970s (and the vote thing, pre-1920s) “women’s rights” where a woman couldn’t sign a loan without her husband or father being a co-signer or “have to wear a skirt”.

      I couldn’t even wrap my mind around that. When I later looked online, (gosh, the entire thing is published online in full documented, cited, and footnoted glory), I found ideas for PROTECTIONS for women in the workforce, and nary a word about taking away voting rights from any citizen.

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      1. The thing is not “Trump’s Project 2025”. Trump has nothing to do with it. Some nutjob, or maybe a few of them, put it together and published it. The left-wing media found a few things in it to RRREEEEEEE! over and blamed it all on Trump.

        Trump is not responsible for what his supporters, or those claiming or pretending to be his supporters, say online. He’s certainly not responsible for what his enemies say.

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    15. Seems to me that these particular folks taking themselves out of the gene pool can do nothing but help the global intelligence level.

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