Bill Maher noted how Democrats are in danger of going the way of other “ghost brands” like Sears and Playboy.
“A ghost brand, that’s a company or a store that like Sears still exists, but only as a pathetic shell of its former self.”
“I fear the Democratic party is at risk of becoming a ghost brand too. Like Sears, it used to be mighty and ascendant and popular. Sears once accounted for 1% of the entire American economy and 41% of the appliance market and built the country’s tallest tower. Democrats once controlled Congress and the Supreme Court, or were at least competitive.”
“The Democrats have their lowest rating in 35 years. 63% unfavorable. What happened? I don’t know.” This is a lie. Maher knows that social justice is killing the Democrat Party, he just doesn’t want to say it.
“What happened to Sears? It used to be synonymous with the American Dream because it kept faith with what the customer wanted.” This is a reductio ad absurdum, as the American Dreams mean a whole lot more than the ability to buy decent material goods.
“Did we love Sears? No. But that was besides the point. You just went. It was like an Avatar movie that sold tools. It used to be where your family bought everything from school clothes to appliances to your family Christmas portrait.”
“Sears used to have 3,500 stores and now it has five.”
“Same thing happened to Playboy, except in silk pajamas and a captain’s hat.”
“For for 66 years, Playboy magazine was also a fact of American life. Sears sold your father a mattress and Playboy was what he hid under it.”
“Plus real journalism. You could read an interview with Carter while enjoying photos of bush.”
“But but then it started messing around with the formula. Like the Democratic Party, Playboy decided they didn’t need straight men anymore. They put transgender women and gay men on the cover and predictably sales, like their subscribers penises, collapsed.”
“The staff began using terms like intersectionality, sex positivity, and privileging. And in response, Playboy readers use terms like, ‘No thanks, get the fuck out of here, and buy-bye.'”
Cracker Barrel analogy snipped.
“It reminded me of when Chuck Schumer said in 2016 that for every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we’re going to pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philly, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Yeah, how’d that work out?”
“But at least Cracker Barrel had the sense to immediately say, ‘Oh sorry.’ and put the sling blades back on the wall. Democrats don’t seem to be doing that. They still seem to want to be that upscale store that impresses celebrities.”
Description of how Barney’s went from a solid discount clothing store to a wannabe upscale failure snipped.
“And I’m not making this up just because it’s Halloween, but after Barney’s closed for good in 2020, it became, yes, a Spirit Halloween.”
“I’m just saying Democrats need to get their shit together, because America needs two political parties, not one party and one Halloween store.”
What’s doing in the Democrats is what did in Playboy: Intersectionality, transgenderism, supporting illegal aliens over American citizens, and the entire post-modern social justice woke-mind-virus zoo. They went from seeing blue collar workers as the backbone of the party to seeing them as icky carriers of hetronormative toxic masculinity, patriarchy and white privilege. Donald Trump, alone of all the 2016 Republican presidential candidates, saw those same voters as a key ingredient into making Republicans into America’s natural majority party.
But unlike Sears or Playboy, there’s a limit to how much the free market can correct a self-destructive ideology. The woke are absolutely sure of their unshakable virtue, and seizing and maintaining control of the Democrat Party is far more important to them than pleasing mere voters. Social Justice Democrats believe they’re on “the right side of history,” and like Tareyton smokers, they’d rather fight than switch. Or, as poor Charlie Kirk found out, they’d rather kill the “Nazis” that oppose their policies than consider the possibility that they’re wrong.
Texas Democrats went through a similar struggle in the 1960s through 1990s. Liberals knew that if they were ever to take control of the party, they would have to drive conservatives out of the Party, so they convinced conservatives they had to leave the Democrats and vote in Republican primaries, as documented in Wayne Thorburn’s Red State. This they accomplished, but somehow seemed to think Texans would just continue voting Democrats in year after year.
And that’s why Democrats haven’t elected anyone statewide in Texas in over 30 years.
Come Tuesday, New York City Democrats will quite likely elect a Jew-hating communist rather than consider the possibility that their ideas are not just wrong, but evil. And thus the party will take yet another lurch toward electoral ghost brand irrelevance.
And they’re a whole lot less popular and innovative than Spirit Halloween…
Labour’s policy of continuing to import unassimilated Muslim illegal aliens is so popular that Prime Minister Keir Starmer needs a police escort to guard him through a crowd screaming things at him like “traitor” and “child abuser.”
Huge marches against unassimilated Muslim immigration continue to happen all across the UK. The government recently banned a UKIP march in Tower Hamlets, a London borough that’s been taken over by Muslims. Here’s one resident stating why they’re leaving.
I moved to Tower Hamlets a few years ago as a centrist, but will shortly leave the place as an Advance UK College member – a ‘Far-Right’ enemy, if my local council are to be believed. Living here has certainly played a large role in my philosophical evolution, by forcing me to contend with the harsh reality of life in multicultural Britain.
In Tower Hamlets I am surrounded by hardcore religious conservatism. It seems like 50% of the women I see on a daily basis wear full black niqabs or burkas, with only a thin slit for them to see out of. It is a radically misogynistic culture that would be more at home in Iran, growing in the heart of London.
This radical shift in culture is demographic in origin. The local population is now 34.6% Bangladeshi and nearly 39.9% Muslim, and a Bangladeshi Muslim party named Aspire dominates politics.
For an example of the corrosive effects of this on our democracy, the mayor of Tower Hamlets is a charming fellow called Lutfur Rahman. Rahman was barred from running for five years after he was found to have engaged in vote-rigging.
The Election Commisioner also upheld the allegations of bribery, giving food and drink to encourage people to vote for him and spiritual influence after voters were told it was their duty as Muslims to vote for Rahman.
Staggeringly unperturbed by this, voters have put him in charge once more. This sort of outcome is utterly alien to the United Kingdom. It is pure sectarianism.
I wonder whether anyone who is not Bangladeshi will ever win political power in Tower Hamlets again.
As for the area itself, Tower Hamlets is a sea of urban decay, graffiti, and the third highest crime rate in London. Nothing works. When my car was stolen from directly in front of a CCTV camera, the council told us that they were unwilling to scan the footage to find out who had stolen it. Perhaps, in an area rife with low-grade gang warfare, the reasons for that go beyond laziness.
It’s a borough in which days ago masked Muslims took to the street flying the same black-and-white flag favoured by Islamists and jihadists the world over.
All of the above is a direct result of mass immigration, multiculturalism, and foreign ethnoreligious sectarianism. Wherever these factors become dominant, similar dysfunctional end results will play out across the country.
Ultimately, Britain is not Bangladesh or Pakistan. If people want to participate in ethnoreligious sectarianism on behalf of those cultures then they can freely and rightly do so – in Bangladesh or Pakistan. Meanwhile, we should not be afraid to assert the same principles here in the United Kingdom, on behalf of the British people and our culture.
Labour popularity is hitting record lows in polls, but Labour seems to think if they can just brazen it out until the next mandatory parliamentary election, they can import and amnesty enough Muslims to give them a permanent electoral majority.
But ordinary Brits may reach their breaking point before then.
Happy Halloween! Biden’s FBI turned January 6 investigations into a vast monitoring program aimed at Republicans, the Schumer Shutdown continues, a whole of disturbing illegal alien sex offenders, Milei wins again in Argentina, Russian floating crane does what Russian ships do best, the autopen scandal deepens, and one really weird gun.
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Arctic Frost was an operation by the Biden FBI to use the half-assed January 6 riot to turn the federal government into a Stasi aimed at Republicans, including “Nearly 200 Subpoenas Targeting 400 GOP-Linked Individuals, Entities.”
The Biden-era FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation into President Trump and the broader GOP’s role in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot was more wide-ranging than previously known, according to newly released documents showing the bureau issued nearly 200 subpoenas targeting more than 400 Republican entities and individuals as part of the probe.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) released records on Wednesday showing 197 subpoenas were issued to individuals and businesses during the FBI’s “Arctic Frost” investigation targeting 430 GOP individuals and entities. He obtained the records through protected whistleblower disclosures.
Financial institutions, Trump-aligned political organizations and operatives, conservative think tanks, and payroll companies were among the subpoena recipients, according to a list compiled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Federal investigators sought communications between the targeted individuals and media companies, prominent Trump-world officials, and legislative staff. The investigative efforts also encompassed MAGA fundraising efforts and donors.
Several GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel Grassley leads as chairman, spoke at a press conference Wednesday afternoon unveiling the new information.
“What is revealed in those 1700 pages of documents, those 197 subpoenas, is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list,” Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said.
ohnson said he knew most of the 38 individuals from his state on the Biden administration’s “enemies list” and urged his fellow lawmakers to assist the Trump administration with getting to the bottom of the FBI’s conduct.
“This extended far beyond President Trump and extended to President Trump’s supporters not only here in the United States Senate but more broadly,” Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas) lamented.
“Merrick Garland was a member of Joe Biden’s cabinet. He was willing to do whatever Joe Biden and his political operation wanted him to do, including destroying President Trump,” Cornyn added.
The “Arctic Frost” investigation looked into the role President Trump played in the Capitol riot. The probe eventually morphed into special counsel Jack Smith’s Washington, D.C., criminal case against Trump. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and then-FBI Director Christopher Wray personally signed off on the investigation when it was launched in 2022, according to a decision memo Grassley divulged last week.
Snip.
A ninth GOP Senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, was also targeted during the “Arctic Frost” investigation, Axios first reported. Several of the GOP lawmakers in the FBI’s crosshairs promoted Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from him. The attempts by Trump’s allies to contest the 2020 election formed the basis of Smith’s D.C. criminal case and criminal prosecutions in the swing-states Trump lost to former President Biden. Numerous individuals targeted in “Arctic Frost” later faced criminal charges for their failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
“Jack Smith was a fundamentally corrupt prosecutor. This was a political enemies list from the beginning,” Cruz said. “This is an executive who believes it is justified spying on their opponents in the legislature because they convinced themselves the ends justified the means.”
Smith attempted to subpoena AT&T to obtain Cruz’s cellphone communications and the company’s legal counsel declined to comply, Cruz said. He praised the company for standing its ground against Smith’s attempt to gain his phone records. Cruz said that Washington, D.C., federal Judge James Boasberg signed an order prohibiting AT&T from informing Cruz of the subpoena for a year because of the potential for Cruz to destroy evidence or intimidate witnesses.
And Cruz has sent me three fundraising emails based on it this week alone.
Victory in Portland. “Antifa Retreats From Portland ICE Facility After Police Dismantle Encampment.”
The decentralized anti-fascist warriors in the Portland-area cell, aligned with the radical Democratic Party, were in full retreat overnight after officers from the Portland Police Department cleared out their encampment in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Portland metro area.
Nick Shirley, who is an independent journalist and who met with President Trump at the White House earlier this month for a round table on Antifa, wrote on X, “ANTIFA HAS BEEN DISMANTLED IN PORTLAND After 140 days of controlling and camping on this street in Portland, Antifa has officially been cleared out as the police FINALLY stepped in and cleared the encampment.”
“Inside the encampment, they had loads full of medicine, medical gear, party supplies, a fridge, BBQ, etc ANTIFA’s 140 days of control have officially come to an end,” Shirley said, with an accompanying video showing inside the encampment that housed gender-confused purple-haired people who hate the Western world and capitalism.
Federal Reserve drops interest rates by a quarter point. Feel the excitement…
Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.
The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch.” Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,” and “fighting climate change” while not caring about “securing the border” or “lowering the rate of crime.” (Welcome began as a PAC in 2022, then founded a nonprofit with the same name for political research.)
Elected Democrats will receive copies of the report after its Monday publication, followed by events to promote it in DC and New York. The report urges party members to abandon some of the progressive language about race, abortion, and LGBTQ issues that Democrats began using after the 2012 election — and recommends the nomination of more candidates willing to vote with Republicans on conservative immigration and crime bills.
“The Democratic Party had better listen — for the good of our nation,” former Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, who ran the party’s House campaign committee when it lost seats in 2020, wrote in her endorsement of the report.
Inspired by The Politics of Evasion, an influential 1989 paper that inspired the party’s more centrist shift under Bill Clinton, the 70-page Deciding to Win document argues that Democrats must be “willing to break with unpopular party orthodoxies.” Its prescription for getting the party out of its current wilderness isn’t simple: avoidance of “both a pivot to corporate centrism and the pursuit of progressive ideology purity.”
Greg Schultz, who managed Joe Biden’s 2020 primary campaign but was replaced for the general election, worked with Welcome to shape the report.
“For the last 20 years, Democrats have just misunderstood how you actually win elections,” he told Semafor. “I thought Biden had proven in the 2020 primary that the base of the Democratic Party is a 58-year old woman without a college degree. But when you hear people in DC say ‘the base,’ they mean white intellectuals that live in a few coastal cities.”
The report directly challenges Democrats’ predilection for the interests of “highly educated and affluent voters,” arguing that their influence “may be responsible” for the party’s closer association with left-wing politics.
Sort of sounds like Weigel’s friends are finally noticing what Republicans were saying at least as far back as Obama’s first term. But wait!
“We have much to learn from the relentless focus of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani” on those fronts, the authors write.
The risk they see is in Democrats moving left on other progressive policies, which even some in the party establishment have done while criticizing Mamdani and other democratic socialists. From 2013 to 2024, between the beginning of Barack Obama’s second term and the end of Joe Biden’s sole term, the report offers clear metrics to show how the party changed its language and gave support to left-wing bills that had little chance of passage.
So they only want the Democrat Party to be a little bit pregnant with socialism and social justice. Yeah, good luck with that, heretic. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Two rogue Democrat judges think they can bypass the executive and judiciary branches and order specific programs funded during the Schumer Shutdown. “On Friday, US District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island announced that he would order the US Department of Agriculture to distribute a pool of contingency funds ‘as soon as possible.’ While minutes before, Boston US District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that the US government must announce by Nov. 3 whether they would authorize at least partial funding for the program using around $6 billion in contingency funds – and if so, when will they do it.”
Mexican authorities in August, with the use of DNI intelligence, captured an infamous human trafficker who would lure pregnant women to steal their babies and organs.
She would then sell the stolen babies and organs on both sides of the border, which is how the United States got involved.
Aguilar was part of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pimp shield law, pushed by Democratic legislator Rep. Scott Weiner, has helped foster a disturbing new sex market on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles, featuring prostitutes as young as 12 and 13 years old. For far too long, the “kiddie stroll,” as it’s known, has gone unreported because major media outlets refused to cover it, allowing it to flourish under the watch of Democratic politicians.
But now it’s time to shine a light in the darkness and expose the truth about what’s happening to these poor young girls and why nothing has been done to bring the harrowing evil to an end.
An article from the New York Times Magazine is finally covering this horrific scene in Los Angeles, though they’ve conveniently neglected to cover anything concerning the prostitution law Newsom’s administration passed.
“For the 77th Street Division, which covers the northern half of the Figueroa Corridor, prostitution had always been a problem. But in recent years, the officers had seen the magnitude of child sex trafficking explode,” wrote reporter Emily Baumgaertner Nunn.
“Gangs that had long sold drugs began to take advantage of Figueroa’s lucrative opportunity. With a dozen girls, one trafficker could easily make $12,000 a night. ‘Drugs are sold once and gone forever, but girls can be resold indefinitely,’ said [police sergeant Alvaro] Navarro, who had been in the division for two decades. Motel owners who noticed the parades of customers but feared the gangs’ retribution kept quiet,” Nunn continues.
There’s little doubt that much of the silence and fear of gang retaliation for speaking out against this vile form of human trafficking stems from the lack of police presence on California streets, particularly in Los Angeles. Democrats in the state slashed funding for police and tied officers’ hands, making it harder to pull these girls — who are just children — out of sex trafficking.
In fact, Nunn points out that the sex-trafficking unit in the city was disbanded due to budget cuts, which means each division within the police department has fewer resources available to tackle the issue. There are supposed to be a total of six investigators looking into human trafficking. Now there’s only one.
Children suffer abuse in ways too sick and twisted to imagine, and thanks to anti-cop policies from radical leftists trying to appease minorities for votes, leaders ignore it instead of acting. This is truly a miscarriage of justice. It’s immoral and evil.
“Their jobs grew even more challenging when California repealed the law allowing the police to arrest women who loitered with the intent to engage in prostitution. The repeal, known as SB 357, was intended to prevent profiling of Black, brown, and trans women based on how they dressed. But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them.
Now officers needed to be willing to swear they had reason to suspect each girl was underage — but with fake eyelashes and wigs, it was nearly impossible to tell. One girl told vice officers that her trafficker had explained things succinctly: ‘We run Figueroa now,’ he said,” Nunn writes in her article.
By the end of 2023, the city attorney started referring to Figueroa as the “Kiddie Stroll” because many of the girls working the street were under 13.
The Democrat Party is now objectively pro-rape and pro-pedophilia.
“ICE continues arresting ‘worst of the worst‘ illegal migrants accused of sexual crimes.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday told Just The News exclusively that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials are continuing to arrest the “worst of the worst” illegal migrants, despite a government shutdown.
The latest arrests include illegal migrants who have been convicted of crimes such as lewd and lascivious acts on a minor, aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm, aggravated kidnapping and possession with the intent to distribute.
Monday’s arrests include a Cuban illegal migrant in Florida who was convicted of lewd and lascivious act on a minor, a criminal illegal migrant from Mexico, convicted of aggravated criminal sexual assault with bodily harm, and aggravated kidnapping in Illinois, and an illegal migrant in Tennessee who was convicted of sexual assault.
“Nothing—not even the Democrats’ government shutdown—will slow us down from arresting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Yesterday, the brave men and women of ICE arrested pedophiles, rapists, and kidnappers. These are the types of predators ICE is taking off of America’s streets every single day. DHS will stop at nothing to make America safe again and remove these violent illegal offenders from our streets.”
Another illegal migrant from Mexico, identified as Adan Martinez-Gonzalez, was arrested in Texas after being convicted of aggravated kidnapping. Mexican illegal migrant Nicanor Hernandez-Gutierrez was apprehended by ICE and was previously convicted of possession with intent to distribute a quantity exceeding five kilograms of cocaine.
Former DOE nuclear engineer Matt Von Swol notices something that’s been floating around for years; the insane number of minorities (mexicans and blacks) who are booked as “WHITE” when they get arrested – something which obviously manipulates ‘inconvenient’ crime stats – something that TPUSA’s Andrew Kolvet noted have been “widely corrupted to serve a racist agenda.’
“I searched through thousands of arrests in my county and every single Hispanic individual who has been arrested is labelled as “WHITE”” Van Swol posted on X.
We cannot trust crime stats in America. They have been widely corrupted to serve a racist agenda. https://t.co/UEpwDbnv2F
It’s axiomatic in Washington, D.C., that changes that are undertaken by administrative action alone are easy to reverse.
There’s no doubt that if a Democratic president wins next time, he or she will undo much of what Trump has done through executive action, but will he or she be able to take it all the way back to where it was before?
I don’t think so. It will certainly be goodbye to the Gulf of America and the Department of War, and ICE raids will stop immediately. But Trump has struck blows against long-standing progressive priorities that were pursued in a piecemeal fashion, meant to build up and become irreversible over time. On these, it will be hard for the left to recover — in other words, Trump has broken the progressive ratchet.
How does the ratchet work? It begins with small, unobjectionable, or perhaps even salutary steps, coupled with assurances that potential downsides or extreme outcomes will never come about. Then, over time, incremental moves are made in the same direction until the unreasonable policy that we’d been assured would never happen is entrenched reality.
It is the work of decades, and it depends on no one ever pushing things back in the other direction (that would be reactionary) and everyone’s accepting the endpoint as a fait accompli.
To wit: First, women flying in combat roles. Then, women in ground combat roles, with the proviso that training and standards will stay the same. Then, gender-normed physical fitness tests and lower standards for everyone.
First, race-neutral civil rights laws, then temporary affirmative action, then permanent quotas and set-asides, then a widespread corporate and educational architecture devoted to promoting racialist practices and ideology.
First, respect and rights for gay people, then respect and rights for trans people, then everyone in America having to designate their pronouns, people getting shamed and fired for “misgendering” trans people, “gender-affirming” surgeries for minors, males competing in female sports, and the active encouragement of nonconforming sexual identities in the schools.
Trump has yanked the other way so far on these ratchet issues that it’s not clear when or how the left can get them back to the status quo ante.
It took so long to get there in the first place that snapping back to politicized training standards, pervasive DEI, or the most outlandish forms of the trans agenda will be very difficult.
Also, the sense of inevitability that the ratchet created, and the sense of helplessness on the part of opponents, has now been shattered.
Finally, there’s the problem that plausible deniability has been lost. The ratchet allowed for radical social change to be sheathed in incrementalism and in the righteousness of the starting point — DEI was on a continuum with civil rights; watered-down physical standards on a continuum with the inclusion of women in combat roles who needed no special accommodation.
Now, a revanchist Democratic administration would have to proceed directly to the most controversial and unpopular parts of the left’s agenda.
Top Biden administration officials misused executive authority and took actions without then-President Joe Biden’s authorization as his mental acuity declined, a House investigation found.
President Biden’s inner circle hid the extent of his mental decline from the American people and exercised executive authority by abusing the presidential autopen and taking advantage of a lax chain-of-command, according to a report released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee.
“The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report reads.
“The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him,” the report adds.
The Biden White House worked to conceal the extent of his mental decline through scripted messaging, controlled public appearances, and limited access. Staffers controlled Biden’s daily activities, appearances, and workload to prevent the public from seeing his diminishing mental capacity, the report says.
For the most part, Biden’s staff dismissed the possibility that the American people were concerned about his mental faculties. In a similar manner, Biden’s staff attributed his disastrous June 2024 debate performance to a bad cold and minimized Biden’s struggles on that fateful night.
The Oversight Committee investigated the coverup of Biden’s mental capacity with a specific focus on the Biden administration’s autopen usage at the end of his term. According to the committee, Biden officials used presidential authority and initiated executive actions without direct authorization from Biden himself, including using the autopen to sign executive orders without written approval.
Top Biden administration officials misused executive authority and took actions without then-President Joe Biden’s authorization as his mental acuity declined, a House investigation found.
President Biden’s inner circle hid the extent of his mental decline from the American people and exercised executive authority by abusing the presidential autopen and taking advantage of a lax chain-of-command, according to a report released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee.
“The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report reads.
“The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him,” the report adds.
The Biden White House worked to conceal the extent of his mental decline through scripted messaging, controlled public appearances, and limited access. Staffers controlled Biden’s daily activities, appearances, and workload to prevent the public from seeing his diminishing mental capacity, the report says.
For the most part, Biden’s staff dismissed the possibility that the American people were concerned about his mental faculties. In a similar manner, Biden’s staff attributed his disastrous June 2024 debate performance to a bad cold and minimized Biden’s struggles on that fateful night.
The Oversight Committee investigated the coverup of Biden’s mental capacity with a specific focus on the Biden administration’s autopen usage at the end of his term. According to the committee, Biden officials used presidential authority and initiated executive actions without direct authorization from Biden himself, including using the autopen to sign executive orders without written approval.
National Review previously reported on internal emails showing the White House’s process for deciding on commutations for violent criminals was chaotic and insular. The Biden administration did not consult with the families of the victims of the violent criminals as part of its clemency process.
Another instance the report mentions is the pardons Biden issued in the final hours of his presidency to members of his family. No records exist for the in-person meeting that led to the decision to grant those pardons.
Rather, Zients verbally authorized the use of the autopen after an aide of his transmitted the decision to issue the pardons. Zients did not know who actually applied the autopen and did not confirm with President Biden that he approved the pardons. The aide sent an email on Zients’s behalf expressing approval of the Biden family pardons.
If Biden didn’t issue the pardon, the pardon is invalid.
Free marketeers have good reason to cheer, or at least sigh with relief, with Milei’s party doing well in the Argentinian midterm elections…
In the middle of the month, this newsletter explained why the Trump administration traded $20 billion in U.S. dollars for the equivalent amount in Argentinian pesos. The Argentinian currency, which had already lost a lot of its value, was dropping perilously over fears President Javier Milei’s party might lose the midterm elections and the country would revert to its previous reckless big-spending habits. The currency trade, spearheaded by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, represented an economic lifeline to Argentina and a metaphorical bet that Milei’s party would do well in the midterms, and keep the country on a smaller-government, more free-market-oriented path.
Secretary Bessent, collect your winnings. From the Wall Street Journal:
With nearly 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s Freedom Advances party won almost 41 percent of the national vote, more than doubling its representation in Congress. That means his party and allies secured at least one-third of the seats in both chambers — the critical threshold that allows Milei to preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees.
The result, stronger than most polls had predicted, gives Milei fresh political momentum after months of unrest over deep spending cuts and a grinding recession last year. It also shores up his standing with Washington and the International Monetary Fund, which have tied future financial support to the survival of his austerity experiment. Market analysts expect Argentine bonds and the peso to rally when trading opens Monday, reflecting relief that Milei still has political traction after taking office two years ago.
“Ukrainian drones hit the Mariysky oil refinery in Mari El, the Stavrolen chemical plant and the Novospasskoye oil depot.”
Greece sends Ukraine the big guns. “Greece is transferring 60 U.S.-made M110A2 203mm self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, along with 150,000 shells and thousands of Zuni rockets.”
Finally: “Texas Higher Ed Board Officially Bans In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens.” Rick Perry was a very conservative governor in many ways, but backing subsidized tuition for illegal aliens was one of his stupidest ideas.
Ken Paxton takes a scalp. “Dallas Doctor Surrenders License After Texas AG Sues For Prescribing Gender Transition Drugs To Minors.” “Paxton announced on Oct. 24 that Dr. May C. Lau has given up her state medical license but that the legal case over her alleged violation of Texas’s ban on gender transition treatment for minors is still ongoing.”
“California’s Retirement Fund Lost 71% Of $468M Investment In Clean Energy And Won’t Say How.” “According to state records analyzed by the Center Square, the CalPERS Clean Energy & Technology Fund (CETF), launched in 2007, has seen its value fall from a total commitment of $468.4 million to $138 million as of March 31, 2025. That represents a loss of more than $330 million, even after paying $22 million in fees and costs to private equity managers.” I’m sure the right pockets got lined. For Democrats, losing taxpayer money is ephemeral, but virtue signaling is forever.
Oklahoma: “State Rep. Ajay Pittman suspected of embezzling campaign funds, forgery, court records show.” Guess the party.
The Peace President keeps on winning. “President Trump participates in a peace treaty, trade and critical mineral agreement signing with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand.”
“A staffer for Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey was hit with drug trafficking charges after authorities intercepted eight kilograms of cocaine being delivered to a state office building. LaMar Cook, who has served as deputy director of Healey’s western Massachusetts office since 2023, was charged with trafficking over 200 grams of cocaine, unlawful possession of a firearm, and unlawful possession of ammunition related to the bust, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced Wednesday. Multiple parcels containing about 21 kilograms of cocaine have been seized by Massachusetts State Police throughout the investigation into Cook.” Why yes, eight kilos of Peruvian Marching Powder is indeed more than 200 grams. Indeed, that’s the sort of quantity that might keep Hunter Biden supplied into the spring…
Biden’s autopen pardons are the gift that keeps giving. “Thirty-one-year-old Khyre Holbert—a convicted felon whose 20-year crack cocaine and firearm-possession sentence was commuted by former President Joe Biden at the end of his term—was slapped with a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition charge following his alleged participation in a shooting in Omaha, Nebraska.”
Slam Frank is “Holocaust victim Anne Frank reimagined as a pansexual Latina with non-binary lover and neurodiverse family in controversial NYC musical.” Maybe NYC deserves Mamdani…
I got to experience one of those joys of home ownership yesterday. I peed, flushed the toilet, washed my hands and started walking away when the water leak detector next to the toilet started going off.
Turns out I had been hit by one of those one-in-ten-thousand chances of bad luck, as the toilet had clogged (how, I don’t know) and the flush flapper had stuck open at the same time, with the result that water was now brimming over the top of my second floor guest toilet.
My first response should have been to cut off the water valve, but in that moment of panic I ran to my master bathroom and grabbed a large towel and plunger, and only once back at the overflowing toilet did I think to close the valve, so I probably ended up cleaning up a couple more gallons of water than needed. It took several towels and plunging to mop up the water, but none seems to have made it to the first floor ceiling. (The fake wood cabinet trim near the toilet was already a touched water-logged when I moved in, so no harm, no foul.)
This isn’t the first time I’ve had one go off. A week before the ice storm hit, a shutoff valve I had closed to plunge an overflowing toilet started leaking.
My water leak detectors are nothing special, just cheap Chinese crap. Usual made in China caveats apply, but it’s very simple tech (two parallel wires on the exterior that water closes the circuit and sets off when wet). A lot of people don’t have these, but yesterday showed why I consider them essential. What could have been thousands of dollars in drywall and ceiling replacement turned into merely having to run another washing load for all the towels I used to mop up.
The above link goes to a 5-pack of the brand I have, because I recommend putting one behind every toilet, under every sink you use, under your water heater, and next to your washing machine (I’ve had mine start rocking for an unbalanced load that pulled the drain hose loose). However, that 5-pack has gotten pricey, so here’s an even cheaper five pack from another manufacturer (also made in China) that I have no experience with, but it currently has a 4.6 rating on Amazon.
You’ll also want to own a water shutoff tool to be able to cut off water to your entire house. The Orbit 26097 provides a water shutoff valve, a gas shutoff valve, manhole cover lift tool, and a rubberized grip. You need one of these for the same reason you need a water leak detector, i.e. it will greatly limit damage before the plumber gets there.
I have a fire extinguisher and several guns, just in case I need them. I haven’t, yet, but I’ve needed my water leak detector twice. Buying enough to put one behind every toilet, under every sink, under your water heater, and next to your washing machine is going to cost you considerably less than buying one decent gun.
Senate Democrats, lead by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, keep blocking a continuing resolution that would reopen large swathes of the federal government because they insist on continuing ObamaCare subsidies for illegal aliens. To this end, they’ve voted to keep the government shut down thirteen times. Republicans all voted to reopen the government, as well as “Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania” and “Independent Sen. Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats.” That makes the Republican bill to reopen the government the bipartisan bill.
In response to Democratic senators keeping the part of the government that supplies them with free food shut down, several Democrats on Tik-Tok, many visible obese, are threatening to loot grocery stores. Like the many businesses burned down during the #BlackLivesMatter/#Antifa riots of 2020, the businesses so looted would no doubt be stores in deep blue areas of deep blue cities, meaning the people they would overwhelmingly be harming would likely be other Democrats. (Or people too apathetic to vote. Or non-voting felons.)
Now, I am making the assumption that the people pledging to commit crimes to support their perceived absolute right to free stuff from American taxpayers are, in fact, Democrats. There may indeed be a few down-on-their-luck Republicans impacted by the lingering effects of the Biden Recession that have had to rely on government handouts to feed their children, but they don’t seem like the type threatening to break the law. I’m also assuming those would-be looters are not Libertarians, as none of them strike me as the sort to have Milton Friedman books in their apartments.
So unless Republicans give in on subsidizing illegal aliens, Democrats will continue to hurt Democratic voters by refusing to let the federal government subsidize food for Democrats.
Hell of a plan there, Chuck.
But it’s clear that the crazy Tik-Tokers will be getting free food one way or another. if they carry through on their threats, many of them might be getting fed via their three hots and a cot down at the local hoosegow…
Having been out of work for a while, people ask me if I’ve been displaced by AI. My reply is “Not directly.” Indirectly, I think the factor is that just about all venture capital funds are throwing money at AI-related companies, meaning non-AI startups that might need technical writers aren’t being funded.
Having lived through the dotcom bust, I have to wonder how bad the fallout from the AI bubble bursting is going to be. The dotcom bubble wasn’t all beenz and pets.com…
…and it fueled a whole lot of subsidiary bubbles: PC and server manufacturers to run the software, Microsoft to run the PCs, semiconductor manufacturers to provide chips for the PCs and servers, semiconductor equipment manufacturers to build those same chips, network gear providers to connect the data centers, etc. And that only scratches the surface. Cisco, Dell, Compaq, Netscape, Yahoo, AOL, Oracle, Sun, HP, Intel, AMD, Applied Materials (where I worked 1997-2001), LAM Research, KLA-Tencor, all had huge growth spurts during the dotcom era as their customers spent big money to get “on the web.” Even dinosaurs like IBM, Motorola and DEC enjoyed business boosts from the era. All suffered in the wake of the dotcom bust, some being bought up or disappearing into other companies.
The same is true of today’s multi-trillion dollar AI boom. Companies like OpenAI may get the most ink, but a whole lot of other companies are getting boosted as well. Some of the names are even the same as the dotcom bubble: Microsoft, Oracle, AMD. Applied Material stock has gone through the roof now that I don’t own any. Cisco is just getting back to the level of their record stock highs during the dotcom era.
Data centers are supposedly planned or going up all around the country, and so many are buying Nvidia’s AI chips that they now boast a breathtaking $4.88 trillion market cap.
Someone is supposedly going to build a $165 billion data center in New Mexico near El Paso. That number is kind of insane, as you could build 5-10 cutting edge fabs for that kind of money. I don’t see how you get any sort of ROI on such a big upfront investment.
When the AI bubble busts (not if, when), a whole lot of these projects will likely come a cropper. A lot of people will have made a lot of money, AI will probably revolutionize a few industries and prove mostly hype in others, and retail investors and bondholders will be left holding the bag. Like the doctom bust, a lot of new companies will rise from the wreckage and start the cycle all over again.
And companies that can best take advantage of idle data centers and newly abundant nuclear power (assuming the boom even lasts that long) will be the ones poised to help build the next tech boom…
Every time I cover the vast technological gulf between China’s semiconductor ambitions and their actual native technological knowledge, some commenter blithely states that it’s easy for China to reverse engineer all Western semiconductor technology, which is why they’re already successfully producing chips at the [insert latest CCP propaganda here]nm node, etc. In this they’re engaged in the time-honored rhetorical device known as “talking out their ass.”
Semiconductors are hard. Not only do you have to exactly machine the thousands of painstakingly precise parts in the equipment itself, you need to possess the deep institutional knowledge necessary necessary to tweak the thousands of differing process parameters for different types of chips. Steppers, the lithography machines that actually project the patterns necessary to make each layer of the chip, are at the very top of the mountain in terms of technological complexity, and ASML dominates the stepper market. If it was easy to build steppers, Applied Materials, LAM, or Tokyo Electron would have come out with their own steppers long ago, and they haven’t.
A Chinese firm reportedly has sought technical support from ASML, the world’s largest chipmaking equipment supplier, after it failed to reassemble a deep-ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machine following an internal teardown for alleged reverse engineering.
“An ASML DUV machine that China has used to make their chips recently broke down. They called the Dutch company for help repairing it,” Brandon Weichert, a senior national security editor at The National Interest, says in a X post. “ASML sent some techs. They discovered that the Chinese broke the machine when they disassembled it and tried to put it back together.”
“The reason Chinese technicians took apart their older ASML DUV system is simple. They are trying to find a way around US sanctions on the newest machines,” Weichert says. “By taking apart the older model and attempting to rebuild it, they hope to learn how to produce their own advanced versions. But it seems they still can’t figure it out.”
Weichert says he was unsure whether ASML had repaired the system. He adds that, in his view, although China maintains service agreements with the Dutch company, ASML would be unlikely to honor them given what he characterized as apparent foul play by the customer.
The fact that they couldn’t get the machine back together correctly rather belies the idea that China has world-class semiconductor technical knowledge.
Some Chinese commentators have noted that reverse-engineering ASML’s immersion DUV lithography machines is an exceptionally complex challenge.
A Guangdong-based columnist writing under the pen name “Chengwa” highlighted four key difficulties:
Extreme precision: DUV systems use 193-nm argon fluoride (ArF) lasers and a thin water layer beneath the lens. Even the tiniest misalignment can cause a chain reaction of system errors.
Complex mechanics: Inside modern DUV immersion tools, twin wafer stages move rapidly under the lens with sub-nanometer accuracy and process around 330 wafers per hour. Removing one stage without factory calibration can destroy the delicate alignment that field engineers cannot easily restore.
Highly integrated technology: ASML’s equipment depends on intricate optical systems, motion platforms and control software perfected in Europe over decades. Replicating all these technologies from scratch is extraordinarily difficult.
Precision calibration: The system’s accuracy depends on closed-loop calibration linking optics, sensors and motion control. Dismantling the tool can lead to particle contamination, interferometer drift and loss of key reference points. These problems require vendor-level software keys and procedures to correct.
Like I noted, down below 10nm, everything is exceptionally hard.
After the US banned sales of ASML’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to China in 2019, Beijing began pouring substantial investment into homegrown lithography development. However, much of that funding has been marred by inefficiency and corruption scandals, limiting technological progress.
Snip.
Last month, the Financial Times reported that China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), was testing a DUV immersion lithography machine made by Yuliangsheng.
The machine is understood to be an immersion DUV scanner targeting 28-nm chip production, roughly matching the performance of ASML’s Twinscan designs in 2008. Yuliangsheng planned to deploy it on production lines by 2027.
China using their IP-stealing and backward engineering skills to finally replicate a 19-year old design sounds about right…
With the widespread advent of drone warfare, a whole lot of air defense doctrine needs to be rewritten. Ground-To-Air interceptor missiles that were cost-effective for multi-million fighter planes aren’t for thousands upon thousands of cheap drones, some of which cost less than $1,000 a pop. Cheap kinetic kill shells, AKA “ack-ack,” the mainstay of World War II, are making a comeback in a big way.
“This is the [Rheinmetall] Skyranger, a new unmanned weapon that blasts 30 mm rounds at a facemelting 1,200 rounds per minute.”
“Germany just ordered 600 of these bad boys for the total price of €9 billion, roughly $10.4 billion.”
“The plan for these is to be slapped on to their new boxer vehicles.” In fact, Skyranger the weapons platform is independent of the chassis it rides on. You can theoretically mount it on any modern BMP or tank chassis.
“Also it’s not just the gun. It’s a series of four optionally manned air defense systems you can slap onto any vehicle that can handle the weight and includes a dedicated radar platform. Two designed to fire missiles and one with the big gun on top.”
The gun comes in 30mm and 35mm flavors, to match whatever ammo the purchasing army is using.
“These are classified as SHORAD platforms, or short-ranged air defense.”
“While things like Patriot batteries are designed to be stationary long range assets, the idea behind Skyrangers and other SHORADs is that they’re integrated with maneuver formations. So while tanks and infantry push forward, these will hang back a bit and create a nice little defensive bubble in the airspace for the fighty boys to work under.”
Discussion of rotary cannon vs. rotary barrel cannon snipped. But single barrel cannons make it much easier to program burst modes on the rounds right before they exit the cannon.
“The gun itself has a max range of 3,000m, a little short of 2 miles.” With coverage extended with the missile-firing turrets, which can use a variety of munitions, “everything from old Stingers to future ones like the Sky Knight missile.”
“There are two different kinds of rounds currently used in the 30 mm version. The PMC 308, which is the same air burst round used on the Puma IFV, and the newer PMC 455, which manages to nearly quadruple the number of tungsten projectiles and the same round can carry for the same weight by making it smaller.” More projectiles mean a better chance of a kill for a small target like a drone.
“Because the turrets are unmanned, it means it doesn’t take any space up in the actual hull of the vehicle, which means big or small, you can slap that shit on anything.”
I’m going to skip over the “cold start” vertically-launched anti-tank missile system covered at the end (fascinating though that technology is) as off-topic for this particular post.
“According to all accounts, so far for the German Flakpanzer Gepards that were donated, they’ve been performing pretty decently in Ukraine, targeting both small and large drones on top of slower moving cruise missiles.”
Speaking of Gepards, Suchomimus has impressive footage of a Gepard actually taking out a Shahed drone:
The Gepards are just shy of a half century in service, and were actually retired by Germany before being hauled back out and shipped off to Ukraine, where they seem to be doing solid work, there just aren’t enough to cover the wide the vast expanse of airspace the war encompasses.
The Deep Blue City Democratic Party War on lawful gun ownership continues apace. In Chicago lawful gun owners face felony charges despite having legal carry licenses.
Lewis McWilliams was pulled over in Chicago for a missing front plate. He had a gun in the car, and was carrying a valid Firearms License (FOID) and a valid Concealed Carry License (CCL).
But he didn’t come up in the database.
So Chicago police arrest McWilliams, despite the state law enforcement guidelines stating they should not take any action in this situation.
Not only did the officer arresting him make a mistake, but prosecutor Alex Preber approved charging him for unlawful gun possession.
Instead of admitting they made a mistake a dropping the charges, they held him for 24 hours and he had to sue for over three months to get the charges dismissed.
And he’s not the only one! CBS Chicago found “a handful of lawsuits accusing police of violating the rights of legal gun owners.”
Lucy Washington was arrested for having an expired CCL, despite her having renewed it.
Both McWilliams and Washington are black, and CBS heavily pursues that angle. I guess we’re supposed to believe that a city with radical leftwing black Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson, running a one party Democratic city who hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931, in a state run by Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker since 2019, is institutionally racist against black people. Maybe. But judging from their rhetoric and actions, Chicago and Illinois Democrats seem institutionally hostile to lawful gun owners of all races.
Also: McWilliams and Washington are still waiting to get their lawfully purchased firearms back from the Chicago Police Department…
The Schumer Shutdown continues, “No Kings” rallies turns out to be a shuffling parade of elderly white dorks, Ukraine continues destroying Russia’s oil infrastructure, that Dutch chip company seizure has bigger ramifications than I anticipated, Canada wants to steal people’s homes, an NBA gambling scandal erupts, and you have a chance to buy a painting from the Iron Lady Collection.
Senate Democrats killed a bill proposed by GOP Sens. Ron Johnson (WI) and Todd Young (IN) that would have paid government essential workers during the extended shutdown.
It failed 54-45. It needed 60 votes to advance.
Only Democrat Sens. John Fetterman (PA), Raphael Warnock (GA), and Jon Ossoff (GA) voted with the Republicans.
“Democrats have voted down the stopgap bill 12 times.”
“How Did California Spend Billions on Homelessness Only for It to Get Worse? Two New Criminal Cases Offer a Clue.” Honestly, the first sentence supplies its own answer even without the second.
How did California manage to spend $24 billion in taxpayer money to address homelessness over the past years, only for the problem to get substantially worse?
The state has not offered any explanation since that figure was revealed in a state audit released earlier this year. But the arrest of two California men on Thursday suggests that at least some of the money may have been stolen through fraud.
Cody Holmes, the former chief financial officer at a downtown Los Angeles-based developer of affordable housing, was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging him with mail fraud. In a separate case, Steven Taylor is accused of defrauding lenders to aid his property-flipping business. He is charged with seven counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and one count of money laundering.
The arrests come as part of a larger federal investigation into homelessness funding fraud in the Golden State.
“Accountability begins today,” said acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli when he announced the arrests on Thursday. He said the two cases are part of a pattern of the larger misappropriation of billions in state funds meant to combat homelessness.
An audit released by the state in April revealed that California has spent more than $24 billion over the past five years to address the state’s homelessness crisis. The acting U.S. attorney formed a Homelessness Fraud and Corruption Task Force earlier this year to investigate where those tax dollars have gone.
“The two criminal cases announced is only the tip of the iceberg and we intend to aggressively pursue all leads and hold anyone who broke any federal laws criminally liable,” Essayli said.
Holmes, 31, is accused of fraudulently obtaining $25.9 million in state grant money for Shangri-La Industries, the developer of affordable housing for which he served as CFO. That money was intended to be used to purchase, construct, and operate homeless housing in Thousand Oaks under a state project called “Homekey.”
Holmes allegedly knowingly submitted inflated, fake bank records to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), to falsely prove the company had the capacity to fulfill homeless housing projects. However, authorities say the bank accounts that Holmes said contained these funds did not exist.
Holmes is now accused of using more than $2 million in state grant money to pay credit card bills that he was associated with, including purchases at luxury retailers.
HCD had previously paid millions of dollars to Shangri-La to buy, build, and operate housing for the homeless in Redlands and King City, among other California cities.
If convicted, Holmes faces up to 20 years in federal prison.
Meanwhile, Taylor, 44, is accused of using fake bank statements and false cash representations to obtain loans and lines of credit to operate his real estate business from August 2019 to July 2025.
The Brentwood man is also accused of lying to lenders about his intended use of various properties. He allegedly lied to the lender behind his purchase of a Cheviot Hills property, telling the lender he intended to renovate and use the property himself. However, he apparently had already contracted to sell the property, which he bought for $11.2 million thanks to a loan acquired through the use of fake bank statements. He was contracted to sell the property to a homeless housing developer who was purchasing the property with public funds from the city of Los Angeles and the state of California for $27.3 million in a double-escrow transaction hidden from the victim lender and others.
If convicted, Taylor would face up to 30 years in federal prison for each bank fraud count, up to ten years in federal prison for the money laundering count, and a two-year prison sentence for the aggravated identity theft count.
I’m sure this is only the tip of the Homeless Industrial Complex iceberg…
Speaking of homeless industrial complex fraud: “FBI raids homes of Charlotte activist Cedric Dean in health care fraud investigation.”
The FBI raided the home of Cedric Dean, a well-known community activist in Charlotte’s Palisades neighborhood, on Thursday.
The search is part of a federal investigation into an alleged multi-million dollar health care fraud scheme, according to federal court documents released to Queen City News.
A spokesperson for the FBI confirmed on Thursday that agents were “engaged in court-authorized investigative activity,” but did not offer further details.
Court documents obtained by QCN reveal that Dean and his company, Cedric Dean Holdings, are accused of fraudulently billing Medicaid for mental health services that were never provided. Investigators said Dean targeted vulnerable people, including those experiencing homelessness, in exchange for their Medicaid information, offering food or temporary shelter in return.
Dean allegedly submitted inflated or false claims to Medicaid, sometimes using fake diagnoses, and paid staff and recruiters through services like CashApp. Authorities said his company billed roughly $1 million per month and operated without enough staff to actually provide care.
“They’ve lost culture… Calling someone a Democrat is an insult,” Travis noted, adding “Calling someone a Kamala voter is an insult. This is white, black, Asian, Hispanic: young men across America are over the BS that they saw at this No Kings rally.”
“Look at the dance. These are huge dorks. They have no power. They are losers. No one wants to hang out with them,” Travis continued, pointing to the event as emblematic of the party’s disconnect.
“They’re old, 1960s protesters who now are on the side that they used to protest against. They don’t realize that the world has shifted around them and they are awkward lunatics,” he further emphasized.
No Kings? They don’t mean it, as they rebranded as “No Tyrants” in countries with monarchies.
“Ukraine hit Russia’s Novokuybyshevsk refinery in Samara, one of Rosneft’s key plants, processing 8.8M tons of crude annually, about 3% of Russia’s total refining capacity,” some 1,000km from Ukraine.
Hamas is carrying out the terms of the ceasefire every bit as well as you would expect. “After Attack on Troops, Israel Hits Hamas Terror Targets in Gaza BBC. Hamas carried out ‘multiple attacks against Israeli forces beyond the yellow line.'”
Israel struck terrorist targets in southern Gaza after Hamas terrorists attacked its troops located inside the agreed ceasefire line, violating the U.S.-brokered agreement. “The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out airstrikes in the Rafah area on Sunday morning in response to violations of the ceasefire by Hamas,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported.
In response to Hamas’s action, the Israeli military targeted terror tunnels used in the sneak attacks. “Earlier, an IED or anti-tank explosion struck near an IDF engineering vehicle in the same area,” the broadcaster added. “Reports from Gaza indicate the strikes targeted Hamas positions shortly after the terror group fired an anti-tank missile at IDF forces.”
Trump’s genius wasn’t getting an agreement that would bring lasting peace for all time, it was getting the remaining living hostages out before Hamas inevitably violated the ceasefire.
“Palestinian illegal alien arrested by FBI for participating in October 7th terror attack.” “The complaint described the man, identified in court documents as Mahmoud Amin Ya’qub al-Muhtadi, as an operative for a paramilitary group in Gaza that has fought alongside Hamas.” Naturally, the media refers to him as “Louisiana Man.”
“Haitians who replaced American workers in tiny Pennsylvania town will be unemployed as factory shuts down.” “Many of these migrants were employed by a meatpacking plant known as Fourth Street Barbecue, also operating under the name Fourth Street Foods. They displaced native-born workers, drained local resources, and wired their paychecks overseas to third-world countries.”
One day after German tabloid newspaper Bild reported that Volkswagen had suspended production of the Golf at its Wolfsburg factory due to a worsening semiconductor shortage caused by a supply stoppage of Nexperia chips, the Dutch chipmaker, recently seized by the Netherlands government, warned Japanese automakers on Thursday that it may no longer be able to guarantee chip supply. The chip crisis spreading from Europe to Japan has set off alarm bells across the industry.
Bloomberg reports that the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA) has confirmed that its members, Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, have received warnings from Nexperia about chip supply woes and are working with customers to mitigate disruptions.
JAMA cautioned that chip shortages could have a “serious impact” on global auto production and urged governments to reach a “prompt and practical solution.”
“The chips manufactured by the affected manufacturers are important parts used in electronic control units, etc., and we recognize that this incident will have a serious impact on the global production of our member companies,” JAMA wrote in a statement, adding, “We hope that the countries involved will come to a prompt and practical solution.”
There’s something weird going on here. Any global manufacturing giant worth it’s salt should have second-source contingency plans for such lowly parts as semiconductor discretes. Even in Europe, there are other discrete manufacturers like Infineion and STMicroelctronics. Somebody (or a whole lot of somebodies) dropped the ball here.
“In just 7 minutes, thieves allegedly mounted a ladder, stole priceless jewels from the Louvre and fled on motor scooters.” No painstaking disarming of the alarm system? No sophisticated computer intrusion? No hanging from a cable to avoid triggering the floor alarm? Just smashing windows and cases with brute force? The ghosts of a century’s worth of French screenplay writers sigh in disappointment…
Welcome to Richmond, British Columbia, a suburb of Metro Vancouver.
This is a letter the city sent to residents to notify them that their home might belong to the natives who once camped there 200 years ago.
Please take note that the recent BC Supreme Court decision of Cowichan Tribes v Canada, 2025 BCSC 1490 made some very important decisions which could negatively affect the title to your property. A briefing paper prepared by City of Richmond staff is attached for your reference.
If you look at the draft map attached to the briefing, your property is located within the Claim Area outlined in green. For those whose property is in the area outlined in black, the Court has declared aboriginal title to your property which may compromise the status and validity of your ownership – this was mandated without any prior notice to the landowners. The entire area outlined in green is claimed on appeal by the Cowichan First Nations.
Snip.
A liberal female judge issued an 863-page ruling ordering that private properties, some of which have been in families for generations, must return to the hands of a nomadic tribe that once loosely lived on the land hundreds of years ago, long before anyone who is currently alive was ever born.
This matter was so important to the judge and other liberal allies that it was the “longest trial in Canada’s history.” It is also seen as setting a precedent for confiscating property across the nation.
Now you know why the radical left keeps pushing those bullshit “land acknowledgements.”
A tenured professor at the University of Texas at Austin says he was dismissed from his senior administrative post due to “ideological differences,” marking the latest shake-up in Texas’ statewide effort to reform higher education and curb campus DEI influence.
Last week, Art Markman posted that UT leadership had dismissed him in late September as academic affairs senior vice provost.
Climate activist David Bookbinder admits its a shakedown. “Essentially, the tort liability is an indirect carbon tax. You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable, the oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products.”
NBA gambling scandal: “ESPN is reporting the arrest of Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups. Also arrested: Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat.”
Billups, an NBA Hall of Famer, has been charged with partaking in an alleged illegal poker ring tied to the Bonanno, Genovese and Colombo crime families, sources told The Post.
A total of 31 people across the country are charged with running rigged games, which took place in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Las Vegas, sources said.
The players involved were being paid by mobsters to play in card games fixed with technology and card shuffling machines to give the house the advantage, sources familiar with the case said.
The athletes were told to take a dive when they had to and win when they were told. It didn’t appear as if they were attempting to pay off any debts, sources said.
Rozier is being charged with point-shaving.
Director Blue has a lot more details about the mob guys running the games, and the sophisticated technologies used, like special contact lenses to read marked cards, cryptocurrency money laundering and x-ray tables.
The Critical Drinker walks through every Disney Star Wars film, how much they cost, and how much they made or lost. Since they received substantial tax credits for filming in the UK, they evidently had to submit real numbers rather than the usual Hollywood Accounting bullshit. The Force Awakens evidently cost $638.9 million to make, which would probably rank it as the most expensive film of all time.
