Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
This is Alfie. He is a professional opera singer with some of the best vibrato in the industry. Some have even called him the next Paw-varotti. 13/10 pic.twitter.com/cGDOlkkU2B
This is our 15 year old girl Stinky, she is a long haired cream colored tabby. On June 5th, she got diagnosed with diabetes. It has been a long hard learning curve. Expensive food which she won't eat, had to switch to fancy feast. No dry food which doesn't bother her, but we have had to switch treats to freeze dried chicken and liver. They do freeze dried minnows but that was a hard no for both our cats. The dogs however, love the fish potato chips as I call them.
We tried a libre meter on her and she managed to bite and break it after only 20 hours, I included a picture. That was a bit of cash down the drain. I have been having to manually test her blood glucose by pricking her ear. She is getting used to it. She got a UTI as well which is typical for diabetic cats. She is not a fan of the bubble gum flavored antibiotics, if anyone in the horde is a drug manufacturer I definitely think there is a market for tuna flavored antibiotics.
All in all we are getting used to the new routine and giving shots twice a day. If anyone has any advice I would be happy to know what worked for them and their cat.
Weekreekfarmgirl
Stinky is a beautiful cat. Hope someone has some suggestions to help with her diabetes control.
* * *
My daughter took her her boyfriend's dog Bronco for a walk this week. Heat index was 100. Typical for July temps in central Iowa (it's the humidity). Bronco understood the assignment.
Turn2
* * *
Hello,
Meet Chloe, a 2-year-old purebred Bengal kitty.
Last week I received an urgent message from an Undercover Resistance Operative deep within the Worst State in the Union (TN, according to CNBC). She informed me that she had discovered a Bengal kitty who needed rescuing from the cruel, tyrannical master who smothered her with affection and abundant resources (he's actually a very nice man who wants the best for Chloe).
Watching the video smuggled out of enemy territory of a damsel in distress, I knew what I had to do.
I summoned my covert team of crack commando squirrels. Together, we made the long, harrowing trek across three states, dodging rogue drivers who think they are playing Spy Hunter, as well as penetrating the various layers of road construction hindering all attempts at infiltration.
We successfully found the gated fortress where our damsel in distress was being housed. Our Undercover Resistance Operative smuggled us in using the gate code she had cleverly wrangled from her employer, Chloe's owner.
She also helped us exfiltrate not only Chloe but also much of her necessary life support system (food, water, litterbox, etc.). Although caught in our exfiltration efforts, we managed to distract her owner with pleasant chit-chat about Chloe's life and needs. As I said, he's a very nice man but simply couldn't keep her anymore.
Once Chloe was loaded up in our getaway vehicle, my crack squad proceeded to exit the city of Nashville, Tennessee (the Worst State in the Union). Not even the twisty maze of complex roads, nor the ongoing road construction efforts could stop us from our task. Chloe's beautiful coat of fur allowed her to blend into the interior of her cat carrier, making it appear empty from a distance, in case we were stopped.
As soon as we crossed the Mississippi River into the St. Louis area, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, knowing that our mission was now successful. She will now grow up in the SEVENTH Worst State of the Union instead of the first.
Chloe is a beautiful, sweet kitty. I look forward to integrating her into my household. As I'm writing this message, Chloe is sleeping peacefully in my sunroom, exhausted from her long adventure.
--"Perfessor" Squirrel
Chloe is certainly lovely, and has been through an adventure!
* * *
Eromero says 'Dangit, get down from there!' Madison and Minnifer.
Two beautiful cats who belong together!
Multi-photo PetMorons coming up in the future!
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
Our lilies have put on a good show this year. The tree ones are halfway to the thatch. The scent is fantastic and come in the front door. The trough at the front has busylizzies, Dot who is the master gardener is disappointed in them. All the passers-by wanted begonias again but she likes to be different.
Chris
The lilies are magnificent. The busylizzies should keep things interesting later in the season. I like them. And the baskets are wonderful, too.
OK.
So it's not a great tomato. But it's mine!
And will go well in my omelette!
The 'mater looks tasty!
*
KT,
It is now potato season. I dug one of five rows, and got 20-odd pounds of "german yellow" potatoes. If you never have grown your own potatoes, you can dig them after they bloom, but if it is dry and you don't worry about wire worms, then you can dig when the vines start dying back.
Two of the rows of potatoes in the garden are sort of punk, and that is either the variety or that I didn't sprout them before planting.
The second picture is a ratchet style fruit press I picked up used at a Re-Store in town last week. It was missing the bolts that hold the halves of the basket together, so I knocked some out using salvaged heavy wire, a hammer and an angle grinder. You can do impressive things by beating on things, if you know what they are supposed to look like afterwards.
I am planning to give it a final scrub and lube with Crisco, and then see if it will press my apples.
Kindltot
The potatoes look great! Good luck with the press.
*
Speaking of potatoes, Kindltot does some canning, and he certainly knows that he should not can potatoes in a boiling water bath. That could kill someone! Botulism is different from run-of-the-mill food poisoning.
By-Tor continues to harvest veggies from his container garden:
Today's haul of rounds, ovals and cherries. And a couple of peppers.
Slowing down, probably due to the heat. I think I will plant round two for some early fall tomatoes.
Nice color selection of tomatoes. And I wouldn't be surprised if those peppers are really hot ones.
*
National Moth Week
Trumpet vine on the trail this morning. I saw a Hummingbird moth too but could not get a picture.
- fd
Well, let's help you out:
If you think photographing birds in flight is difficult, you want to try moths! 😅 This is a wonderful Hummingbird Hawkmoth, photographed yesterday from my bedroom window, just as it banked around to change direction! 😀😍 Just look at that proboscis 😁🦋 pic.twitter.com/alMR4MSwQK
Hummingbird Hawk-moth feeding on my buddleia this week. 😍 I've been seeing more of these day-flying moths this summer, how about you? 😀🦋 pic.twitter.com/av1a18pH0P
#NationalMothWeek day 9! The final moth of the week is the truly spectacular Picasso moth (Baorisa hieroglyphica). Considered to be one of the most beautiful moths in the world. Photo: msone #MothWeekpic.twitter.com/JoWmSvBESc
Cactus leather is a sustainable, cruelty-free alternative to animal leather. Made from the Nopal (prickly pear) cactus, it is durable, flexible, and breathable, making it suitable for fashion, automotive, and furniture usepic.twitter.com/Wkb5p136Tp
Babylon Bee: Odysseus Finally Returns Home After 20 Years And Oh No! Penelope Is Out Of Baking Powder And Needs Him To Run Out Again Real Quick
Well, Christopher Nolan's screen take on the adventures of Odysseus is prompting a lot of commentary. Friends of mine went to the movie and had a hard time sitting through it. VDH, with his background in the history of this period, offered a great take on the hullabaloo surrounding the film before it even opened. And the Tablet magazine offered both pro and con takes on Christopher Nolan's 'Odyssey': Epic for Our Times or Epic Failure? with lots of detail and opportunity for comment.
And that's just the beginning of the arguments. But does the movie tell us anything else about our culture?
I ran across a YouTube short which stated (without documentation) that our average screen focus has plummeted from 150 seconds to 47 seconds over 20 years. And it provides a reason for this.
I just finished an interesting book by a favorite author of mine, and I was thinking how mentally engaged I get when I read a book that interests me as contrasted to the passive nature of watching a movie in a theater or from a streaming source. It occurred to me that one of the quiet tragedies of our increasingly online and visually oriented culture is that we are slowly losing one of the greatest gifts reading has to offer: the opportunity to create an entire world inside our own minds.
That may sound like nostalgia talking, but I don’t think it is. It is one of the reasons great literature has survived for centuries while countless spectacular films are forgotten within a few years. Reading is not simply entertainment, it is a full- contact participation sport because when we watch a movie, virtually every creative decision has already been made for us. . .
He suggests that reading, especially great works, involves a collaboration between the author and the reader.
Though maybe some readers take the collaboration a bit too far, ignoring the intent of the author. Did Christopher Nolan take his "collaboration" with the author too far before he put in his version of the Odyssey on the screen?
*
I think this video by Bill Whittle was recommended in the comments on an earlier post:
Further thoughts from another Substack by Michael Smith: Our Own Odyssey
What if less reading is a symptom, not a cause?
I remember a time when I was in college when I was relating a story about the wisdom of my grandfather, a man who spent his entire life on his farm in rural Mississippi. During the conversation, I used expressions that were perfectly ordinary where I grew up because that was simply the way we communicated. As I talked, I noticed the young lady I was speaking with beginning to look puzzled. She had grown up in a large metropolitan area in the Northeast and, as far as she was concerned, I might as well have been speaking a lost language. . .
That memory came rushing back to me this past week after two seemingly unrelated things crossed my eyeballs. The first was an article in The Atlantic - - yes, The Atlantic, of all places - - titled The End of Reading Is Here by Rose Horowitch. The second was a video shared on "X" by one of my longtime favorites, Mary Katherine Ham.
— 🇺🇸 The American Culturist 🇺🇸 (@MericaCulture) July 25, 2026
Back to Michael Smith's Substack:
. . . I don’t think the young woman in Mary Katherine Ham’s video was stupid. I think she was missing tools. Understanding language requires much more than recognizing individual words. It requires background knowledge, sustained attention, abstraction, inference, and an intuitive sense of where another person’s thoughts are headed before they finish the sentence. Those abilities are not genetic gifts. They are cultivated over years of reading, conversation, observation, and participation in a culture where large numbers of people share the same stories, symbols, assumptions, and historical references. Lose enough of those common reference points and communication begins to resemble my college conversation all those years ago, except this time there is no opportunity to notice the confused expression, no chance to rephrase the thought, and no shared experience from which to build a bridge.
I suspect this is where the internet has changed something far more significant than we appreciate. For nearly all of human history, communication happened face to face. If someone misunderstood you, you knew it immediately. You changed your wording, pointed at an object, drew a picture, laughed, gestured, or approached the idea from another direction until understanding emerged. Communication was an ongoing negotiation between human beings. The internet stripped away much of that feedback while simultaneously allowing each of us to inhabit our own algorithmically curated world. Two people born the same year, living in the same city, and speaking the same language can now possess remarkably little shared cultural knowledge because they have spent years consuming entirely different information, entertainment, history, and assumptions. We usually call that political polarization. I think it is something much deeper than politics. We are gradually losing the shared context that makes communication itself possible.
If that is true, then perhaps we have mistaken cause and effect. We commonly assume people stopped reading books and therefore lost the ability to understand complex writing. I wonder if the relationship actually runs in the opposite direction. What if people are reading less because the cognitive environment that once made deep reading rewarding has begun to disappear? Long-form writing assumes readers can hold multiple ideas in their minds simultaneously, recognize historical references without stopping, infer meaning that is implied rather than stated, and connect one paragraph to the next without constant repetition. Those habits develop inside a culture rich with common stories and shared assumptions. As that common culture fragments, long-form reading becomes more difficult and less rewarding. Schools respond by assigning excerpts instead of books. Writers simplify their prose. Publishers shorten their articles. Readers receive even less practice handling complexity, making the next generation of serious reading more difficult still. That isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a feedback loop.
The biblical story of the Tower of Babel has always fascinated me for that reason. Whether you view it as literal history or enduring metaphor, its central lesson isn’t merely that people began speaking different languages, they suddenly lost the ability to coordinate because they no longer shared understanding.
I think this essay is worth reading and thinking about. Maybe even discussing.
The long strange trip is, of course, the Odyssey. The Christopher Nolan film dropped, to mixed reactions from conservative reviewers. Along with reviews, it gave rise to a number of entertaining memes. It was a rather slow week, so there were leftover memes–the World Cup, the buffalo, and so on. But the largest number of memes attacked socialism. Socialism has always been a target in meme-world, but with the Democratic Party going full commie, the memes are in overdrive.
Oh, one more thing: the phrase “explosive diarrhea” entered the lexicon.
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
*****
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Wonewoc.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice.
3) Running with sharp objects will result in automatic disqualification sometime down the road.
4) Have a great weekend!
“I went out the kitchen to make coffee - yards of coffee. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The life blood of tired men.”― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye (H/T ooops I forgot. But thank you Moron)
*****
AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
5/23 – I used to have a Different Nic could use some prayers as he waits for the results of a biopsy of a mass on his prostate.
6/23 Update – The latest update is that he has stage 2, “unfavorable intermediate”, which he notes is an awful name, but what it means is, it is in the middle, but bad enough that they want to treat it. It’s more aggressive than previously thought. He is at the point where he has to decide on treatment options, which means choosing which set of pretty unfortunate side effects he prefers.
7/6 Update – He has gotten a second opinion, and selected the option for treatment, which should begin next week.
7/18 Update – He has started radiation treatment. No side effects thus far.
6/18 – buzzion asked for prayers for a friend named Christina, who has struggled with drug addiction and is in jail again. Buzzion prays that this really is rock bottom and a true wake-up call for her – even if it requires her to stay in jail.
6/29 Update – Christina’s family bonded her out of jail and she has checked into a rehab facility. Please pray that she gets the help she needs.
7/11 Update – Thank you to everyone for your prayers. Christina is doing well in rehab. Please pray that she continues through this and keeps working through it even after getting out of her program.
6/20 – bluebell gave an update on grammie Winger. Grammie had some major surgery related to her cancer in March and is pretty much housebound. She said she isn’t keeping up on news since her diagnosis; she doesn’t have the energy. She said she thinks of her grey-box friends often with fondness. Please keep praying for her. Your prayers are a source of great comfort to her.
6/27 Update – grammie winger requested bluebell to let the Horde know that she is hospitalized again, with sepsis, and cannot eat or walk. She is very tired and cannot speak for long. She is being fed by tube. They don’t know how long she will be hospitalized or where she will go after (rehab, hospice, etc.). Bluebell has a mailing address for grammie, so please contact bluebell to send a card or note to grammie winger. Please pray for her, that her suffering will be eased, and pray for her family, who are suffering along with her.
7/4 – grammie winger posted her thanks for the sweet, sweet cards and letters. She said she treasured each and every one of the Horde reprobates. She can’t express the love she has as she sits there in the cancer hospital.
6/27 – Tom Servo posted prayers of thanks to God that his 38 year-old daughter, who was released from a psych hospital this week after a particularly bad breakdown. She has 2 children, which she does not have custody of, but she still sees, and they are wonderful. She has received more professional care, and it appears to have helped quite a bit. She has new medication and a new commitment to living in a way that will keep her from making a return trip to the hospital.
6/27 – George V sent his thanks to the Horde for their prayers. We had prayed for his wife in May, when she had a heart valve replacement, and there were indications of problems in her lymph nodes. She received the biopsy results, and both came back negative for cancer! Thank God for his goodness!
6/27 – “A” sent thanks for the prayers for a family friend, who is at home recovering with the family and doing much better. “A” has an additional request for long-time friends (J and S) who are in the midst of intense family problems and requesting healing, peace, repentance, and restoration in the family.
7/18 Update – “A” sends his thanks to all the prayer warriors for all the personal concerns listed here. The requests above are all doing better. Prayer really works. Sometimes the results are not what we expected but end up being what we really needed for other reasons. Thank you all!
7/2 – Publius asked for prayers for his 96 year old mother, who had emergency surgery when a massive hematoma on her leg ruptured, and they couldn’t stop the bleeding due to her being on blood thinners. Things were not looking good, but Publius posted later she received blood thinner reverser medication, and was fully conscious and alert after surgery.
7/10 Update – Publius’ mother was moved to a nursing home for post-acute therapy. At this point, she is very weak but is coming back physically. But her mind is in La La Land.
7/13 Update – Publius’ mother has experienced an absolute miracle. She has come back, fully conscious and cogent. The Lord Almighty has decided her time is not complete.
7/3 – San Franpsycho posted that Mrs. F. was admitted to the hospital from the ER visit, and asks for prayers for a complete and immediate recovery for her. She was conscious enough to phone him late last night, and it was a great relief that she was awake even for a short period. She continues with IV fluids and atb. Further steps and hopefully improvement await the results of lab tests. The caring concern shown by so many morons has been a great relief. Thank you.
7/5 Update – Mrs. F. remains hospitalized while being treated for salmonella poisoning. She has had some improvement, but is on Day 5 of not being able to keep down any nourishment.
7/11 Update – Mrs. F. came home on 7/7, and has finished her oral antibiotics. They are very grateful for the prayers for healing.
7/4 – Duke Lowell humbly asked for prayers for the nurses who will have to put up with him, when he goes in for (hopefully the last) surgery related to the events of last September.
7/4 – AH Lloyd requested prayers for his aunt, who was in a shattering collision on 6/29. She was hit by a semi at full speed through an intersection. She lost a lot of blood, but is out of ICU now.
7/4 – Random Dave posted the good news that the past week of interviews went very well. He also had a prayer request for his grand-niece, who has not been growing properly. She’s about 5 or 6. The growth plates are fine but has not grown in over a year. They have found an intestinal or bowel blockage and may need surgery.
7/4 – Dr. No sent his thanks for the prayer list and the Horde’s prayers that helped his daughter in her recoveries from (a) cancer and (b) knee replacement surgery. She’s doing fine now.
7/7 – Weak Geek asked for prayers for the survivors of RG and KG, a couple in their 90s who were pillars of their church for decades. They were knifed to death on 7/3 by their grandson. The entire congregation is stunned. Please pray for them too, and the pastor, trying to help deal with the tragedy.
7/11 – Mis Hum asked for prayers for Some Rat. He has some serious health issues at this time.
7/11 – Fen requested prayers for comfort and strength for “C” and her mother. “C” is in her 30s and her father died after a several months long struggle with cancer.
7/11 – P, a long time lurker would appreciate prayers. He says he should have asked for prayers last year, when his stage 4 prostate cancer was first diagnosed, but he was too busy freaking out. A year and nine months later, he is still on hormone therapy and his PSA spiked recently. It’s back up to 92. He is supposed to start a drug trial soon. He knows from experience that prayer helps, and would greatly appreciate if anyone could include him in their prayers.
7/13 – Captain Obvious posted that he could use some prayers, as he was experiencing some kind of cardiac arrhythmia.
7/15 – Captain JS’ daughter needs prayers for his/her daughter. Early on 7/15, she experienced complete heart failure. She is in the ICU on a heart/lung machine. They will operate to see what is happening. Captain JS sends thanks in advance for the prayers and has faith in their power.
7/15 Update – Thanks to all who responded to Captain JS’ request for prayers. The daughter is still unconscious but is still alive. The doctors suspect a blockage to the left side of her heart. They are planning to take pictures and then insert a stent.
7/18 Update – Captain JS’ daughter passed away. Her heart, brain, and other organs were too damaged to regain function. Captain JS sends his thanks to the Horde for all the prayers.
7/20 – Tecumseh Tea posted that MrTea was diagnosed with colon cancer on 7/20. The doctor who did the colonoscopy said it is a large vascular tumor in the sigmoid. That’s all they know, but he has 3 CTs 7/23 and they see the oncologist on 7/28. They appreciate any and all prayers. Thank you.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
It has been trained similarly but with much less effort towards security, so it isn't as clever at hacking systems or at preventing your systems from being hacked, but it hasn't been forced into I'M SORRY DAVE I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT insanity that flips on the moment you stray into anything even the tiniest bit questionable.
I'll give it a try since I'm on the $20 Claude plan making Opus 5 free of additional charge while Fable 5 uses my limited credits. (Paying accounts received $100 worth of credits free, but I want to keep those for actual security scans.)
Also worth noting: If Fable 5 runs into trouble or doubt, it doesn't just run in circles, scream and shout, it can silently drop back to Opus. This can happen even if your question is entirely orthogonal to security issues.
That is, it's a solid body orbiting another celestial body orbiting a star - clearly a moon - except that the body in the middle is a brown dwarf, a "failed star".
Wait. Yes, it says right on the AMD presentation that Zen 7 uses the same server socket as Zen 6, but... Oh. The other slide doesn't explicitly say DDR6 - which would require a socket change - but a vaguer "next gen memory".
Which gives us a perfect chance to see how much difference single-channel memory makes to performance, because there's a whole list of benchmark results from similar AMD systems and competing Intel ones.
And the answer is, it makes almost no difference to CPU performance, but cuts the performance of the integrated graphics nearly in half.
A Fordham professor wants people who reject fake "birthright citizenship" actually punished for wrongthink.
'They exploit norms of collegiality and presumptions of integrity to advance trash'
Law professors who support limits on birthright citizenship should be shunned in academia, according to a Fordham University scholar.
"There MUST be repercussions for the lawprofs who advanced such untenable arguments. Their behavior is -- and I mean this literally, not dehumanizingly -- parasitic," John Pfaff (pictured) wrote in a since-deleted post on BlueSky.
"They exploit norms of collegiality and presumptions of integrity to advance trash. Which undermines the work of ALL of us," he said. He later wrote, "I stand by the idea, but I should have phrased it better. Academic freedom is the right to say what you want, without INSTITUTIONAL repercussions (generally). But it's not the right to speak w NO repercussions."
Black professors outnumber their Republican colleagues at 11 elite higher education institutions including Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.
Roughly 40 percent of college faculty would "oppose hiring a Trump supporter."
A quarter of faculty in social sciences and humanities departments would "support a campaign" to remove colleagues for expressing conservative views "in at least one of four topic areas."
These are just some of the issues flagged in a new report from the America First Policy Institute published this month, painting a picture on how higher education is more polarized than ever.
"When you have institutions that are being captured and co-opted by this kind of woke, DEI, critical theory mentality, this is the result," America First Policy Institute Vice Chair of Education Opportunity Michael Shires told The College Fix. "You chase out people who have even mainstream perspectives."
"If you think about it," he added, "half the electorate voted for President Trump, yet on a university campus, you know, 40% of the faculty wouldn't hire them."
The report weaves together dozens of studies, research, surveys and other findings to argue government intervention is needed to correct course, as institutional reform is not coming from within, and demands for "academic freedom" ring hollow given the bias against the right.
I'm just going to say it: I am now ready, willing, and eager to begin inflicting punishments on communists for what I consider wrongthink. If they want to criminalize my thoughts, I am now ready to use state power to criminalize theirs.
A bill that would block federal tax dollars from schools that refuse to allow religious exemptions for vaccinations has been introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who argued that educational institutions "need to learn we don't all worship Fauci."
The proposed legislation, dubbed the Guaranteeing Religious Accommodation in Childhood Education (GRACE) Act, is cosponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) and was introduced in the House by Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL). It is endorsed by over fifty organizations, including Children's Health Defense, Moms for Liberty, and the Autism Action Network.
Not only would the bill defund schools that do not allow religious vaccine exemptions, but it would also prevent institutions from requiring documentation from students or parents in order to justify receiving such an exemption.
The Democrat-led states of California and New York both removed their religious freedom exemptions in recent years, impacting thousands of families who are now blocked from attending the schools their tax dollars pay for.
"Schools are discriminating against religious kids and targeting their families over vaccine exemptions," Lee said in a statement to Breitbart News. "Keeping a kindergartner out of class over a vaccine is cruel -- and it's unconstitutional when the reason is their family's religion."
The Oregon Health & Science University and Portland State University School of Public Health hosts an initiative to combat "anti-fat bias."
"The purpose of the Fat Justice Working Group is to engage students, faculty and staff of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health (SPH) in learning, activities and advocacy to reduce weight stigma and anti-fat bias in ourselves, our School and society at large," the initiative's webpage states.
The group was formed by Dawn Richardson, associate dean for academic affairs, as a social justice project to oppose the "oppression" of overweight people, rejecting the notion that excessive weight correlates with poorer health.
In an open letter addressed to the SPH, part of the working group, called the Fat Justice Journal Club, expressed its concerns with the research and healthcare at the school. The letter rejects the "obesity paradigm," requests the expansion of "Fat Studies," and demands the release of public statements that fight "weight stigma and structural anti-fatness."
It includes references to works such as "Health(ism) At Every Size: The Duties of the Good Fatty," "Thick Sistahs and Heavy Disprivileged: Black Women, Intersectionality, and Weight Stigma," and "Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia."
The Boyscast discusses Reddit's r/straightpegging subreddit, where "straight" guys brag about being pegged by their "girlfriends." Content warning: It's about pegging.
Ice T has some news for guys in the r/straightpegging subreddit.
WATCH: Fmr. Clinton aide Keith Boykin refuses to answer whether or not he believes that objectivity is a "tool of white supremacy"
@Jesse_Leg: "The Smithsonian was promoting a document [that]...suggested that objectivity was a tool of white supremacy. I think we can all agree that that is facially ridiculous."
BOYKIN: "No we can't."
ARM: "You think objectivity is a tool of white supremacy?"
B: "I just want to say you presume things that are not true."
A: "Do you believe that objectivity is a tool of white supremacy?"
B: "Well, you said we can all agree on something. I'm just saying we don't."
A: "Can we all agree that objectivity isn't a tool of white supremacy?"
B: "No we can't. It requires a longer discussion."
WATCH: Fmr. Clinton aide Keith Boykin refuses to answer whether or not he believes that objectivity is a "tool of white supremacy"@Jesse_Leg: "The Smithsonian was promoting a document [that]...suggested that objectivity was a tool of white supremacy. I think we can all agree… pic.twitter.com/uxtMxIQb2N
— Manhattan Institute (@ManhattanInst) July 22, 2026
A Jersey Mike’s employee in Baltimore, David, is receiving mass praise after refusing to take abuse from a black woman demanding free food for her “birthday.”
Jim Varney: Biden Pissed Billions Into Blue States for a More Racially "Equitable" Energy Infrastructure -- and the Agencies Are Continuing to Give Away Billions Despite Trump Vowing to Stop It
Biden Bucks: Climate Change Funds a Bonanza for State Outfits
For much of its five-decade history, the Colorado Energy Office was a small department with a handful of employees who supported practical, cost-saving energy conservation measures. From 2010 to 2022, records show, the office received an average of $7 million per year from the U.S. Department of Energy.
All that changed after the Biden administration and Congress approved hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending to provide "a more equitable, low-carbon, and clean energy economy." In fiscal year 2024, Colorado's state energy office was slated to receive $157.5 million from the energy department, along with another $156 million from the Environmental Protection Agency. The Biden team's defeat in the 2024 election didn't stop the gusher, either, as an additional $60 million in funding was allocated after voters elected Trump and his promise to halt the spending.
A RealClearInvestigations search of government data shows that the Colorado Energy Office was just one of many agencies and groups across the country that received exponential increases in federal grants during Biden's last two years as part of the unprecedented attempt to refashion federal agencies into the finance engines that would transform the U.S. energy sector to a renewable, Net Zero future.
The Treasury Department's database suggests that after Congress passed the unprecedented funding to fight climate change, it looked for outfits that could disperse that money at the state and local level. In response, it turned to many organizations in the public and private sector with no track record for handling such vast sums, as well as state energy offices and agencies.
"Biden-era climate policy sometimes prioritized sending money out the door first, and worrying about logistics and oversight second," said Jeremy Portnoy, an investigator with OpenTheBooks who seeks to make all government spending public. "Money went to groups that were receiving grants larger than they had the capability to manage."
Do you see a pattern? Democrats take the same strategy with Medicare and Medicaid. They firehose out money to their criminal supporters and strip away all checks and steps for verification.
...
In response to Trump's efforts to halt much of the spending, a coalition of 13 Democratic state attorneys general filed suit in February seeking to have all the approved grant money dispensed. They argued the Trump administration unfairly targeted states controlled by Democrats, and that without the money those states' "ambitious climate goals" may not be reached.
"Since the first day of President Donald J. Trump's second term, his Administration set out to reverse and undermine the historic energy and infrastructure funding measures enacted by Congress in the preceding years," according to the lawsuit.
...
The legal challenges have scored some successes; last month the Energy Department agreed to reinstate 11 grants, although the largest of them remain in limbo.
Three Huge Beneficiaries
While most states received some portion of the climate splurge, RCI's analysis focused on three of the biggest beneficiaries: Colorado, California, and New York, which were poised to receive more than $1 billion.
Border Dividend: Reductions In the Number of Foreign Students Requiring English-Learning Reduces the Cost of Education in Texas and Florida By Nearly $1 Billion in a Single Year
Declines in the number of English-learning students enrolled in Florida and Texas public schools during the 2025--26 school year were associated with an estimated $835 million to $890 million reduction in education funding across the two states, according to an American Accountability Foundation report obtained exclusively by Breitbart News.
The July 23 memorandum, issued by Thomas Jones of the American Accountability Foundation and addressed to the Republican Governors Association, attributes the enrollment changes to the Trump administration's immigration-enforcement policies following several years of increases under former President Joe Biden.
"In Florida the news is good; in Texas, where the drop far outpaced the overall enrollment trend, the news is great," the report states.
Florida classifies students actively receiving English-language-learner instruction under the designation "LY." That population increased from 277,473 during the 2021--22 school year to 368,068 in 2024--25, an increase of 90,595 students, or 32.7 percent.
During 2025--26, however, the number fell by 23,641 students to 344,427, representing a 6.4 percent decline and the first decrease in the period examined by AAF.
AAF said the number of students entering post-exit monitoring continued to rise, which it argued showed that students were "not dropping out mid-program" and that the decline instead reflected fewer new English learners entering Florida schools.
The Florida Education Finance Program funds English-learning students through an English for Speakers of Other Languages cost factor of 1.165, or 16.5 percent above the base amount. Using a Base Student Allocation of $5,372.60, AAF calculated average total funding of approximately $9,122.93 per student during 2025--26.
Texas saw a similar Border Enforcement Dividend.
"The data is clear -- ending Biden's open borders leads to a lower burden on education budgets," AAF concluded. "Put more simply, supporting the President's border-enforcement and deportation policies means more funding for your local schools -- nearly one billion dollars in these two states alone, in a single year."
What are you going to buy with your Border Enforcement Dividend?
Department of Education Ends Use of "Disparate Impact Analysis" to Conjure Up Phantom Cases of "Racism"
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The left needs far more racism than actually exists, so they've created many tools to increase that supply. Not just the SPLC funding LARP white supremacists.
The left always needs grievances and they need a mechanism for using grievances to extort money and privileges from the rest of society. Crying "racism" over everything is a good mechanism.
But sometimes you need proof of racism, as in legal and quasi-legal procedures. But there is actually no racism present -- no one expressed any racist thoughts nor actually discriminated against anyone.
"Disparate impact analysis" was created to "prove" the existence of racism in the stubborn absence of any detectable racism. Instead of finding racism, the left needs only find that a law or prerequisite has a "disparate impact" on protected minorities. and then the system infers racism from the simple, non-racist fact that there are fewer black people in, say, science or tech.
If there are any requirements that serve as roadblocks to getting blacks into science or tech -- like the requirement of an actual degree in science or tech -- then that roadblock will have to be removed because of the "disparate impact" on blacks.
Education Dept. eliminates tool used to prove racial discrimination
Civil rights complaints against schools can no longer use data evaluations, called disparate impact analysis, as evidence of discrimination.
The Education Department on Thursday killed decades-old rules that have allowed statistical disparities to be used as proof of racial discrimination, the most recent move by the Trump administration to overhaul the government's enforcement of civil rights law.
The move follows years of conservative complaints about "disparate impact analysis," which incorporates use of data to show discrimination. Supporters say that discrimination is not always explicit and that data analysis is needed to uncover it.
Conservatives say that proving discrimination should require proof that someone intended to treat people differently and argue that when people are being judged by data, they feel pressure to make decisions based on racial quotas.
At the Education Department, disparate impact analysis has been used in recent years to evaluate allegations that students of color were discriminated against by examining data showing they were disciplined at higher rates than White students.
Oh, that is a cherished tool for confabulating "Racism" -- just assert, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, that blacks do not misbehave or commit crimes at a level greater than that of other races and therefore, any disparity in arrests or discipline of blacks must be due to racism. Because what else is left? We ruled out any possibility that blacks commit crimes or misbehave at elevated rates. Therefore: Racism. Q.E.D.
The Education Department said Thursday that eliminating the data analysis will assure that schools can address discipline problems without fear of drawing a federal investigation.
"The left's notion of 'equity' should never prevent teachers from keeping their classrooms and students safe. With these changes, schools will be empowered to address classroom issues without fearing the federal government will weaponize antidiscrimination laws," Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
The change was made without an opportunity for public comment, which is unusual for major regulatory action. The rules were announced on Thursday and took effect immediately.
...
Supporters of disparate impact analysis say it is a critical tool because finding "smoking gun" evidence to prove someone intended to discriminate is difficult. And even if the intent wasn't to discriminate, advocates say institutions should be held accountable for discriminatory effects.
It's difficult to prove "racism" in most instances because racism is not present in most instances.
And so we have to create a fake proxy definition of racism to find the racism that does not exist and can be shown to not exist by the complete lack of evidence for it.
Since the twin calamities of the election of Barack Obama and the death of a drug-dealing pig named George Floyd, schools and police have actually been avoiding arresting/disciplining black people.
In the UK, cops were advised not to arrest violet BLM or BAME (Black, "Asian" (meaning Muslim), Minority, or Ethnic) "protesters" for fear of triggering even more violence.
Police were warned against arresting violent BLM protesters who assaulted officers or caused criminal damage to avoid "triggering" them, a leaked document reveals.
An internal police risk assessment published during the Black Lives Matter protests of June 2020 warned officers of potential "trigger points" that might cause crowds to riot.
...
In the summer of 2020, dozens of police officers were assaulted by BLM activists across Britain, including some 62 in London alone.
According to a 2024 report by Lord Walney, the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, officers were "kicked to the ground" and pelted with bottles and other missiles.
However, during the riots, police were told to "be mindful of possible increased tensions when interacting with the BAME community", and warned against arresting violent agitators.
This obviously goes on all the time in America. Rioters in Baltimore were given "space to destroy." Blue city majors continue taking no action whatsoever to stop violent trespasses during "teen takeovers," attempting to normalize rioting as something people will just have to accept as routine, like changes in the weather.
Since the 1920s, it has been the goal of communists to destabilize western societies and immiserate them so that the public would accept the idea of burning it all down and letting the bloody-minded lunatics of the left further degrade and destroy civilization.
Communists realized the "workers' were just too satisfied in western capitalist societies to support communism.
So they set about changing that.
A growing anti-marriage movement is being fueled by viral TikTok trends and high-profile celebrities painting men as the enemy, but according to a new column, women may ultimately be the ones losing out.
In a USA Today op-ed, columnist Ingrid Jacques warned of a rising wave of "heteropessimism," defining it as women's growing feelings of disappointment and antagonism toward relationships with men. She argued that viral trends like "divorce glow-ups" and anti-male literature have actively widened the divide between the sexes.
"Studies show that married women are not only happier but also live longer and earn more than their single counterparts," Jacques wrote on Tuesday.
...
The trend coincides with falling US marriage and birth rates. Official US Census Bureau data from December shows that just 47% of American households in 2025 were married couples, down from nearly 66% 50 years ago.
Of those married households, only 37% included their own children under age 18, compared to 54% in 1975.
Jacques linked the shift directly to liberal ideology, noting that left-leaning Americans choose to opt out of traditional family lifestyles "far more often than conservatives."
"Wherever you look these days, women who 'free' themselves from the chains of marriage are being celebrated," Jacques wrote.
...
A 2024 American Family Survey found that 37% of conservative women and 28% of moderate women, between the ages of 18 and 40, reported being "completely satisfied" with their lives.
However, liberal women of the same age reported only 12% feeling the same way.
...
Citing Louise Perry, author of "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution," Jacques argued that young women are being alienated after getting "burned by hookup culture" and lacking real friendships with the opposite sex.
Jacques argued that, like Perry, returning to marriage, not abandoning men altogether, is the remedy for the cultural divide.
"That won't be true for everyone, of course," Jacques concluded. "But men and women need to find a way back to each other. Discounting marriage won't get them there."
If you really want to destroy civilization in a hurry, go to the very heart of the human experience -- family and mating -- and destroy that.
And they want to give everything away. You want free rent? You want a free house? What they don't say is that a year from now, there will be absolute squalor, turmoil and death, and that's the way it's happened all the way. It goes back thousands of years,… pic.twitter.com/uUQZOJT7v4
Bonus: More from Musk. "I"m not anti-Muslim, I'm anti-rape and anti-murder."
🚨 ELON MUSK JUST NAILED IT TO THE FAKE NEWS!
Q: Are you anti-Muslim?
MUSK: "If people come to a country with antithetical views, I am AGAINST that."
"I am against r*pe and m*rder. I am against the imposition of rules and laws that are contrary to what we've come to accept in… pic.twitter.com/NJJdO8Fzg2
Elon Musk: "ZERO died because of DOGE. Zero point zero!"
"When funding is stopped for a fraudulent organization, or for something do you think they're going to say,"Will you please keep funding the fraud!'
Or do you think they're going to come up with a sad story that sounds sympathetic in order to get the funding restored?
Obviously it will be the latter and that's exactly what they did!!!"
LIBERAL WHITE WOMAN: "The cuts certainly caused unnecessary suffering!"
Elon Musk: "No."
LIBERAL WHITE WOMAN: "You don't buy that at all?!"
Elon Musk: "It caused a lot of complaining!"
LIBERAL WHITE WOMAN: "You don't believe any kid in Africa died because of the suddenness with which...
Elon Musk: Zero! How many NGOs could step in? There are literally tens of thousands of NGOs. The Gates Foundation has FIFTY BILLION! What about them? What about any number of organizations?!"
ELON IS ON FIRE!!!!!!
🚨ABSOLUTE MIC DROP FROM ELON ON DOGE!!!!
Elon Musk: "ZERO died because of DOGE. Zero point zero!"
"When funding is stopped for a fraudulent organization, or for something do you think they're going to say,"Will you please keep funding the fraud!'
Elon Musk sat down with The Economist's editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, and boy, did she get more than what she was asking for. If she thought she could lob a bunch of accusations against him, and he'd just take it sitting down.
He didn't.
Instead, Beddoes got schooled, and the internet is still talking about it.
The interview covered plenty of ground, but two exchanges stood out as the moments Musk completely dismantled Beddoes' entire premise.
The first came when she tried to paint Musk as a supporter of Europe's "far right."
"You support not just the populist right, but the far right, in fact, very fringe parties in some countries," Beddoes said.
Musk wasn't having it.
"No, I support the normal people -- what do you call the far right, falsely," Musk said.
Beddoes pressed on, asking if Musk really believed those parties represented normal people. Musk's response exposed exactly how the media manufactures its labels.
"Yes, literally, you could go back 10 or 15 years, and these policies were completely normal," Musk said. "One of the tricks that I think is funny is to take a speech from Obama and Hillary, and then go to someone who's sort of on the sort of what I call the lunatic left, and say, 'What do you think of the speech by Trump?' They're like, 'Oh wow, he's the worst person ever.' 'Actually, that was a speech by Obama,' or 'Actually, that was a speech by Hillary.' Literally."
Beddoes tried to pivot, insisting she wasn't talking about the Democrat Party's leftward lurch but about specific figures like Rupert Lowe. Musk shut that down, too, laying out exactly what "far right" actually means to people like Beddoes.
"It's actually just normal people. And here are the principles -- tell me which of these sound terrible: That we should have secure borders? That we should have safe cities? That we should have sensible spending?" Musk asked. "Which of those three are far right fringe? I would like to just admonish you and the media for the absurd characterization of the far right. It is false and misleading and nonsense."
Phil Trubey
@PTrubey
...
And then came the oh-so-typical, increasingly tiresome part of most long journalist interviews: the interviewer constructs a straw-man version of Elon and argues against it. Elon carefully explained that he isn't a raging far-right extremist, racist Nazi who kills puppies ... and the journalist still didn't believe it. It is so effing tiresome.
The lack of self-awareness on the part of journalists is off the charts. She complained about Elon's supposed misperception of how dangerous London is, while remaining oblivious to the role she plays in creating the giant misperception of Elon as a person in her own writing.
Elon defended his political views, saying he is for secure borders, locking up criminals, and balanced government spending, something even she had to admit didn't sound crazy.
And... that's about it for an 85-minute interview. I couldn't help but think that the next long-form interview Elon does should be conducted by an AI.
Is he right that if you go back 10, 15 years, you hear Democrat establishment politicians claiming (dishonestly) that they believe in border enforcement?
It's not the right that became "far right." We stayed pretty much where we were. It's the left who became far left.
Here she berates him about his prediction that England is on a glide-path to civil war. See, Elon Musk hasn't been there in a couple of years, ergo his understanding of the rich and vibrant culture of the UK is way out of date.
On the other hand, she sees things perfectly, and the UK is doing just great!
When this greasy twat told him that millions of people hated him, he told her that millions of people hate her, too.
🚨 Elon Musk just NUKED this reporter to her face in a MASTERCLASS
"People loathe you!"
ELON: "I don't care. The fact that a quarter billion people follow me means a lot more people like me than don't."
"I think a lot more people hate YOU and the MEDIA than you realize!"
If Team Trump's anti-fraud efforts sometimes look a bit all-over-the-map, that's because the map is so incredibly large.
The feds spend over $7 billion a year, and fraudsters look to cash in on every dime; with Vice President JD Vance on point, the White House has organized a full-court press to fight back.
One day this week, the Justice Department announced it had finally nabbed a fugitive Medicare fraudster on the lam since 2022, who allegedly stole more than half a billion dollars, even as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Medicare-Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz froze over $1 billion in funding to California and Minnesota over apparent Medicaid fraud.
About the same time, Scott Bessent's Treasury stopped $100 million in tax money going to dead people thanks to new verification procedures, while the IRS chief revealed that a recent scrub of the Social Security Number database found that one in 10 recipients were erroneously listed.
That follows recent news of blatant adult-day-care scams in Queens and a drive to claw back $1 billion in COVID-era unemployment fraud that may still be nabbing $2 million a day in New York.
Last month, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced charges against 455 people for $6.5 billion in health-care fraud.
All this is robbery of the taxpayers and of the folks these government programs are supposed to help: That should outrage Republicans and Democrats alike.
And politicians of both parties should be embarrassed that the crackdowns are only coming now, years after fraudsters notoriously made off with tens or even hundreds of billions in COVID-relief monies.
Yes, some of the crackdown relies on new technology: Kennedy touted the use of AI, advanced analytics and "other cutting-edge tools" to ID suspicious Medicaid outlays.
But much of it is just what Alexander Hamilton called "energy in the executive," meaning leadership from President Donald Trump and his top people.
That's a really good point and very true.
For example, the FBI created a Most Wanted Fraudsters list, which has now nabbed three major suspects: Khalid Satary, the one captured this week, plus Herbert Kimble, who allegedly stole $1.2 billion in a Medicare telemedicine scheme, and Said Abdullahi Ereg, accused of fraud totaling $4.2 million in a child-nutrition program.
Nick Shirley is now discovering another avenue of massive medical fraud, this one involving durable medical equipment, stuff like wheelchairs and CPAP machines and equipment like that which is supposed to last for months or years.
It's a similar scam to all the others: "Enrolling" phantom patients up for supplies, billing the government for those supplies, and then, who knows, putting the equipment in a warehouse or more likely selling it on the street for pennies on the dollar.
This wouldn't work... if anyone bothered checking these businesses and confirming that these were real patients. But they don't, because Democrats enable the fraud deliberately. It's how they fund their supporters who in turn donate back to Democrats and put money in bums' pockets for mail-in illegal "votes."
This is how the durable medical equipment (DME) fraud scam works: - Operate around adult daycares - Provide “equipment” for ghost clients (wheelchairs, knee braces, etc) - Easier to open than a bank account - Bill Medicare for millions
THE MORNING RANT: Some Fools Never Learn – Ford & VW Prepare to Roll Out New Small Electric Pickups
—Buck Throckmorton
There are three new small pickup trucks about to roll out. That is great news. They’re all going to be electric. That is bad news.
In my circle of guy friends who came of age in the 1980s, we all seemed to have had a Chevrolet S10, Nissan Hardbody, or Ford Courier / Ranger pickup at some point. We’ve also lamented the lack of small pickup trucks in recent years.
Without getting into the weeds as to why, small pickup trucks with good gas mileage were effectively outlawed by the government’s environmental regulators. Why? Because they’re idiots large trucks were exempt from the automobile corporate fuel standards, but small trucks weren’t. Fortunately, Donald Trump, Lee Zeldin, and Congress’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act combined to kill off all the old mandates.
Auto manufacturers are finally free to build the small pickup trucks that had effectively been banned for decades. And they’re doing just that! Except, they’re going to be electric.
Electric vehicles have been a catastrophic failure for VW and Ford, costing tens of billions of dollars and not ever achieving more than nominal sales before they killed their flagship EVs, the Volkswagen ID.4 and Ford F150 ConflagrationLightning respectively. In fact, Ford and VW both built all-new plants in Tennessee just for their EVs, which were expected to sell hundreds of thousands of units per year. Those plants are now producing zero EVs.
Ford and VW triumphantly rolling out another wave of EVs is as preposterous as Bud Light rolling out another ad campaign with Dylan Mulvaney. But here we are.
First, Volkswagen bought the name “Scout,” which was International (Harvester’s) famous mid-century pickup. What the Scout was not was electric. No matter, VW is building yet another all-new plant in the U.S., this one in South Carolina, with plans to produce up 200,000 electric Scouts per year. From Car and Driver:
Just a few years after announcing its ambitious intention to revive the Scout brand—once owned by the International Harvester Company—VW has issued proof of concept in the form of the 2028 Scout Terra EV pickup. Debuting alongside its Scout Traveler SUV sibling…the Terra is poised to be an amalgam of modern and traditional styling and engineering themes. For instance, it’s built on a classic truck-style body-on-frame blueprint with a crew cab and 5.5-foot bed, but it uses a modern battery-electric powertrain that’s good for an estimated 350 miles of range.
In other words, with 350 miles of range, this Scout pickup truck cannot do what the small pickups of my youth did, drive from Central Texas to South Padre on a whim, with only one 5-minute refueling stop. Nor could it drive out to New Mexico for a ski trip, etc. Like all other EVs, the Scout will be a novelty that is only good for running around town.
As for Ford, it has recently launched the small Maverick pickup truck, which is gasoline-powered and a huge sales success. Perhaps Ford thinks its new EV pickup will be a popular lineup addition. Ford’s EV history indicates otherwise.
[Affordable EV pickups] is still an untested market, but if expertly executed, it has the potential to take off for both buyers and automakers. Ford clearly sees the opportunity here and is aggressively angling for it. Furthermore, Ford already has tried-and-true success in the compact Maverick, and the Ranchero should offer the Maverick’s size and utility advantages while not sipping on a drop of fuel.
The Ranchero also won’t be Ford’s first EV pickup. That title goes to the F-150 Lightning, whose production ceased late last year. However, where the Lightning failed is where the Ranchero could succeed, as buyers have shown an overwhelming interest and desire for more affordable vehicles. Without the federal EV tax credit to lean on, automakers are going to have to retool how they price their EVs.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame is forever trying to copy Elon Musk’s successes, so now Bezos is launching an EV company, focusing on what else? Small, electric pickups.
Slate Auto, backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, could have the secret formula to making disruption in the pickup truck market that includes Tesla Inc, Rivian Automotive, General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. The secret could be cost. Here's how Slate Auto is solving the key issue.
Originally planning to launch a bare-bones electric pickup truck for under $20,000, the ending of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit put that pricing plan from Slate Auto into question. On Wednesday, the company unveiled its Slate Truck, which will come with an initial starting price point of $24,950 with units expected to ship in late 2026.
Just like Tesla found a niche with Tesla as a boutique city car for those with a home-charger and at least one gas-powered car, there may be a market niche for a small electric pickup that serves as a status-symbol “2nd car” for running errands. Perhaps Bezos will capture that small market.
But these small electric pickup trucks will never become the all-purpose vehicle for the demographic that was so loyal to small pickups decades ago. Young adults buying inexpensive vehicles tend to be transient in their housing, and places where transient people live cannot be relied on to have charging facilities. The only reliable EV demographic is homeowners with home chargers (who had to spend on average several thousand dollars to have a home charger installed.) That is not who the inexpensive pickups are being targeted for.
Ford and VW are about to burn through billions more chasing a market that doesn’t actually exist. Some fools never learn.
*****
Other Stuff I’m Writing About
My latest piece at the The American Spectator has been published.
“Repealing the 17th Amendment Would Save… John Cornyn” discusses my opposition to the growing clamor for repealing the 17th Amendment. Prior to this constitutional amendment, state legislatures chose that state’s senators - they were not elected at the ballot box.
Primary voters just voted incumbent Republican senators John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy out of office, a necessary act of political hygiene that the legislatures of Texas and Louisiana would not have done.
Even more importantly, too much of our federal governance is already in the hands of unelected rulers, be they judges or bureaucrats. We, voters, would like to remove many of them, but we can’t. The last thing we should do right now is take away the ability to vote out bad senators too.
How to fix the problem of left-leaning Republicans in state legislatures warrants its own discussion, but the simple fact that RINOs hold so much power in red state legislatures is enough reason not to hand them the power to choose U.S. Senators. Ted Cruz and Ken Paxton are both conservative insurgents who defied the establishment to win their U.S. Senate nominations. Neither would have ever been chosen by the Texas legislature, but conservative voters made that choice at the ballot box.
This piece is not behind a paywall. I’d be honored if you’d give it a read.
My latest at The American Spectator: “Repealing the 17th Amendment Would Save…John Cornyn”
The same Republican voters who dumped establishment incumbents shouldn’t surrender their power to legislatures that would have kept them there. https://t.co/o0JJDoYj26
With everything going on across the country and around the world today, and as you can see from the breadth and depth of the links this morning, there's a metric shit-ton of meshugas to deal with and unpack. Despite that this item just ticks me the hell off.
There Are No Ag ‘Jobs Americans Won’t Do’ If They Earn A Living Wage
It's not so much the meat of the essay itself which I agree with .. .
Whenever Republicans talk about immigration enforcement, amnesty supporters chant the same tired line: What about picking crops? What about meat processing? Those are necessary jobs that Americans simply refuse to do. That argument was used to justify dozens of House Republicans’ latest mass amnesty effort. Their proposal would give illegal alien agriculture workers a pathway to legal status through the H-2A program, even though they have broken multiple laws by being in the United States illegally and getting a job without a work permit. Their employer has also violated the law by hiring these illegals.
Indeed, so Psaki-Psircling back to that headline, it's this insane completely Commie Leftist garbage of a so-called "Living wage." What a person is paid is or at least in a sane world is merely a reflection of the value of the job or task performed as dictated by market forces such as the skills required to perform them and the availability or lack thereof of the people required to perform them in bringing a product or service to market at a price the public can afford and that an employer can afford to pay to have them performed to stay in business and still remain profitable.
But as the author of this piece points out or at least hints at, is that it's the employers who have over the past several decades willingly employed legal and illegal aliens in order to keep their costs down and in doing so have done untold damage to the labor market and with it the societal dissolution that came with it as we are living through now. Beyond agriculture, whole industries, especially steel and automobile manufacturing and many others were off-shored deliberately so that corporate America can reap mass profits at the expense of the American worker and citizen, cheap mass-produced consumer goods notwithstanding. Forgetting the price tag for a moment, if wages across the board had parity with the cost-of-living in general would we really be paying that much more in real dollars if goods were produced here in America with American workers? Of course we still have to factor in the greed of the essentially Democrat-aligned labor unions as well as the mafia-like extortion of federal, state and local governments and their odious regulatory regimes that make everything that much more expensive. Yes, some sane and minimal degree of responsibility on the part of business is a necessary evil, but in the past that was the purview of the courts as well as enforced by a sense of moral responsibility of business owners not to kill or otherwise poison their neighbors and customers.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Todd Lyons said in an interview Sunday that his agency will crack down on American companies hiring unauthorized workers. “Not only are we focused on those individuals that are, you know, working here illegally, we’re focused on these American companies that are actually exploiting these laborers,” Lyons said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
“These people that came here for a better life. You know, either, you know, forced labor, child trafficking, you know, a lot of these work site cases — just isn’t a victimless crime of someone here working illegally,” he added. “And that’s why we’re going there with these criminal warrants to focus on these American businesses that are trying to make an extra dollar on the backs of these people that came here for a better life.”
Sadly we'll get just as much resistance from the GOP on this as we will from the Democrats, as is the gravamen of the aforementioned essay.
Pro-amnesty Republicans are allowing the agriculture industry to shut out American workers in favor of foreign migrants.
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
The leaks have raised serious concerns within the Secret Service, the FBI, and the White House, given the potential risks posed by unauthorized disclosures. The suspended agent’s future remains uncertain as the investigation continues, with potential administrative or criminal consequences on the table. Secret Service Agent Accused of Leaking Sensitive Info About Vance.
The fines aim to pressure illegal migrants to leave voluntarily while addressing economic concerns such as wage suppression and housing costs caused by illegal migration. While it is highly unlikely that it will be possible to collect the fines in full, many long-term illegal immigrants do have cars, properties, and other assets that could be seized to defray their bills, and DHS reports that over $1.2 million had been collected as of July 16. DHS Imposes $84 Billion in Fines on Over 100,000 Illegal Migrants.
“I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it,” Trump told Axios, describing a potential operation that the outlet reported would exceed the scale of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. campaign that began alongside Israel earlier this year. Trump May Order ‘Massive Attack’ on Iran ‘Bigger Than Ever Before’ as U.S. Weighs Next Move
“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Houthis Claim Two Attacks on Red Sea Saudi Oil Tankers as U.S. Completes 12th Night of Strikes
Option A: The Iranian regime is toppled, its leaders killed or forced to flee, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is completely dismantled. Whatever government arises from the ashes is friendly to the West, or at least not openly hostile. . . At this point, President Trump has little choice but to follow through with Option A. There Are Only Two Possible Endgames for Iran
...However, President Trump seems determined to see through the conflict, warning in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning that the U.S. could widen its strikes to target the Houthis in Yemen, who are currently moving to choke off the Red Sea as an alternative transit route for global oil, after Iran largely closed the Strait of Hormuz. House Votes to Limit Trump’s Iran War Powers After Four Republicans Join Dems.
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE COURTS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) data showed the 5.0 quake’s epicenter was just over 20 miles southeast of Spearman, Texas, KWCH reported. “The initial report shows that it could be felt as far away as an area near Kinsley, about 40 miles east of Dodge City.;Rare Magnitude 5.0 Earthquake Shakes Texas Panhandle
OFFICIAL DEMOCRAT PARTY/LEFTIST-ENDORSED ANTI-SEMITISM, ANTI-CHRISTIANITY, PLUS VARIOUS & SUNDRY GODLESS HEATHENS
...“investigating claims that the suspect said ‘Allah Akbar,’ meaning ‘God is the greatest’ in Arabic, before one of the attacks.” The Jewish victim, Yezhak Grunhaus, was wearing a yarmulke at the time of the attack, having previously left the synagogue at Central Park Wes Possible Hate Crime as Jewish, Asian Man Stabbed in New York City
The New York mayor finally admits that his long-running threat to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu is a nonstarter—but did he actually believe that he could? Mamdani and the Left’s Israel Fantasy
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Restoring the FCC’s authority to auction spectrum licenses to the private sector was one of the many fantastic provisions of the Big Beauty that went largely unnoticed but has massive positive economic implications. FCC To Unleash An Economic Boom, Thanks To Trump Tax Bill
Corporate America should understand that every act of cronyism purchases temporary protection at the expense of capitalism’s future. Corporate America Must Reject Cronyism
After all, you would expect that cash to flow back into the economy in two possible ways. Either it goes straight to the bottom line of the companies receiving it, as a kind of one-off bonus, or else it is passed on to customers in the form of lower prices. Judging by the data so far, remarkably little of it is showing up at the till. Major US companies are pocketing the Trump tariff refunds and stiffing consumers. It’s time to pay up
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS, JUNK SCIENCE, LYSENKOISM
“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticizing and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room…OMG, this is so rich!” France Sees 5,700 Excess Deaths During Heatwave Amid AC Debate.
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY
The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) said Thursday that murders in large American cities dropped 18 percent during the first half of 2026, putting the national homicide rate on pace for its lowest level since at least 1900, though eight cities recorded increases. Report: Murder Rate on Pace for 126-Year Low, 8 Cities Buck Trend
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is at the East Asia Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, the Philippines, on Thursday and overnight Eastern Time held a bilateral meeting on the side-lines with his Russian counterpart, the veteran diplomat Sergei Lavrov. One of the only senior Russian political figures whose long career pre-dates and has survived the Putin era, Lavrov has been Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2004 and a Russian ambassador since the Soviet era. Russia Tells Rubio America Sending More Weapons to Europe, Attempts to ‘Inflict Strategic Defeat’ are ‘Unacceptable’
According to the latest poll from Insa, the AfD’s support climbed to 29 per cent, up half a percentage point from the previous week. Meanwhile, the governing centre-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) in Bavaria fell by another full point to 20.5 per cent. Populist AfD Surges to Record Lead over German Chancellor’s Party
According to the report, a growing number of therapists now advise patients that cutting off parents or other close relatives is a legitimate form of self-care. A trend that treats walking away as the “healthy choice” has quietly replaced decades of therapy built around repairing family bonds. Is This the Reason Your Leftist Relatives Are Cutting You Off?
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Here's the problem: Zen 6 is strongly rumoured to increase the core count per chiplet from 8 to 12, and increase the L3 cache and X3D cache per chiplet by 50% to match. Which means that the raw numbers of cores and cache do nothing to confirm or deny the 12 core rumour. It doesn't help that the announced mainstream products focused on 96 core models which would have the same numbers whether that's twelve 8-core chiplets or eight 12-core chiplets.
Until you get all the way down to the bottom of the chart for Socket SP8 processors and find the 8-core Epyc with 48MB of cache which rather hints that 12 core chiplets are not a lie.
Oh, also supported (officially) are PCIe Gen 6 - probably for servers only, and 12.8GHz MRDIMMs - also probably for servers only. And up to 16 memory channels per socket, which at 12.8GHz delivers close to three times the bandwidth of Epyc Zen 5.
Where did we get the phrase "in the doghouse"
People have conflicting theories.
Literal Origins: The Doghouse as a Symbol of Disfavor
The term “doghouse” has been part of the English language since at least the mid-1500s, referring to a shelter for dogs. In the late 19th century, the term evolved to describe the backyard structure for a single dog. The figurative use of “in the doghouse,” meaning to be in temporary disgrace, emerged by 1932.
The earliest known printed use of “in the doghouse” in its idiomatic sense appears in Winsor McCay’s comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend between 1904 and 1905. This predates the 1926 glossary Criminalese by J.J. Finerty, which defines “in dog house” as “in disfavor.
Maritime Theory: Sailors’ Punishment Quarters
Another theory suggests that the idiom originated in the 19th century when sailors slept in small huts on a ship’s deck, referred to as “dog houses.” Punished sailors were made to sleep in these cramped, uncomfortable spaces, leading to the association of “being in the doghouse” with being in trouble.
Today's Funnies
Two rabbits were being chased by a pack of hungry wolves. The wolves chased the rabbits into a thicket. After a few minutes, one rabbit turned to the other and said,
"Well, do you want to make a run for it, or should we stay here for a few days and out number them?"
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When I was a kid, we played "Spin the Bottle". If they didn't want to kiss you, they'd have to give you a quarter. By the time I was 12, I owned my own house.
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I prefer not to think before speaking. I like being just as surprised as everyone else by what comes out of my mouth.
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I asked a librarian if she had a book about Pavlov's dog and Schrödinger's cat ...
She said it rang a bell, but she wasn't sure if it was there or not.
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New Chicago Fire Hydrant
Doghouse Tunes
And one candidate I'm considering for 2028.
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Not music, but calming: British Boobies and Yoga Puppies
Today's Poll
Your opinion only, not your dog's, please. Mine is D.
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Forgotten 80s Mystery Click She's totally committed to major independence
She's a lady through and through
She gives them quite a battle, all that they can handle
She'll bruise some, she'll hurt some too
Podcast: Illegals registered and voted in NJ! Leftist violence is baked into the Democrat cake, Iran's capabilities are being degraded, Londonistan? And...come on SC...no senate dynasties!
FDA is providing an update regarding the sample of lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms de Mexico which was reported positive on July 18, 2026. Due to the complexity in detection of Cyclospora, FDA laboratory experts re-reviewed the sample results and have concluded that the finding does not represent true amplification and should be considered a false positive. Information about the sample has been removed from the July 18, 2026, update below. FDA has notified Taylor Farms and continues working with the firm to ensure product implicated in this outbreak has been removed from the market. FDA and state partners continue to collect and analyze product samples. As of July 19, 2026, there are no confirmed positive sample results for product testing for Cyclospora.
Podcast: Trump Slaps Mullin down; he wants the auto stops to continue, we need employment enforcement at our big corporations, The gerontocracy in the Senate, the Iranian junta is true to form, but Trump responds forcefully, and more!
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Northern Lights Division
Our topic today is music That's right, like
'Cause my brother and I are now experts in the field, eh
Yeah, right, 'cause we're a band now
Uh, yeah, so Except for him, I'm a band
Aw, how can you do that?
You're making me look bad
You're such a Hosehead
CNBC ranks Tennessee as dead last in its “Worst States to Live” analysis. The specific reason is that cross-dressing men in TN are denied access to children and women’s private spaces. Texas finished 49th. The “worst” states were all red states. [Buck]
In response to someone asking why the video tape doesn't show Tyler Robinson's face (PS, it does, but it's crappy video so it's blurry):
Candace Owens
@RealCandaceO
Because as I demonstrated on my show, there were MANY young men that all woke up and decided to dress in Maroon shirts and light shorts on the day of the Charlie's assassination.
The footage can be any one of these young men and in my opinion is likely multiple of them.
If Tyler Robinson's defense would like to contact me-- I'd be happy to supply them the folder of the maroon boys that I began archiving when I noticed the bizarre fashion trend.
I have thus far ID'd two of them, but will focus on IDing the rest of them when I am back on air.
I have maintained that the Feds had multiple decoy maroon boys on the ground that day. Without a clear image, they certainly cannot declare it is Tyler Robinson which is why all the Zionist influencers are hoping they can simply hypnotize the public into trusting blurry images and videos.
For such an "open and shut case" they have thus far provided ZERO evidence of anything outside of a criminal government conspiracy, the likes of which hasn't been seen since the JFK assassination.
