Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
Y'know how every so often there will be some new "scientific" craze about something we all just have to do to save something? "To save the environment we must ..." or "to save lives we must ..." or "to save the whales we must ..." or whatever? The promised outcome is always grandiose, usually some kind of large-scale salvation, and the required change is almost always something that appears to be small but is actually very big, very difficult, very expensive, very complicated or very disruptive. It's almost a game at this point for something to come up and kick off a moral panic, then the state imposes a "small" solution that everyone ends up hating, then it turns out to be pointless at best or destructive at worst.
A recent and really big example of this was the "social distancing" push in the COVID era. "Keep your distance" was the small thing that was actually a monumental pain in the butt that would bring about salvation at scale in the form of infection reduction. The Science said so, the media softened up the public, the state imposed the solution, and it worked as well as these things always do. What they promised was infection control. What they delivered was reduced liberty, compliance costs, social destruction and loss of trust. This is what always happens, and it happens like clockwork. In that case, it even came out that the "scientific solution" was nothing of the sort, and there was never any real basis for it. Sometimes, that last piece is optional.
Continue reading
The Morning Report — 10/28 /26
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids.
While there is certainly some good news out there to take heart in and cheer about. Firstly despite some of the savagery that we read about here on a frequent basis, there's this story:
The cause and effect are obvious: The Trump team made fighting crime a top priority — a reversal from the “criminal justice reform” emphasis of Joe Biden and #Defund Democrats — and got the expected results. Per Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, 2025 saw 2.16 million violent incidents — down from 2.83 million in 2024, for the largest single-year drop since 1973. . . . Democrat mayors are trying to claim credit for last year’s marked decline in violent crime, yet the staggering 25% drop was nationwide and came in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new term. The cause and effect are obvious: The Trump team made fighting crime a top priority — a reversal from the “criminal justice reform” emphasis of Joe Biden and #Defund Democrats — and got the expected results.
And despite the ups and downs of oil and energy prices as a result of the ongoing conflict with Iran, it ultimately will stabilize and no doubt drop to lower costs as it has always done in the past in the wake of the geopolitical crisis du jour that caused the spike in the first place. So on that note, there's this item.
President Donald Trump will announce an EPA proposal on Tuesday evening gutting Biden-era regulations that placed strict limits on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling operations, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.Methane is released during the flaring of natural gas, which takes place at oil drilling operations that lack expensive capture technology. For years, environmentalists and Democrats have called for stricter regulations, including rules barring flaring, that target methane, which activists refer to as a "super pollutant" and is more potent than carbon dioxide.
Overall, Tuesday's action removing methane regulations—which represents the latest major energy-related announcement Trump has made in the run-up to the upcoming midterm election—is projected to save Americans $45 billion in energy costs and lead to an extra 210 million barrels of oil and 1.41 trillion cubic feet of natural gas produced nationwide, a Trump EPA official briefed on the announcement told the Free Beacon.
Oh please. This is an abject crock of shit. If methane were so lethal then how is it that the human population jumped to roughly 8 billion from an estimated 1.25 billion in 1850, which was about the start of the Industrial Revolution, when oil, coal and natural gas were produced and burned wherever civilization and human progress progressed!
Therefore, If you love your children burn fossil fuels.
Here’s a question someone should ask climate expert Greta Thunberg today. What if global warming is preventing the next ice age? Wouldn’t that be a good thing for children everywhere? Turns out, a new study published in the highly respected journal Science says that might be exactly what’s happening right now. The study, which goes by the unassuming title of “Late Holocene re-expansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet,” asks whether “anthropogenic warming prevented the next glacial cycle” and finds that “it may have done just that.”
Of course all of this sanity could come screeching to a halt should the midterms be whole or in part taken by the Dems and certainly should a non-MAGA aligned Republican not come out on top in 2028 and for every election afterwards and our educational system not be purged of the Leftists from Pre-K through Post-Graduate.
And when I say the midterms TAKEN by the Dems I mean that quite literally.
In a 2-1 decision handed down Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Justice Department’s emergency request to pull those ballots out of the count while the voters’ eligibility is reviewed. The majority wrote that the government’s urgency was partly of its own making. Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, arguing the federal government has a sovereign interest in protecting federal elections.The fight started October 15, when the DOJ sued California over a list of more than 20,000 registered voters that federal agencies had flagged as likely noncitizens. Prosecutors wanted the state to verify each name or keep those ballots separate from the rest. California refused, disputing both the underlying data and the short deadline it was given.
Federal prosecutor Bill Essayli said the state made a stunning admission at a hearing a day earlier. According to Essayli, California told the court it does nothing to independently check the citizenship of its voters, and that any ballot already cast by a noncitizen would be counted if the judges did not step in. He said that is why his office asked for the emergency order, arguing that illegal votes dilute legal ones.
A free people keeps the means to defend its own, and the Second Amendment is the insurance policy I'm glad we never cancelled. . . My oldest son graduated from West Point, and the other two are still in college. I’d like all three to inherit a country that still knows what it is and still enforces its own rules. The studio always releases the trailer before the feature. Europe’s trailer is playing now, and we still hold the pen on the sequel. A free people keeps the means to defend itself, and the Second Amendment is the insurance policy I’m glad we never canceled.
On that somewhat mouth-watering essay I bid you all to have a good day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- From Omar to Michigan, the stakes are rising.
The Obama Endgame
- Democrat mayors are trying to claim credit for last year’s marked decline in violent crime, yet the staggering 25% drop was nationwide and came in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new term. The cause and effect are obvious: The Trump team made fighting crime a top priority — a reversal from the “criminal justice reform” emphasis of Joe Biden and #Defund Democrats — and got the expected results.
Crime’s way down thanks to Trump — Dems will fight to send it back up
Continue reading
Daily Tech News 28 October 2026
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- The Four Awakens: If you have a device running the GoAhead embedded web server - which you might be, because there are reportedly hundreds of millions of these, though less than a million connected directly to the internet - there's an unwelcome surprise on one of the security modes: Four. (FoxIO)
Yes, it's back. Though this time it's a bit of a guessing game; instead of using a 2048-bit (256 byte) key, it actually uses an 8-bit key.
Oh, and it only really uses three of those eight bits; only eight values are possible - 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128.
Continue reading
Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - October 27, 2026
—Doof
Howdy Hordelings! The Tuesday ONT has arrived. On time, as always. Open thread, as always. Ready to be whelmed?
[I won't be on until late this evening. Photo and mystery click are clues as to where I am and why I'll be late!]
Continue reading
Science Fiction Double Feature Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
A very prickly porcupine would like to be heard now.
A horse opted out of the rat race.
Great Danes do not know their own size. Which is good, because if they knew their own size, they would eat us.
Eagle lands a big fish. Or rather, he "skies" the fish.
Some quality sea otter content.
Sea wolves are not just a cool nickname for pirates.
A truck driver decides to save a life.
This is a sad video about a grieving orca who carried her dead calf for 17 days and for over 1,600 miles.
The main theme to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, live in concert.
Cat: I will remain still as a I prepare to pounce
Puppy: I will go make some new friends
A pair of memes about Tesla's new flying car and its special abilities.
Continue reading
Quick Hits
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Noted True Conservative David French says that the public's revulsion over fraud will cause them to vote for the Democrat Party he supports, despite being so Conservatively Conservative.
Once you start looking for blue state fraud, you can't stop finding it. It's everywhere. Pretty famously, HHS shut down 800 hospices and home health agencies in Los Angeles that were suspected of fraud, including billing Medicare but having no patients. Name something more obvious about blue states in 2026: Fraud is everywhere, and everyone knows it.So here's how David French guesses the upcoming elections will end, writing his groveling cuckold newsletter in The New York Times yesterday: "Imagine that it's January 2027 and Democrats hold both chambers of Congress. They've been elected in a wave of public outrage over inflation, the war in Iran, and -- crucially -- public corruption. In fact, a Fox News poll taken shortly before the election showed that 'corruption in government' was the top concern of voters, even greater than inflation."
Yes, voters outraged by corruption will punish the Republicans who are causing it, and turn instead to the brave Democrats who stand so passionately committed to eradicating it.
Kurt Schlichter decides he wants in on David French's grift.
Kurt Schlichter
@KurtSchlichter21h
As a strong liberal who voted for Obama and Biden three times each, I am very concerned about the radicalism of many Democrat candidates and will, for the first time ever, vote for the Republicans all up and down my ballot.
I didn't want to but I feel my principles leave me with no choice.
As you know, I'm a lifelong liberal Democrat myself. I've voted for Kamala Harris six times, three times in the 2024 election alone.
But now I am scandalized by the Democrat Party and will do something I have never before done: vote for a Republican.
I'm sure that most of you are also Lifelong Liberal Democrats who are feeling the same way.
Some Biblical scholarship:
Aelfred The Great @aelfred_DOct 26
"Sodom and Gomorrah" leans real hard on Sodom
Everyone refers to Sodom, sodomy is a thing, sodomite, etc etc
Gomorrah's just slowly tiptoeing away like "who's to say what we did"
NY Governess Kathy Hochul: Jews are sympathetic when they are being blown up and raped by Muslim terrorists, but the moment they fight back, they lose the sympathy of the left.
Gov. Kathy Hochul insisted Tuesday that her job governing New York would be "a lot easier" if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lost the high-stakes election in the Jewish state.The Democratic governor, who is also facing a challenge this year, said in an interview with Politico Magazine that Netanyahu's "overreach" in response to the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack has created issues here in New York.
"I went to Israel right after Oct. 7. I saw a lot of pain there. But I actually cautioned the government there, in private conversations, not to overreach," Hochul said.
"The world is with you when it comes to the brutal assault by a terrorist organization known as Hamas on innocent Israeli people. An overreach could change that dynamic, and that's what's happened."
"Overreach" = fight the implacable terrorist army that has been trying to exterminate you for generations
So suck it up, Buttercups!
This poll seems like fake news to me, but... A McLaughlin poll claims that Jewish voters have shifted decisively.
Republicans lead Democrats by 31 points among Jewish voters on the congressional ballot, according to a McLaughlin & Associates poll that points to a potential shift among a group that has long favored Democrats.The poll found that 64 percent of Jewish voters backed Republicans for Congress, while 33 percent supported Democrats, pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin wrote in an article published by the firm Monday.
The result would mark a major shift from the large margins by which Jewish voters have traditionally favored Democrats, though pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin warned that the sample of Jewish voters was small.
The journal "Men and Masculinities" will no longer refer to individuals as being "male."
Colin Wright @SwipeWright
🚨ALERT: The editors of the journal Men and Masculinities will no longer allow authors to refer to individuals as being "male."If an author uses the term, they should "specify which dimension(s) of sex are at issue, since sex itself refers to several only loosely correlated dimensions rather than a single underlying fact."
For example, trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas must be referred to as a woman, and his maleness, if mentioned at all, must be attached to specific traits, like genitals, hormones, and chromosomes.
You cannot call Lia Thomas a "male" in this journal, but a woman with "male genitals" and "male sex chromosomes."
The first author of this editorial--the Managing Editor of Men and Masculinities, Tristen Kade--is a woman who identifies as a man.
The model of biological sex this editorial is pushing is what I refer to in my scholarly article "Why There Are Exactly Two Sexes" as the "multi-level" sex model. This model is not merely wrong--it is self-refuting.
From my article:
"Traits are labeled 'male-typical' or 'female-typical' only because they correlate with organisms already identified as male or female--an identification that, in anisogamous species, is made ultimately by reference to gametes."
Read my article at this link.
Wesley Yang responds to one of the tranny Wachowski brothers' latest claims that there's a "trans genocide" going on and just reading a JK Rowling book contributes to it.
Wesley Yang @wesyang21h
Things that are not genocide:
-- When a man seeks to join a woman's rugby team and is told he cannot join because he is a man but is eligible to join the team corresponding to his sex.
-- When a man is told he cannot use the ladies changing room but must use the changing room that corresponds to his sex.
-- When a male murderer who says he is a woman is told he must remain in a prison with other men rather than be transferred to a women's prison based on his claim to be a woman.
-- When the state declines to pay for a man's castration
-- When the state declines to pay for a man's mandibular reconstruction surgery.
-- When a passport or driver's license lists the material fact of a man's sex instead of his private reverie to be a woman
-- When a person remains free to refer to the material fact of a person's sex rather than being coerced by state power into joining in a person's attempted falsification of this fact
-- When a 9-year old child is judged ineligible to be prescribed an off-label cancer drug in order to freeze him in a pre-pubertal state so as to better mimic the appearance of a member of the opposite sexNot only are none of these acts genocidal, none of them violate any right that any person has.
If they were granted, as they have been in many states, they would simply be discretionary entitlements being handed out by the state to a legally privileged caste of person at the expense of the rights of others.
Where they are being removed, it is simply a reversion to a status quo without a legally privileged caste being rewarded with special rights that come at the expense of the rights and finances of others.
Glad to clear this confusion up, guys -- I expect you will now desist from claiming that you are victims of a genocide when you are not victims of rights violation of any kind.
Continue reading
After a Woke Judge Releases the Despicable Foreign Invader Who Beheaded the Iwo Jima Statue, the Feds Slap Him With Federal Charges
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Marines at Quantico are very proud of their monuments and their museum, and of course when Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano took a sledgehammer to it and beheaded one of the statue Marines, it launched a firestorm of controversy. Then, Chief Judge Petula Metzler of the Prince William County Circuit Court granted Soriano bond at a mere $2,500.WJLA reporter Nick Minock reported Monday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer request for Soriano, which is probably why Metzler hurried to release Soriano. Northern Virginia authorities have a track record of releasing criminals, even murderers, just to avoid complying with ICE detainer requests. Fortunately, the DOJ was not going to let Soriano's release go unchallenged.
The article notes that many corrupt propaganda organizations refer to the illegal alien, who has received a final order of deportation, a "Virginia man," which is a lie, because we all know the custom is to refer to such foreign criminals as "Maryland man."
There's a bit more news of woke judges being squashed. The Supreme Court previously sharply limited Lawless Lowly District Court Judges from blocking deportations, noting that immigration courts had the primary jurisdiction over such cases.
But lefty federal judges kept insisting that they could ignore the immigration courts and set deportation policy from the benches.
The Supreme Court rejected that.
Leftwing judges also relied on a Biden-era executive order allowing them to interfere in deportations.
Trump nullified that order.
So lefties sued, claiming that Trump's executive order should be set aside so that Biden's executive order could continue.
The Supreme Court rejected that too.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to reinstate a Biden-era regulation that allowed immigration judges to suspend certain deportation proceedings.The decision came in an unsigned order and followed a request from immigration groups to block an agreement that eliminated the regulation, according to SCOTUSBlog.
...
The federal government and Texas reached an agreement to end the rule as part of a court case earlier this year, prompting immigration groups and three cities with large immigrant populations to bring the challenge.
The Federalist has more details:
In its unsigned order, the high court rejected an emergency application by three Democrat-led cities to pause a consent judgment between the Justice Department and Texas. As described by SCOTUSblog, the agreement ended a Biden-era regulation that permitted "immigration judges to suspend some deportation proceedings -- when, for example, a crime victim or witness is seeking immigration relief, such as asylum -- while the challengers' appeal in the lower federal courts is ongoing."Texas initially sued to end the rule in a lawsuit against the DOJ, which agreed with the Lone Star State and subsequently requested a federal judge to invalidate it. The agreement to end the regulation was approved by Texas-based Chief District Judge Reed O'Connor, a Bush 43 appointee.
Three cities -- Baltimore, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; and New Haven, Connecticut -- joined the legal battle along with Centro Legal de la Raza, a leftist-funded immigration group, in an attempt to uphold the Biden-era rule. O'Connor rejected their request to do so on the grounds that they lack standing. He more specifically dismissed the cities' argument that "the elimination of the rule would cost them money because their taxpayers are likely to be deported," according to SCOTUSblog.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals also rejected the challengers' emergency request to pause the DOJ and Texas' consent judgment.
And more news of woke judges being checked:
If you remember, a jury convicted a Somali of many counts of fraud.
The woke judge, who looks like Greta Thunberg's younger retard sister, set the jury verdict aside and entered her own verdict: Not Guilty.
She argued that the Somali Pirate didn't Knowingly Know what he Doingly Did when he cashed checks obtained by fraud.
But an appeals court has set her verdict aside and reinstated the jury verdict.
Blue Lives Matter
@bluelivesmtr18h
SHE SHOULD BE FIRED!! The Minnesota Court of Appeals has reversed Hennepin County Judge Sarah West and reinstated all six guilty verdicts against Abdifatah Abdulkadir Yusuf for a $7.2 million Medicaid fraud scheme.
⠀
A Hennepin County jury convicted Yusuf in August 2025 on six counts of aiding and abetting theft by swindle after a seven-day trial.Prosecutors showed that Promise Health Services submitted more than 40,000 fraudulent claims between 2019 and 2022, operated for years out of a mailbox with no physical office, and funneled over $1 million into Yusuf's personal accounts while he and his wife spent tens of thousands on luxury clothing, furniture, and vehicles.
⠀
West threw out the unanimous jury verdicts in November 2025 before sentencing. She ruled that the largely circumstantial evidence failed to eliminate a reasonable possibility that Yusuf's brother Mohamed had run the fraud without his knowledge or help.
⠀
On October 26 2026 a unanimous three-judge appeals panel reversed her. The court held that the evidence did not support any reasonable alternative explanation and that Yusuf knew of and intentionally aided the fraud.
⠀
The case returns to district court for sentencing, where aggravating factors found by the jury remain in play. West was appointed by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton in 2018.
⠀
Her decision to nullify a jury's finding of guilt in a multi-million-dollar fraud case against a Medicaid provider, only to be unanimously overturned months later, raises questions about whether the ruling reflected the evidence or a preference for a different outcome.
Continue reading
60 Minutes Commits Immigration Fraud by Presenting Yet Another Fake Deportation Sob Story
—Disinformation Expert Ace
60 Minutes @60MinutesWithin five days of being deported from the U.S., Moussa Diawara says Ghanaian officials forced him onto a flight to Mali, the very country a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to. Diawara says he was homeless and went into hiding.
So, what they're talking about is the practice of deporting asylum-claiming immigrants to "safe third countries."
Sometimes those safe third countries then evaluate the asylee's claims and determine them to be fake or overblown, and deport them to their country of origin.
This is completely permissible in the law:
Shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrewOct 24
This is referred to in the law as "refouling."DHS is not allowed to send a illegal alien to a country where it believes that country will commit "refouling".
But, it is up the Sec. of State to negotiate the agreements with the government of that foreign country on this issue.
That's what Rubio did with Pres. Bukele of El Salvador with regard to Venezuelan illegals sent to CECOT.
But case law is nearly iron-clad -- authored by CJ Roberts -- that it is beyond the expertise and lawful authority of the judiciary to second-guess the agreements negotiated with foreign governments in this kind of circumstance.
That's they law.
60 Minutes can run all the hit pieces they want but the Trump Admin. is following the law as established by Congress.
In other words: the third countries we send deportable aliens to have their own courts to evaluate asylum claims, and if they find, through their own processes, that these claims are invalid or contrived, they can deport the alien as well.
Is leftist 60 Minutes so racist that they would say that Ghana's courts are entirely incompetent and corrupt? Do they not believe that Proud African People can serve as judges?
And: is this poor migrant really at risk if he is sent back to Mali?
No, not really.
His big claim of persecution is.... "I claim I'm gay, so I get to stay."
James Percival @DHSGenCounselThis illegal alien is @60Minutes poster child for what it claims are wrongful deportations. I pulled his file. His claimed reason for fearing Mali was that he is "gay," just in case you're wondering how bad the immigration fraud problem is.
David Strom points out that, before he claimed asylum for being "gay," this father-of-two committed immigration fraud:
Of course, our model (non)citizen has a backstory that 60 Minutes carefully downplayed, including the fact that he was deported after having committed immigration fraud.This father of two wonderful children, you see, is "gay," and his whole case for asylum was based on the fact that his homosexuality made him a target.
Among this homosexual's complaints: Upon arrest, he was not allowed to call his female wife.
It seems to me that of all the "homosexuals" in the world, this married father of two would be among the most equipped to "blend in" with the straights.
Diawara has been fighting deportation for 14 years based on a false claim; he got his final deportation order in 2012, and obviously has enough money to live just about anywhere he wants to. He wanted to live here, though, illegally, and after 14 years of delay, he forced an unnecessary deportation. As the Supreme Court said in its ruling on bail for illegal aliens, they are not being detained by the government so much as choosing to stay in government custody rather than departing as ordered.At any time, he could have gone anywhere. This was his choice.
Their main "source" for this "story" is an open-borders group funded by almost every hard-left agitprop group in the world.
It gets worse: The DHS official "interviewed" by 60 Minutes did extremely well in the debate -- and 60 Minutes did treat this like an adversarial prosecutorial interrogation, not a news report -- so 60 Minutes cut out all the parts where the official exposed the "reporter" as an agenda-slinging propagandist.
Continue reading
DOJ Charges James Comey Under the Espionage Act for Transmitting Classified Information to a Non-Approved Source
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The media, that is.
He directed another Anti-Trump Deep State criminal to leak to the media. And then he would claim "I never leaked that to the media," which is a True Lie, because he used a middleman cut-out to actually leak to the media.
This is a crime and as you may have heard, No One Is Above The Law.
The Trump administration charged former FBI Director James Comey for the third time on Monday, with the latest accusing him of transmitting national defense information and conspiring to transmit national defense information.A grand jury has not indicted Comey on the latest charges, but the case has been playing out under seal since Oct. 5, according to NBC News. Comey's defense attorneys sought to have the charges dismissed last week.
Prosecutors allege the disgraced former FBI director authorized James Baker, the agency's general counsel at the time, to provide the corporate media outlet with classified national security details. Comey, the DOJ alleges, wanted to "correct misinformation" published the previous day by Reuters.Comey faces charges of violating the Espionage Act by transmitting classified information not authorized receive it -- presumably The Times reporter.
In a post Monday evening, the DOJ said it had filed a "waiverless criminal information to toll the statute of limitations as it relates to allegations concerning former FBI Director Comey." The legal avenue enables the Justice Department to charge Comey without initially obtaining a grand jury indictment.
"Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals," the post states, adding that the criminal investigation is ongoing. The DOJ had no further comment Monday evening.
Julie Kelly points out that James Baker is at the center of almost every deep state conspiracy.
Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 @julie_kelly2More from the Comey espionage case. Patrick Fitzgerald--one of Comey's defense attorneys also implicated in his client's notorious leak operation--noted in a filing that both John Durham (before he was appointed special counsel) and Jessie Liu--who worked hand in glove with Robert Mueller to bring criminal charges against Trump associates--previously declined to charge anyone with the leak to NYT,
Jim Baker. It's always Jim Baker.
In further No One Is Above the Law News: The FBI raided the home of billionaire patron of the gaseous Eric Swalwell.
The FBI searched a Beverly Hills mansion in connection to an investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell, according to two people familiar with the probe. The home is owned by a Swalwell donor, one of the people said.CNN has reached out to the FBI and a lawyer for Swalwell for comment.
Swalwell has been the subject of federal and state investigations.
The Democrat resigned from Congress and dropped his gubernatorial bid in April after reporting from CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, including one former staffer who said he had raped her.
If you recall, Swalwell hid out at the mansion of a deep state Democrat backer when these rape allegations surfaced.
It was this home that was raided.
The FBI has raided a Beverly Hills mansion in connection with the investigation into disgraced California politician Eric Swalwell -- and sources told The Post it is linked to a sex worker.
The Tuesday raid is believed to have targeted the home of billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, who prominently backed Swalwell's run for governor and even let him stay at his mansion in SoCal.
However, when allegations surfaced that former Congressman Swalwell sexually assaulted multiple women including former staffers, Cloobeck changed his mind and booted him out of the house.
"I am no longer associated with a man that takes advantage of women," Cloobeck said. "I support women's rights."
Uh-huh.
The mention of a sex worker being at the core of this probe reminds me of the hotel video of Swalwell getting nasty with a woman on a bed, in the company of a man who looked a lot like Swalwell's married Wang-Man, Reuben Gallego. I definitely can't say there's any connection. I'm just saying it brings that escapade to mind.
And now for my favorite song: Howard Jones' "(No One Is) Above the Law."
Continue reading
Oh My Word: There's Another Form of Rampant Immigration Fraud That No One Could Possibly Have Imagined
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I'm dumbstruck.
The American government issues "U-Visas" to foreigners who are witnesses to crimes and who assist law enforcement in finding the criminals.
So immigration fraudsters have been setting up entirely fake-armed robberies, with visa-seeking illegal aliens paying $5,000 to $30,000 to "witness," so that they can then apply for a U-Visa after assisting law enforcement.
I couldn't even have imagined this kind of crime.
Bucktown clerk was shot during staged robbery tied to nationwide immigration fraud schemeA suburban Chicago man who organized hundreds of fake armed robberies to help people fraudulently obtain U.S. immigration visas has been sentenced to two years in federal prison. But one of the staged holdups took a horrible turn at a Bucktown liquor store when a purported robber accidentally shot a store clerk in the abdomen, critically injuring him, according to police reports.
Parth Nayi, 29, of Woodridge, organized and participated in the robberies from 2022 through 2024 at coffee shops, restaurants, liquor stores, and gas stations across the country, including in Chicago and its suburbs, federal prosecutors said.
Nayi recruited people to pose as robbery victims, paid store owners to use their businesses, coordinated and paid the people acting as robbers, and coached the purported victims through the scheme. Participants paid him between $5,000 and $30,000 each for the privilege of being "robbed," hoping to obtain U-visas, which are available to eligible victims of certain crimes who assist law enforcement. Upon making payment, the "victims" were told to be at a certain business at a certain date and time, officials said. The "robbery crew" arrived shortly thereafter.The purported victims then sought certification from local law enforcement agencies confirming that they had been victims of qualifying crimes and had helped with investigations. After obtaining the certifications, the purported victims submitted fraudulent U-visa applications to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, prosecutors said.
Read the whole thing. There are foreign cultures which actually valorize scamming and grifting, especially of those outside their tribe, whom they consider justifiable targets for scamming and fraud.
As Karol Markowicz comments: Americans are -- or were -- a high-trust society that just doesn't consider that some people build their lives over cheating and scamming strangers.
We need to stop immigration almost entirely. Enough is enough.
Continue reading
Islamic United Kingdom Reluctantly Charges Two Iranian Agents for RAF Fairford Terror Plot
—Disinformation Expert Ace
When doctors and engineers go wrong.
Two men have been charged with serious security offenses in Britain after being arrested in connection with the incident last month near RAF Fairford, the air base in England that had been used by the U.S. military to launch strikes on Iran, the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Tuesday.Mohmed Abdulkarim, 24, and Nouman Essghir, 24, both British nationals and London residents, were charged under the 2023 National Security Act.
And Maryland Men. Don't forget Maryland Men.
I point out again that the media announces that foreign terrorists are Akshually Citizens of the Nations They Plot Against as if that's some Take That, Racists vindication, when in fact what it suggests is that foreign nationals from terror-supporting countries waging generational warfare against the West never shed their loyalties to their true homelands and will always work for the destruction of the enemy nations they embed themselves in.
Abdulkarim was charged with "assisting a foreign intelligence service" in September and "engaging in conduct that was likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out U.K.-related activities."The CPS said Essghir was charged with a national security offense after he "approached or was in the vicinity of a prohibited place and his conduct was for a purpose that he knew, or having regards to other matters known to him ought reasonably to have known, was prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom."
...
Abdulkarim was arrested by Counter Terror Police under the National Security Act last week, along with another 25-year-old man -- a British-Iranian dual national who was released on bail pending further investigation.
...
Police said Tuesday that six men remain free on bail in relation to the incident, four of whom were arrested on Sept. 27 -- all U.K. nationals and London residents in their 20s -- and two others who were detained subsequently, including the 25-year-old dual U.K.-Iranian national who was detained on Oct. 1.
Surprise! Ilhan Nur Said Elmi's Latest Husband-of-Convenience Has a History of, Get This, Massive Serial Fraud and Shady Cash Infusions from Foreign Billionaires
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I know you didn't see that coming.
Did I just blow your minds or what?
Andrew Kerr at the Free Beacon:
Ilhan Omar Claims She's Struggling Financially. Taxpayers Paid Her Rent While Her Husband's Company Raked in Millions From Indian Billionaire.
Omar's husband's venture capital firm received a mysterious $11.25 million cash infusion from an Indian billionaire in 2024. Then his other businesses settled fraud allegations for millions of dollars.
As Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) tells it, she and her husband, Tim Mynett, are on the precipice of financial ruin. The embattled lawmaker told MSNOW she lives a "basic" paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle and struggles to pay rent on her two homes--in the same Wednesday interview during which, asked whether she was related in any way to her previous husband before Mynett, she responded, "Not to my knowledge." Omar also claimed no wrongdoing in revising her 2024 reported net worth from up to $30 million down to no more than $65,000 due to a dubious "accounting error."But Omar's financial situation is anything but basic. It includes enviable taxpayer-funded perks that she accepts as a member of Congress to cover her living expenses, millions of dollars that her campaign paid her husband's former consulting firm, and a mysterious $11.25 million cash infusion that her husband's venture capital company received from an Indian billionaire in 2024. Omar mentioned none of this on Wednesday when sympathetic MSNOW host Chris Hayes inquired about her financial situation.
"I mean, it's, you know, working, working-class, I guess, like paycheck to paycheck still," Omar said. "You know, we've got four kids. And, you know, we live, I think, like a basic life. I have a Toyota Camry that's from 2016. It's our only car. I rent my D.C. place and my Minneapolis place. And so, I mean, I don't know if that sounds like, you know, not majority of Congress, but there's some of us that are, that don't come from wealth and don't have wealth."
The article notes the huge sums taxpayers pay for this foreign pirate spy's upkeep, including $85,000 per year for housing. See the article for that. That proves that Ilhan Nur Said Elmi is lying about living hand-to-mouth, but I don't think it's news to you that this smelly brother-marrying grifter is lying.
I want to focus on her "husband's" fraud and mysterious infusions of foreign cash.
Omar's campaign also paid her husband's consulting firm, E Street Group, nearly $3 million between 2018 and 2020, much of which landed directly in her husband's pocket after they married in 2020 (Omar reported Mynett received distributions of up to $2 million from his company when adding the figures she reported in her 2020 and 2021 financial disclosures). Omar's campaign payments to her husband's firm drew intense scrutiny, and Mynett shuttered the E Street Group in 2022.
Now we come to the many lawsuits her husband has collected, which allege defrauding investors.
From there, Mynett teamed up with former DNC adviser Will Hailer to launch a series of hamfisted business ventures, including a California winery, a South Dakota-based marijuana investment firm, and an international venture capital firm called Rose Lake Capital, all of which found themselves mired in lawsuits and allegations of fraud by 2024, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Mynett and Hailer's businesses resolved their debts and disputes by the end of 2024, shortly after Rose Lake Capital received a mysterious infusion of $11.25 million from an Indian billionaire.
Reading between the lines: Mynett needed money to pay off the people he'd defrauded so that this wouldn't become a bigger issue, so an Indian billionaire "invested" $11.25 million in his "companies."
It's a payoff. It's a fix.
To top it off: The "investment" was secured with "collateral" consisting of six of Hunter Biden's "watercolors."
I can't back that up. Because I just made that up completely. That's what we in the trade call Corpo Media Fake News.
But it wouldn't surprise you, would it?
Investors sued Mynett and Hailer's marijuana venture, Badlands, for $1.7 million alleging fraud after Hailer told them in writing he couldn't repay their funds because the Office of Foreign Assets Control (a Treasury Department agency that enforces sanctions against alleged international terrorists) had seized control of its accounts. Their winery, eStCru, stopped paying employees in 2023 and, by February 2024, had just $650 in its bank account as it owed another investor $780,000 to settle a separate fraud allegation.
And then Mynett and Hailer struck gold with Byju Raveendran, the Indian billionaire owner of the now-bankrupt educational technology firm Byju.
Hailer testified in those bankruptcy proceedings that Rose Lake Capital received two wires from Byju in June 2024, totaling $11.25 million, in connection with a failed deal to acquire the $1.2 billion leveraged loan at the center of the bankruptcy case. Hailer testified that the funds were routed to Rose Lake "from Dubai to Mauritius to the UK to the USA" and that, days later, Byju demanded the return of the funds.
It's unclear whether Rose Lake Capital ever returned Byju's $11.25 million. By the end of 2024, Mynett and Hailer's winery and marijuana businesses settled their respective fraud lawsuits with cash settlements, and Rose Lake Capital distributed $213,000 to Mynett, according to records reviewed in April by the Wall Street Journal. One of their investors told the New York Post he was "shocked" Mynett and Hailer obtained the money to settle the lawsuit after claiming financial insolvency just months earlier.
Rose Lake Capital's $11.25 million cash infusion in June 2024 may be the nexus of Omar's infamous $30 million accounting error in her 2024 financial disclosure. She first reported last year that her husband's stake in Rose Lake Capital was worth up to $25 million, and his winery was worth up to $5 million at the end of 2024.
But in April, Omar filed an amended report revising her and her husband's 2024 net worth down to no more than $65,000 and that his companies were worthless on paper. Her office told the Free Beacon that Mynett's accountant made the elementary accounting error of failing to account for business liabilities when calculating their worth.
So how did he extract over $200,000 from a worthless, bankrupted company?
And this is interesting: Yesterday I posted an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas ad that claimed that eggs cost so much because we give Israel aid. No mention on the huge amounts of aid we give to, say, Egypt or any other Muslim country.
Continue reading
The Morning Rant: France Is Burning
—CBD
France is burning, and it is a direct result of the post-modern disgust with nation-states, cultural superiority, empiricism, and an unwavering moral code. Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes, Hélène Cixous, and a dozen more anti-Western-culture "philosophers," created the mindset that is currently running France. The irony is vast, as France fails because of its own philosophers!
They have emphasized the abject ridiculousness of a mindset that truly believes that there is an elite in France, and by sheer power of thought they can guide the country. École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) was the elite school that taught this nonsense, and it quickly became a conduit to government power. It was closed recently and turned into another elitist school that will no doubt continue to train legions of superior-sounding but incompetent administrators, whose vision of France is a labyrinth of regulation and laws that stifle creativity, entrepreneurialism, and hard work.
And yes, Macron is a graduate of ENA!
France President Emmanuel Macron promises 'strong measures' to assuage protests
"I have ... asked the government to respond to the legitimate demands that lie at the root of this social movement," Macron told reporters in Marseille, where he traveled to inspect the damage from earlier protests.
The cowardice and willful ignorance just drips from this statement. Macron is a weak clown, and his pandering to the rioters, or to be precise...insurrectionists, is part of the problem in a post-modern Europe. Describing the rioters in the most passive and generous terms allows the government response to be passive and accommodating, rather than what is needed to quell the rise of violence as the default tactic in the 3rd World's conquering of France. Students? That's nonsense, and everyone knows it, but calling them students makes this a home-grown revolt, and much more easily dismissed.
But when a luxury store in Place Vendôme is attacked, When Galeries Lafayette is looted, when Jewish-owned stores are targeted, when streets are blockaded to prevent law enforcement from responding to organized theft, it is clearly not a protest over the admittedly awful conditions of French public schools. That is the excuse for France's 3rd World denizens to emerge from their banlieues and burn and destroy...to show France that they are ascendant, and they will rule! They fly the flags of their 3rd World sh*thole nations and the flag of the ersatz country of "Palestine" to signal that they are not French...that they are not of the West...that they are there to conquer.
The Great Replacement has already occurred, and it isn't as a result of a majority, but rather the single-mindedness of purpose that the invaders demonstrate. They are committed to their goal, and until France and the rest of the West commits to the preservation of Western culture with the same intensity, we will continue to lose.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. And if you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow me it would be much appreciated!
The Morning Report — 10/27 /26
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Well, as per usual that which shocks and disgusts us no longer surprises us in the least. First, this news from overseas in particular is disturbing in its implications as we approach our own crucial midterm elections.
After elections held earlier this month, Brazil looked like it could swing to the right and away from a fourth term for its little communist dictator, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula's opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, achieved far more of the vote than expected. However, neither candidate received enough to avoid a runoff. For many of us here in the United States, it reeked of 2020. An incumbent who trailed in the first round staged a late surge to claim victory after a last-minute judicial intervention extended voting hours, transport disruptions appeared in areas favorable to the eventual winner, and the losing candidate immediately refused to concede while alleging the rules had been changed midstream. Several Spanish-speaking media outlets have quoted Donald Trump as saying it was like something out of the "Joe Biden playbook," but I haven't been able to confirm that quote myself, though he wouldn't be wrong. It's also giving me 2024 Nicolás Maduro vibes. Many are calling the win "historic" because it's been nearly four decades since an incumbent who trailed in the first round made such a comeback. But is it historic? Or did someone have this planned all along?
Among some of President Trump's greatest accomplishments has been his ability to somehow inspire and rally the people of Latin America to rally to the cause of true small "d" democratic reform and most shockingly remove or at least neutralize the malign cancerous influence of tyrannical socialism with the election of individuals from Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Javier Milei in Argentina.
Meanwhile, here at home over the past several years the cancer of Socialism seems to have somehow (thank you American Academia primarily) garnered growing and loud support not just from the young and malleable but far too many older folks who should know better yet don't.
And as we here have reported, it's not just about the freebies, it's about utterly crushing anyone who opposes the Democrat Left's power-mad delusions of their right to remake American society but destroying it. We've discussed at length the recent mad ravings of fiends like Elissa Slotkin, the low-rent dullard cross between Imelda Marcos and Bloody Mary with a soupçon of Winnie Mandela for flavor. The filthy slag who desires the prosecution/persecution of anyone who works for President Trump as a means of disincentivizing and crippling the careers of anyone seeking a career who also has aspirations to preserve protect and defend the American way of life contra the Democrat/Leftist enterprise to eradicate it.
And with that in mind, we have this latest assault on liberty bubbling up from the depths of hell.
If anyone had any doubt about the Democratic Party’s plans to shut down the present renaissance in space that is employing millions and generating billions in wealth, you need only listen to Robert Reich, former secretary of labor during the Clinton administration, in this short video of comments he made during a recent podcast. Reich begins his rant by demanding the government “defund” Musk and that SpaceX and Starlink should be “nationalized”, claiming absurdly that this should happen because 75% of Musk’s wealth comes from taxpayers buying Starlink. So what? That’s exactly what freedom and capitalism is about. . . This is pure evil, based on pure envy based on pure hate. It also illustrates the dark times the country will face should the voters choose the Democrat Party in next week’s election. They are not hiding their envy and hate any longer in euphemisms. They are making it very plain, in numerous different venues, that they plan to confiscate the property of conservatives, imprison them, and even shoot them if they get the chance.
Federal prosecutors said Monday that investigators have identified 405 people they believe are not U.S. citizens who voted in Washington state elections, casting more than 1,500 ballots over multiple elections.
Multiply that figure many times over in multiple if not every state in the Union and shit is going to get real, real quick.
As I've stated many times over, there is no way that Michigan's Dana Nessel, Jocelyn Benson and Wretched Whitmer are not going to do all they can to drag El-Sayed's suicide-belt supported ass over the finish line first. They did it in 2020 with Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants by miraculously tampering with the election to steal the crucial swing state from Trump. Horrid as those harridans were and are, that their crime was not overturned reflects on our equally corrupt judicial system that will not lift a finger if/when it happens again this Tuesday.
And speaking of Nessel, apologies in advance for this repulsiveness:
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel had briefly held the line on refusing to back Abdul El-Sayed. Then she announced that Jews had to vote for him even if they all died because some things were more important. “We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival,” Nessel told Jewish Democrats. Those “needs of the world” required Jews to vote for Democrats, including presumably El-Sayed, who had made excuses for a Muslim terrorist attack against Jewish children in the preschool of a Michigan Temple. Many Jewish Democrats feel they “must choose between our faith and our party,” she said, and she then argued in favor of choosing faith in the Democrat Party over faith in Judaism.
Nessel is a sloppy drunken, self-gassing spokes-courveh for new and improved Zyklon CDEF & G!!!!
With Jews like her who needs the Einsatzgruppen or Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. . . or the Spanish Inquisition (thank you and fuck you España!)
On that revolting excrement, as well as the sea of detritus comprising the majority of today's links, I nevertheless bid you all to —VOTE EARLY & OFTEN — and . . .have a good day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Reich begins his rant by demanding the government “defund” Musk and that SpaceX and Starlink should be “nationalized”, claiming absurdly that this should happen because 75% of Musk’s wealth comes from taxpayers buying Starlink. So what? That’s exactly what freedom and capitalism is about.
Democrat Robert Reich demands SpaceX be nationalized; attacks Musk
- Many are calling the win "historic" because it's been nearly four decades since an incumbent who trailed in the first round made such a comeback. But is it historic? Or did someone have this planned all along?
Something’s Rotten in Brasília: Did Lula Just Use Biden’s Playbook?
Continue reading
Daily Tech News 27 October 2026
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Can AI solve the COBOL crisis? (The Verge)
Yes. Ish. AI acts as a force multiplier for an intelligent, focused project lead.
It also acts as a force multiplier for an unintelligent, unfocused project lead.
- Also it just got banned from Reddit. (Kotaku)
So it's probably a good idea.
Continue reading
The Monday Overnight Open Thread (10/26/26) [Crisis, What Crisis? Edition]
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
Quote IPerhaps the most depressing element [of his case] is just how familiar all of the facts are to people like us that are used to handling these cases. Broadly speaking, several thousand people a year are being arrested for, quote unquote, ‘offensive speech’ in the UK.” FSU Legislative Affairs Director Sam Armstrong
And after the Kung Flu "Pandemic" actions by our "elected" and "appointed experts" we are but one presidential election away from being enlightened Europe.
Quote II"This is the local government equivalent of insider congressional stock trading," Florida's chief financial officer, Blaise Ingoglia
My thoughts? Go big or stay home. Prison time for $50K, the risk/reward evaluation was not completed? But then again she can't understand normal thinking.
Quote III“The Wright brothers can seek out patent attorneys anywhere they want to, right? And they come to Springfield, Ohio and work with Harry Toulmin! We were great.” Michael Morris, Springfield, OH resident.
Managed decline is one thing. Outright intentional destruction of the American fabric is another.
Speaking of intentional destruction, perhaps there are some GOP candidates who are MORONS and can use the following. Once again we have left Obama down.
And finally....................
Quote IV“This mission, however laudable, is increasingly under threat. We bypassed a definition of diversity in the service of concluding the report; yet our evasion renders the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion vulnerable to complete erasure.” Durba Ghosh, a professor of history in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences
If you are a parent and you allow your son to attend Cornell I have no sympathy for the frontal lobotomy brainwashing and degradation he will endure. Or for you when you say, "What happened to our son at the cost of $70,000 a year?"
Continue reading
Ent Cardio Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Massimo @Rainmaker1973«Hurry! We can catch the next wave!»
On Waihee Beach Park, Maui, Hawaii, this tree grew by the sea and coastal erosion exposed its roots, making it look like it's running.
An ent bought himself a nice little house in the country.
Clear water in New Zealand lets you admire the deadly sharks as they come to eat you.
This kitten overestimates her athleticism almost as absurdly as I do.
Baya weaver weaves an intricate nest.
Robot can walk or "transform" into a sphere and just roll.
Dog wraps himself up like a burrito.
Some kind of very cute weasel.
A big old Indian buffalo.
Metallica in Moscow, 1991. So much disinformation.
Video of the massive glacier collapse and floods from Nepal and Tibet a couple of months back. Upsetting.
RAF fighters attack Nazi shipping in Norway, 1944.
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.
Continue reading
Report: Emails Suggest Jack Smith Lied to Congress When He Claimed He Didn't View His Targets' Privileged Conversations with Lawyers
Plus: Last Ditch More Like Past Bitch Amirite
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This Jack Smith sure seems like a saucy fellow.
Then-Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigators improperly saw potential attorney-client privileged materials on multiple occasions during its probes of President Donald Trump, calling into question the controversial prosecutor's recent Senate testimony that his team had always followed so-called filter team protocols to protect such information.Emails obtained under federal open records laws by The Oversight Project, a nonprofit investigative watchdog, show that Smith's team internally acknowledged on at least six occasions between December 2022 and August 2023 when it had accidentally or improperly let suspected attorney-client privileged materials or other sensitive communications slide through filter team reviews. The documents were sent to frontline investigators, like FBI agents.
I believe "filter teams" are supposedly "outside" teams that scan messages and keep privileged information from being passed to the investigators. A fake "firewall" against prosecutors seeing these communications.
But they passed privileged documents to the FBI and Jack Smith's team and, let's face it, hiring people to look at documents who you claim "aren't really part of the team so they don't count" is bullshit from Jump Street.
Such access potentially breached the constitutional protections for defendants and witnesses whose communications were gathered under subpoena or search warrant.
Newly disclosed: What Smith actually did contrasts with testimony"The Smith Special Counsel Office requests the FBI search its Outlook server and/or eVault for the following potentially privileged document which may have been inadvertently sent to members of the investigative team," an Aug. 3, 2023 email from the prosecutor's records officer stated in one such example. "Please search the attached list of individuals' UNET and FBINET Outlook accounts for a document titled SM_MAL-0021793.
"If found, please notify us of the locations and take steps to purge the document from those locations," the email added. "The SCO is working to resolve the issue with this sensitive document quickly and we appreciate your help in this matter."
The multiple instances of failing to protect attorney-client communications created awkward situations for frontline staff, who even considered deleting the email trail of evidence.
"I do not intend to read Brett's notes, which I have not previously seen. I would delete the email, but for FOIA purposes perhaps I shouldn't," one official wrote in an Aug. 8, 2023 email that followed recalls of improperly forwarded evidence of attorney communications.
The emails stand in stark contrast to Smith's testimony just weeks ago to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he expressed confidence his team had followed the proper rules to keep attorney client privileged testimony out of the hands of agents and investigators who legally weren't entitled to have it.
"Mr. Smith, it's your testimony to this committee that you observed the proper investigative protocols at all times, including the filter team?" Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., asked at one point during the hearing.
The ex-prosecutor answered: "Yes, we sought to do things consistent with the law and department policy."
When prosecutors seize material that is likely to include privileged communications, the DOJ manual requires a "filter team" made up of "agents and lawyers not involved in the underlying investigation" to pull out any protected communications before investigators see them.
Marshall Yates, a former chief of the FBI's congressional affairs office who now works as a strategic counsel for The Oversight Project, told Just the News he believes the emails his group obtained show "a violation of somebody's constitutional rights" and conflict with Smith's Senate testimony.
"Jack Smith's abuse of power knew no limits, and what he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee was that they followed filter team protocols," Yates told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday. "He was very clear in that testimony. And what we found is a pattern ... where prosecutors and investigators are seeing filtered information, non-filtered information that they're reviewing before it goes to a filter team. And that is a violation of the protocols that Jack Smith testified that they followed.
Bonus: That lesbian bar whose brokeass clientele freaked out when they moved to a one-night-per-week Mask Optional policy?
You're not going to believe this, but it's closing down.
A Western Massachusetts bar at the center of a Covid masking controversy last month is moving toward closing down, according to a message it posted Monday on social media.The bar, the Last Ditch, said on its website that it was founded for lesbians, as well as "transexuals, gender freaks, workers and their friends," an oasis for safe and happy drinking in the tiny city of Greenfield. It became internationally known for the backlash to its owners' decision to relax a mandatory face mask policy. The hope was that making masks optional on Saturdays would increase business. But opponents of the change argued the bar was abandoning its goals to be welcoming to everyone.
People posting online accused the owners of being ableist and risking the lives of immunocompromised customers. A backlash to the backlash quickly emerged, with people mocking customers and their Covid concerns.
A Boston Globe story in September on the masking dispute went viral, and the travails of the Last Ditch were published by media around the country and overseas.
The publicity appeared to draw dozens of potential customers to the first mask-optional Saturday night after the local controversy became widely known. But the burst of attention was apparently not enough to save the bar in downtown Greenfield, a city of about 17,000 people.
A message on the Last Ditch Instagram page said that the bar needed "new owners ASAP."
"We are SOFT CLOSING effective immediately, all BOOKED events will CONTINUE, otherwise we are CLOSED," the message read. "Love and solidarity to all."
"We have put our lives on hold to foster networks of care, resources, and a home base for organizing," the posting said. "It's time we pass it on."
The bar's social media listed several scheduled events this week, including an open mic night and karaoke.
Three housemates, Asa Rosario, Jackie Matellian and Sage Territo, opened the bar in 2025, hoping to fill a need after two queer bars in the region had closed in recent years.
A message to the bar's email account on Monday returned an automated response saying, "We are community run for the community, so we are slow to reply."
Continue reading
