Apparently, that didn't go as planned, but she seems to have made it home anyway

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What public service, exactly, did the members of the Biden crime syndicate perform for the country that would justify pardoning them for their thievery?

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rogues gallery

In Hunter’s case, that’s easy: between his pornography albums, illustrated drug use manuals, tax fraud, and the creation and sale for millions of his artistic masterpieces, he provided us with endless hours of entertainment, but what about the others? Both Joe’s brothers, and their wives, and his grandchildren? Really? I suppose that it could be said that, by accepting millions of dollars of bribes from China, they helped lower our trade deficit with that country, but otherwise, I don’t see how they meet the criteria set forth by the Crook in Chief just yesterday when defending his pardons for Fauci et als:

High-profile Dems warned Biden against preemptive pardons before giving Fauci, Milley passes

"The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense," Biden said in a White House statement. "Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country." 

Exactly how out of touch am I with popular culture? Apparently, completely.

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“Do you know who I am?” Wikipedia to the rescue of the clueless.

A singer name Carrie Underwood performed at Trump’s inauguration today and, curious as to who she is, I found her on Wikipedia: as it turns out, she’s quite famous.

Carrie Marie Underwood (born March 10, 1983)[1] is an American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence after winning the fourth season of American Idol in 2005, returning as a judge beginning with the twenty-third season. Underwood's single "Inside Your Heaven" (2005) made her the first country artist to debut atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the only solo country artist in the 2000s to have a number-one song on the Hot 100. Bolstered by further crossover singles "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Before He Cheats", her debut album, Some Hearts (2005), became the best-selling debut album of all time by a solo female country artist, was ranked by Billboard the top country album of the 2000s, and earned Underwood three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist. She followed it with Carnival Ride (2007), which sold over half a million copies in its first week and won two Grammy Awards. Her third studio album, Play On (2009), yielded the chart-topping single "Cowboy Casanova".

Underwood achieved the second best-selling release by a woman in 2012 and won a Grammy Award with her fourth album, Blown Away (2012). Her compilation album, Greatest Hits: Decade #1 (2014), broke multiple chart and sales records upon release, and spawned the Grammy-winning crossover single "Something in the Water". Her fifth studio album, Storyteller (2015), made her the only country artist to have all first five studio albums reach either numbers one or two on the Billboard 200 chart. With her sixth album, Cry Pretty (2018), she became the only woman to top the Billboard 200 with four country studio albums and had the biggest week for any album by a woman in 2018. In the 2020s, she has released her first Christmas album, My Gift (2020), won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album with her first gospel album, My Savior (2021), and reinforced her country pop image with her 2022 studio album, Denim & Rhinestones.

Underwood is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 42 million singles and 18 Million albums worldwide. She is the highest-certified (digital singles) female country artist and one of the 15 highest-certified female artists of all time, also being the female artist with the most number-one singles (16) on the US Country Airplay chart. Billboard ranked her the top female country artist of the 2000s and 2010s, while Pollstar ranked her amongst the 15 highest-grossing female touring artists of the past four decades. Her accolades include eight Grammy Awards, the most Billboard Music Awards (12), American Music Awards (17) and Guinness World Records (5) among female country artists, as well as inductions into the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry. Rolling Stone applauded her as "the female vocalist of her generation in any genre".

This part’s pretty funny: Time listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. I don’t remember being influenced by her, ever, but I’ll bet our now-former president doesn’t either.

Oh, well.

UPDATE: I was laughing at myself in this post, but here, just to pile on, and further expose my ignorance, is a very nice tribute to the woman and her performance today — an impressive woman.

Carrie Underwood Saved the Day With This Mic-Drop Moment

And the climb back from the abyss begins

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At least I still have Grindr!

President Trump immediately shut down the CBP One app and we already have people crying at the border in front of the cameras

At exactly noon, the moment President Trump was sworn into office, the CBP One app was officially shut down.

The Trump administration Monday ended use of a border app called CBP One that has allowed nearly 1 million people to legally enter the United States with eligibility to work.

A notice on the website of Customs and Border Protection Monday just after Trump was sworn in let users know that the app that had been used to allow migrants to schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available. The notice said that existing appointments have been cancelled.

Trump learned a lot during his first administration and even more in the four years following, and he’s showing it: he’s returned to Washington fully-prepared, and ready to execute.

Not that there was any doubt about the family’s criminality before, but this seals it

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Announced this morning, 15 minutes before he was officially booted from office.

Every family member who received wire transfers from the Chinese and Ukrainians.

He’s a brazen cocksucker, ain’t he?

I've never known a vegetarian who wasn't depressed, so I doubt this really makes a difference. For them — others might pay heed

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clone a waiter, never a porterhouse

Via SciTechDaily (emphasis added):

Plant-Based Meat Alternatives (PBMAs), a common choice among vegetarians, are classified as ultra-processed foods and may carry similar risks.

A groundbreaking study published in Food Frontiers by researchers from the University of Surrey found that vegetarians who consumed PBMAs faced a 42% higher risk of depression compared to vegetarians who avoided these products.

The study, which was led by Hana Navratilova, analyzed data from the UK Biobank and found no notable differences in intake of sodium, free sugar, total sugar, or saturated fatty acids between those vegetarians who ate PBMAs and those who did not. The researchers did find, however, that those who eat PBMAs had higher blood pressure and C-reactive protein* (CRP) levels, a marker of inflammation, and lower levels of apolipoprotein A, a protein associated with HDL, a “good” cholesterol; PBMA consumption was, however, also linked to a reduced risk of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) by 40%.

*C-reactive protein levels are the single most telling biomarker of systemic inflammation, and as such are the single most important biomarker for chronic disease risk associated with inflammation — which is virtually all chronic diseases. So it’s not “a marker of inflammation,” as ScitTechDaily describes it, it’s the marker of inflammation.  

From the study cited, published via Food Frontiers (emphasis added):

CRP levels were higher in PBMA consumers. PBMAs often contain different nutrient profiles compared to traditional meat, including higher levels of certain additives, preservatives, or processed ingredients that might contribute to inflammation. This finding is consistent with a previous study using the same cohort, where higher UPF [ultra-processed food] intake was associated with higher odds of elevated inflammatory biomarkers such as CRP…

It is hypothesized that UPFs can increase inflammatory factors (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β), which eventually affect CRP levels.

Very much related, because the real goal is to do away with people entirely: Letitia James vs. Beef: The War on Food

They admit the doctor gave him the right implant, so what's the beef?

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you just can’t please some people

Doctor in Bridgeport put right knee implant in man's left knee, lawsuit says

BRIDGEPORT — A Monroe couple is suing medical providers over a 2023 operation in which they say an implant for a right knee was placed in the husband’s left knee, with effects that include pain, impaired range of motion, snapping of the knee joint and inflammation.

“Remarkably, not one of at least six individuals in the operating room that day identified the safety lapse or implant error: Michael was discharged to home the next day to ambulate with two right knees,” the complaint says.

Rotten down to the tip of the smallest tentacle

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Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm Spends Final Days in Office Sending Billions to Home State, Defying Inspector General

Energy Department's inspector general warned that agency officials are not complying with conflict-of-interest rules

Thomas Catenacci Free Beacon

January 20, 2025

The Department of Energy, in one of its final actions under President Joe Biden, earmarked billions of dollars in green energy loans to utility companies based in Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm's home state of Michigan—defying the agency's inspector general, who called on the Biden administration to suspend the loan program amid conflict-of-interest concerns.

Some of Granholm's largest campaign benefactors during her Michigan gubernatorial campaign were among the companies receiving the hefty last-minute loans.

The Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office announced Thursday that it awarded a staggering $22.9 billion in loan guarantees for utility companies to develop green energy projects across 12 states. More than $14 billion of that total was awarded to DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, the two companies with ties to Granholm, solely for projects in Michigan.

In addition, on Friday afternoon, the office announced a $1.3 billion loan for Michigan Potash Company to help fund a sustainable fertilizer plant in Osceola County, Michigan.

DTE Energy's political action committee contributed more than $34,000 to Granholm's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, according to state records. Then-DTE Energy CEO Stephen Ewing, whom Granholm appointed to serve on the state's Early Childhood Investment Corporation Executive Committee, personally donated another $3,400 to Granholm's campaign in 2004.

Consumers Energy's political action committee gave Granholm's gubernatorial campaign $25,000 in that same timespan, additional data show. And Brandon Hofmeister, the company's current senior vice president of strategy, sustainability, and external affairs, served as Granholm's energy and climate policy adviser and deputy legal counsel when she was governor.

The outsized lame duck spending benefiting Michigan is the latest activity from the Loan Programs Office to raise questions about the integrity of the office's spending programs. Since the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act reactivated the office, giving it tens of billions of dollars in lending authority and making it a central pillar in the Biden administration's climate agenda, it has unveiled an eye-popping $107.4 billion in green loans, the vast majority of which has come following President-elect Donald Trump's victory in November, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Biden administration officials have continued to dole out lucrative loans even after the Department of Energy's inspector general issued a report in December calling on the Department of Energy to suspend the program. The watchdog warned that agency officials are not complying with conflict-of-interest rules and that the program carries a "significant risk of fraud."

The Free Beacon reported in January, for example, that Loan Programs Office director Jigar Shah held a financial stake in Plug Power through his green investment firm before joining the Biden administration, raising conflict-of-interest concerns. The Loan Programs Office finalized a $1.7 billion loan for Plug Power on Thursday.

Chris Wright, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Energy, said during his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that he was aware of the inspector general report and would immediately address the program if confirmed.

CNBC first reported Granholm's financial ties to DTE and Consumers Energy in 2020 after Biden picked her as his nominee for energy secretary. Granholm served as governor of Michigan between 2003 and 2011.

"I am proud of the dedicated federal workforce that has been and will continue to be committed to using all the tools available to ensure our nation stays competitive and energy secure," Granholm said in a statement Friday touting her agency's accomplishments over the last four years.

The Department of Energy did not respond to a request for comment.

Quick: name a single institution whose credibility has survived the past eight years?

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I was reflecting this morning that the past eight years have seen the complete destruction of the credibility of the nation’s major institutions: education, science, health,

The Associated Press report of these pardons reads like a page from the left’s propaganda machine. Reporters Colleen Long and Zeke Miller write, “The decision by Biden comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has selected Cabinet nominees who backed his election lies and who have pledged to punish those involved in efforts to investigate him.”

Interestingly enough, Long and Miller also acknowledge that what Biden has done with his pardons falls far outside convention.

“It’s customary for a president to grant clemency at the end of his term, but those acts of mercy are usually offered to everyday Americans who have been convicted of crimes,” they write. “But Biden has used the power in the broadest and most untested way possible: to pardon those who have not even been investigated yet.”

…“Biden, an institutionalist, has promised a smooth transition to the next administration, inviting Trump to the White House and saying that the nation will be OK, even as he warned during his farewell address of a growing oligarchy”. …. “He has spent years warning that Trump’s ascension to the presidency again would be a threat to democracy. His decision to break with political norms with the preemptive pardons was brought on by those concerns.”

An “institutionalist”, eh? What institution is that? The Biden crime syndicate? The Democrat Party? Certainly not democracy, or the principle of the rule of law, both of which he sacrificed to preserve his skin and satisfy his malicious lust for revenge.

institutionalism

noun

1: emphasis on organization (as in religion) at the expense of other factors