A Return to Sanity: Supreme Court Upholds Bans on "Gender Affirming Surgery" for Children 6-3 in a Major Repudiation of the Extremist Transgender Cult
Update: Thomas Warns Against Deferring to Fake "Experts"

—Ace

Sean Davis @seanmdav

BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's law banning genital mutilation of minors under the guise of so-called "trans" surgery.

"The Court's role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of [the ban on surgically mutilating minors], but only to ensure that the law does not violate equal protection guarantees," the Supreme Court ruled. "It does not. Questions regarding the law's policy are thus appropriately left to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process."

Fox:

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Tennessee law banning specific transgender medical treatments for adolescents in the state is not discriminatory, ruling 6-3 to uphold the law.

At issue in the case, United States v. Skrmetti, was whether Tennessee's Senate Bill 1, which "prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity,'" violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The ACLU claimed that because girls who experience "precocious puberty" at ages as young as nine are given hormone blockers to delay their puberty until 12 or 13, it's "discriminatory" to forbid girls from taking hormone blockers to stop their puberty altogether, and then flood them with testosterone to create weird and unconvincing fake "boys."

That's like saying the law should treat a doctor who cuts into you to remove a tumor the same as a thug who stabs you on the street.

That law prohibits states from allowing medical providers to deliver puberty blockers and hormones to facilitate a minor's transition to another sex.

It also targets healthcare providers in the state who continue to provide such procedures to gender-dysphoric minors-- opening these providers up to fines, lawsuits and other liability.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the law question is not subject to heightened scrutiny "because it does not classify on any bases that warrant heightened review."

"This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field," he said. "The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound."

United States v. Skrmetti was one of the most closely watched cases of the Supreme Court's term, with potential ripple effects for ongoing legal battles over transgender rights -- including bathroom access and participation in school sports.

The ruling could also serve as a legal pretext in future cases involving LGBTQ+ protections, including whether sexual orientation qualifies as a "protected class" on par with race or national origin.

"The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best," he added. "Our role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of the law before us ... but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process."

All three liberal justices notably dissented in the case.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a scathing dissent that cited a long history of laws discriminating against others, noting that transgender persons in the U.S. make up less than 1% of the country's population. There are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 adolescents aged 13 to 17 who identify as transgender, according to the UCLA law school's Williams Institute.

She noted that SB1 "expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny."

"The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee's categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as 'any reasonably conceivable state of facts' might justify it," Sotomayor said, adding: "By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims."

"In sadness, I dissent," she said.

"Lifesaving medical treatment." Get f***ed you vile ugly swine.

...

Justice Samuel Alito cited "hotly disputed" medical studies on the alleged benefits of such medical treatments, and told the government's attorney that those studies "found a complete lack of high-quality evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks."

"Do you dispute that?" Alito asked during oral arguments.

In his concurrence, Justice Thomas had this to say about fake phony Expertism:

This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct.

Deference to legislatures, not experts, is particularly critical here. Many prominent medical professionals have declared a consensus around the efficacy of treating children's gender dysphoria with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. They have dismissed grave problems undercutting the assumption that young children can consent to irreversible treatments that may deprive them of their ability to eventually produce children of their own.

They have built their medical determinations on concededly weak evidence. And, they have surreptitiously compromised their medical recommendations to achieve political
ends.

The Court today reserves "to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process" the power to decide how best to address an area of medical uncertainty and extraordinary importance. Ante, at 24. That sovereign pre-
rogative does not bow to "major medical organizations." Post, at 5, n. 5 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). "[E]xperts and elites have been wrong before--and they may prove to be wrong again." Students for Fair Admissions, Inc.

That last part is Thomas citing himself, from a previous concurrence.

The full decision is here.

Meanwhile, another lowly district court judge, this one, get this, a Biden judge from Massachusetts, issues another insupportable nationwide ban.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday broadened the scope of an earlier ruling that blocks the Trump administration from enforcing a controversial passport policy requiring Americans to list their sex "at conception," rather than their gender identity. The order now applies nationwide, protecting all transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans.

U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick, a Biden appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs in the case--originally just six named individuals--share the same injury as the broader class: an inability to obtain passports that accurately reflect their gender identity. Kobick concluded that the administration's policy is likely unconstitutional and not tied to any "important governmental interest."

The initial lawsuit was filed in February by the ACLU, its Massachusetts affiliate, and the law firm Covington & Burling LLP. It alleges the policy is driven by "impermissible animus" toward gender-nonconforming individuals. Following that, attorneys asked the court to expand the ruling to cover all individuals impacted by the rule, a request Kobick granted Tuesday.

The ruling halts enforcement of a key portion of President Trump's executive order, signed in his first hours back in office, which directed federal agencies to base official documents--including passports and Global Entry cards--on an individual's sex assigned at birth, not their gender identity. The policy also suspended the State Department's prior option that allowed applicants to self-select their gender marker, including the nonbinary "X" option.

Blue Collar Wages Rise 2% In Just the First Five Months of Trump's Second Term, the Most in 60 Years

—Ace

Nice:

Blue-collar workers have seen real wage growth of almost two percent in the first five months of President Donald Trump's second term, the largest increase for any administration in nearly 60 years.

The 1.7% pay bump is in stark contrast to negative growth under Joe Biden, according to new data from the US Department of the Treasury.

Since Richard Nixon in 1969, Trump has been the only president to record positive growth for blue-collar workers in his first five months. He also achieved 1.3% in his first term.

Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here!

The recovery from a 1.7% decline recorded in Biden's first five months, as inflation outpaced earnings, suggests a shift in economic conditions for this financially stressed segment of the workforce.

"The only other time it's been this high was... during President Trump's first term," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told me on the latest episode of the "Pod Force One" podcast, out Wednesday.

"We've seen real wages for hourly workers, non-supervisory workers, rise almost 2% in the first five months. ... No president has done that before."

Falling inflation has driven the significant improvement in blue-collar wages, lifting workers' take-home pay and living standards.

Bessent says wage growth is also fueled by the president's "emphasis on manufacturing" and commitment to remove illegal migrants from the workforce.

"Biden opened the border, and it was flooded," said Bessent. "And for working Americans, that's a disaster because it's pressure on their wages."

Per a Harvard-Harris poll from June 11-12, the country now believes the economy is "strong," 52% to 43%.

As soon as Trump took office, the percentage of voters saying the country was on the right track shot up from 26% to 42%. (It has now dropped to 41%, which is probably just statistical noise.)

Hello everybody, how is your Wednesday? Are you keeping your School Clothes neat and tidy?

Wednesday Morning Rant

—Joe Mannix

Last week, Ace posted a column about a Congressional sideshow wherein Governor Hochul (D[emon], NY) claimed not to remember any of the particulars about an incident in New York City where an illegal alien decided to turn a citizen into a human torch on a subway train. (reminder: don't comment on old threads). While I don't believe for a minute that Hochul wasn't well aware of the details and used the typical "I don't recall" dodge, the wider point is important.

Mark Halperin has been talking about this for a while. Democrats don't know what the public knows, or what the public is thinking, because the left-wing media "wraps them in blue bubble-wrap" to protect Democrats from being confronted with the horrors caused by their policies. Democrat politicians never realize the public is getting sick of being set on fire by lunatic illegal aliens, or having their daughters kidnapped and raped by illegal aliens fleeing their home countries because of outstanding rape charges, because the Blue Bubble-Wrap Media refuses to report on these stories.

All lefties wrap themselves snugly in this Blue Bubble-Wrap and go for years without ever realizing that their policies are causing rapes and murders.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Standing Odalisque Reflected in a Mirror
Henri Matisse

The Morning Report — 6/ 18 /25

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. So with things really heating up over Iran as well as here at home, both situations put the sudden rushing to the hospital last night of Kristi Noem, the head of our Department of Homeland Security, into a new light. It could be just a freaky coincidence, but the timing could not be at a more crucial moment.

First the details:

“Secretary Noem experienced an allergic reaction earlier today and was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by the Daily Caller. . . Noem was previously in Los Angeles, California, where Democratic Senator Alex Padilla interrupted a June 12 press conference she was conducting in response to the LA riots. Security forcibly removed the senator and reportedly handcuffed him. DHS accused Padilla of “disrespectful public theatre.”

Frankly, the fat filthy bastard is damned lucky to be alive. Because, given the flood of foreign criminals already in country as well as our own homegrown Leftist Schakowsky/Soros rent-a-mob cadres that always pop up in congressional hearings when they're not burnining looting and murdering in the name of peace love and understanding, If I were Noem, and likely carrying a firearm, I'd have not given a second thought to ventilating the fat bastard who was bull-rushing me.

And given what is happening now in Iran, with the potential for President Trump to deploy MOP ordnance to obliterate the last and perhaps most important Iranian nuclear facility inside and beneath the mountains at Fordow, The erased border courtesy of Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants that was already extremely porous prior to his installation as Obama's puppet in 2020, the potential for sleeper cells to cause murder and mayhem, on top of what the aforementioned native-born self-hating America-hating brainwashed Leftist droogs are already doing to us should scare the shit out of anyone who is even minimally aware of what's been going on at least since 9/11/01 or February of 1993 when we had the first World Trade Center truck bomb attack.

So now to square the circle of open borders and Islamic terrorism, With what's happening the name Padilla should set off some very loud alarm bells. Not Alex. But in this case one JOSE PADILLA who came to national prominence in the wake of 9/11/01.

Born in Brooklyn on October 18, 1970, Jose Padilla is an American citizen and a Muslim convert who was arrested in May 2002 and was thereafter detained by the U.S. government for three-and-a-half years as an “enemy combatant” who aspired to contribute to the worldwide Islamic jihad by killing large numbers of Americans.

In his early teens, Padilla joined a mostly Puerto Rican gang called the Latin Disciples. He went on to compile a rap sheet of both juvenile and adult crimes — offenses ranging from aggravated assault to unlawful weapons possession to attempted theft. He was also involved in a violent assault and shooting where his victim later died from the injuries that Padilla helped inflict.

In the early 1990s, Padilla became a working member of the Benevolence International Foundation, a charity that had close financial ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network, the Abu Sayyaf Islamic rebels in the Philippines, and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

. . . After 9/11, Padilla spent some time living with Atef in the house where the latter was eventually killed by a U.S. air strike in November 2001. Seeking to avoid further danger, Padilla went to Pakistan, where he became acquainted with Osama bin Laden’s deputy Abu Zubaydah. Padilla approached Zubaydah with an idea: He wanted to follow Internet instructions for creating a nuclear bomb, and then detonate it somewhere in the United States. Skeptical about Padilla’s ability to carry out such an attack, Zubaydah suggested that wrapping explosives in uranium (to create a radiological “dirty bomb) might be more feasible...

. . . On January 22, 2008, U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke sentenced Padilla to 17 years and four months in prison, as opposed to the life sentence the government was seeking. In explaining her decision, Judge Cooke underscored the serious nature of Mr. Padilla’s offenses, but added: “There is no evidence that these defendants personally maimed, kidnapped or killed anyone in the United States or elsewhere. There was never a plot to overthrow the United States government.”

And where is this wonderful humanitarian and bust out quintessential Democrat today??? (Per Wikipedia) Padilla is serving his sentence at ADX Florence prison in Florence, Colorado. Padilla's prisoner number is 20796-424; he is projected to be released in 2026.

So, With the Iranian regime apparently on the ropes, and threatening to unleash hell on Earth, Is that mere bluster of the Mad Mullahs in the bunker shrieking "Steiner will come" or the 12th Imam will QQM?!!!!

Remember, that Iran has been enriching Uranium for years. and with a non existent southern border and a very poorly watched northern border to say nothing of thousands of miles of Atlantic and Pacific coastline plus seaports where anything can be smuggled in or where corrupt LE and CBP agents can be bribed to look the other way, it is certainly a distinct possibility that quite a bit of radioactive material is already within our borders ready to be weaponized and used by who knows how many other Jose Padillas are walking our streets waiting for the Mullahs, to give the Go code, or who will just act on their own if Tehran should fall.

And, as for radioactive material for a dirty bomb, you don't necessarily need weapons-grade U-235 or Plutonium or Cobalt Thorium-G or whatever is used to detonate Atomic or thermonuclear devices. All you need is a not so very large amount of low level radioactive material such as is used in the medical profession. Strap a few pounds to some propane tanks and set it off in Times Square or near the Pentagon or wherever to create a toxic cloud of radioactive fallout. No, I'm not giving away any deep dark secrets that the evil Muslim savages haven't already figured out probably courtesy of Hose-B Padilla 25 years ago.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared “the battle begins” in an ominous post Tuesday, hours after President Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

“In the name of #Haider, the battle begins. Ali returns to #Khaybar with his Zulfiqar.” Khamenei wrote on X in Farsi, referring to Islam’s first imam, Ali, who won the Battle of Khaybar with the sword Zulfiqar.

Khamenei’s sinister message comes hours after the Islamic Republic’s state media also warned of a “surprise” on Tuesday night into Wednesday that the “world will remember for centuries.”

So, the bluster of a cornered rat, or is there something to this whether similar to the nightmare scenario I pondered above or perhaps something else?

Remember that Shiite Islam is predicated on armageddon being the precursor to their mythological 12th Imam returning to earth from some magic wishing well in the holy city of Qom to then usher in an eternal paradise on earth in the form of the world becoming Islamic for all time.

Now, as I understand it, the true believers regard/venerate that well as a scared site that must be protected at all costs. If a "STRAY" Israeli bomb were to take it out, it would also take out the fantasies of tens of millions of Muslims around the world. The 12th imam could never emerge. Islamic experts like Robert Spencer and others have stated this and when we had him on a previous episode of the podcast he reiterated this.

Forget Fordow. We need the John C. Holmes mega Qom Shot of all time to Seek out that well and destroy it. The psychological shock alone of that well's obliteration might well be more powerful and effective than the combined military defeats of Islam in all its wars against Israel and Western Christendom.

Meh, there's also that space rock in Mecca, but that's another story.

FYI, a quick heads up to be on the lookout for a new episode of the the podcast with me and CBD that should be posting in the sidebar by this afternoon, as well as at CJN and via our usual outlets.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• “Secretary Noem experienced an allergic reaction earlier today and was transported to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. She is alert and recovering,” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement obtained by the Daily Caller.
  Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Taken By Ambulance To Washington DC Hospital

• Can you guess who the 'No Kings' protesters were recruited by?
  Video: O’Keefe Undercover in L.A.
  
• Michael Walsh: The Iranian mullahs are no better at fighting than Darius was (way back in 331 BC - jjs). . . The Israelis have shredded their Islamic cloak of teleological inevitability and have left them naked, figures of ridicule in a land they have terrorized for too long, and in which they now cower in fear: impotent old men whose god has failed them.
  In Praise of Instability

Daily Tech News 18 June 2025

—Pixy Misa

• Why it has suddenly become difficult to buy a handheld gaming device. (The Verge) (archive site)
  
  The popular models - the Switch 2 and Steam Deck OLED - are out of stock.
  
  The less popular models suddenly had price increases.
  
  The bad models are, well, bad.
  
  And the recently announced Xbox-branded handhelds are potentially all of those, but most importantly aren't out yet.

Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - June 17, 2025 [scampydog]

—Open Blogger

Good evening and thank you for checking in on the Tuesday, ONT. Some random, a few parts science, and 100% why not. Comment section won't bite - probably.

*****

A bit of good natured fun to get things going.

We need more people like this 🥹🥹 pic.twitter.com/L5msAq8nUa

— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) June 12, 2025

*****

Put your arms through the sleeves of your lab coat. It is time for some ONT space and science with our AoSHQ friend and commenter, publius.

Sticking with Tuesday, ONT Science tradition, we are leading off with Feynman.

Feynman wrote a lovely letter to his wife who had passed away at 25 years young.

I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I'll bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I - I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don't want to remain alone - but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

From publius: "Feynman did remarry, twice. Second ended in divorce, and the third lasted until his death. Here's a picture of him dancing with his third wife at the Nobel Ceremony in 1965. He was clowning a bit there, of course. There's some other pictures of him at the Nobel Ceremony. She died about a year after he did."

Perfect sphere found by astronomers. Riddle was bugging me, so I did what any self respecting Moron would do. I emailed publius.

In data collected by a powerful radio telescope, astronomers have found what appears to be a perfectly spherical bubble. We know more or less what it is - it's the ball of expanding material ejected by an exploding star, a supernova remnant - but how it came to be is more of a puzzle.

Next up we have some (no longer) mystery radio signals.

The source of mystery radio signals in space has finally been identified after almost a decade.

For the past ten years, astronomers have been detecting strange radio signals emitting from space every two hours.

Unfortunately, scientists have already ruled out aliens in this one.

NASA skywatching for the Month of June.

All Month - Planet Visibility:

Venus: Rises about 2 hours before the Sun in June, and shines very brightly, low in the eastern sky, in the morning all month.

Mars: Visible in the west for a couple of hours after sunset all month. Drops lower in the sky as June continues, and passes very close to Regulus in the constellation Leo on June 16 and 17. (They will be about half a degree apart, or the width of the full moon.)

Jupiter: Visible quite low in the west after sunset for the first week of June, then lost in the Sun's glare after. Will re-appear in July in the morning sky.

Mercury: Becomes visible low in the west about 30 to 45 minutes after sunset in the last week and a half of June.

Saturn: Rises around 3 a.m. in early June, and around 1 a.m. by the end of the month. Begins the month near Venus in the dawn sky, but rapidly pulls away, rising higher as June goes on.

More from publius "Venus and Earth's orbital periods have a ratio that is very close to 13:8, meaning Venus completes 13 orbits per 8 earth orbits almost exactly. Venus thus has 5 inferior conjunctions occurring very close to the same point in the sky every 8 years. That works out to a cycle of about 9 months between conjunctions. Since Venus is an inferior planet, we can never see it overhead during the middle of the night, only on the eastern morning or western evening side of the sky close before sunrise or close after sunset.

The window around these inferior conjunctions are when Venus gets close and bright. During a window of several months around the inferior conjunction, Venus first appears bright in the western sky right after sunset when it's on the eastern side of the sun, then disappears into the sun at inferior conjunction. It then quickly whips to the western side of the sun to appear in the early morning, still close and bright. It then continues in its orbit, getting dimmer and father away and closer to the sun in the sky, until it repeats the cycle 9 months later. So Venus flips between "Evening Star" and "Morning Star" modes. Believe it or not, when Venus is near maximum brightness during the Evening and Morning Star modes, they get a lot of UFO reports from those not familiar with what's in the sky above them.

You can plot this from a geocentric reference plane, and see the relative position of Venus and the Sun over this 8 year cycle. Venus' path makes a nice 5-sided pattern centered around the earth, sometimes poetically dubbed the Five-petal Rose of Venus, seen here on this Earthsky page."

Big AoS thank to you publius!

***

That's one way to learn.

If you're going to do something stupid please keep your face very far away from it pic.twitter.com/BRJCKTQMnf

— Giga Based Dad (@GigaBasedDad) June 12, 2025

Oh yes! Spaceballs! Mel Brooks with the teaser.

I told you we’d be back pic.twitter.com/RnoklPqBX6

— Mel Brooks (@MelBrooks) June 12, 2025

*****

Liberals and Safe Spaces

Merriam-Webster defines safe space as: a place (as on a college campus) intended to be free of bias, conflict, criticism, or potentially threatening actions, ideas, or conversations.

Sure doesn't look like they have much conviction with that definition. These ICE/No Kings/Antifa/Commie/Leftist rioters are up in everyone's face (with theirs covered, just like their Klan predecessors) - not exactly the safe space champions they pretend to be.

Liberals are unwilling and/or unable to live by their own rules. Actions and behavior by convenience, and when it suits them. Their moral code, impulse control, and self restraint disappear just like limited time offers. They simply do whatever they want - without concern for consequences. Consequence winds are changing, however.

Checks out.

They/Them is back from the No Kings Riots. 💀 pic.twitter.com/8JJwO2Bbam

— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) June 16, 2025

*****

First day of summer is June 20th. Unless you live in Phoenix, where it's know as "just another day of 110+ heat."

Let's roll through some decades of summer songs. Which songs left a dent in your summer brain? Make your case in the comments. (and if linking in comments, please use tinyurl or another link shortening tool).

1950's: Thought about Lollipop, but we are going with Eddie Cochran. Summertime Blues, 1958.

1960's: Tommy James and the Shondells. Mony Mony, 1968. Billy Idol version was pretty good too.

1970's: It is Pride Month. The Kinks. Lola, 1970.

1980's: Damn, this decade is tough as a Gen X'er. The Clash. Should I Stay or Should I Go, 1981.

1990's: All the 'cool kids' spent a summer mocking the video. Yet they danced and sang along. Rob Van Winkle. Vanilla Ice. Ice, Ice, Baby, 1990.

2000's: Flame away in the comments. This came down to: Nelly/Country Grammar, Ride Wit Me or.... Buckcherry. Crazy B*tch, 2006. NSFW.

2010's: Lost musical decade. Kids won a lot of the radio car battles. Meghan Trainor. All About that Bass, 2014.

Will close the summer song - musical section with this all-timer.

*****

This ONT brought to you by: Seen around town.

That friend that is fun, has three dirty jokes for every occasion, inked, and is uninterested in approval from the easily offended.

Random dude at a convenience store asked for directions. He was heading down to the Minneapolis suburbs later in the day to lip off to the protesters.

*****

Kindly direct all white New Balance dad shoe donations to: scampydog at proton dot me. Nevermind. The children think they are funny. Father's Day gift pictured below.

Close it up

Ministry of Silly Dances Cafe

—Ace

Horses enjoy the beach.

Turtle takes on a dog. Winner: Dog. Flawless Victory.

This turtle thinks a lawnmower is just a big, loud turtle and wants to say hello.

Octopus using its camouflage.

Lazy dog 1.

Lazy dog 2.

It's not a trick, Michael -- it's an illusion.

ICYMI: Dog has a Major League swing.

ICYMI: Nosy dogs.

Baby elephant charges, but then embarrasses himself.

Dog tries to wake up his paw.

Cat misses her passed dog brother.

Golden retriever meets his new puppy brother.

Duck and little dog play.

Moo-sic appreciation.

Cuddling with rhinos.

Iran Threatens a "Surprise the World Will Remember for Centuries" Tonight

—Ace

I don't want to be alarmist, but what they seem to be hinting at is dropping a nuke.

Breaking911 @Breaking911

IRANIAN STATE MEDIA: "There is a surprise tonight that the world will remember for centuries."

They also posted a video of a hand stroking a nuclear warhead.

The Obama-Biden Policy of "Catch and Release" Is Over as Trump Does Not Release a Single Illegal Alien in May

—Ace

There have been a couple of illegals released here and there, but you can count them on two hands.

And now: None.

Border Patrol agents didn't release a single migrant into the US last month -- a staggering drop after the Biden administration allowed 64,000 illegal crossers in the country in May 2024, The Post can exclusively reveal.

Agents caught 8,725 migrants crossing illegally at the southern border last month.

That's a 93% decrease from May 2024, when 117,905 were nabbed, according to internal data obtained by The Post.

And acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Pete Flores said it's a result of the Trump administration's tough border policies.

One of the most monumental policy changes made by Trump was the reversal of President Joe Biden's catch-and-release scheme, which resulted in millions of illegal border jumpers being allowed into the US.

"Under the leadership of this administration, CBP has received historic support resulting in another 93% decrease in illegal crossings along the southwest border this month when compared with last year," Flores said in a statement shared with The Post.

...

Border Patrol agents are nearing their goal of gaining full "operational control" of the southern border with the massive drop in illegal crossings, National Border Patrol Council president Paul Perez told The Post last week.

Perez complained that Biden had taken Border Patrol officers off the border, to have them sit at desks and fill out the paperwork for illegal aliens to get their free pass into America.

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_

ZERO releases of illegal aliens into the US during the month of May by Border Patrol.
Why does this matter? I am not aware of a single illegal alien being arrested for an egregious crime against an American after being caught & released at the border under the new Trump admin in the last 5 months.

Catch and release is over. A complete 180 from what we saw at the border during the Biden admin.

US Attorney Bill Essayli tells insurrectionits, "You spit, we hit."

Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47

.@USAttyEssayli details charges against LA rioters, over attempted arson of a police vehicle and assaulting a federal agent:

"As our president said, if you spit, we hit -- and we will hit you with a felony."

He also said that the illegal alien terrorist who threw chunks of concrete down at cops from an overpass will face a minimum of five years in prison, and a maximum of 20.

Texas is taking care of the rioters and border-scoffers:

Hundreds of immigration charges were filed in the Southern District of Texas, including against a woman assaulting and threatening federal agents.

In one week, 332 people were charged; 205 people were charged with illegal entry; 109 with felony illegal reentry after previously being deported. Most arrested have prior felony convictions and charges; 10 cases involve human smuggling.

Among those arrested was Mexican national Maria Isabel Cruz-Salas, living in the border town of San Benito in the Rio Grande Valley. While authorities conducted a worksite enforcement operation at Taqueria El Mante, an ICE Homeland Security Investigations agent attempted to detain her and she kicked him in the face, according to the charges. If convicted, she faces up to eight years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

In another case, a San Antonio woman, Michelle Lee Varela, was taken into custody after allegedly threatening an ICE-HSI agent while performing his duties. According to the charges, while authorities were conducting an immigration action and requested information from Varela about her husband's status in the U.S., she "allegedly used profanity and said if her husband was taken into custody, she would shoot them."

Wonderful.

And Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced a "You break it, you bought it" policy: No DOT funds for any state that doesn't cooperate with ICE, and no funds for repairing federal highways that lawless anarchist state governors allow their antifa street militias to destroy.

Is This Something?

—Ace

Most of this will not be something.

I know what some of you are thinking: Hollywood may be so devoid of ideas that they're remaking every movie from the 80s and nineties, but there's no way they're now remaking "classics" from the early 2000s, and even if they are, they certainly won't be remaking I Know What You Did Last Summer, for the love of everything holy.

Well, guess what? You're wrong again. You're a black belt in Being Wrong About Everything.

Fox is determined to milk the Alien franchise, which started the same year as the Iranian revolution, forever. They now have a TV show about aliens coming to earth.

I don't get this. Yes, I liked Alien and I loved Aliens. But seriously, it's a limited concept. You can't just keep making movies and tv-shows and prequels about the same limited concept.

Or I guess you can. But I don't get it. I have no further questions about the Terminator, Alien, or Predator universes. Or the Robocop universe. I have enjoyed their early entries. I've loved many of them. But we need to move on. There is no more juice in these well-squeezed fruits.

Oh, and it turns out there is another Predator movie coming.

Great, Mr. Fabulous, the self-described "fifty-year-old Bougie Bitch" Pedro Pascal, is in yet another movie. It's about a brave and noble sheriff fighting disinformation and disobedience as he attempts to enforce covid lockdowns. There's a moment of someone watching a podcast on the internet, so you know that's about Dangerous and Divisive Medical Misinformation. The end of the clip shows someone firing a heavy machine gun so that's gotta be Radicalized Far-Right Extremists Incited Into Violence.

Now, I'm making a lot of assumptions. It could be that the movie is a more thoughtful look at the covid wars.

But I doubt it.

Nerdrotic says he has a Marvel source who says the new "Ironheart" Disney TV show is the worst thing that Marvel has ever done, and that includes their disastrous "Echo" show and "Secret Invasion" and "She-Hulk."

It's being dropped with three episodes on one night so that the show is finished and forgotten as soon as possible. They did something similar with Echo, though in that case they dropped all five episodes in one night. Like one of those poops where everything goes in one smooth uninterrupted motion and you can't even believe how efficient and accomplished you are at pooping.

The Superman movie continues to look over-stuffed with characters and plots but it also looks like it might be light and fun, like a comic book for kids.

Which is A-OK with me.

Let me get this off my chest:

I'm sick and tired of NERDS!!! demanding that superhero movies or any other juvenile fare be "dark" and "grim and gritty" and "realistic" and hyperviolent and filled with cursing.

This type of entertainment is -- or used to be, and should be -- kid-friendly.

I think a lot of NERDS!!! are a little embarrassed that they like entertainment which is made for kids or made to at least be kid-friendly because that would suggest they're immature. So they want these entertainments to be made more "adult," but by "adult," of course they don't mean thoughtful, contemplative, and nuanced. No, they mean they want to see Superman rip people's heads from their bodies and use his laser vision to shoot holes through people's chests.

And that he should say "f*ck" a lot.

I have to admit that when I was younger -- like, teens and early twenties -- I had the same kind of idea. That this kind of movie would be Even Betterer if it were "hardcore."

But as I've gotten older, and have approached, with increasing slowness, age 29, I've come to understand that I don't have to run away from my kid-self, or my teenaged self. My kid-self was right about a lot of things, and my teenaged self was too.

I don't need these kind of kid-friendly entertainments to be "aged up" just to validate me, so I don't feel like a stupid baby for going to see a Batman movie. It's perfectly fine for an adult to enjoy an entertainment whose primary audience is younger people and kids. Every adult, even one approaching age 29, still has his 5-year old self inside him, and his 13-year-old self, and his 18-year-old self.

Plus, a lot of children's entertainment can be pretty good. Disney cartoons from a bygone age often portrayed death in powerful and even traumatic way. Certainly Bambi portrays death much more realistically -- in that it has consequences -- than popcorn movies for "adults" that feature hundreds of people being killed with no one ever wondering if the dead enemies' wives and children will be looked after.

Kid-friendly entertainment doesn't have to be childish, either. The original Superman was kid-friendly, but it was very well done. The original Star Wars films as well. (Bit of trivia: They filmed the severed arm in the cantina sequence for the sole purpose of getting a PG rating rather than the G rating they would have gotten without it -- they felt that teenagers would not see a G-rated film because teenagers are always afraid to be mistaken for kids or little babies.)

The Indian Jones films are all basically kid-friendly, except for that one part in every Indiana Jones movie where someone gets his head chopped up by a propeller or something. Okay, maybe not for kids exactly, but a dad can watch that with his 12-year-old.

"Kid-friendly" doesn't mean "childish." You can avoid all the things that flag a movie as R-rated while also avoiding the stuff that makes a movie seem childish -- cornball kid humor, simple-minded plots, cartoony "bouncy" background music, unrealistic characters, etc. You can make a movie that avoids the tropes of actual child fare and presents semi-plausible characters with semi-realistic adult psychologies.

What Hollywood is doing is making very, very dumb movies with child-levels of nuance but throwing in R-rated violence to age it up.

I don't know if Superman will be any good. I kind of doubt it. I don't think I'll wind up seeing it.

But I do like the idea of making superhero movies and fantasy action movies with a younger audience in mind. I have fond memories of watching James Bond movies with my dad. Fathers need movies they can share with their kids. It can't all be about reassuring 25-year-old NERDS!!! that they're totally not babies because look, Superman just snapped this guy's neck. So hardcore!

(I think James Bond books are basically boy's adventure fiction too, except the boy in question "borrowed" his dad's credit card to subscribe to Playboy.)

I just don't get the idea that these Male Power Fantasy movies have to be "dark" and "mature." Having a Space Alien Cop snap the neck of a Space Alien Bad Guy isn't "mature." It's still children's entertainment with a veneer of graphic violence to seem mature.

And don't get me wrong-- I like graphic violence, too. But I don't think Batman movies should look like the last twenty minutes of Rambo. That kind of movie should be reserved for 17 year olds, or 15 year olds who borrow their older brother's ID.

Democrat NYC Comptroller and Mayoral Candidate Arrested for Attempting to Physically Block ICE from Arresting a Criminal Illegal
Update: Poll Shows Massive Support for ICE

—Ace

The Democrats are claiming this was a Mostly Peaceful Violent Obstruction of Federal Officials.

The Democrats are engaging in a cynical, communist game of escalating violent confrontations with law enforcement. One of these days they're going to provoke one of their lunatics to kill ICE agents, or provoke ICE into beating the shit out of them.

New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested by federal agents at an immigration court Tuesday after he linked arms with a person that authorities were attempting to detain.

A reporter with The Associated Press witnessed Lander's arrest at a federal building in Manhattan. The person Lander was walking out of the courtroom was also arrested.

Lander had spent the morning observing immigration court hearings and told an AP reporter that he was there to "accompany" some immigrants out of the building.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is placed under arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents outside federal immigration court on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova)

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is placed under arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents outside federal immigration court on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova)

In the moments before Lander was handcuffed, agents could be seen trying to physically separate him from the man they had come to detain. Lander briefly struggled to stay close to the detainee before he was pulled away. Video taken by journalists at the scene shows that agents struggled to separate Lander from the man he'd linked arms with for more than 40 seconds before wresting the two apart.

A video of the arrest captured by an AP reporter shows an agent telling Lander, "You're obstructing."

"I'm not obstructing, I'm standing right here in the hallway," Lander said as he was being handcuffed.

Didn't Do Nuffin. The Democrat/Antifa/BLM credo.

Trump to Hyper-Isolationists: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

—Ace

Trump's rapid-response account is now posting Trump's many, many, many previous statements declaring that Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, ever, full stop no caveats.

But apparently when Trump said this over and over and over again, the hyper-isolationists all heard him saying, "I promise I will pursue Barack Obama's Iran policy and help Iran get a nuclear bomb. And also, again like Barack Obama, when Iran's regime is fatally threatened, I will step in to save it."

He ever said these things. You made them up. You wanted him to say them, but he never, ever did.

He said the opposite.

FBI Finally Delivers Documents to Congress Alleging a Plot by the Chinese Communist Party to Give Fake IDs to Illegal Aliens to Vote Against Trump in 2020

—Ace

FBI Director Kash Patel @FBIDirectorKash

The FBI has located documents which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election, including allegations of interference by the CCP.

I have immediately declassified the material and turned the documents over to the Chairman Grassley for further review.

Evidence mounts that the thing that definitely didn't happen definitely did happen.

China "fortified" the election.

These are just allegations, to be fair.

But crucially: Wray claimed that he knew of no plots to interfere with the 2020 election and did not provide these documents to Congress despite Chuck Grassley demanding them.

FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday evening turned over to Congress an intelligence report raising concerns that China had mass-produced fake U.S. driver's licenses to carry out a scheme to hijack the 2020 election with fake mail-in ballots for Democrat Joe Biden.

The newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 weren't corroborated or fully investigated and instead were recalled from intelligence agencies at about the time that then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified there were no known plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election in which Biden defeated Donald Trump, officials told Just the News.

The new documents were turned over to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who had first raised concerns to the bureau that the intelligence hadn't been fully vetted, and instead was just dismissed even though there was evidence of the fake licenses.

"Thanks to the oversight work and partnership of Chairman Grassley, the FBI continues to provide unprecedented transparency at the people's Bureau," Patel told Just the News in a statement. "To that end, we have located documents Chairman Grassley requested, which detail alarming allegations related to the 2020 U.S. election.

"Specifically, these include allegations of plans from the CCP to manufacture fake driver's licenses and ship them into the United States for the purpose of facilitating fraudulent mail-in ballots -- allegations which, while substantiated, were abruptly recalled and never disclosed to the public," Patel also said.

So Patel says the allegations are also "substantiated." I take this to mean there is some evidence to support them, but not enough to definitely prove them. (Or else he'd use the word "prove.")

And Wray decided that he would once again weaponize the FBI to work as the Armed Division of the DNC and so he lied and obstructed Congress from seeing these documents, despite Congress' oversight role over the FBI, and despite Congress' right to see documents to assist it in making legislation.

Trump: "I'm In No Mood to Negotiate," Says He's Not Looking for a Ceasefire with Iran, But Rather "an End"

—Ace

"An end" to the problem of Iran's nuclear program and, perhaps, an end to Iran's 70 year war on America. Not "an end" to Iran itself. (Though he does seem to now favor regime change.)

Trump gave a 1am press conference last night to knock down claims that he's working to spare Iran and save the Ayatollah.

It sure sounds like he wants Israel to finish the job and take this to an actual end, not just a resumption of the status quo under some "deal." Trump went so far as to say that Iran "giving up entirely" is the goal and that "I'm not too much in the mood to negotiate."

He also reiterated that Iran was "very close" to having a nuclear weapon before the strikes, and vowed again that Iran would not be permitted to have one.

That last quote also included this line when asked about DNI Tulsi Gabbard's assertion in March that Iran had no nuclear weapons program.

TRUMP: I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having them.

I'd consider that a shot across the bow to those in his administration who have sought to undermine him and push their own foreign policy goals in relation to Iran.

Update: CBD says that Tulsi's quote is being used by the oppressively propagandistic Regime media out-of-context to stir up trouble.

Update: The quote was that Iran isn't currently building a nuke, not that they weren't working hard to build a nuke. Fox News war-whore Jennifer Griffin is misquoting her to push her Democrat/Deep State agenda, as usual. Tulsi has clarified that she and Trump are on the same page with regard to Iran's nuke program.

Sarah Ferris @sarahnferris

DNI Gabbard tells us she and Trump are "on the same page" when it comes to Iran nuclear timeline

"Pres Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March. Unfortunately too many people in the media don't care to actually read what I said"

From Biden's dog sniffs a whole lot of malarkey.

.@POTUS: "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple — you don't have to go to too deep into it. They just can't have a nuclear weapon." pic.twitter.com/LBgK3DIluq

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 17, 2025

REPORTER: "What are you looking for here?"@POTUS: "An end. A real end. Not a ceasefire — an end." pic.twitter.com/EESQ7zzhw1

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 17, 2025

Trump noticed that Tucker Carlson has gotten far too big for his little britches and checked him.

Tucker Carlson is now saying that Trump's presidency will end early -- due to his failure to obey the dictates of lifetime babbler and non-productive-worker Tucker Carlson -- and Trump called him "kooky" in response.

Trump also pulled out the Big Guns: He implied Tucker Carlson was irrelevant because he doesn't have a network show. That insult is behind-the-times given that no one cares about a network's imprimature any longer, but it does show the level of Trump's annoyance.

When Trump starts talking about your ratings, he's done with you.

President Trump responds to Tucker Carlson’s comments that he is complicit in the war.

Trump: "I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen." pic.twitter.com/l5rXVSYVfY

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) June 16, 2025

As I've said before: Trump has never signed on to the hyper-isolationist's platform. Yes, Trump says he wants peace and wants to be known for making more peace for war. But there is a caveat to that the hyper-isolationists continually refuse to acknowledge: He also talks in a Jacksonian way. He says he wants peace, but always also indicates he will "blow you to hell" if you mess with America.

Trump said he would re-orient America's foreign and military policy to put America's interest first -- not that he would never take a military action against an enemy.

And not that he would affirmatively work to undermine an ally just because Tucker Carlson and some others on the paleo-right have decided that Jews Control the World and it's time to go to war with them.

Again, the hyper-isolationists refuse to acknowledge that and then claim that Trump is betraying them.

No, you're betraying him. He never once signed on to your Code Pink/ANSWER foreign policy agenda. You completely hallucinated that, and then you use your hallucination to claim that Trump is going back on the promise he made you.

Close it up

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

—CBD

Fordow, the underground facility where most of Iran's centrifuges are hidden is the key to destroying their nuclear weapons program. It is under a mountain, supposedly 300 feet deep, and therefore very, very difficult to destroy with conventional bombs. Israel has the GBU-28, which is a 5,000 pound "bunker buster," but it is thought to be too small to do enough damage to Fordow. Israel does not have the largest bomb in the American inventory, the GBU-57, which is a 30,000 pound "Massive Ordnance Penetrator." And even if it did, it does not have the heavy bombers to deliver it.

How Much Damage Has Israel Inflicted on Iran's Nuclear Program?
[leftist-driven reporting warning!]

At Iran's underground Fordow enrichment plant, the country's second uranium enrichment facility, the IAEA observed "no damage" following the attacks, Grossi said.

Israel's military is innovative, and could probably use a military cargo plane to deliver the GBU-57, although it would be a much easier operation if the United States simply used its own B-2s to destroy Fordow. But hopefully that is not going to happen. Yes, it would be the quickest and safest way to deal with the Mad Mullah's and their apocalyptic insanity, but in the short term this is Israel's problem, and Israel should deal with it.

The image of tiny Israel dealing such damage to both the infrastructure and the political and military leadership of Iran is a powerful message to Islam, and overt American involvement would decrease the strength of that message. Should the United States sell to Israel the ordnance needed to destroy their nuclear facilities? Absolutely. Should America drop those bombs ourselves? Absolutely not!

However, the long term is a very different thing, and if the theocracy survives this war, they will undoubtedly resume their drive for nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel...and America. Yup, that is their stated goal, and they have spent their 45 years in power doing everything they could to achieve that goal.

In addition to their nuclear ambitions, Iran ramped up production of conventional ballistic missiles, with the ultimate goal of being able to overwhelm Israel's missile defense systems. The twin threat of perhaps thousands of missiles being launched, with a few nuclear-tipped missiles in the mix is untenable. That is why Israel acted now, because they are Iran's first target. But there is no reason to assume that those missiles wouldn't be used against the Saudis or the Egyptians or the French. And who knows whether the Iranians are planning ICBMs that can reach the eastern seaboard of America!

It is irrational for the West to humor Iran and ignore its clearly stated goals. Luckily we have President Trump, who takes them at their word! Imagine a world without his leadership and clarity of purpose. A Kamala Harris administration would be dithering and muddying and pressing Israel to withdraw from Gaza, and would have restarted the catastrophic nuclear agreement with Iran that Obama signed. The United Nations would be busily pumping out resolutions calling for Israel's destruction, and Iran's proxies would be emboldened.

Instead we have the Trump administration's masterful command of the Iran negotiations that clearly fooled the Mullahs into believing that their usual delaying tactics and obfuscation would continue to work.

Whoops! Whoopsie!

And rumor has it that they are contacting both Israel and the United States to end the war and return to the negotiating table. But nothing will have changed if that occurs, and it would be naive in the extreme for Israel or America to accede to their request.

Of course it is entirely possible that the Israeli decapitation of Iranian leadership will embolden the Iranian people to continue that work and overthrow the Mullahs. What comes after that is anybody's guess, and the odds of exchanging one group of madmen for another are not long. But Iran was (mostly) free before, and maybe they can be free again!

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

School teacher
Jan Steen

The Morning Report — 6/ 17 /25

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Well, the beat goes on with wars, and rumors of wars. Both abroad and even here at home as Israel continues its campaign to degrade if not completely destroy Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure and as is now apparent, take down the regime itself.

Incredibly and miraculously, The Israeli air force and special forces have evidently been so successful that the regime supposedly is now crying uncle and is ready to negotiate some sort of settlement in order to stop Israel from taking them down. They want to reman in power both for the sake of remaining in power and staying away from the blast radius of an Israeli bomb or from dangling by the neck from a lamppost courtesy of a long abused and oppressed citizenry. And lest we forget, that Iran is ruled by hardcore Muslims whose goal is the eradication of every Jew and un believer on the planet and the latter's complete transformation as planet Islam. So as history has shown us time and again, and as the Arabic word and concept Taqqiya tells us, they are not to be taken at their word. They will do whatever they can in order to regroup for the next assault on Dar al Harb to bring it by force into Dar al Islam.

Whether Trump sees this or not, he has signaled that the G-7 proposal to allow monitoring of Iran's nuclear program instead of calling for its dismantling is a total non-starter, as it should be.

President Trump has stated unequivocally that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons so that raises the question and red flag of how he intends to prevent that from happening. He is of course right but as I, being an ardent supporter of Israel and America, feel strongly that our direct involvement of troops on the ground and/or the deployment of the Air Force would be a disaster.

While Israel has done an amazingly effective job, so far as we can tell, places like the Fordow facility are deep underground beneath a mountain, and the only way to take those out is with heavy ordnance delivered by heavy bombers or missiles capable of delivering a payload that can collapse steel reinforced concrete and stone maybe a half-mile thick. Well, that or deploying tens of thousands of troops to storm the facilities with a direct frontal assault.

Trump has in fact directly warned the people of Tehran to evacuate the city. Is something afoot or is this just him throwing a giant tootsie roll into the swimming pool.

President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to declare that Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” and that people should evacuate Tehran. . . “Reports of Iran’s eagerness to end the fight came as Israeli fighters attacked regime institutions in the capital city of Tehran, including the state broadcaster, after achieving total dominance of Iranian airspace,” it added.

On that note, for those Iranians who were glued to their sets . . .

Israel hit an Iranian regime-controlled television network on Monday, another example of the Jewish state's broadening of its campaign against the Islamic Republic
Israeli warplanes struck Iran’s state-controlled broadcaster on Monday, causing an explosion that scattered debris live on television and forced an anchor to hurriedly flee offscreen.

If only a bomb drifted off course by a measly 10,000 miles or so and hit MSNBC as Banjo Boy Scarborough and his concubine Mitzi Baryshnikov were doing their daily polishing of Al Sharpton's sewer lid medallion. Oh well, just a thought.

Elsewhere, if anyone wants to understand why Israel is doing what it's doing. . .

Jihadi gunmen murdered at least a hundred Christians in the Nigerian village of Yelewata, central Nigeria, on Friday night, the latest in a long string of bloody attacks on farmers by the violent Fulani herdsmen. . . “Many people are still missing, aside dozens injured and left without adequate medical care. Many families were locked up and burnt inside their bedrooms. So many bodies were burnt beyond recognition,” AI Nigeria wrote.

It's not necessarily about Iran and nuclear weapons. or about Israel and Jews. It's about Islam and what it has wrought all over the world for the past 1500 years or so. To think you can negotiate with that, or that they want the same things we do; peace, security and a future for their children. Remember that these are the same people who have children for the express purpose of turning them into guided bombs, draped in C-4/Semtex laden belts and vests ready to detonate themselves on buses, inside pizzerias and fly airplanes into skyscrapers, as their ticket to paradise.

Meanwhile, in the good old USA . . .

60 years after the two Columbia professors outlined their plan to turn America into Cuba or the Soviet Union? They published their manifesto in the leftist publication, The Nation, in 1966, which I will summarize.  

Cloward-Piven’s objective is chaos and turmoil, or in their words, “A massive drive to recruit the poor onto the welfare rolls.” This is followed by: “A federal program of income redistribution has become necessary to elevate the poor en masse from poverty.”

Is there a better recap of COVID, including lockdowns, closed businesses, schools, and churches, which required the ruling class to spend trillions of dollars they didn’t have to rectify the damage and destruction unleashed by the same ruling class that then tried to correct it?

In Cloward-Piven terms, a crisis is: “A publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere.” How do they create such a crisis? “Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.”

Last week, Los Angeles became the epicenter of the Summer of Cloward-Piven. Protests escalated into riots, causing property damage and assaults on law enforcement. These events were hardly spontaneous. Pallets of bricks arrived at strategic locations. Posters had been printed and were ready for use. Shock troops were mobilized, often through help wanted ads on Craigslist, generously paying “peaceful protesters” to burn cars and smash windows.

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• It remains to be seen what will happen in this case. Local media naturally ignored the fact that the woman was part of a mob attacking the vehicle. In Florida, the driver would be protected by law for engaging in self-defense. “If you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety,” Florida Gov. DeSantis said last week during an interview. “So if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.” Los Angeles Rioters Attack Car, Driver Runs Them Over
• (What could possibly go WONG-jjs) The research was conducted at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence (CEBSIT) within the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This group answers directly to and is controlled by the Communist Party-run State Council of China. CCP-Run Lab Launches First Neural Device to Control Computers With Your Brain.

Daily Tech News 17 June 2025

—Pixy Misa

• Intel's rumoured next-next generation Nova Lake processors have been rumoured again. (WCCFTech)
  
  Albeit with more details this time.
  
  The top of the line Core 9 model will reportedly include 16 performance cores, 32 efficiency cores, and 4 low-power efficiency cores.
  
  Which would be a lot.
  
  The next models down would be the Core 7, with 14 P-cores, 24 E-cores, and 4 LPE-cores.
  
  However, both would use a base power of 150W, meaning - this being Intel - in reality they would run at more like 300W.
  
  Which is also a lot.
  
  They would also - according to a separate rumour - provide 32 PCIe 5.0 lanes and 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes.
  
  Not counting the PCIe 5.0 connection from the CPU to the chipset.
  
  The CPU provides the same number of I/O lanes - at the same speed - as AMD's current chips. But the chipset does a lot better than AMD, providing 24 total PCIe 5.0 and 4.0 lanes, against AMD's 870E which uses two chips to provide just 12 PCIe 4.0 lanes.
  
  Oh, and DDR5-8000 memory.

Monday Overnight Open Thread - June 16, 2025 [Doof]

—Open Blogger

Howdy Hordelings! Thanks for stopping by the ONT to end your Monday. Please grab a beverage of your choosing, check out the content, and leave some wit and wisdom in the comments.

***

Fly the fraudly skies!

Man Convicted of Posing as Flight Attendant to Fly for Free 120 Times

A 35-year-old American man has been found guilty of impersonating a flight attendant at least 120 times in order to avoid having to pay for plane tickets. Federal prosecutors accused Tirone Alexander of entering the secure area of an airport under false pretenses and committing wire fraud at least 120 times between 2018 and 2024. The 35-year-old man reportedly took advantage of a common airline policy that allows flight attendants and pilots from other airlines to fly for free. Alexander, who allegedly had worked as a flight attendant for regional airlines between 2013 and 2015, would go to various airline websites and check the “flight attendant” option during the online check-in process. The form required applicants to provide their employer, date of hire, and badge number, and Alexander used falsified information that apparently no one bothered to check.

***

I'm not crying, you're crying!

Family Thinks Elderly Couple Is Annoyed By Their Loud Party - Then Came The Tears

What began as a lively family birthday celebration at Mama Mia's in Carver, Massachusetts, turned into a deeply touching display of unexpected kindness, leaving diners in tears and reaffirming the profound impact of simple human connection.

***

Lindsey's family was celebrating her mother's birthday with a party of thirteen, admittedly making quite a bit of joyous noise. Seated beside them was an elderly couple, and initially, Lindsey's group worried they might be a nuisance.

“We thought they were annoyed by us,” Lindsey recalled. But everything changed when they finished singing “Happy Birthday” to her mom. The woman next to them smiled warmly and said, “It’s my husband’s birthday too.”

Without hesitation, Lindsey’s mom lit a candle in a cupcake and the whole group sang again — this time, for the gentleman named Tony. The impromptu celebration continued as they shared cake with Tony and his wife, who expressed immense gratitude for the unexpected gesture.

Then came the words that lingered with everyone: when Lindsey’s mom told Tony, “We’ll meet here next year,” he softly replied, “I don’t think so.” At the time, no one quite understood the weight of those words.

***

"This means more to us than you know. My husband was just diagnosed with cancer, and he's not doing well."

Very nice story. Read the whole thing.

***

Dudes being dudes

Father and son combo epic 😎 pic.twitter.com/8WF4QYr7st

— Wholesome Side of 𝕏 (@itsme_urstruly) June 15, 2025

men are simple creatures 😂 pic.twitter.com/SoNZUGsM5f

— Wholesome Side of 𝕏 (@itsme_urstruly) June 15, 2025

Dude testing whether he could get off at this train stop and run to the next train stop pic.twitter.com/vzrelg8YiD

— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) June 16, 2025

This is accurate

***

DJ Doof - Today In Music History Version
From thisdayinmusic.com

Born on this date in 1958: Patrick Waite, Musical Youth, best remembered for their successful 1982 single 'Pass the Dutchie'

On this date in 1970: Mungo Jerry were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with In The Summertime. It went on to become the best-selling UK single of 1970 spending seven weeks at No.1 and was a hit in 26 other countries

On this date in 1994: Kristen Pfaff best known as the bassist for alternative rock band Hole was found dead in her bathtub due to a heroin overdose aged 26

Also born on this date:
1971: Lesane Parish Crooks who you may know by a different name.

***

Tonight's ONT brought to you by early learning

***

Comments, questions, suggestions, or emotional outbursts? Do the email thing at doof2112 at proton dot me. Or better yet -- tell me in person at next weekend's NoVa MoMe!

Close it up