Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has issued a sweeping new legal opinion declaring that “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” programs rooted in race- and sex-based preferences are unconstitutional in the public sector and expose private companies to significant legal liability.
The 74 page opinion argues that government policies awarding opportunities or benefits based on “skin color or sex” cannot survive strict constitutional scrutiny and should be dismantled across Texas.
An attorney general opinion is a formal written interpretation of the law issued by the state’s top lawyer, typically in response to a legal question about how existing statutes or constitutional provisions should be applied.
Paxton’s office said the opinion targets decades of DEI frameworks embedded throughout state and local government, including programs in public institutions and schools. The attorney general framed the action as a return to equal opportunity and a rejection of what he called “woke, race-based favoritism.”
“This action to dismantle DEI in Texas helps fulfill the vision articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr. when he dreamed that his children would one day live in a nation where they were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Paxton said. “America is waking up to the egregious unfairness of DEI policies. People should be judged based on merit and the quality of their character and qualifications, not their race, sex, or any other inherent characteristic conferred at birth.”
Seems like apt phrasing for a decision issued on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Paxton added that “it’s imperative that all private-sector employers, schools, and state and local government entities—based on this legal opinion—immediately abolish any DEI, affirmative action, or unconstitutional discrimination programs under their authority.”
In the opinion itself, Paxton’s office contends that DEI has evolved into a system in which immutable traits have become “the currency of advancement,” spreading through academia, government, and private industry.
While an AG opinion can carry significant weight for state agencies and local governments—often shaping how officials administer programs and avoid legal risk—it does not, by itself, change the law, repeal statutes, or carry the force of a court order.
It does, however, signal how his office will treat DEI going forward.
If you read the decision, it goes into considerable detail not just on how racial preferences violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and Paxton cites the words of American Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine and George Mason.
It also fiercely critiques the reintroduction of official support for racial preferences and the introduction of racial quotas under President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the name of “affirmative action,” as well of the slight-of-hand by which temporary solutions to address past discrimination have been transformed into permanent “diversity” bureaucracies. “The rhetoric that diversity is essential for ‘business survival’ continued to take form and brought with it a cottage industry of diversity training programs, networking, and mentoring programs that fixated on the advancement of women and minorities.”
The legal opinion concludes that race- and sex-based preferences in public institutions “cannot survive strict scrutiny and are therefore unconstitutional.”
It also warns that many private-sector DEI practices could trigger liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, and federal civil rights law, including Section 1981, as well as potential exposure under state and federal securities laws.
A major focus of Paxton’s opinion is Texas’ historically underutilized business (HUB) contracting framework, which Paxton describes as a “pervasive, discriminatory regime” that violates both the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the Texas Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment.
The opinion argues the state’s HUB structure defines eligibility and access to government benefits by race and sex, triggering strict scrutiny and creating what it calls de facto quotas through race- and sex-based “targets.”
Plus a slam at current Senate race rival John Cornyn for failing to address DEI when he was Attorney General.
Our nation was founded on the radical notion that all are created equal. Though we have often failed to live up to that promise, it remains as a constitutional lodestar—both in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. The race- and sex-based, public sector preferences discussed in this opinion cannot survive strict scrutiny and are therefore unconstitutional. Furthermore, a large body of DEI practices in the private sector triggers liability under Title VII, the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act, and Section 1981 in addition to state and federal securities law.
That should be the proper death-knell for DEI in Texas. The question remains how much resistance will Democrat-run blue locales like Austin and Houston, who desperately want to continue discriminating on the basis of race, put up against the ruling, and long will it take private sector entities to fall in line to limit their legal liability?
“Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn in no other.” — Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1743
We all know why Hollywood makes crappy sequels: The first film in the series made money. Which is why Hollywood squeezed out the likes of Superbabies: Baby Genius 2, Highlander 2: The Quickening and The Concorde… Airport ’79 onto the innocent, unsuspecting heads of American movie-goers. But Hollywood, bless their blackened, cocaine-engorged, money-hungry hearts, knows enough not to make a sequel to a film that everyone hated the first time.
Remember when the whole banking system almost crashed when Bill Clinton’s sub-prime mortgage disaster caught up to us in 2008?
It turned out that loaning hundreds of thousands to people with shoddy credit history wasn’t sustainable, and you’d think we would have learned that lesson.
Yahoo Finance reports that starting in 2026, our two lending giants are once more relaxing their lending standards below a credit score of 620.
Fannie Mae eliminated its minimum credit score requirement on Nov. 15, 2025, as noted in an update to its Selling Guide.
‘Previously we used a minimum credit score to determine whether a borrower was eligible for a credit risk assessment,’ the government-sponsored enterprise said in a statement. Fannie Mae added that the update would ensure risk analysis is ‘agnostic of third-party credit scores.’
That’s like saying you want to make your highway safety decisions apart from highway death statistics.
The GSE also said that risk decisions would be based on ‘a broad set of factors, such as borrower reserves, debt levels, property characteristics, and loan purpose.’
In other words, risk will now be assessed by the need for high level executives to hit loan bonus targets.
Since Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide capital to the mortgage industry for more than half the mortgages in the U.S., the credit bureaus are also moving away from a traditional credit requirement.
We’ve seen this movie before, and the first time it hit screens, in 2008, it almost destroyed the western banking system and brought on the worst recession since The Great Depression.
I didn’t like that movie the first time, and I certainly have no desire to sit through it a second time.
Lots of American Presidents have claimed they’re against censorship here and abroad, but both the Obama and Biden administrations carried out vindictive censorship campaigns against their ideological enemies. (Remember the rodeo clown? Remember the debanking campaign against conservative media?) However, President Trump and his entire administration are fighting Eurocratic censorship against American free speech with more than words.
The Trump administration has slapped visa bans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other ‘anti-disinformation’ activists, accusing them of coercing American social media companies to censor viewpoints they dislike.
The move signals a zero-tolerance policy toward extraterritorial censorship, especially after the EU’s recent assaults on Elon Musk’s X.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid it out clearly: “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Sarah B. Rogers stated “These sanctions are visa-related. We aren’t invoking severe Magnitsky-style financial measures, but our message is clear: if you spend your career fomenting censorship of American speech, you’re unwelcome on American soil.”
The list includes Thierry Breton, who notoriously threatened Elon Musk over hosting a 2024 interview with Donald Trump on X. Others barred are Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), who worked with Democrats like Amy Klobuchar to “kiII Musk’s Twitter”; Joan Donovan, founder of The Critical Internet Studies Institute; Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public; and Jim Davey, co-founder of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Others mentioned as sanctioned in Rogers tweets include Clare Melford, leader of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon, leaders anti-right censorship outfit HateAid.
The EU’s infamous Digital Services Act would never pass constitutional muster in the United States, given act’s blatant viewpoint discrimination and prior restraint. The Euroelite seem desperate both to shove social justice down the throats of resistant voters, as well as to continue importing unassimilated Muslim illegal aliens, either for cheap labor or to ensure that left wing parties never lose elections. The DSA was designed as a weapon to stifle any opposing viewpoints.
There’s not a whole lot the United States can do when Eurocrats censor their own people for #WrongThink, but the Trump47 team sure as hell aren’t taking illegal European attempts to censor the free speech of Americans lying down.
Following hot on the heels of Thanksgiving travel and the final push to put out a new Lame Excuse Books catalog next week, this is going to be a somewhat briefer LinkSwarm.
This week: The Supreme Court greenlights the Texas redistricting map, a whole lot of support behind Trump Accounts, more Tim Walz corruption in Minnesota, the January 6 pipeline bomber turns out to be a black anti-Trump radical, more Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on Russian infrastructure, another pedo teacher exposed, Netflix buys Warner Brothers, and a tsunami of horrifying sequels barrels towards movie screens. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Texas’ newly redistricted congressional map will remain in effect for the 2026 primary after the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday approved a stay of a lower court panel’s ruling against the new lines.
The State of Texas had applied for a stay of that ruling by the El Paso-based federal judicial panel that came down last month, which declared that legislators illegally considered racial factors in the redraw. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) then appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing many of the fiery arguments made by the panel’s lone dissenter, Judge Jerry Smith.
Before Thanksgiving, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary stay of the ruling, pending further consideration by the full court.
Now that stay has been made permanent, pending a full appeal later on, in a 6 to 3 ruling by the court along ideological lines. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch penned a concurring opinion.
“First, the dissent does not dispute—because it is indisputable—that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” the trio wrote.
“Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Id., at 34; Easley v. Cromartie, 532 U. S. 234, 258 (2001). Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race.”
They concluded, “Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law.”
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
The one-party rule of ‘Democratic Kings’ in Maryland continues to reveal an optically displeasing truth about these leftist activists masquerading as competent politicians, who are anything but, and their epic mismanagement of state finances has only occurred because of limited oversight into their radical agendas.
Fox Baltimore reports that a state legislative audit uncovered major concerns about the oversight of billions of dollars spent by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore and his rudderless leftist allies in Annapolis, who champion everything from failed climate-crisis policies to wokeism to gender identity agendas to social justice and criminal justice reforms, as well as protecting illegal aliens (new voter base) – this is anything but ‘Maryland First’…
“Most recently, a state audit revealed 42 state offices spent a total of $8.5 billion last year with minimal oversight. That audit came on the heels of a State Highway Administration audit detailing $360 million in unauthorized spending for federal projects, and a separate Social Services Administration audit revealing a lack of protections for foster care children in Maryland,” Fox Baltimore wrote in a report.
Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told Fox Baltimore journalist Jeff Abell, “It’s a problem that almost $9 billion is going to these entities and we just don’t know where the money is going.”
Williams expressed serious concerns over the findings, pointing out, “This is supposed to be a system of checks and balances. We know the checks have gone out but there are no balances to be sure the money is being spent wisely.”
He called for increased oversight, saying, “If you’re receiving taxpayer money, there has to be full accountability, and this is billions of dollars we’re talking about.”
The lack of oversight in Maryland comes as no surprise, given that the state suffers from a disastrous one-party rule of far-left Democrats who care more about upholding the globalist framework of climate-crisis and illegal alien policies.
Moore’s photo next to dark-money-funded NGO emperor Alex Soros makes it all the more clear why he and Maryland Democrats operate with a globalist framework in the first place.
The result of one-party rule has been a ballooning deficit, soaring taxes, a credit rating downgrade, and a continued large-scale exodus of residents fleeing to red states as Maryland quickly loses its charm and is on track to transform into the next “Illinois 2.0.” On top of the financial failures, power grid mismanagement has collided with surging data center demand, sending power bills through the roof.
It’s not a mystery where it went. It disappeared into the pockets of radical leftwing activists and NGOs.
An unlikely bipartisan Senate duo is spearheading a push for employers to donate to the new “Trump accounts” created under the GOP’s “big, beautiful” reconciliation package last summer.
Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Cory Booker, D-N.J., teamed up on a letter sent to Fortune 1000 CEOs on Monday encouraging their companies to contribute to the new investment accounts created for young children. Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, pledged a $6.25 billion donation to the accounts Tuesday that earned them a White House appearance with President Donald Trump.
The savings accounts, which are funded with after-tax contributions, were dubbed “Trump accounts” under the budget reconciliation law. The government will contribute $1,000 to the accounts for babies born this year through the end of Trump’s term.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the provision would cost $15 billion over 10 years. The Dell donation would expand the program to reach children who wouldn’t qualify for the federal contribution.
“These tax-advantaged accounts ensure that every American child is an immediate shareholder in America’s largest companies and will experience the miracle of compound growth through their lifetime,” Cruz and Booker wrote in their letter seeking corporate contributions.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick “Backs Trump’s Baby Investment Plan, Wants To Double It in Texas. Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas should create its own version of President Donald Trump’s new child investment accounts, announcing that the state should provide every Texas newborn with an additional $1,000 in publicly funded, long-term savings beginning in 2027.
The initiative mirrors and expands upon the federal Trump Accounts program created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, which seeds every American newborn’s account with $1,000 that cannot be accessed until adulthood and grows through investment in a broad U.S. stock-market index. The accounts are intended to accumulate wealth from birth and teach families and children long-term financial planning.
In a post on X, Patrick said he “loves” Trump’s idea to invest $1,000 at birth that “cannot be spent until age 18 and must be used for education or other qualifying expenses,” and he applauded Texans Michael and Susan Dell for contributing $6.25 billion to help launch the federal program.
“If I see a great idea from the President that helps Texans, my first question is always, ‘why not do it in Texas, too?’” wrote Patrick.
He noted that about 400,000 babies are born each year in Texas and said that one of his top priorities for the 2027 legislative session will be passing what he calls the “New Little Texan Savings Fund.” Under the proposal, Texas newborns would receive an additional $1,000 from the state treasury at birth, invested in the S&P 500 in alignment with the federal program. Combined with Trump Accounts, Patrick says Texas children would receive a total of $2,000 in initial investment capital, not including voluntary family contributions.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says he’ll withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota, after a review found nearly one-third of driver’s licenses in the state were issued illegally.
In a letter on Monday, Duffy warned Minnesota officials that more than $30 million in federal highway funds may be withheld unless the state revokes any commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) that should not have been issued and addresses deficiencies in the state’s commercial driver’s license program.
According to KTSP TV, Secretary Duffy alleged that one-third of Minnesota’s non-domiciled CDLs reviewed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) were issued illegally.
Minnesota will have 30 days to revoke the illegally-issued licenses or face the loss of funding.
Secretary Duffy noted that, “Minnesota failed to follow the law and illegally doled out trucking licenses to unsafe, unqualified non-citizens — endangering American families on the road. That abuse stops now under the Trump Administration.”
“The Department will withhold funding if Minnesota continues this reckless behavior that puts non-citizens gaming the system ahead of the safety of Americans,” Duffy added.
Over 400 employees of the Minnesota Department of Human Services are accusing Governor Tim Walz (D) of failing to act on warnings of widespread fraud and of retaliating against whistleblowers.
The accusations come as federal probes are examining the theft of more than a billion dollars from programs like child nutrition, Medicaid, and housing aid and as federal prosecutors announced charges against a 78th defendant in the theft of $250 million from Feeding Our Future child nutrition program.
In a post on X, the Minnesota DHS group called out Walz for ignoring what the group called “a pattern of ignored warnings, threats to whistleblowers, and unqualified appointees prioritizing image over fixes.”
In their post, the Minnesota DHS group explains that, contrary to popular belief, they aren’t a political group but have been continually disappointed in the lack of response they’ve received as well as the governor’s response to those who have pointed out the fraud.
“We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,” the group wrote.
In addition to retaliating against whistleblowers, the group claims, “Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.”
Snip.
In their post on X, the group states that Walz is “100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota” and calls for taking the next step of bringing in “external auditors and new leadership.”
– a young black guy – radical anti-Trump activist – sued Trump & ICE & DHS – extreme racial justice advocate – works at his family bail bonds company that frees criminal aliens from ICE custody
Ukraine drone struck FSB headquarters in Chechnya and Livny oil depot in Oryol. The simmering resentment of Russia in Chechnya never went away, so killing a whole bunch of FSB goons isn’t going to help Russia keep a lid on the place.
“Reports say that four military-type quadcopter drones buzzed the flightpath of President Zelensky’s aircraft as it arrived at Dublin Airport on Monday and then went to buzz an Irish Navy ship. This is likely Russian drones and suggests an intelligence leak.” They also buzzed an Irish naval ship, which did jack squat about them because “the ship didn’t have air radar capabilities,” which suggests that either the ship was really small, or the Irish Navy is absolutely useless in a real shooting war. (They also say that the ship was only armed with machine guns, when they’re also supposed to carry 20mm Rheinmetall autocannons.)
“Caleb Elliott was initially arrested on October 3 and is currently in custody on charges of recording and photographing students nude in the locker room at Moore Middle School. The victim count is currently around 40 students. There have been allegations that Elliott was transferred to Moore Middle School following inappropriate behavior at a previous school, had a relationship with a student, and placed cameras inside of the locker room.”
“2025: The Year Late-Night TV Collapsed.”
As Hollywood continues to contract on several fronts, late-night shows are not as sustainable as in the past.
Colbert found that out the hard way in July. CBS announced Colbert’s “Late Show” gig will end in May of 2026. Even more dramatic? No one is slated to replace him. “The Late Show” will end as Colbert signs off.
The shocking part? Reports said the show was costing CBS roughly $40 million a year. Why would any business take that kind of a fiscal drubbing in the first place?
That came on the heels of “The Tonight Show” shrinking from five nights a week to four, “Late Night with Seth Meyers” losing his house band and several late-nighters losing their gigs.
Period.
Think Samantha Bee, Desus & Mero, Trevor Noah, James Corden and Amber Ruffin.
That, plus news that late-night TV revenues have plunged in recent years (along with their audiences), suggested Jimmy Kimmel’s prediction might come true faster than he anticipated.
Late-night TV has much less than 10 years left. This year proved it.
Kimmel nearly took his own show down. The far-Left host suggested Charlie Kirk’s killer was part of the MAGA movement without evidence or a shred of logic.
ABC/Disney sent him the bench for a week before he returned sans apology. He cried, again, but not for misleading viewers.
The Hollywood Left and the media rallied on Kimmel’s behalf, and he returned to the show to spread more misinformation.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld” continued to out perform the competition on a smaller budget (and, admittedly, an earlier time schedule). That proves there’s a market for a right-leaning audiences ignored, or insulted, by the current late-night landscape.
The future doesn’t look bright for the late-night survivors. Kimmel’s contract ends in May, but he’ll likely sign a new deal before then. ABC proved it couldn’t force Kimmel to apologize for spewing misinformation, and Hollywood would rise up, en masse, anew if ABC/Disney let Kimmel walk.
Does it matter if “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” might be losing money a la Colbert? It’s clear money isn’t the deciding factor anymore given what CBS endured for far too long.
It doesn’t ultimately matter. The late-night talkers showed their cards in 2025. They’re all parts of the DNC at this point, sometimes literally.
Netflix is buying Warner Brothers for $87 billion. To quote the press release:
This acquisition brings together two pioneering entertainment businesses, combining Netflix’s innovation, global reach and best-in-class streaming service with Warner Bros.’ century-long legacy of world-class storytelling. Beloved franchises, shows and movies such as The Big Bang Theory, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wizard of Oz and the DC Universe will join Netflix’s extensive portfolio including Wednesday, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Adolescence and Extraction, creating an extraordinary entertainment offering for audiences worldwide.
“Our mission has always been to entertain the world,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “By combining Warner Bros.’ incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”
I’m sure the Bugs Bunney-KPop Demon Hunters crossover will be lit…
A company that provides a controversial surveillance technology to both private and public entities throughout Texas was found to have been operating under an expired state license, amid state and federal lawmakers calling for greater scrutiny of the company over privacy and security concerns.
Flock Safety, Inc. installs automatic license plate readers (ALPR) that capture the license plate number and location of each vehicle that passes by. Police can then compare the data in relation to stolen vehicles, missing persons, or other crimes, and law enforcement has successfully used the technology to solve cases.
Flock’s high-resolution cameras create a detailed file that includes other markers on each vehicle, including bumper stickers. The company’s cloud-based system also connects with ALPR data from jurisdictions across the nation in real time, allowing users to map vehicle movement.
After receiving complaints last year that Flock had been installing and operating ALPR cameras on private properties without a license since 2021, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) sent the company a cease and desist order in September 2024. Despite documented violations, DPS granted Flock a license for private operations, but that license expired on September 30, 2025.
More AI vulnerabilities to worry about. “Researchers at Icaro Lab, a collaboration between Sapienza University in Rome and the DexAI think tank, have discovered that AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic can leak illicit content across various subjects when instructions are given in poetic form. The illegal content ranges from making nuclear weapons, creating child exploitation material, and developing malware.”
Shall I compare thee to a Teller-Ulam Implosion Core?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
Critical Drinker tours Estonia. Consider this your periodic reminder that communism sucks and that just about everything they build looks soul-crushingly ugly.
Science, not settled. A whole lot of cracks in what was thought to be settled cosmology have recently appeared, and the uncertainty may result in a revolution in our understanding of the universe, but no one knows what it is yet.
Architect Frank Gehry dead at 96. Never cared for his work, so this is just an excuse to haul out this classic Onion bit from back when they were funny: “Frank Gehry No Longer Allowed To Make Sandwiches For Grandkids.”
Adam Savage geeks out over Paramount archive storage, including a ton of weird dead media formats.
Red Letter Media has a terrifying look at all the sequels, prequels and expanded universe movies coming down the pike. The frightening thing is that some are fake, but I’m not sure any are actually off the table for Hollywood. Honestly, I think I could write Bag of Sugar: The Movie. See, first we change the name to Too Sweet. An evil corporate executive wants to destroy the magic bag of sugar that’s been in the family-owned sugar business for generations…
Given the title of this post, a lot of people will naturally assume that Google is using AI to spy on them as a matter of course, since Google uses every other tool to spy on us. Indeed, since Google first announced AI initiatives, I’m pretty sure most people never assumed Google wouldn’t use it to spy on us. Nevertheless, there’s now a lawsuit over it.
Google is facing a lawsuit over its Gemini assistant, which allegedly collected data from Gmail, Chat, and Meet users without their consent.
Any rational person who uses Gmail knows Google is going to gather data on you from it. It’s part of the terms and conditions of the Faustian bargain to use free services.
The complaint accuses the tech giant of violating privacy laws by activating the tool across its platforms without informing users.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t part of the terms and conditions when I signed up for it two decades ago.
The plaintiffs claim that this covert data collection allowed Google to access sensitive communications and personal details shared through emails, messages and video calls.
The lawsuit alleges that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, activated Gemini across Gmail, Chat and Meet in October without user consent.
Previously, users could opt-in to use the assistant. However, the plaintiffs claim that Google silently enabled it for all users.
This gave the tool access to sensitive communications and personal details shared through emails, messages and video calls.
The name of the lawsuit is Thele v. Google, LLC. I checked and, sure enough, that stuff was enabled without my permission. Being a Gmail user that never gave Google permission to train their AI on me, I should probably see if I can climb aboard the Litigation Express. I’ll send them an email.
Click on Settings (the cog icon in the top-right bar).
Press See all settings.
In the General tab, scroll down to Google Workplace smart features and click on the button.
Turn off smart features in Google Workspace and click Save. This will block Gemini AI from Gmail, Chat, Meet and Drive. You can remove Gemini from Google Maps, Wallet, Google Assistant and the Gemini app, too.
Thele v. Google is not the only lawsuit involving Gemini brewing. Clownfish TV brings news of a suit over Gemini telling a student to call 911 over having their phone time restricted.
They also touch on instances (that I think we’ve mentioned here before) of Gemini allegedly telling children to kill their parents.
But that’s not all on the Google privacy abuse front! According to Louis Rossmann, even after being disabled, Nest thermostats upload 50 megabytes of data to Google every day:
That amount seems…excessive. Especially for a product you paid for. As Rossmann pointed out, letting old devices continue to connect to the Internet is a large security risk. Plus the usual problems with the hoary old Digital Millennial Copyright Act.
Just as in deals with the Devil stories, your damnation in dealing with Google frequently dwells in the fine print of the contract you agree to in order to use their products for free.
The problem is, Google always seems to be unilaterally changing the fine print without telling you. And I’m pretty sure those changes are never in your favor.
Illegal aliens continue raking in welfare benefits, the #SchumerShutdown continues, a look at the Democrats’ foreign paymasters, a jihad attack thwarted, cartels are enslaving American Indians in California in the name of weed, some Joe Rogan interviews, Nasty Nancy bows out, Kill Bill returns to theaters, and Bass Pro Shop Fight Club.
It’s astounding, the things we learn when the money runs out and governments actually have to start prioritizing for a change. As the Schumer Shutdown drags through Week Five with no end in sight, the country’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — aka “food stamps” — ran out of money on Saturday. And given who was taking, it’s a miracle that there was any money left at all.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins reported yesterday that earlier this year, “we told every state to send us their SNAP data so we could make sure illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families. 29 states stepped up. 21 blue states refused — and two SUED US FOR ASKING!”
That’s because we’re spending billions on benefits to illegal aliens.
My guess is that the Center for Immigration Studies — which bills itself as “low-immigrant” yet “pro-immigration” — was being a bit ironic with this headline: Illegal Immigrants To Be Hit Hard As SNAP and WIC Benefits Expire.
The organization’s 2023 analysis of government data showed that “households headed by illegal immigrants make extensive use of the welfare system, particularly food assistance programs.” CIS estimated that 59% of households headed up by an illegal are on one or more welfare programs, whether it’s cash, food assistance, Medicaid, or housing.
Read that again. We’re giving cash, food, healthcare, and housing to people who aren’t even supposed to be here.
Millions of them, in fact. Even though I could have sworn that Democrats insisted up and down that sort of thing never happened. No wonder 21 blue states didn’t want Rollins looking at their books.
Houston, we have a problem. A very expensive problem.
His suggestions: Require proof of citizenship for all welfare benefits, and ban junk food from purchase with EBT.
The Schumer Shutdown continues. Democrats offered a one year ObamaCare extension and Republicans told them to get stuffed. Republicans should counter-offer an extension of the subsidies for American citizens…but none for illegal alien, plus states are required to submit their benefits database so illegal aliens can be kicked off the program and deported. That would make it even more painfully clear Democrats favor illegal aliens over citizens when they refuse…
Foreigners not only are paying to promote liberal causes and by extension liberal candidates but foreigners are running their own candidates. The Squad has a couple of them and Minneapolis is about to get a Somali mayor.
Foreigners are funding the Indian who was born in Uganda and sent to New York City at some point. Now he’ll a jihadist-friendly communist—but if justice prevails, he may end up in prison instead of being in City Hall.
The New York Post reported last week, “Zohran Mamdani was hit with two criminal referrals Tuesday filed by a campaign finance watchdog accusing the lefty socialist of accepting illegal contributions from foreign donors.
“The Coolidge Reagan Foundation filed the referrals—alleging Mamdani may have violated the Federal Election Campaign Act and New York Election Code—with the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on Tuesday.
“The referrals were filed after The Post reported earlier this month Mamdani’s campaign raked in nearly $13,000 in contributions from at least 170 donors with addresses outside the U.S.—including one from his mother-in-law in Dubai.”
Ed Morrissey:
The Democrat Party has turned into the Globalist Party. Their constituency isn’t American voters; it’s the international cognoscenti, who want an America that submits to the “global community.” That is why Democrat leaders do not adapt their policies and positions to the clear consensus in the American electorate, because they have already adapted to constituencies outside the United States.
That isn’t the only institution orienting itself away from American constituencies, and for the same reason. Over the last several decades, Academia has seen billions of dollars flow into its coffers from places like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. There too, the money has pushed institutions to indoctrinate students into radical-Left globalist values and agendas. Universities have largely stopped providing foundational Western-civilization values and education in favor of revisionist propaganda about Western imperialism and colonialism. This in turn colors all of the institutions into which radicalized graduates enter and rise within those structures.
Jonah Goldberg, from 2009 (back before Trump broke his brain):
Liberalism has openly yearned to “Europeanize” American social policy for decades. Liberals point to European health-care systems, union rules, tax policies, industrial policy, foreign policy, and even sexual mores, and say: “We need to be more like them.”
This is a very old story. The founders of modern liberalism, led by Woodrow Wilson and the two Roosevelts, were quite open about their effort to adopt a more European approach to political economy. The progressive leader William Allen White said in 1911: “We were parts, one of another, in the United States and Europe. Something was welding us into one social and economic whole with local political variations. It was Stubbs in Kansas, Jaures in Paris, the Social Democrats in Germany, the Socialists in Belgium, and I should say the whole people in Holland, fighting a common cause.”
But it was FDR’s New Deal that truly aimed to “assimilate the American into the ‘European’ political experience,” according to historian Daniel Boorstin.
After years of Democrats telling the American people that former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a thriving system, the glaring truth revealed now during the government shutdown is that not only has the ACA resulted in widespread fraud and allegations of kickbacks to insurance companies, the American people are footing the bill for subsidies to hide the fact that Obamacare is broken.
“Everything Obama told us was a complete lie,” E.J. Antoni told John Solomon during a special report on the government shutdown sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Antoni, who serves as chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, continued: “When he said, ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.’ No you couldn’t. Obamacare made a lot of those health care plans illegal. He said, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.’ No, it forced a lot of doctors out of business, and it forced a lot of doctors to no longer take most insurance.”
President Barack Obama repeatedly promised Americans during the rollout of the ACA — commonly known as Obamacare — that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” a claim intended to reassure Americans about the ACA’s impact on existing healthcare arrangements. However, millions of people lost access to their preferred and established physicians due to narrowed insurance networks and cancellations of plans which did not comply with the law’s new requirements, leading even left-leaning PolitiFact to name it the “Lie of the Year” in 2013.
Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., revealed the latest scandal within Obamacare. Bergman, speaking to Just The News, laid out the timeline for subsidies which were meant to lighten the burden for Americans but when unused, were pocketed by the insurance companies.
Bergman explained that “In 2010, the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act. Then in 2014, ACA premium tax credits became available, meant to help families earning 100 to 140% of the federal poverty level – that was designed to help those folks. In 2021, through the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act), Democrats temporarily extended and expanded those subsidies to everyone, regardless of income, for one year. In 2022, the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), they extended the expansion again, but only through January 1 of 2026.”
Bergman emphasized that the expiration imposed by Democrats implicitly meant that the extension was not meant to be permanent. That extension expires and is what Democrats have shut down the government over. As Bergman puts it, “They’re blaming us, the Republicans, for letting their own temporary extensions expire.”
The largest surprise regarding these subsidies, is that they haven’t been going directly to patients. They’ve been going to insurance companies, according to Bergman. “Insurance companies’ profits right now are up something like 240+ percent. There’s something morally wrong with that. Not only is it shamefully wrong, but morally wrong.”
Bergman did not name any specific insurance companies.
“Millions of these so-called ghost enrollees, people who are technically eligible, but are unaware of it, never use these subsidies. The insurers pocket the difference.”
OpenSecrets reported that in 2012, the health insurance industry donated roughly $9.6 million to Democrats. In 2024, the industry donated almost $40 million to Democrats.
Five people between the ages of 16 and 20 were arrested Friday, CBS News has learned. Authorities say they were inspired by a former member of the Michigan Army National Guard who was arrested in May for allegedly planning an ISIS-inspired attack against a U.S. Army site in suburban Detroit.
(Just a reminder that Detroit suburbs like Dearborn Heights are majority-Muslim.)
The men were inspired by another “Michigan man” who was arrested in May:
Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said, 19, was accused of providing support for a planned attack on the U.S. Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command facility at the Detroit Arsenal.
Democrats have been importing unassimilated Muslims into America for, what, 30 year now? 40? Who initiated the plan, and why?
Over 1,500 alleged criminal illegal aliens were arrested during a 10-day operation in Southeast Texas — including documented gang members, a convicted murderer, and over a dozen sexual offenders.
The Houston branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the operation between October 22 and 31, arresting a total of 1,505 alleged criminal illegal aliens.
Among the arrests were 17 “documented gang members,” including an alleged Mexican Mafia gang member, who was convicted for raping and impregnating his minor sister and is wanted in Honduras for murder. A suspected MS-13 gang member was also among the arrested, after he “ran inside a local washateria, climbed through the ceiling panels to get on the roof and became wedged in a sign on the side of the building,” before being captured by Houston ICE.
Forty “aggravated felons” were reported as being among the 1,505 arrested, as were 13 sexual predators.
One of the arrested is Vongphachan Phothisome of Laos, who was convicted of sexual exploitation of a child. Similarly, an illegal alien from Honduras, Rony Andy Martinez Lopez, was convicted of “lewd and lascivious acts with a minor and cruelty towards a child.”
A comparable week-long operation conducted by Houston ICE in early September yielded about half the arrests as this October one, with 822 alleged criminal illegal aliens arrested last month.
Native American sovereignty and California’s policies that shield illegal immigrants have allowed Mexican drug cartels to swoop in on tribal lands of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, a confederation of several tribes, the sheriff said.
The valley, known for illegal marijuana grows on tribal lands, is remote and surrounded by forested mountainous terrain. It’s a patchwork of tribal lands and those sold off to private owners years ago.
[Mendocino County Sheriff Matt] Kendall, 56, grew up here in the 1970s. During the drive to Covelo, an isolated town in the valley, he talks about how the times have changed over the decades.
“Back in the ’60s and ’70s, it was a beautiful place—a lot of freedom here,” he said. “When we were kids, we’d be riding our horses and having fun. Every kid in this valley had a horse. We’d go out to the river. All of us had summertime jobs, hauling hay and cutting firewood.”
His nostalgic journey ends abruptly as he passes a burned-out building with murals of missing women on its walls—a stark reminder of the violence that plagues the valley. Other banners along the road display their names and faces, including that of Khadijah Rose Britton, a native American woman who, according to the FBI, was last seen in Covelo being kidnapped at gunpoint in 2018.
Today, Kendall says, “there’s a little bit of farming, and then just tons and tons of marijuana, and pretty much all of it is illegal.”
“We see a lot of Hispanics here when there is no work, no sawmill jobs, no grapes, no vineyards and not much logging. They’re all here taking orders to grow marijuana, and a lot of it’s happening on tribal lands.”
He estimates up to 80 percent of the illegal marijuana in Mendocino County is grown on tribal lands, based on aerial surveillance and satellite imagery revealing a vast network of illegal grow ops.
A blow against tranny madness. “Supreme Court Reinstates Trump Admin Requirement That Passports Reflect Biological Sex.”
Joe Rogan interviews Elon Musk, again. I have not remotely watched all three hours of it, but I don’t rule out posting clips from it in the future.
Speaking of Musk, Telsa shareholders just approved a $1 trillion pay package for him, assuming he hits certain metrics over the next decade. My guess is that’s a whole lot of pie in the sky, even for him…
Speaking of three hour Joe Rogan interviews, he did one with Billy Bob Thorton that just dropped. I’m sure I’ll watch all of that one as well…
Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement. She was able to force the abomination that was ObamaCare over the line, and grab a lot of taxpayer-funded pork for Democrats, but it’s doubtful her terms as Speaker resulted in lasting achievements for Democrats. She was bad, but if another Democrat manages to be Speaker in my lifetime, my default assumption is that they’ll be much, much worse…
A Washington Parish grand jury in Louisiana has indicted Democratic Bogalusa, Louisiana Mayor Tyrin Z. Truong on charges of malfeasance in office, public intimidation, and theft, according to the Bogalusa Daily News.
The indictment is part of what officials describe as an ongoing multi-agency investigation involving federal, state, and local authorities. Prosecutors allege Truong intentionally carried out his official duties unlawfully and knowingly allowed other city employees to ignore theirs. His arraignment is scheduled for November 10, 2025.
According to prosecutors, the case centers on claims that Truong misused Bogalusa taxpayer funds to pay a personal legal debt from a 2023 Louisiana public records lawsuit in which a judge ruled that Truong personally owed attorney fees and penalties after refusing to release public documents.
When the Bogalusa City Council denied his request to use public money, prosecutors say Truong threatened retaliation, vowing to overwhelm council members with records requests. Investigators allege he then pressured a city insurance vendor to issue a check labeled as a “reimbursement,” had it deposited into a city account, and ordered another check for the same amount to be written to himself.
Rookie mistake. Graft pros always have the check written to an intermediary cutout who withdraws the money and pays them in cash…
In 2022, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) announced a plan to give $715 million in taxpayer cash and tax incentives to lure Gotion, a Chinese battery maker, to rural central Michigan. She did it in the midst of a reelection campaign so she could fire off a press release claiming credit for 2,600 “good-paying jobs.”
She didn’t mind the fact that this proposed one-square-mile plant would be located less than 100 miles from an Army and National Guard training facility called Camp Grayling. The real irony is that the U.S. military has been training the Taiwanese military at Camp Graying for years to repel a Chinese invasion. Our governor was going to pay the CCP to operate a plant in the middle of the state. Genius!
Local residents rose up. Yes, of course, because they objected to the possibility of Chinese spies roaming around their community. But also because they resented the way in which the project was unveiled. Elected officials signed nondisclosure agreements with economic development agencies and then said they were legally bound from sharing details with the residents footing the bill.
The more questions citizens had, the more obstinate company, township, and state officials became. Green Charter Township is made up of normal people: farmers, small business owners, and the like. James Chapman, the chief project proponent and former township supervisor, quickly lost his patience in meetings and yelled at the rubes who had the temerity to attend and voice their opinions. They would yell right back. The massive project, shrouded in arrogant secrecy, bitterly divided the small community.
It reached a boiling point when township officials who were supporting the project either resigned or were overwhelmingly recalled. A new board was elected, and they went about doing the due diligence that taxpayers expect elected officials to pursue for such an expensive and disruptive project.
The CCP-linked company sued the new board, driving up massive legal bills for the tiny community. The company didn’t want to wait for environmental approvals, tearing down trees and homes. The community continued fighting, even employing President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Trump publicly opposed the project. Vance held a campaign rally across the street.
When they took office in January, they changed former President Joe Biden’s scam electric vehicle mandates, and the whole racket collapsed. It was the beginning of the end for the Gotion project.
Last week, the state of Michigan announced it was withdrawing the promise of $175 million in taxpayer cash, although $50 million had already been delivered. It’s unclear whether taxpayers will receive an accounting of where that money went.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Voting fraud alert. “North Carolina Republicans say texts show that local Democrats are paying for people’s votes.”
The North Carolina Republican Party referred an alleged vote-buying scheme to the State Board of Elections for investigation on Friday, claiming that a voter had been offered $100 to vote for Democratic candidates in the Wilmington City Council election.
‘This is a troubling allegation and an egregious affront to our democracy and an attempt to buy votes in exchange for cash,’ NC GOP Chair Jason Simmons said in a press conference. ‘The North Carolina Republican Party stands committed and steadfast in its determination for free, fair and transparent elections.’
“FAA Orders Flight Cuts at Texas Airports as Democrat-Led Shutdown Deepens. The FAA will cut flights by 10 percent at 40 of the nation’s top airports due to staffing shortages among air traffic controllers.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently signed Addendum No. 9 to their 2019 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), paving the way for faster follow-on licensing of advanced nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel technologies.
This agreement, signed Oct 24th and effective immediately, comes as major concerns have been raised by reactor development companies and industry observers regarding the double work that may be required of developers when they bring their tested products over to the NRC. Demand for clean, reliable energy by data centers and major industrial companies has created a stronger need for change in the path to reactor design commercialization, with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon signing long-term offtake agreements with reactor operators Constellation, NextEra, and Talen.
The addition to the MOU comes from the directives out of Trump’s executive orders signed back in May of this year. From section 5.d of the executive order “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”:
“Establish an expedited pathway to approve reactor designs that the DOD or the DOE have tested and that have demonstrated the ability to function safely. NRC review of such designs shall focus solely on risks that may arise from new applications permitted by NRC licensure, rather than revisiting risks that have already been addressed in the DOE or DOD processes.”
Surprisingly, the DOE and NRC took the executive order one step further and included a streamlined licensing process for nuclear fuel facilities as well. It becomes less surprising when we remember the current administration has highlighted multiple times the desire to reduce the reliance on foreign nuclear fuel supplies. Even with the Russian uranium import ban, the US is still importing over a fifth of the required enriched uranium from Russia through last year. The US government is looking to expand the domestic capacity of every step in the fuel chain as quickly as possible.
Faster, please.
“Top 20 Theories on Why the EU Committed Cultural Suicide.” They’re not mutually exclusive. And the piece needs an entry for cultural relativism/Frankfurt School and a Gramscian “war of position” against civil society.
Digital media hasn’t become the antidote to television. Digital media, empowered by the serum of algorithmic feeds, has become super-television: more images, more videos, more isolation. Home-alone time has surged as our devices have become more bottomless feeds of video content. Rather than escape the solitude crisis that Putnam described in the 1990s, we now seem to be more on our own. (Not to mention: meaner and stupider, too.)
It would be rash to blame our berserk political moment entirely on short-form video, but it would be careless to forget that some people really did try to warn us that this was coming. In Amusing Ourselves to Death1, Neil Postman wrote that “each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.” Television speaks to us in a particular dialect, Postman argued. When everything turns into television, every form of communication starts to adopt television’s values: immediacy, emotion, spectacle, brevity. In the glow of a local news program, or an outraged news feed, the viewer bathes in a vat of their own cortisol. When everything is urgent, nothing is truly important. Politics becomes theater. Science becomes storytelling. News becomes performance. The result, Postman warned, is a society that forgets how to think in paragraphs, and learns instead to think in scenes.
Snip.
Short-form video is indistinguishable from what today’s youth consider the definition of American success. For five straight years, Gen Z has told pollsters that the thing they most want to be when they grow up is an “influencer.”
When literally everything becomes television, what disappears is not something so broad as intelligence (although that seems to be going, too) but something harder to put into words, and even harder to prove the value of. It’s something like inwardness. The capacity for solitude, for sustained attention, for meaning that penetrates inward rather than swipes away at the tip of a finger: These virtues feel out of step with a world where every medium is the same medium and everything in life converges to the value system of the same thing, which is television.
I’m not free from guilt myself. I only turn on my TV one day a week, but I watch waaaaaaay too much YouTube. (Previously.) (Hat tip: Greg Ellifritz via Dwight.)
GM to iPhone users: Drop dead. “General Motors is dropping Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support across all of its brands—Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC.”
“Microsoft just revealed that OpenAI lost more than $11.5B last quarter.” “If Microsoft owns 27 percent of OpenAI, it stands to reason under equity accounting that it bears 27 percent of OpenAI’s losses. Microsoft’s admission that it shaved $3.1 billion off its net income to account for its share of OpenAI losses therefore suggests OpenAI lost about $11.5 billion during the quarter.”
“Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL: THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR unites Volume 1 and Volume 2 into a single, unrated epic—presented exactly as he intended, complete with a new, never-before-seen anime sequence.”
Coming to theaters in December. If I wasn’t in financial turtle mode, I’d probably go out and see it…
That’s quite a depth and breadth. Supposedly these will be replaced by “V Model” handguns in short order.
Here’s GlockStore’s Lenny Magill, who I think broke the news:
“As of November 30th, Glock is going to discontinue all models, Gen 3, 4, 5, everything except for the slimline guns are going to be discontinued and replaced with what they call the new V model.”
“Glock says this is all about an improved trigger and improved slide, but the reality of it is is uh these changes will prevent the Glock from accepting a switch that will convert it to full auto.”
One gun guy I know thinks it might be a response to a lot of lawsuits against Glock. I think a big contributing factor is California literally outlawing Glock guns in a law signed just even days ago.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a law banning sales of one of the most popular types of handgun in the U.S.
Assembly Bill 1127, authored by state Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino, and state Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, D-San Francisco, received the governor’s signature on Friday, Oct. 10.
The law bans new sales of “semi-automatic handguns that can be easily converted to a fully automatic machine gun with the use of a simple ‘switch,'” according to a statement from Gabriel’s office.
It covers handguns manufactured by Glock, as well as similarly designed pistols, that use a “cruciform trigger bar,” which lawmakers said makes them easily convertible to fully automatic fire.
The law, which takes effect on July 1, bars firearms dealers from selling Glock-style handguns.
The NRA has already sued California over the law, and there’s a decent chance it won’t stand up to post-Bruen scrutiny.
While significant news, this probably isn’t cause for Glock fans to panic, as I suspect Glock is already ready to start producing the new model V guns. I wouldn’t panic-buy what is about to become old stock right now, but you might keep an eye out for sales on current models you like. And you could also use the news as an excuse look at new models from some of Glock’s competitors…
A whole lot of despicable Democrats voted against remembering Charlie Kirk and denouncing political violence, a whole bunch of lefties are still lying about Kirk, Comey indicted, President Trump officially backs a complete Ukraine victory, a new American stealth fighter enters production, two murderous lefty scumbags die, and an infamous thirty-four year old Austin murder mystery is solved.
“The ‘Study’ You’re Citing About Right-Wing Violence Is Full Of Fake Data.”
After Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week, conservatives noted that most political violence comes from the left. The left bristles at this fact and has responded by dramatically padding the numbers to pretend the reverse is true.
Consider a Sept. 12 piece from The Economist claiming, “extremists on both left and right commit violence, although more incidents appear to come from right-leaning attackers.”
Right up front, the piece admits it used data “largely compiled by researchers whom sceptical (sic) conservatives would probably dismiss as biased.” The disclaimer is meant to inoculate The Economist’s audience to its sloppy reporting, as if challenges from conservatives will somehow prove The Economist’s accuracy.
Yes, readers should be beyond skeptical of the source in that piece, The Prosecution Project. Its website claims to “track[] and provid[e] analysis of felony criminal cases involving illegal political violence, terrorism, and extremism occurring in the United States since 1990.”
The founder and executive director of the Prosecution Project is Michael Loadenthal, although the links naming the website’s leadership were broken Friday, meaning no names were visible. Google had not yet scrubbed Loadenthal’s name from searches.
Loadenthal is an “openly anarchist Antifa-affiliated … researcher at the University of Cincinnati who, by his own admission, is a far-left violent extremist,” The Federalist reported in 2023.
So we have an Antifa-connected researcher with rabid bias against the right, held out as an expert on deciding who is extreme. It is like using a vegetarian to define which meat eaters are the most humane — none of them, says the vegetarian.
The Prosecution Project lists January 2024 charges against John Reardon of Massachusetts, who made antisemitic threats against synagogues and the Israeli Consulate. It notes, “Influenced by events in Gaza, he also said, ‘you do realize that by supporting genocide that means it’s ok for people to commit genocide against you.’” The Department of Justice never identified Reardon’s political affiliation, but The Prosecution Project’s own account seems to indicate he was a pro-Palestine fanatic, a cause typically associated with Democrats. Yet The Prosecution Project identifies Reardon’s crimes as “rightist” because they’re “identity-focused.”
The group also lists 2022 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act charges against Edmee Chavannes — even though “Chavannes was found not guilty.”
The Prosecution Project even includes the posting of racist stickers in its tracker, as if that’s comparable to terrorism or violence. One wonders if the group will treat Democrats’ desecration of Charlie Kirk memorials with the same seriousness.
Most crimes involving race or abortion businesses are blamed on the right in the data, with nothing to back up those claims. Yet these issues and others often cross over to the left. The Federalist has reported on the progressive anti-abortion movement, for example, and the left’s Marxist oppressor-versus-oppressed framework is manifestly racist.
Comb through the ridiculous data on The Prosecution Project’s website, and you will soon conclude it is worthless to everyone except leftist propagandists trying to downplay Charlie Kirk’s murder and flip the blame for violence in the U.S. to the right.
Similarly, a biased “study” by Alex Nowrasteh at the Cato Institute was debunked this week by Amber Duke at The Daily Caller.
Nowrasteh claims politically motivated violence is rare in the U.S., but that when it happens, “right-wing terrorists” are more often to blame than the left — that is, when you exclude the terrorists who killed 2,977 victims on Sept. 11, 2001, and exclude injuries, property damage, and people who were not killed. Thus, his criteria exclude the two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, for example. Additionally, Duke found that some of the crimes Nowrasteh blamed on the right were at best questionable and at worst downright wrong.
Duke pointed to another lopsided study by the Anti-Defamation League, which also claims the right is to blame for increased political violence. Ryan James Girdusky unpacked those magic numbers and noted glaring omissions. For example, the ADL left the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson out of its study.
Despite the evidence all pointing to Kirk’s killer being on the left wing of the ideological spectrum, the conspiracy theory about a right-wing shooter was pushed by a host of Democratic members of Congress, high-profile left-wing activists, liberal social media influencers, and more.
The most common evidence-free claim on the left has been that the shooter was a follower of far right influencer Nick Fuentes.
Lot’s more quotes from various lefty idiots asserting this connection without proof at the link.
As each new detail trickled out, and the killer’s transgender associations became clearer and clearer, the hysterical spin and assertions of blunt unreality mounted. Cynical pros began inserting outright lies into the mix, as partisan myrmidons took up their work and used it in desperate, craven attempts to either spin facts in ridiculous ways (“his parents are Republicans!”) or simply pretend the facts weren’t “facts” at all. All of it was done with the intent of trying to will into existence — through the spread of fear, uncertainty, and doubt — an alternate narrative whose intended moral calculus amounted to, in so many words, Charlie Kirk was killed by his own team, and this is actually your fault.
So, no, I’m not about to move on just yet.
I could understand a certain amount of denialism at first, because I understand human nature. For those on the left who treat politics like a substitute religion — an increasing number of people in our irreligious age — this moment has been akin to seeing several of the central tenets of your faith publicly refuted. The revelation of the identity of the alleged shooter and the reports about his beliefs were arguably the worst possible scenario for the sorts of loud Democratic types who are deeply invested in the idea of the MAGA right as America’s true fever-swamp of hatred and violence.
I can understand ignorance as well, because I depend on documenting it for a job — the Carnival of Fools would have to fold up its tent without it. In the days before the suspect was caught, it was natural that desperate progressives who get their news from left-wing authorities would use that span of time — when the killer was still at large — to conjure their own arcane interpretive theories in defiance of the known evidence. I feel inevitable disgust at these sad attempts at spin — I know who publicly celebrated the attack on Kirk, after all, and it wasn’t anyone on my side — but again, it was expected.
But I can’t understand any of this after Tyler Robinson was caught on Friday morning. At that point, mere ignorance and wish-casting turned into an active disinformation campaign, and it was particularly appalling to see from people whose civic responsibility it is to know better. To take one example, how about the repellent Eric Swalwell? On Friday afternoon, in an audaciously sleazy bit of “partial storytelling,” the California congressman tweeted: “It doesn’t matter that Kirk’s killer was a straight white male. Or that he was from a Republican family that voted for Donald Trump. Violence has NEVER been the answer.”
If he thought this was a cute joke, he’s a moral reprobate. If he thought it was an effective deceit, he’s also a moral reprobate. I think it is thus fair to conclude that he’s a moral reprobate. The jury’s still out on his fellow California Democratic congressman Dave Min, however, who may simply be stupid. Min said on Saturday: “Now that the Charlie Kirk assassin has been identified as MAGA, I’m sure Donald Trump, Elon Musk and all the insane GOP politicians who called for retribution against the ‘RADICAL LEFT’ will now shift their focus to stopping the toxic violence of the RADICAL RIGHT.” (As it turns out, Dave? No, we won’t!)
How about Harvard Law professor — and Joe Biden legal adviser — Laurence Tribe? Tribe announced on Twitter that the killer “seems to have been ultra-MAGA, exploding the GOP/MAGA attempt to pin the blame for this tragedy on liberals.” (How he got that idea is anybody’s guess.) Later, he deleted the tweet and posted a non-apology accusing the right of “making things up” by associating the killer with transgender or left-wing causes. I can only tell you that once upon a time he had a fine legal mind.
I certainly can’t say the same for Heather Cox Richardson, the world’s most-followed Substacker. Richardson is a Temu Tribe, an oracle of the complacently progressive academic establishment, and demonstrated it once again by going on a podcast on Friday to claim that the killer was a “right-winger” and all those outraged conservatives online were now retreating “in a real hurry.” (Lest you think that was an error born of speaking off the cuff, Richardson put it in writing as well.)
Now that the gaslighting has become impossible to sustain, the left has moved on to its last line of defense: “Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed whom.” It will be a long time before I forget the five days I have just spent being gaslighted both by political operators as well as people who remain transparently in denial. I expected better of them. I held them only to the standards that I hold myself. It was a mistake.
“Trump golf club gunman [Ryan Routh] found guilty after assassination attempt; tries to stab self in court.” The left is sending us an endless parade of violent lunatics and losers.
One of former President Joe Biden’s top aides – Jeff Zients, told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that an aide with his email credentials was green lighting some of the most controversial ‘autopen’ pardons, that Hunter Biden – who received an insane pardon himself – was involved in the pardon discussions, and that Joe Biden’s brain was pea soup.
According to Axios, Zients – one of the highest ranking officials from the Biden White House – confirmed that Joe Biden had difficulty remembering dates and names, and often required extra briefings to make decisions during the final years of his presidency.
Instead of having three meetings before making a decision, for example, Biden would want four.
Zients said Biden had long had trouble with names and dates, but acknowledged to investigators that the president’s memory of such facts got worse in the final years of his term.
Jill Biden, meanwhile, spoke with Zients about ‘managing Joe’ as Zients was readying himself to take on the role of Chief of Staff in early 2023 – urging him to adjust Biden’s schedule so he could get more rest and return to the White House residence earlier in the evening.
Longtime Biden aide and deputy CoS Annie Tomasini also spoke with Zients about limiting Biden’s schedule and shortening distances and stairs.
According to Fox News, Zients “admitted that President Biden’s speech stumbles increased as he aged,” adding “He also noted that the president’s difficulty remembering dates and names worsened over time, including during the administration.”
Also interesting – Zients told investigators that Hunter Biden was involved in discussions about presidential pardons towards the end of Biden’s term, which included the blanket pardons of several members of the Biden family issued during Joe’s final 24 hours in office. It had been previously reported by NBC News that Hunter was sitting in on White House meetings following the former president’s horrible performance during a June 2024 debate against Donald Trump.
And just like that millions of lefty sorts who piously sand “No one’s above the law!” for the ginned-up Trump indictments all automatically switched to “This is a dangerous precedent!” when it comes to indicting James Comey.
Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted on criminal charges related to allegations that he lied to Congress during testimony in 2020 about whether he authorized a leak of information.
Comey is facing one count of false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
“No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
President Trump reacted gleefully to the indictment in a statement shared to Truth Social.
“JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI.”
“Today he was indicted by a Grand Jury on two felony counts for various illegal and unlawful acts. He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Comey’s indictment in Virginia federal court comes just days before the statute of limitations for the perjury charge was set to run out. The charges come five years after Comey testified on September 30, 2020, before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he never authorized anyone at the FBI to leak information to the press related to the investigations of either possible collusion between Trump and Russia or Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized email system.
During the hearing, Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) asked Comey whether he had authorized leaks related to either investigation. Comey reiterated what he said in 2017 congressional testimony, that he had not.
Cruz argued that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had said Comey authorized at least one such disclosure, related to the Clinton investigation. But the Justice Department inspector general found in 2018 that McCabe had “lacked candor when he told Comey, or made statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure and did not know who did.”
The charges also center in part on an October 2016 New York Times report, “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.”
The Times article was in response to reporting in Slate that Trump had established a communications back channel with the Kremlin, involving servers at Trump Tower in Manhattan and Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions.
Hours after the Slate article was published, the Times report related the FBI’s conclusion that the back-channel claim was unfounded. The report also detailed that the bureau’s counterintelligence investigation of Russia’s malign activities in connection with the 2016 campaign were not linked to Trump and his campaign.
Special counsel John Durham probed the leaks to the Times in connection with the story as an unauthorized public disclosure (UPD) of classified information.
The February 2020 closing memorandum for the probe, obtained by veteran journalist Catherine Herridge, found there were two major government sources for the story: James Baker, FBI general counsel and a close adviser to Comey, and FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki. Baker told investigators that he was “under the belief” that he was “ultimately instructed and authorized to [provide information to the Times] by then FBI Director James Comey.”
However, Baker did not claim that Comey gave him a direct order. “Baker indicated that FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki instructed him (Baker) to disclose the information to the NYT, and Baker understood Rybicki was conveying this instruction and authorization from Comey.”
A Dallas U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility was the target of a shooting Wednesday morning that left two detainees dead, one person injured, and the suspect committing suicide at the scene.
According to the Dallas Police Department, law enforcement responded to a call at a Dallas ICE facility after reports that someone had opened fire from an adjacent building.
Two detainees were pronounced dead, with another being rushed to the hospital in critical condition with a gunshot injury.
The suspected shooter, a white male armed with a rifle on a roof, died by suicide as agents approached, FOX4 Dallas reported.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons spoke to CNN about the shooting as the event unfolded, saying that the scene is secure and the shooter is “down from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Bullets found had anti-ICE slogans written on them.
Why people who kept freaking out at Trump negotiating with Putin shouldn’t have. “Trump Says Ukraine Can Win Back All of Its Territory from Russia.”
President Donald Trump declared his belief Tuesday that Ukraine can win its war against Russia outright, an extraordinary shift in tone with significant ramifications for U.S. policy.
Trump shared his views on Truth Social after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
“I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form. With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option,” Trump said.
Trump’s position is a 180-degree shift from his longstanding view that Ukraine would have to cede territory to Russia as a condition for ending the war. Moscow holds roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory after invading its neighbor three-and-a-half years ago. Russian forces have slowly made gains along the eastern part of Ukraine in what has become a grueling war of attrition with hundreds of thousands of estimated casualties.
Trump argued Russia is a “paper tiger” and suggested Russian people were not aware of the damage Russian President Vladimir Putin has done to their nation. He also praised the “Great Spirit” of Ukraine and said Ukraine could “maybe even go further” than reclaiming its original territory. Trump’s comments are a stark contrast from his past statements that argued Russia was winning the war and likened Zelensky to a dictator.
Trump promised the U.S. would keep sending weapons to NATO for the alliance to use in the way it sees fit. His comments will likely prompt a furious response from Putin and Russian forces in Ukraine. It also remains to be seen how Trump’s restraint-oriented cabinet members and political allies react to his unexpected shift.
As previously observed, Trump’s negotiating strategy works on persuasion and tit-for-tat strategies. Zelensky, after some early stumbles, is finally fully onboard with Trump, while Putin hasn’t offered anything in return to Trump’s overtures. That means that Zelensky gets all the carrots, and Putin gets all the sticks. Golly, who could have seen that one coming except everyone who’s actually watched Trump operate for the last ten years who isn’t suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome?
Ukraine launched another big drone strike, this one on the Saratov oil refinery in Bryanskaya Ulitsa, Saratov Oblast, the third time they’ve hit it since August.
Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth has summoned 800 generals and admirals from around the world to Washington D.C. without telling them what for. They’re going to be pretty surprised when he announces that he’s brought all of them there to talk about Amway…
23-year-old Hunter Nadeau was arrested on scene for shooting multiple victims at the Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashau, New Hampshire, Saturday night. A 59-year-old named Robert DeCesare was killed in front of his family. At least two others were injured.
Tom Bartelson of Pepperell, Massachusetts, is the witness in the video above. He was at his nephew’s wedding in a private room of the club when the gunman entered the building dressed in all black. The shooter yelled, “The children are safe!” and “Free Palestine!” before killing DeCesare. He then moved into the club restaurant and opened fire again.
Funny no matter what the leftwing cause, the solution seems to be murdering American citizens.
A once-celebrated Boston social activist has pleaded guilty to defrauding donors — including Black Lives Matter — out of thousands of dollars that she used as a personal piggy bank.
Monica Cannon-Grant, 44, pleaded guilty Monday to 18 counts of fraud-related crimes that she committed with her late husband while operating their Violence in Boston (VIB) activists group, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts.
The activist scammed money — including $3,000 from a BLM group — while claiming it was to help feed children and run protests like one in 2020 over the murder of George Floyd and police violence.
Cannon-Grant also conned her way into getting $100,000 in federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits — which she used to pay off her personal auto loan and car insurance policy.
But she has now confessed to transferring funds to personal bank accounts to pay for rent, shopping sprees, delivery meals, visits to a nail salon — and even a summer vacation to Maryland.
At least 187 code packages made available through the JavaScript repository NPM have been infected with a self-replicating worm that steals credentials from developers and publishes those secrets on GitHub, experts warn. The malware, which briefly infected multiple code packages from the security vendor CrowdStrike, steals and publishes even more credentials every time an infected package is installed.
You may remember Crowdstrike from such hits as “we helped Hillary Clinton illegally erase her secret email server.”
Speaking of technology running amok: “OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws.” That sounds like the sort6 of cruel fact that should throw a kink in all of these AI company’s getting trillion dollar valuations but somehow won’t.
In California, 13 year old boy killed by sex-abusing, illegal alien soccer coach. The family of boy is “suing Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles for failing to perform a background check on the coach.”
Turns out that when conservatives said they were being unfairly censored due to Biden Administration pressure, they were right all along. “YouTube Lifts Ban on Censored Creators, Admits Biden Admin Pressure Was ‘Unacceptable.'”
Google is making major changes to YouTube’s free speech policies following pressure from House Republicans and shifts among its top competitors.
In a letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), an attorney for Alphabet, Google and YouTube’s parent company, announced a series of changes to YouTube’s approach to free speech, including the return of banned creators to the platform and the implementation of a community notes system to replace third-party fact-checkers.
YouTube is rolling back its restrictive policies surrounding political speech, especially the Covid-19 pandemic and elections. The video platform said its reliance on public health authorities was well intentioned, but expressed regret at its impact on public debate on issues that were far from settled.
More broadly, YouTube admitted senior Biden administration officials conducted extensive outreach to YouTube to influence its approach to “misinformation” and Covid-19 content that did not violate YouTube’s policies.
“Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies,” the letter reads.
While YouTube independently enforced its policies, Biden officials “continued to press the Company” to remove content that did not violate the platform’s policies. The letter calls out Biden and other administration officials for creating a “political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms” under the guise of “misinformation.”
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order later this week declaring that an emerging deal involving the video-sharing app TikTok meets American security needs and constitutes a qualified divestiture under U.S. law, according to people familiar with the matter.
Under the deal, American tech company Oracle will serve as the app’s security provider, which will independently monitor the source code of the app as well as study how a U.S.-controlled copy of the TikTok content recommendation algorithm operates and interacts with phone features and updates.
Oracle will be required to “retrain” a leased duplicate TikTok algorithm…
So it will not necessarily be a Chinese spyware app any more, but will still be malware for your brain…
Good news from the border! “Texas, Southwest Region See ‘Historically Low’ Southern Border Apprehensions in August.”
Texas’ border jurisdictions are scrambling to manage thousands of pending Operation Lone Star cases after key state partners abruptly pulled out, leaving local officials to coordinate housing and transportation for defendants.
Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith told Texas Scorecard the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), both of which helped provide housing for illegal crossers arrested under the border security initiative, are no longer handling those responsibilities.
The Del Rio Processing Center is reportedly shutting down, along with Val Verde County’s detention facility—the original epicenter of Operation Lone Star (OLS) prosecutions.
“We’re left holding the bag,” Smith said. “Counties are having to figure this out on their own without the infrastructure the state had in place.”
Smith said approximately half of all prosecutions tied to OLS in Kinney County have already been resolved, either through pleas or dismissals, but thousands of cases remain active.
According to numbers from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, more than 2,600 felony cases have already been resolved. Nearly 2,000 cases are still pending, in part due to lengthy appeals.
Meanwhile, the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office has more than 700 outstanding warrants for alleged smugglers and another 1,400 warrants that have not yet been executed because of limited capacity to house and transport defendants.
Kinney County has contracts with about 10 jails across Texas—including some as far away as the Panhandle—but the county jail cannot hold a person beyond 72 hours, as it is considered a temporary holding facility. That has forced sheriffs and prosecutors into a patchwork system for transferring detainees, with major bottlenecks since TDCJ and TDEM stopped coordinating.
The Dolph Briscoe Unit in Dilley and the Segovia Unit in Edinburg, which had filled major housing roles, are no longer available, worsening the shortage.
Plus border counties have been avoid arresting women because they don’t have room for them in separate facilities.
Amazon settles a lawsuit for tricking people into signing up for Prime and making it nearly impossibility to cancel to the tune of $2.5 billion.
So where did President Trump get the crazy idea that using Tylenol during pregnancy could result in autism? A Harvard study. “Using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk.”
Austin Yogurt Shop Murders finally solved? retired Austin detective John Jones fingered serial killer and rapist Robert Eugene Brashers (who died in a standoff with police in 1999) as the culprit. Brashers is a serial killer and rapist who committed at least three murders between 1990 and 1998 in the states of South Carolina and Missouri. He died in January 1999 by suicide during a standoff with police. Evidently a new type of DNA testing finally matched up Brashers as the culprit.
More scenes from The Fall Of England: “Muslim who shouted ‘I’m going to kill you’ while stabbing man is given suspended sentence by British court; victim charged instead.”
UK’s Labour government thought they could get away with some cost-free virtue signaling by recognizing “a Palestinian state.” Surprise! “UK could face claim for $2,700,000,000,000 in reparations for recognizing Palestinian state.”
Gov. Greg Abbott today announced a $5.5 million grant from Texas for the construction of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Harris County — one of multiple projects approved under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation (JETI) program over the past year.
Abbott joined Eli Lilly and Company executives for a press conference on Tuesday afternoon in Houston to announce its creation of a nearly one million-square foot active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing facility. The company estimated that it’ll produce around 600 new jobs and will invest more than $6.5 billion within the state.
The grant of $5.5 million towards Lilly’s new project was made possible through the JETI approval process, a property tax abatement program established through contentious legislation passed during the 88th regular legislative session.
House Bill (HB) 5, which was signed into law by Abbott in June 2023, replaced a 20-year-old initiative with a new economic incentive program. It created a pathway for school districts to grant companies a decade-long break in their property tax payments in exchange for relocation to their area. It limited the kinds of companies eligible to receive abatements and grants for projects in Texas, excluding renewable energy projects after negotiations proved its removal to be necessary for passage in the Legislature.
Let me reiterate my general opposition to government subsidies of business in almost all circumstances. Government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. However, an end to subsidizing money-losing “renewable energy” sources that made the Texas Interconnect Grid less reliable is a big plus.
One of the first projects approved under JETI this year, also in Harris County, was to assist Summit Next Gen in opening “a world-class sustainable aviation fuel manufacturing and refining facility along the Texas Gulf Coast,” in January 2025. It’s expected to produce over $1.6 billion in capital investment for Texas.
In February, Abbott made two JETI expansion project announcements: one for a new Braven Environmental facility in Texarkana, estimated to rake in more than $145 million in investment for the state, and the other for Vinton Steel’s “advanced manufacturing facility that recycles ferrous scrap into new steel products.” Vinton is expected to invest over $229 million in the state and create an additional 180 new jobs.
Brazos Midland Processing LLC, also known as Brazos Midstream, was announced as an approved recipient in late August for a “300 million cubic feet per day natural gas processing plant” in Martin County, expected to create $185 million in capital investment.
At Tuesday’s announcement of the new Lilly project, Abbott reiterated that “Texas is the best state in America for doing business.”
And speaking of unreliable renewable energy subsidies: “$2.2 billion solar plant in California scheduled to be turned off after years of wasted money.” That would be Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert, the one that used mirrors to concentrate light onto a single tower, and which fried lots of birds every year. I’m surprised that it was still running, given how markedly unsuccessful it’s been at generating affordable energy years ago. But I may be confusing it with the similar (and similarly failed) Crescent Dunes project. That’s the one that suffered the molten salt leaks… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Dwight also brought news of the deaths of two murderous leftwing scumbags: Would-be Gerald R. Ford assassin Sara Jane Moore, and JoAnne Chesimard, aka “Assata Shakur”, of the Black Liberation Army, who murdered New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster. The latter died in Havana. Rot in hell, commie.
California attorney hit with $10,000 fine for brief filled with fake ChatGPT quotes. “The Los Angeles-area attorney fined last week, Amir Mostafavi, told the court that he did not read text generated by the AI model before submitting the appeal in July 2023, months after OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as capable of passing the bar exam.” The real fine should be no client ever willing to trust his lazy ass again..
This is pretty damn funny:
The White House has placed a photo of an auto-pen signature instead of a portrait of former President Biden on the “Presidential Walk of Fame” pic.twitter.com/4HRU7g8Vr8
“The radical Lower East Side shop that lured drug addicts to its storefront by offering free clothing, food and Narcan suddenly shut down Tuesday — sparking internal warfare and finger pointing.”
Without warning, Bluestockings Cooperative announced that it would permanently shut down after more than 26 years, stating that “daily operations are unfortunately no longer sustainable on multiple fronts.”
“This was our absolute last resort. On top of our crew’s ongoing struggle against the organized abandonment of New York City and the constant crises, the remaining worker-owner and staff are at the limits of what they can manage in terms of health, disability, and finances,” a statement posted to Instagram reads.
The Suffolk Street shop blamed the closure on its failure as a worker-owned cooperative to “come to consensus around the guiding principles and practices Bluestockings should embody” — adding that an inability to align on political and business operations directly led to the setbacks the business faced over the last two years.
“Of course, $12,000 a month in rent, thousands in utilities, and racist, classist violence from ‘neighbors’ certainly didn’t make our work any easier,” the statement continued.
Bluestockings came under intense outrage from its posh Lower East Side neighborhood, which transformed into a “zombie apocalypse” of strung-out junkies shooting up in broad daylight who were drawn to the bookstore’s free and indiscriminate services.
The self-described “radically inclusive” shop was a state-recognized Opiate Overdose Prevention Program and offered “harm reduction services” like Narcan, drug-testing strips and a used needle-drop off bin — which neighbors alleged enabled the junkies.
In recent years, Bluestockings plunged into around $100,000 in debt to its publishers and book distributors, according to reports.
Social justice is incompatible with both profit and basic human decency. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never been impressed with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I first became aware of him due to his ludicrous overstatements about global warming and falsely claiming that George W. Bush didn’t win the 2004 presidential election. Indeed, he was previously lefty scumbag on many (perhaps most) issues, had more than a whiff of fringe lunacy about him, and (through no fault of his own) I find him hard to listen to, due to his spasmodic dysphonia. And I still think he’s more wrong than right on the vaccine-autism link.
But the Democrat Media Complex seems to have conspicuously hated RFK, Jr. since he suggested that link back in 2005. That hatred only kicked into higher gear when Kennedy had the unmitigated gall that his ancestral party might be willing to live up to its name and let him primary Slow Joe Biden. No such luck. The DNC opened their vast bag of dirty tricks to keep Kennedy from even competing in the 2024 Democratic Presidential primary, and thus making sure nothing would expose Slow Joe’s cognitive decline until it was too late for a real primary. Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump was a key factor in winning over a certain type of old school liberal who felt alienated from the modern Democratic Party’s increasing authoritarian, social justice-infected nature, but was still wary of Trump.
All that doesn’t necessarily make him a good Director of the Department of Health and Human Services. But damn, given how viciously Democrats have been attacking Kennedy on everything from CDC firings to vaccine policy makes me think that Kennedy may be over the target. It’s fascinating to see Democrats attack someone who literally grew up in the Democrat Party harder than they’ve attacked anyone else in Trump47’s cabinet.
The reasons for this are probably varied. One is the absolute refusal of the social justice left to admit that their full-bore 2020 Flu Manchu freakout, with its lockdowns, vaccine mandates (especially for children) and thunderous invocation of that most holy of deities, THE SCIENCE, were in any way mistakes or overreactions. The Democrat Party has come to represent the entirety of the ruling class, and Kennedy’s exposure of the lies and data manipulation carried out in the name of fighting Covid raises the specter of people actually being held to account for their self-dealing lies, and that Simply Will Not Do.
The second reason Democrats absolutely hate Kennedy is his documentation of how Big Pharma has bought control of the Democrats. Here’s a Rumble interview Jordan Peterson did with Kennedy on a variety of topics, including how Big Pharma (specifically Merck, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKlein, and either Novartis or Novo Nordisk) were committing crimes, capturing regulatory agencies and how ObamaCare got the Democrats in bed with them.
(I had previously embedded that video (or an excerpt from it) here, but, what do you know, YouTube deleted that video.)
Kennedy may still be wrong about a great many things, but the more viciously he’s attacked, the more convinced I am that Big Pharma has fatally compromised both medical science and our unworthy political elites.
When you’re receiving this much flak, I have to assume that you’re over the target…
The Trump administration’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially withdrawn the Land Protection Plan that would have enabled a dramatic expansion of the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge in West Texas, a move celebrated by Texas lawmakers and land rights advocates as a major victory for private property rights.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the withdrawal on Wednesday, with Service Principal Deputy Director Justin Shirley explaining it is “consistent with the priorities of the Trump administration” by “reducing regulatory burdens, strengthening partnerships with state and local stakeholders, and ensuring responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources.”
Originally finalized under the Biden administration, the Muleshoe Land Protection Plan would have allowed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to expand the refuge from its current 6,440 acres to up to 700,000 acres—an increase of over 10,000 percent—by purchasing land or acquiring conservation easements from willing sellers across a vast area of Texas and New Mexico.
No, you can’t eat 700,000 acres using regulatory fiat. Not yours.
The Biden proposal would have eaten up land in 15 Texas counties, including Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Crosby, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Parmer, Terry, and Yoakum. The expansion into five counties in New Mexico includes land from Chaves, Curry, De Baca, Lea, and Roosevelt counties. The proposed map showed the feds “protecting” land right up to the edge of Lubbock.
This move was portrayed by the administration as part of its broader “30×30” initiative to conserve 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
Both the Muleshoe expansion plan and the 30×30 plan in general smacked of the sort of unauthorized, self-directed bureaucratic empire-building that the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision struck down.
The project engendered strong opposition from Texas representatives, including House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R–Lubbock), who played a pivotal role in the reversal.
Arrington argued the plan was an “outrageous land grab” that threatened the property rights and livelihoods of West Texans, especially local farmers, ranchers, and energy producers.
He introduced legislation—the No Federal Expansion Designation (No FED) in West Texas Act—to specifically prohibit the expansion.
Arrington’s amendment to defund the proposed expansion successfully passed the House in July 2024 as part of the fiscal year 2025 Interior Appropriations Bill.
Multiple efforts, including public hearings, letters to federal authorities, and vocal messaging against the plan, culminated in President Trump’s executive orders prioritizing energy development and property rights, which underpinned the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to withdraw the LPP.
Issue by issue, the gross leftwing overreach of the Biden Administration is being reigned in and replaced with respect for the constitution, the rule of law, and private property rights.
