Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Their relatives live inside volcanos in Ireland. When their fur becomes too thick and scruffy and it becomes excessively warm in their dens, they erupt from the tops of the mountains and fly across the land covering the land in a thick dense fur called "tephra" that can be many meters thick. If they have inadvertently been fed Taco Bell in ritual food offerings, their shedding is called "pyroclastic flows" or "pyroclastic surges" depending upon the bean content of the offerings. The Irish have come to an understanding with these beings and have adopted them as "pets". They are, naturally, called "Irish Wolves Dread These Beings and Their Horrid Smothering Blankets" or by the shortened version, "Irish Wolfhounds". There are 72% more of these creatures featured in the book "Selinon" which must be true as it is clearly stated in the literature.
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In Hawaii the ash is sometimes referred to as "Pele's hair" but the Irish know better. This is what they do with the fur. A picture is attached.
WOW. Amazing!
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I downsized this a bit, so hopefully will work. This is Patsy, the latest cat. I estimate she's 5-6 months old and weighs 8 pounds. Went through the spay without problems and is recovering. She has taken to being inside pretty well. She loves my dog Jake but does not care for the other two cats.
I post as Notsothoreau
“Throw out the radio and take the fiddle down from the wall.”
— Andrew Nelson Lytle, Tennessee, 1930
Well, looks like Patsy is off to a fairly good start. Get those treats out when she's around the other two cats. Hope it helps. Thanks for adopting her!
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Holiday Weekend
—K.T.
Happy Valentine's Day! It's also Washington's Birthday Weekend, and if you are stuck indoors, here are some old-fashioned bouquets to remind you of his era.
Dobbin House Tavern, Feb. 6
To chase away the bitter‑cold winter blues, we offer a glimpse of summer from the Dobbin House gardens. Each week, we gather and arrange fresh blooms for the deep, inset windows of Rev. Dobbin's 18th‑century stone home - - now the cozy setting where our guests enjoy menus of fine food and drink.
We like to imagine that Isabella Dobbin herself filled these very rooms with similar, homemade arrangements in 1776, brightening her household just as they brighten ours today. With the Gettysburg countryside blanketed in white, viewing this burst of color gives us comfort, as it promises warmer days ahead. We hope it brings a little warmth and cheer to you as well.
By-Tor bottled up his sauerkraut (see Jan. 17 post) on Jan. 31:
My sauerkraut has been fermenting for 24 days now so time to jar it for the upcoming LA County Fair in May. You can ferment it for months if you want; it gradually becomes more sour and softer. This is the right amount of sourness and crunch I like.
Next up- bread and butter pickles, applesauce, and naturally fermented dill pickles.
Recipe:
Make a brine of 3.5% saltwater using kosher or any un-iodized salt. I use grams. So for example 35g of salt in 1000ml of hot water until it’s dissolved. There is no specific amount to make; you just need enough to cover the cabbage. Use as much cabbage as you want.
Shred or buy pre-shredded cabbage. Put that in a food grade plastic or glass container. Cover with the brine. Use a plate or similar to push the cabbage below the surface. Cover loosely with a lid. Leave it on the counter. In about 4 days it will start turning beige. In about 8 days it will start turning sour. You can start eating it whenever you want. I think 3-4 weeks is best.
You might see a white flakes on the surface. That’s yeast. It’s harmless but off-flavor. Skim it off. It’s normal in fermentation.
When you’re ready, put it in jars. Jars going in the fridge don’t have to be sealed. Jars for the shelf need to be water bath canned in Mason jars to seal the lids. It will stay good pretty much for years.
It’s going to taste different than most store bought sauerkraut that uses vinegar to create the sourness. It has a more natural flavor.
The recipe for naturally fermented pickles is the same except do 4% and use whole pickling cucumbers. They take about 6 days.
Looks great! Good luck at the fair.
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By-Tor, Feb. 2:
It’s pickling and fermenting day to get ready for the LA County Fair. Bread and butter pickles are done; then a jar of cucumbers in a 3.5% saltwater brine with garlic and fresh dill to start fermenting into dill pickles. These should be ready in six or seven days.
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They look great, too! Interesting bottles!
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Adventure
From Sharon(willow's apprentice)
I got to spend Christmas with my son, DIL and 4 yr old grandson on the Dutch island of Bonaire. Located off the coast of Venezuela, it is 82 degrees all year round, 70's at night.The little town is very colorful and looks like a classic beach town.Most of the island is an eco preserve where there is a flamingo breeding ground and a donkey sanctuary. There is no fishing allowed and the reef is literally off shore so you can walk in from the beach and snorkel. It is extremely dry and although there are extensive gardens, there was watering hoses all around the plantings. So many different textures and vibrant colors. The air was so clean. It just felt so unspoiled.
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Glorious! Anyone recognize one of the flowers there?
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Gardens of The Horde
What's going on in your garden?
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Hope everyone has a nice looong weekend.
If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:
ktinthegarden at g mail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Happy Valentine's Day! Caution: sexual predators are not just on Epstein Island
—K.T.
Have you been turning to coverage of the Olympics to get away from more depressing news? Might not always help.
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The new revelations from the Epstein Files are a disappointment so far to people who expected to be able to prosecute participants in a massive child sex ring, but do they help to explain some history?
A woman who flirted with Epstein in emails, accepted thousands of dollars of gifts from him, and was his unofficial attorney was Obama's top vetter and Ethics advisor.
Ruemmler's involvement with Epstein is a reminder that the scandals surrounding him are not all about exploiting girls and women for sex. Walter Kirn suggested, You'd better read this from Matthew Stoller:
The Jeff Epstein saga isn't a scandal about pedophilia, it's about a Russian word called 'blat,' a Soviet-era word meaning 'the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures.' It's about a kind of government.
As with the large number of 'blatniks' in the Soviet era who made sure their factories got what they needed outside the formal state procurement process, Epstein greased the wheels for the neoliberal state. His job was governance.
What does that mean? Well it's clear that Epstein was an entrepreneurial broker across multiple public and private bureaucracies, helping organize 'under-the-table' deals among the legal, business, intelligence, and political elites to allow them to escape the rule of law and traditional conflict of interest restrictions. It's statecraft to allow a superclass to systemically escape the formalized rules.
The pedophilia and prostitution were part of it - that is obviously violating the rule of law - but so are the random favors Epstein bestowed. Like Epstein sending Senator Joe Manchin's request for a yacht, a request which came from the First lady of the Virginia Islands, to a random NY financier who might have one. Or working with Joi Ito at MIT and billionaire Reid Hoffman to restructure the Bitcoin Foundation. It's all about matching capital and talent and inputs outside of the restrictions ordinary people are subject to.
This kind of governance is particularly important in Soviet-style states, where everyone knows the rules are fake, where skirting the system IS the system. Epstein and his affiliates thrived because of the weakened institutions of the United States, institutions enfeebled in many cases by the men in his network, like Larry Summers. These men adopted multiple roles - advisor, businessman, academic, board member, regulator - and put on the hat that best maximized their self-interest and the self-interest of their narrow network at that moment.
The old world, where handing someone your business card meant you represented that institution, disappeared in the 1980s. Over the course of the 1990s, neoconservatives, neoliberals, bankers - ultimately Epstein's network - built this new social order. It was one where you couldn't succeed through the formal rules, but if you were let into the networks of trust by blatniks, you could do anything you wanted.
While all the specifics of Epstein's network are not known, and while conspiracy theorists often have crazy views, they have correctly fingered that the world of meritocracy and formalized systems is increasingly a fraud. And that the real government lies elsewhere.
In short, when formal democratic institutions like Congress stop governing, the networks of men like Epstein fill the power vacuum. . .
There's an academic reference plus interesting comments at the link.
So, where do we go from here?
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Concerning weakened institutions, Larry Summers is not the only one weakening them. I just learned from someone who is an instructor at a top fine arts college that this year, Chinese students, who have recently constituted up to half of the student body, have disappeared, fearing that they will be detained or deported. Instructors at the school are losing their health insurance because the school is short on money.
How did this college become so dependent on Chinese and other foreign students? They pay up front rather than taking out student loans. They are not top students due to "cultural challenges". But our resources have apparently been going to educate them, until this year. And the arts are not the main focus of Chinese students in the USA, OR in China. They are not much into DEI.
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What's happening in the UK?
The Epstein Files touched the Ambassador to the USA and advisors to the Prime Minister. And here's another "contact".
We have been reminded during the week of the UK government's hostility toward young girls and others trying to defend themselves against "Asian" abusers, both casual and heinous. But here is a reminder that most of the world would not be aware of the Rotherham and similar scandals without Elon Musk's insistence that news about them belonged on Twitter, and then on "X":
I am calling for a complete and total shutdown of all Super Bowl halftime shows until we can figure out what the hell is going on. Moreover, I am calling for President Trump to appoint a bipartisan commission of inquiry chaired by Bugs Bunny, with full subpoena power over Bad Bunny, Good Bunny, and Okay Bunny. Also Roger Goodell, who I am renaming Roger Badell. I vote for next year’s halftime show to be Bugs Bunny and Weird Al Yankovic. Just be sure to check everyone’s ID before they vote.
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Music
Ever heard traditional Gaelic Irish music sung by an a cappella group like this?
This is Ceann Dubh Dilis (My Sweet, Dark-Haired Love), arranged by Michael McGlynn and performed by Spokanki.pic.twitter.com/wywddM23PJ
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
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Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in sanctuary blue cities.)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind. Be nice. Be exceptional, don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects? You have to be kidding us, amirite?
4) Say an extra pray or two for our country and the people attempting to right the ship.
5) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
12/20 – Morgan, longtime lurker, takes tango lessons from Sebastian, whose son, Matias, is recovering from brain surgery. The MRI was read on 12/19, and the surgeons did not remove the entire tumor. Even though the biopsy indicated the tumor was benign, the boy is probably facing several rounds of chemo. Please pray for the boy’s continued recovery in El Salvador.
1/10 Update – Matias will have surgery in 2 weeks to try and remove the rest of the tumor, and then he will receive radiation therapy.
2/7 Update – Matias came through the second surgery, and was waiting for another MRI before he can start radiation. He has lost weight due to constant vomiting and didn’t sleep for 4 days, but he is sleeping better now and is able to keep food down. He and his parents are really struggling, though.
12/27 – Buzzion asked for prayers for a friend named Christina. Christina has struggled with a lot, including addiction and relapse. Buzzion has not heard from Christina in a while and hopes she is okay. Please pray that Christina finds her way and knows that people love and care for her and believe in her.
1/3 Update – Christina was arrested on 1/3. Please pray for this to be a final wake-up call for her.
1/22 Update – Christina was released from jail and is staying with Buzzion. She is working through the legal troubles and she is continuing her recovery. She really appreciates the prayers, as does Buzzion.
12/27 – BlackOrchid requested prayers for a Navy Veteran uncle who has been struggling with his health the last few weeks. The root cause is undetermined, but recurrent infection/sepsis keeps sending him back to the hospital. It seems to be worsening his dementia, which makes it harder for BlackOrchid’s aunt to handle him.
1/3 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle (her “stand-in dad”) is still not doing well. He will probably need to be put in a LTC facility although they are doing everything possible to avoid this. He is 86, and at the stage where his immune system can’t fight back well.
1/24 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle is doing much better. He is carting around an O2 canister to help him, but otherwise is doing well.
1/6 – Diogenes requested prayers for his best friend since college, who was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours or hearing this, the friend’s son, a man that Diogenes has known since he was a baby, collapsed from what appears to be a brain tumor. The prognosis isn’t hopeful. Please pray for both of these fine men.
1/23 Update – Diogenes’ best friend’s son Sean had emergency brain surgery. The labs are back and it’s not good news. He has stage 4 brain cancer. They were scheduled to meet with an oncologist on 1/26 to determine the best pathway ahead for the time he has remaining. This is just crushing news. Thanks to all the Horde for their prayers and support for this fine young man.
2/11 Update – Sean has not started brain cancer treatments yet. There are still some issues to work out. But he had more bad news when his wife’s sister was hit by a truck on 2/10 and is in critical condition (broken back, severe concussion, bleeding on the brain). Diogenes asks for anyone in the Horde to speak up if they know of any support groups for people in Sean’s situation. Thanks in advance.
1/8 - Doof asked for prayers for his mother. She was hit hard by the flu. She couldn’t get out of bed the morning of 1/8 and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. She is alert and communicating but prayers are appreciated for her recovery. Prayers are also appreciated for Doof, as he absolutely despises hospitals.
1/23 Update – Mom was in the hospital for 5 nights and has been in a rehabilitation center since 1/13. Her recovery is slow but steady. Her breathing and mobility are still not back to normal. She is in good spirits but wants to be home. They very much appreciate the continued prayers.
1/10 – LA Sue asked for prayers for her brother, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September. They just learned it moved from stage 2 to stage 4. The chemo treatments and side infections from surgery have so debilitated him that he is considering stopping. Please pray for strength and that he opens his heart to God.
1/18 Update – LA Sue is taking her brother to hospice. He is fading.
1/23 Update – LA Sue’s brother passed away.
1/17 – Emmie asked for prayers. She and her husband are on the verge of foreclosure. Their side hustle of delivery driving ended when a young driver crashed into their car and totaled it. They aren’t able to make the mortgage payments without that extra income. Their church is helping, but it’s a small church.
1/23 Update – They have a loaner/rental car that they can use until they can devise a long term solution, and have found an insurer who will cover delivery driving work. Another friend is supplying a financial cushion during the mortgage reset probationary agreement. But the underlying financial problems persist. They ask for prayers that they would conduct themselves with wisdom, discipline, diligence, prudence, and joy in God’s provision. Emmie specifically asked for prayers in her struggle with resentment and despair.
1/18 – Teresa in Fort Worth sent an update. She had surgery on 12/11, and a pump was installed that will direct medication into the hepatic artery. This will allow a much larger concentration of medication to be applied directly into her liver. This should give fewer side effects and (hopefully) shrink the tumors. It will take several months before they know if this new medication is working, but if it does, they are hoping for an extra 2-3 years before the disease progresses again.
1/19 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
2/5 Update – On 1/30 his dad was moved out of the hospital and into the PT wing of his retirement community. He will be going through PT twice a day and speech therapy as well. NR Pax’ mother is still dealing with the VA paperwork to get his disability raised to 100%. Thanks to everyone for their prayers.
1/20 – Inogame asked for prayers. His wife and baby girl (due in February) are healthy, but some bad luck has come to their family. The business they purchased a year ago has taken an abrupt turn and they are trying to understand what is happening. They may not be able to keep their home if they cannot discover and correct the problem. This stress and what it might mean postpartum is worrying them. Thank you all for your prayers in the past.
1/20 – MkY sent an update on his wife Judy, who was diagnosed with Stage IV renal cancer last January. Despite being unable to receive her cancer drugs for 3 months while her port infection healed up, the tumors did not grow and she is feeling strong. Thanks so much for all the prayers! Last week, MkY was diagnosed with fluid on the brain. They operated the same day. They drilled two holes in his skull, inserted tubes, and had him lay flat on his back for 2 days. MkY thanks God for the modern miracles of medicine. He needs to heal quickly since he operates a small business. So far, no complications.
1/24 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
1/24 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd posted some updates and requests. In the blessings department: blood glucose has continued to fall, well within normal range. BP is good. The hole where his molar used to be is coming along nicely. The youngest has jaw surgery coming up in February. This is many years in the making and should correct her bite and ease the pain in her jaw and ears. She’s not looking forward to the liquid diet, but is looking forward to the pain relief. Prayers are always appreciated, and based on what they have been through, he knows they are efficacious.
2/7 Update – He does not have any pain related to his lost molar anymore. And his (adult) daughter’s jaw surgery is scheduled for 2/9. She will stay overnight at the hospital in Ann Arbor.
1/25 – Pawn at AoS asked for prayers after his dear friend Julia passed away. He asked for strength for himself and his family to fill a very large void in this world. He only has a couple of friends left so asks for protection for them.
1/27 – K asked for prayers for K’s neighbor Mike, whose doctor found a lump near Mike’s esophagus. Many thanks.
1/30 – Bulg could use prayers after a distressing medical incident. His heart was racing and he was too weak to even really walk. His doctor thinks it might be AFib; he is wearing a heart monitor to gather more information, and he needs to keep a diary of any other heart-related incidents. Prayers are much appreciated.
2/6 Update – Bulg had two prayers of thanks. The first was that he had a good phone conversation with his sister, from whom he had been estranged for 20 over years. The second was that he does not have AFib.
1/31 – George V asked for prayers for his wife. She needs a heart valve replacement but first needs a heart cath to assess the valve and determine the replacement procedure and perhaps put stents in the coronary arteries that may be partially blocked. Also, the preliminary CT scan of her heart showed spots on her lungs that may be cancerous.
2/4 – BifBewalski posted that it has been a little over a year since he took Smash to the ER for abdominal problems. After a full year of insurance BS, specialists, and other doctors visits, she has been taken back for abdominal surgery today. Please offer a prayer for her successful procedure and a speedy recovery.
2/7 Update – BifBewalski brought Smash home from the overnight stay in the hospital. She is recovering well. The post-surgery fever broke and the pain is minimal. A full recovery is expected. Thank you for the prayers – it truly makes a difference!
2/7 – Frankie asked for prayers for her godmother, Linda, who has been in declining health and recently had to move to a care facility.
2/7 – Vmom deport deport deport requested prayers for her hubby, who has had the coughing crud since 2/2.
2/11 – Bluebell sent an update from grammie winger: "I've finished my 6th round of chemo. Thursday (Feb. 12) I will meet with the surgeon who will decide if surgery is an option for me. If not, I'm not sure if there's a Plan B. Maybe more chemo? Ugh - it's already deteriorated my vision and hearing. Nasty stuff. But it's all in the Lord's hands. I don't know how people who don't have faith do it. I miss Ace but it's something I have to set aside for now. I love each and every one of you. Even the trolls. LOL"
2/11 – Joe Kidd sent an update related to his friend, Bill, who we prayed for in December. Bill’s former girlfriend had passed away, and Bill and the girlfriend’s family were devastated by the loss. Bill has sold the house he (and the girlfriend) had lived in, and sent half the proceeds to his former girlfriend’s family. Just recently, Bill took early retirement to care for his 90 year old mother. Joe Kidd sends thanks. If you know, you know.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
Rapidus was launched in 2022 - well before the current chip shortage - as a venture between eight companies including Sony, NEC, and Toshiba, to regain Japan's position in chip technology. Its main goal was to introduce 2nm chips.
It's now on track to start mass production next year, scaling to 25,000 wafers per month in 2028.
That's a year behind TSMC and Intel, but in the current market they won't have problems finding customers.
Right now the most advanced chips produced in Japan are at the 40nm node. That's widely used in automotive systems and other embedded tasks, but rubbish for advanced systems - it was introduced in 2008. So Japan is planning to jump 20 years into the future in one go.
Or at least allegedly available; the cheapest model I could find on Amazon was $350, and on Newegg, $420.
I panic-bought a 16GB 9060 XT last month before the price increases and/or shortages hit, and so far they haven't reached Australia. Only the RTX 5090 has been seriously affected here, increasing in price by 50%.
Most of the projects hit by this bot's proffered contributions haven't responded yet, but where they have, the reviews of the code and the bot's responses have been just as negative as the first time.
We finally have AI that can act like a human. Unfortunately that human is an autistic teenager of mediocre talent who learned all his social skills from Reddit.
A Red-bellied Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatches, Tufted Titmice, and Black-capped Chickadees visit the Hand of Snacks. The second visit from the Red-bellied Woodpecker shows how he likes to use his tail feathers as a prop against my hand. pic.twitter.com/1ZboA6ZdDf
— Jocelyn Anderson Photography (@JocAPhotography) February 3, 2026
Obama White House Counsel and Epstein Fixer Katherine Ruemmler Resigns from Top Post at Democrat Law Firm Due to Increasing Revelations About Her Close Personal Friendship with Democrat Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein
Kathy Ruemmler, top Goldman Sachs lawyer, resigning amid Epstein fallout
Kathy Ruemmler, the chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs, said Thursday night she is resigning amid fallout from the Justice Department's release of millions of pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents.
Her resignation is effective June 30.
Her announcement comes as she has weathered numerous news stories in recent weeks examining her relationship with the disgraced financier.
Ruemmler and those around her have insisted she had a professional relationship with Epstein.
"Since I joined Goldman Sachs six years ago, it has been my privilege to help oversee the firm's legal, reputational, and regulatory matters; to enhance our strong risk management processes; and to ensure that we live by our core value of integrity in everything we do," Ruemmler, a former Obama White House counsel, said in a statement to CNN. "My responsibility is to put Goldman Sachs' interests first. Earlier today, I regretfully informed David Solomon of my intention to step down as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of Goldman Sachs as of June 30, 2026."
Look how they just snuck that in there, burying it in long boring self-justifying quote that they knew for a fact that readers would gloss over. (I know, because I glossed over it myself, and didn't notice that CNN had stealth-acknowledged her connection to Obama.)
If you didn't have conservative media to tell you better, you'd think that this was just some random rich lawyer quitting her job. You would have no idea whatsoever about what makes this newsworthy.
She said this as she was fixing Jeffrey Epstein's many legal troubles:
2017. Jeffrey Epstein's good friend Kathryn Ruemmler explains that she ran Obama's vetting and ethics department and was responsible for vetting all of Obama's cabinet members.
Ruemmler also said that she was saddened because Trump had "debased" the Presidency.
Trump Ends Obama Executive Order Giving the EPA the Power to Regulate Carbon Dioxide Without Any Congressional Authorization
—Disinformation Expert Ace
That's clumsy. Putting it differently: Congress never authorized the EPA to treat carbon dioxide as "pollution."
Barack Obama lawlessly arrogated himself that power and declared that carbon dioxide -- a naturally occurring molecule that has always been present in our atmosphere and indeed is absolutely necessary for plant growth -- was "pollution."
US President Donald Trump has reversed a key Obama-era scientific ruling that underpins all federal actions on curbing planet-warming gases.
The so-called 2009 "endangerment finding" concluded that a range of greenhouse gases were a threat to public health. It's become the legal bedrock of federal efforts to rein in emissions, especially in vehicles.
The White House called the reversal the "largest deregulation in American history", saying it would make cars cheaper, bringing down costs for automakers by $2,400 per vehicle.
Environmental groups say the move is by far the most significant rollback on climate change yet attempted and are set to challenge it in the courts.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said the 2009 ruling was "a disastrous Obama era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers".
"This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam, one of the greatest scams in history," added the Republican president, about the Democrats' climate agenda.
Former President Barack Obama, who infrequently comments on the policies of sitting presidents, said that repealing the finding would make Americans more vulnerable.
"Without it, we'll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change -- all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money," he wrote on X.
Lee Zeldin
@epaleezeldin
21h
The Obama Admin couldn’t get the votes needed in Congress to amend the Clean Air Act and regulate greenhouse gases, so without hesitation they decided to just ignore the law and jam through trillions in regulatory costs on the American people.
The Trump Admin is proudly following the law, saving $1.3 TRILLION for the American people, lowering new car costs by over $2,400 per vehicle, and getting rid of the climate participation trophy for manufacturers to install Obama Switches that shut vehicles off at red lights and stop signs. Period.
The Obama Admin couldn’t get the votes needed in Congress to amend the Clean Air Act and regulate greenhouse gases, so without hesitation they decided to just ignore the law and jam through trillions in regulatory costs on the American people.
“President Trump has repealed U.S. power to regulate climate in this country. The President officially rejecting the science. … this is not only dangerous for the environment but for your health.” pic.twitter.com/jIpbDR1GCu
There's a new fantasy series about King Arthur called The Pendragon Cycle: The Rise of Merlin. (Pendragon is Arthur's surname.) I think it was produced by Jeremy Boering, formerly of the Daily Wire.
I think the series requires a DW subscription to review.
Reviewers are refusing to review it because a series about King Arthur during the period of the Christianization of Britain includes Christian themes.
Joe Rogan recently interviewed Oscar-winning screenwriter Roger Avary on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. During their three-hour discussion, Avary mentioned that he's been watching the show The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin on Daily Wire+. He had high praise for the show, comparing it to the classic King Arthur movie, Excalibur.
"Mainstay producers are no longer reliable," he complained, adding that they're spending billions of dollars to make "Lord of the Rings things," while Pendragon was made for very little and has flown under the radar of pop culture. He admitted that he went into the show thinking he wasn't going to like it, but was pleasantly surprised: "This is, to me, as good as classic television."
So why aren't more people watching the show?
I reviewed The Pendragon Cycle for GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT. To say that I am "not its target audience" is a mixed statement. I love Arthurian legend, but the show and the novels it was based on embrace Christian themes that I was sure would feel too proselytizing. I agreed to review it out of curiosity, but I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. Rise of the Merlin should work for a wide audience, but for some reason, it isn't getting the attention it deserves.
Major critics are not reviewing The Pendragon Cycle. The only reviews being given are from content creators and pre-existing fans of its host service, The Daily Wire. Despite advertising on social media, YouTube, and releasing trailers, very little attention has been given to Rise of the Merlin. Even Melania got the courtesy of bad reviews from the press.
For those of you as obsessed with Sulu as George Takei is, they've done a documentary just about Sulu.
Jay Leno had a joke about Sulu. He said that Japan was crazy for Sulu. He said that in Japan, Star Trek was called Sulu: Master of Navigation.
That's a good joke. It makes you think.
Speaking of old TV actors, there's a new Jason Vorhees style slasher movie -- he takes orders from a dead "mama" -- with Lou Ferrigno as the killer.
February is not a good month for movies.
Speaking of February movie, they made a Wuthering Heights movie opening on Valentine's Day with Margo Robbie and some dude. Jacob Elordi.
You can tell it's a movie meant for Modern Audience because here are other cast members for this movie set in mid-1800s England:
The film also stars alongside Oscar nominee Hong Chau, Shazad Latif, Alison Oliver, BAFTA winner Martin Clunes and Ewan Mitchell.
I can practically feel the history coming alive!
Although, I see leftwing idiots complaining because the male lead is white. And they're claiming he's really black, because the book describes him as "dark-skinned."
Except... you know, when white people weren't thinking about brown and black people, which was true during the mid-1800s, they would frequently call some white people "fair-skinned" and others "dark-skinned." It didn't mean they were different races, just like a black guy calling another black guy "light skinned" doesn't mean he's actually white.
Roseanne Barr describes herself as a child, saying "a small dark-skinned girl." Again, she didn't mean she thought she was black. She means her skin was darker than the Anglo people in America she knew.
Anyway.
I think they made this movie thinking, "If we put Margot Robbie in it, dudes will happily bring their ladies to it." I dunno. I'm not a super-fan. She's just so desperate to be a big star. It's a turn off, man. I saw someone say about movie stars, they're cool because they don't care if you like them or not. That's definitely not the case with Margo Robbie.
I'm not a fan of He-Man, but this looks like it's in the right spirit.
There's a "He/Him" joke in there but I don't think it's pro-trans, but kind of the opposite. In his everyday life as the non-heroic "Adam," he may be a He-Him, but he needs no such pronoun clarification in his guise as the rippling-muscles barbarian king He-Man. I think that's the joke they're making.
It does look gay, but I don't think there's any way to make He-Man not look gay. It's a bunch of shirtless beefy guys tapping their swords with each other.
I watched this trailer for American Yakuza thinking, "This is great! It's just like a 90s action movie!" Well it is a 90s action movie. They just cleaned up the original print. It has Aragorn in it.
Exit question: With AI now this advanced, is Hollywood doomed?
🔥🚨BREAKING: Hollywood has officially started panicking after ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ writer Rhett Reese reacted to viral AI video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting over Jeffrey Epstein.
Reese: “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”
Tim Walz: ICE Hurt Our Illegal-Alien-Based Economy and Now We Demand Reparations from the US Taxpayer
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Tom Homan just ended Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, declaring the operation a success.
Border czar Tom Homan on Thursday formally wrapped up "Operation Metro Surge" in Minneapolis, declaring the multi-week federal push a success after more than 4,000 illegal aliens were arrested in and around the Twin Cities.
Speaking to reporters, Homan said the coordinated effort with state and local partners delivered "the successful results we came here for," arguing that Minnesota communities are "much safer" as a result of stepped-up enforcement carried out under President Trump.
But federal agents are not leaving the city entirely. Homan made clear that officers will remain in place to remove convicted criminals and to assume custody of migrants being held in local jails.
"Prioritization of public safety threats doesn't mean we forget about everybody else," he said, reiterating the administration's commitment to enforcing immigration law across the board. "We're going to enforce the immigration law. We're going to have a mass deportation. President Trump promised that, and we're committed to that."
You might think that Tim Walz would say "thank you" for ICE deporting 4,000 criminals from Minneapolis. You might think he'd say "thank you" for winding down the more aggressive part of the operation, to focus instead on collecting illegals from jail.
You'd be wrong, you big dummies on the level of Lamont Sanford.
Tim Walz is complaining that the local economy, based almost entirely on illegal alien labor and purchases along with prodigious amounts of federal benefits fraud by Somalis, has been hurt by deportations.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is demanding taxpayers bail out businesses after federal agents arrested more than 4,000 illegal aliens in the Minneapolis area -- arguing that Washington "broke" parts of his state's economy by enforcing immigration law.
Speaking after White House border czar Tom Homan confirmed the scale of the operation, Walz said the crackdown left Minnesota facing "economic ruin" and insisted the federal government "needs to pay for what they broke here." His administration is advancing a $10 million taxpayer-funded relief package aimed at small businesses that lost workers or customers once illegal aliens were detained or deported.
"What can we start doing on the economic recovery, the damage that has been done to our economy?" Walz said, singling out immigrant-owned small businesses.
State economic officials claim revenue has fallen sharply because workers are staying home and customers are avoiding certain commercial areas. Matt Varilek, a senior economic development official, warned of "massive reductions" in foot traffic and income. Henry Garcia, a Colombian-born grocery store manager in St. Paul, said sales were cut in half. "My customers are afraid to go shopping," Garcia said. "Sales dropped by half, and goodwill doesn't cover rent ... We need more grants."
Throughout his remarks, Walz praised Minnesota's immigrant community broadly and invoked the Statue of Liberty, declaring, "There is no Minnesota without our immigrant community." He did not distinguish between legal immigrants and illegal aliens.
The "target" rate of inflation the Fed is trying to get to is 2.0%.
In January, increased prices by 0.2%. Over a full 12 months, that would be 2.4%.
Also, over the past 12 months, inflation was at 2.4%. Just a bit over target. Just a scotch above the level the Fed actually wants to see.
But I thought Trump's Tariffs would kill us worse than insurrectionists killed AOC on January 6.
Some of the decreases from December's report are notable, even in categories where prices still increased incrementally. Food went from +0.7 to +0.2, for instance. Energy prices actually dropped by significant amounts across the board, -1.5% overall and -3.2% for gasoline. Fuel oil fell 5.7% in January in a month where demand would be peaking. Electricity prices fell by a tenth of a point. Only natural gas showed a significant increase of 1.0% in January.
However, the year-on-year numbers in CPI for the first twelve months of the Donald Trump administration look pretty spectacular when it comes to an affordability argument:
Overall YoY inflation: 2.4%
Food: 2.9%
Food at home: 2.1%
Food away from home: 4.0%
Energy: -0.1%
Energy commodities: -7.3%
Gasoline: -7.5%
Fuel oil: -4.2%
Energy services: 7.2%
Electricity: 6.3%
Utility gas service: 9.8%
Core CPI less food and energy: 2.4%
It's not perfect, but it's pretty darned good. The big problems here are electricity and gas, both of which the Trump administration is already working to expand.
The Wall Street Journal notes that since inflation came in high last January -- Biden's last month in office -- inflation has fallen.
The latest annual number had some help, since a high inflation reading from January 2025 has now dropped out of the past 12 months of data. Month over month from December, consumer prices in January rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% and core prices rose 0.3%.
Don't forget, Wednesday's jobs report came in above "expectations" as well, with Trump adding 172,000 private sector jobs, and cutting 42,000 government " " " jobs " " ".
It's almost as if "experts" have some built-in, unchangeable cognitive bias that always make their predictions wrong and always in the same (anti-GOP) direction.
THIS is the real story out of today's jobs report - Trump was handed an economy that was losing private sector jobs and adding gov't payrolls, but he successfully flipped the script, and one year later it's all private sector growth while cutting gov't jobs: pic.twitter.com/R5r5EHgzqk
Oh, and remember, they also revealed that millions of "jobs" Biden "created" simply did not exist and were phantoms only existing on paper to boost Biden's electoral chances.
And don't forget this either: Trump's job numbers greatly understate how good the jobs environment is for actual American citizens. Most new jobs under Biden went to foreigners, especially illegal aliens, while jobs are now going overwhelmingly to actual US citizens.
And illegal aliens have lost jobs, for the first time in decades.
Before switching to his Epstein grift last year, Ro Khanna spent his nights on CNN claiming that Trump's tariffs were destroying the economy and making inflation go up.
Propganda Media and Propaganda Tech Monopolices Conspire to Cover-Up Newest Trans Mass Murderer's Trans Identity and Deny There's Any Kind of an Epidemic of Trans Mass Violence
—Disinformation Expert Ace
A couple of weeks ago, I thought of Elliot Rodger.
You remember that name, right? He was the first nationally-notorious "incel," a sad loser angry at the rejection he experience when he approached women. So in 2014, he declared a "Day of Vengeance" and killed six people and wounded 14 more.
Obviously, horrific.
For ten years since then, various government "anti-hate" authorities have monitored "incel" accounts and groups like MGTOW to make sure there would never be another Elliot Rodger. For years the media has run stories about the "right-wing incel radicalization pipeline" and sought to deplatform accounts which might inspire another Elliot Rodger.
Well, there was only one similar case that I remember. A few years after Elliot Rodger, a Canadian loser shot some women.
So, two cases.
But a huge amount of media and government "anti-hate" interest in this phenomenon. This phenomenon of two.
Meanwhile, we have now seen five mass shootings by trans extremists, and this doesn't count the "Ziz" trans murder cult -- they killed their victims individually, not in one incident -- or the murder of Charlie Kirk, murdered by gay furry on behalf of his tranny lover.
And the trans movement itself uses the same DAY OF VENGEANCE language that Elliot Rodger did to incite further violence, explicitly calling for violence against normies in the various "Trans Days of Vengeance" they declare.
I just saw a new meme encouraging violence, by declaring that "EVERY DAY IS TRANS DAY OF VENGEANCE."
And even with the bodycount mounting -- and the victims being mostly children -- the media continues not noticing that the trans cult is explicity -- not impliedly, explicitly -- calling for the murders of normies as justifiable "vengeance," and more and more psychotic trannies are answering the call.
Indeed, not only do they not investigate the connnection between transgenderism, insane trans propaganda about a "genocide" against them coupled with calls for a "Trans Day of Vengeance" against their oppressors, the complete failure of psychiatrists to diagnose and treat the accompanying mental illnesses in trans people, the effects of powerful exogenous hormones plus psychotropic drugs, and the actual growing list of trannies who murder children en masse, they actively deny any such thing is happening at all:
Indeed. To write this post, I made the mistake of googling the query "how many trans shooters have there been," and Google answered me by telling me about the genocide against trans people:
Thanks, Google! Instead of telling me how many trans mass shooters there have been, which was the information I was seeking, you instead told me about how oppressed trans people. Essentially, you told me that trans violence is justified because some propagandist in Congress entered an article claiming that we're killing trannies at an alarming rate (that justifies violence against the oppressors, of course.)
That is a huge amount, given that transgenders make up far less than 1% of the population.
And yet, no media interest. No "expert" studies.
Christina Buttons reports, at City Journal, that a new study finds that, get this, trans zealots have been lying about the alleged "benefits" of cutting off healthy tissue and taking dangerous amounts of cross-gender hormones. What little "benefit" that can be found by transitioning, a new Hong Kong study finds, can be attributed only to non-transitioning support and counseling subjects receive.
The trans lobby has rigged previous studies to ignore these factors, so they could attribute all supposed "benefits" to the transition interventions themselves.
A New Study Challenges the Mental-Health Claims of "Gender-Affirming Care"
Hong Kong researchers found that "affirming" surgeries and hormones yielded no significant improvements in depression and anxiety.
...
For years, doctors and medical associations have argued that patients with gender-related distress, including children, suffer from depression and suicidality and need access to "gender-affirming care" to relieve it. They presented this view as the scientific consensus, and that view has shaped policy debates about how readily these interventions should be offered and under what--if any--safeguards.
The mental-health case for medical transition relies on observational clinic studies that measure patients' psychological distress before and after treatment. Many of these studies follow small samples for short periods, often less than two years. When these studies report improvements in patients' symptom scores or well-being measures after medical transition, the design often cannot tell whether the medical intervention drove the difference, since other things typically occur alongside treatment. That is one reason systematic evidence reviews have repeatedly judged the certainty of this evidence as low and the findings as inconsistent.
A new retrospective follow-up study from Hong Kong, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry earlier this month, addresses those problems. The authors argue that much of the earlier literature leans too heavily on group averages and does not adequately account for basic determinants of mental health, such as social support and coping style.
...
What makes this study distinct is not only its size and duration but its design. The authors tracked changes over time, while controlling for social support, coping, and other background factors. Put simply, the question was: Accounting for these other influences, do hormones or surgeries still predict better mental-health outcomes?
The answer was no. Neither surgery nor cross-sex hormones significantly reduced depression, anxiety, or stress once coping and social support were included in the statistical models. Instead, it was those psychosocial factors that proved the strongest predictors of patients' mental health.
That Nice Irish Man That Is Wasting Away in Detention? Yeah, There's a Reason He Won't Just Leave the Country and Go Back Home
—Disinformation Expert Ace
You will of course remember the case of the longtime visa overstayer from Ireland who is currently in ICE detention because he overstayed a 2009 visa and never took any action to make his status legal until Trump was about to deport him. Then he quickly applied for a green card -- which has not been issued yet, which means he remains deportable, it's not a get-out-of-deportation filing -- and then just as quickly married a US citizen. All last year. As ICE was closing in on him.
You may remember that racist "libertarian" Nick Gillespie, better known by his "street name" Goth Fonzie, thinks that all of you "Heritage Americans" should be shocked out of your pro-border-enforcement views because this particular illegal alien is white, and whites need to protect each other, yeah?
He has not commented on the fact that all the pro-border-enforcement people he strongly implied were animated by racist hatred have all chimed in to say, "Deport him, I don't care if he's white, red, brown, or blue."
Now this Irish illegal alien that you Heritage Americans are racially compelled to support claims that ICE detention is "absolute hell" but for some unexplained reason will not just go back to Ireland -- which he can do. ICE gives you that option. You can remain in detention as your final deportation orders come down, or you can just go home.
So if detention is "absolute hell," then you would think that emerald-green Ireland would be preferable, right?
Well, it would be. Except for one little thing.
The whole reason the man came to the US was to flee the Irish police who had charged him with drug dealing.
Irish Daily Mail is the first Main Media to confirm that Seamus Culleton, currently in ICE detention in Texas, is indeed the same person charged with drug dealing offences in Ireland in 2009.
Huh -- 2009! Why that's the exact same year he fraudulently applied for a visitor's visa, which he always intended to overstay. I wonder if these dates are connected somehow.
I also wonder if his criminal history of drug-dealing might explain why he was able to live in the US for 16 years without any legal able to work. Say, do you suppose he might have continued his previous career of dealing drugs? I hear you don't need a work permit to deal drugs.
Or am I being conspiratorial and Racist against someone who shares half of my own race?
Plasterer detained in Texas 'hell-hole' failed to appear in court before flying out in 2009
Ohhh, he "failed to appear in court" in Ireland. Yeah, I'm starting to think his "visitor" visa application was fraudulent and failed to state his real reason for traveling to the US and his real intentions about honoring the 90-day limit on the stay.
THE Irishman held in the US by Donald Trump's ICE agents who likened his detention to a 'modern-day concentration camp' had left Ireland while facing drugs charges, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
Séamus Culleton, 38, made worldwide headlines this week after he described the 'hellhole' conditions in which he was being held for almost five months with 70 other detainees.
Originally from Glenmore in Co. Kilkenny, he has been locked up in a facility in El Paso, Texas, since he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last September for overstaying his 90-day visa. He arrived in the US in 2009.
Mr Culleton was arrested while on his way home from work in Boston, where he lives with his wife, Tiffany, who is a US citizen. He runs his own plastering business.
He got married to her last year when he was notified he would be deported.
Say, you know who has access to shady women willing to enter a sham marriage for a few thousand dollars? Drug-dealers, actually.
That's just a coincidence, I figure.
The Mail has now confirmed that Mr Culleton was charged in 2008 with several offences in Ireland before emigrating. The charges were possession of drugs with intent for sale or supply, possession of drugs for personal consumption and obstructing a garda in the course of their duty, several sources said.
Mr Culleton failed to appear at New Ross District Court in Co. Wexford for his hearing and a bench warrant was requested.
However, it was never issued as he had left the jurisdiction.
One might even said the "fled" the jurisdiction.
He also appeared in the same court in April 2008 for being 'extremely drunk' in public and gardaí detained him for his own safety, court reports from the time state.
The nation cannot endure without this man's contributions.
...
Mr Culleton has pleaded with the Irish Government to help him get out of the detention.
He said earlier this week: 'I'd love for you guys to just try to get me out of here. Do all you can, please. It's absolute torture, psychological torture, physical torture. I just want to get back to my wife. We were so desperate to start a family. My mother, especially, is heartbroken that I'm in here. She's just heartbroken over the whole situation. I don't want her health to get any worse. She's constantly worrying and stressing about me. It's not fair on her.'
The sham "wife" I married in a quickie via marriage-scam is just "heartbroken." Sure, sure.
Will the Irish government actually lobby for this criminal? Maybe. These countries that send tons of illegals to the US want to keep that avenue open. I don't know how many illegals Ireland continues sending to the US, but I know that they sent a lot in the somewhat-recent past.
Despite refusing to sign deportation documentation, and posting a $4,000 bond, Mr Culleton has remained at the detention centre for almost five months.
He's remained at the "hell-hole" "concentration camp," despite the option of simply going back to Ireland remaining open to him.
...
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Culleton said he has been 'living a normal life'. 'Just working hard, staying out of trouble, I wasn't a big party guy, just spending time with my wife and my dogs,' he said.
YOU GOT MARRIED IN 2025 JUST AS ICE WAS CLOSING IN. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, CLAIMING YOU SPENT THE LAST 16 YEARS HANGING OUT WITH YOUR "WIFE"?
We have no idea how many of these illegals -- from all countries -- are just criminals fleeing the law in their home countries, but I suspect the number is large.
That Afghan who was just convicted of repeatedly raping a 12-year-old girl at knife-point claimed he left Afghanistan because he was being pursued for taking actions they didn't like there.
When Afghanistan puts the heat on you because you're raping too many children, that makes you a true Cultural Enricher.
Let's take a look at some of the other Cultural Enrichers the leftist propaganda media and the Democrat Party -- but I repeat myself -- are trying to convince you Heritage Americans are real assets to the country:
The “caretaker” who CBS is crying about is an illegal alien from Mexico who RAMMED ICE agents with his car, according to DHS.
No mention of the attempted m*rder in CBS’s article….
BREAKING - Shocking video shows liberals in Minneapolis attempting to prevent ICE from arresting an illegal, Junior de Jesus Herrera, who was caught with 57 pounds of meth. pic.twitter.com/3EpbmQqmDm
Stellantis’ $26 Billion EV Write-Off Follows the CEO’s looting of the Company; Ford’s EV Disaster Results in a Company-Wide Loss of $8 Billion in 2025
—Buck Throckmorton
The tide of red ink washing over legacy auto manufacturers just keeps getting worse, as the cost of their EV misadventures are now being reflected in losses, write-offs, and course corrections.
A few months ago, Ford announced that it’s long-overdue pivot from EVs would result in total write-offs of almost $20 billion, including $12 billion in Q4 2025 alone. That was enough to cause Ford to record an overall, company-wide loss in 2025 of $8 billion.
Jim Farley’s comments on Ford’s 2025 performance, claiming that the company ”delivered a strong 2025,” would be comical if it weren’t for the fact that his mismanagement is hemorrhaging capital from the once-great auto manufacturer.
"Ford delivered a strong 2025 in a dynamic and often volatile environment," Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement. "We improved our core business and execution, made significant progress in the areas of the business we control — lowering material and warranty costs and making real progress on quality — and made difficult but critical strategic decisions that set us up for a stronger future."
Meanwhile, Stellantis (Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Ram, Fiat, Peugeot, etc) just announced that its failed EV efforts are going to cost the company an eye-popping $26 billion in charge-offs.
Antonio Filosa, who became Stellantis’ CEO just 8 months ago acknowledged Stellantis’ mistakes in pushing EVs on consumers who refused to buy them. He also correctly pointed out that the previous CEO, Carlos Tavares, had inflicted “poor operational execution” on the company. That is a polite way of saying Tavares just about destroyed the company by promoting an “EV transition,” while at the same time manipulating production, sales, and pricing for short-term results that provided himself obscene compensation.
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said the charges “reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from many car buyers’ real-world needs, means and desires.”
As I wrote at The Blaze in December 2024 when Tavares was pushed out, Stellantis sales were now in free fall, its product-pipeline was barren, and its dealers were in revolt. But it was less than a year earlier that Tavares awarded himself (with board consent) a $39 million compensation package, making him the highest paid executive in the auto industry.
As US sales plunged 36% by the end of 2024, dealers accused Tavares of “reckless short-term decision making” that caused “rapid degradation” of the Dodge, RAM, Jeep, and Chrysler brands. They claimed that not only was the product line stale and over-priced, but that popular products had been eliminated with the intent to replace them at a later date with electric products. To goose short-term profits, Tavares slashed vehicle production and eliminated headcount, resulting in a short-term cost savings that created long-term problems.
When European dealers advised Tavares that consumers were rejecting EVs and pleaded for Stellantis to seek regulatory relief from EV mandates, Tavares betrayed the dealers and sided with the regulators, even as competitors such as Volkswagen and Renault sought regulatory relief.
The Stellantis disaster lies at the intersection of the EV delusion and the management crisis afflicting major corporations, in which self-serving executives are willing to destroy their companies for personal gain, or otherwise not perform their jobs in fiduciary service to shareholders. From that Blaze piece:
Tavares failed to serve his company, shareholders, customers, or franchised dealers. Instead, he served two masters: himself and the globalist eco-bureaucracy that seems content to watch Stellantis collapse as a manufacturer of gasoline-powered vehicles.
To maintain both civil and economic order, investors and corporate boards must take responsibility for preventing further destruction of institutions like Stellantis. Greedy and self-serving leaders, such as Carlos Tavares, cannot be allowed to undermine companies at the expense of all other stakeholders.
To bring this all full-circle, at least the Stellantis board did push Carlos Tavares out eventually, replacing him with a CEO who seeks to manufacture and sell vehicles that consumers actually want to buy. Inexplicably, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, who has cost the company $20 billion to date by pursuing the EV fantasy, is still running the company and boasting of the great job he is doing.
Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848-1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872-1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875-1895)
Auguste Renoir
Russia has indicated it will defy U.S. sanctions and other restrictions enacted by U.S. President Donald J. Trump against the exportation of oil to Cuba. In what the Kremlin is describing as a “humanitarian” arrangement, the Russian Embassy in Havana states that “as far as we know, Russia is expected to supply oil and petroleum products to Cuba as humanitarian aid in the near future.”The decision by the Russian government comes as Cuba faces its worst energy crisis in at least a decade. Following the ouster of Venezuela’s Marxist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, by the U.S. military earlier this year, Cuba lost a key supplier of oil and fuel, turning what was already a dire situation facing the Caribbean island’s communist government into an unprecedented crisis.
Of course Russia has had a longstanding relationship with Cuba going back to the Soviet era as a forward base of communism right on our doorstep so to speak. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Estern bloc, the Cuban economy has essentially been on life support, propped up by the Latin American Communist dictatorships that both the Soviets and the Castro regime helped foster over the past 66 years. And with Maduro gone and much of Latin America turning away from socialism towards freer and more open societies, Cuba might very well be at long last on the verge of liberation.
Aside from the aforementioned longstanding ties, My guess is that Putin is trying to use Cuba as a way to leverage a more advantageous outcome with Ukraine vis a vis the supposed peace negotiations.
So the question is, weird as it is the same as it was in 1963 during the Cuban missile crisis, what will the US Navy do if it encounters a Russian tanker or cargo ship heading towards Cuba on the high seas?
Two Mexican Navy ships docked in Cuba on Thursday carrying humanitarian aid for the Caribbean island nation in the middle of a severe energy crisis.
The ships carried hundreds of tons of food and supplies. The Mexican government said that one ship contained 536 tons of food – including milk, beans, sardines, and cookies – while the other contained about 277 tons of powdered milk, according to the Associated Press.
The arrival of aid comes weeks after President Donald Trump increased pressure on the Cuban economy, threatening tariffs against any nation that supplies Cuba with oil. Cuba has since instituted increasingly strict rules around the use of its remaining fuel supplies. . .
. . . “The energy pressure that Trump is exerting on Cuba places Mexico in a dilemma that is very characteristic of its entire history of diplomatic relations with the United States and Cuba,” Cuban historian Rafael Rojas told The Guardian. “Mexico is yielding to the demands of the United States – and on the other hand it maintains its solidarity with the island.”
. . . “I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro,” (Secretary of State Marco)Rubio said the day after Maduro’s arrest.
We took out Maduro because he was running tons of lethal drugs into America and had very close ties with both the Chi-Coms and the Iranians, all of which posed an incredible threat to our national security as well as the safety of our citizenry. Considering the illegal alien border invasion, the destruction and chaos that has come from Mexico for decades is arguably orders of magnitude worse!
Mexico's leader, Claudia Scheinbaum is an avowed socialist and no great fan of America. So, if we seize some Mexican ships or send them down to Davy Jones' Locker, what of it?
I certainly hope the long-suffering Cuban people can at long last taste freedom and move their country forward. To see the heads of leftists and Commies here explode as the statues and murals of the Castros, Marx and Lenin are dynamited and sledgehammered off the walls of Cuban buildings is just too delightful to anticipate.
¡Viva Trump, y Cuba Libré Ahora y Por Siempre!
Have a great weekend!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
An excellent exposé proving that the progressive Climate Defiance isn’t an organic manifestation of environmentalism, but foreign-funded anarchy. Anarchists Get Sloppy
While every illegal alien is a criminal to the extent that he or she broke the law to be present in America, millions of them also have charges or convictions for other crimes too, including such horrific crimes as murder, rape, pedophilia, assault, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and terrorism. ICE Director Says Agency Is Tracking 800,000 Criminals With Deportation Orders
On Thursday morning, Border Czar Tom Homan announced the end of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol “surge” to Minnesota. Media are framing the withdrawal as a “surrender.” The ICE Drawdown In Minneapolis Is Probably A Surge To California
xx THE GREAT SOMALIAN SIMOLEON SWINDLE
Ellison raked in $10,000 of campaign donations shortly after meeting with criminal defendants accused of stealing more than $300 million from Feeding Our Future, a non-profit that intended to feed low income children during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to audio released by the Center for the American Experiment, a conservative Minnesota-based non-profit. Ellison denied any wrongdoing during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, while Hawley declared that the Minnesota attorney general should be prosecuted for allegedly agreeing to help these individuals during their Dec. 11, 2021, meeting. ‘You Ought To Be in Jail!’: Josh Hawley Goes Nuclear On Keith Ellison Over Somali Fraud
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE COURTS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE
Slater, who gave no explanation for her departure, was lauded at the start of the administration as a tip of the spear for “MAGA antitrust” and the populist economics of Trump 2.0. Several Trump loyalists and populist MAGA allies expressed disappointment at the announcement. But sources told the Caller that it didn’t take long for her relationship with Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche, to deteriorate. She Was MAGA’s Antitrust Star — Then Her Relationship With Pam Bondi Imploded
For the first time, the U.S. government discusses Sharia. Mr. Spencer Goes to Washington (Bravo Robert! If only you brought Steve Cohen a bucket of Colonel Sanders, Qaddafi’s fried chicken to keep his wretched pie-hole Occupied - jjs)
The sheriff instead has opted to outsource the analysis of the forensic evidence to a Florida-based contractor, in lieu of sending it to the FBI’s lab in Virginia, the outlet reported, citing the law enforcement official. (RELATED: Joy Behar Suggests Police Detained Suspect In Nancy Guthrie Case Because He’s Hispanic) Democrat Sheriff Reportedly Not Giving FBI Access To Key Evidence In Guthrie Case
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
"The network's daytime lineup has seen a similar decline as hosts such as Wolf Blitzer failed to move the needle, dropping from 752,000 to 433,000," the U.K. tabloid continued, and "when compared to the same part of the year in 2021, the drops were even more pronounced - 71 percent for primetime and 73 percent during the day." CNN 'Circling the Drain' As Warner Buyout Heats Up
Washington has proposed further negotiations next week between Russian and Ukrainian delegations either in Miami or Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, which was the location of the last meeting, Zelenskyy said late Wednesday. Ukraine Claims Russia is ‘Hesitating’ Over Next Round of Peace Talks
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright travelled to Caracas on Wednesday morning, marking the first time in two decades that a U.S. energy secretary has visited the South American nation. The visit, Wright said in Caracas, is part of President Trump’s broader agenda to “Make the Americas Great Again.” Venezuelan Socialists Roll Out Red Carpet for U.S. Energy Secretary
The U.S. dropped tariffs on Taiwanese imports to 15% from 20%, a shift that aligns Taiwan with key competitors like South Korea and Japan. Semiconductors and advanced electronics stand at the center of that adjustment. Taiwan is committed to buying nearly $85 billion in U.S. goods between 2026 and 2029, including $44.4 billion in liquefied natural gas and crude oil, $15.2 billion in civil aircraft and engines, and $25.2 billion in power grid equipment and generators. Rounding out the list are marine and steelmaking equipment. Trump’s Taiwan Pact Reshapes Supply Chains and Global Power
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The flaw was triggered by simply opening a text file in Markdown format and accidentally clicking on a suspicious link that Notepad helpfully made completely invisible.
Remember the scene in A Christmas Story where the one kid got his tongue stuck to a metal pole that was frozen? Well, this guy says "hold my beer"!
(H/T: Kindltot in comments earlier today)
A man's penis froze to the ground outside a bar while he was being arrested during a night out.
Blake McPhee was restrained after allegedly becoming involved in a fight at the East Village Pub & Eatery in Fort McMurray, Canada. The fracas spilled out onto the street where temperatures had plunged to below freezing.
During a struggle with police and security, McPhee's trousers and pants fell off. His manhood got stuck to the icy pavement. It is reported McPhee was stuck to the ground like this for around 20 minutes.
Police and security guards had to force the man up - leaving some skin behind in the process - in order to remove him from the ice, it is understood.
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McPhee has since seen the funny side as he wrote on Facebook: "Man, I don't know how I get myself in these f***** up situations...Guess that's what I get for being a drunk lunatic at a bar."
He added: "Gone are the days a feller can get his wiener frozen f*** solid to the ground without it going viral. Anyways glad I can be of some entertainment and back to making headlines. Gunna go crawl inside a hole and cry myself to sleep now. (P.s sorry ma)."
Thankfully there are no photos of his frozen junk at the link.
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Here's a much better story about a human appendage.
A woman whose new prosthetic leg was swept out to sea is “over the moon” after she found it 10 months later, it having been swept right back to the beach where she lost it.
Last April, 69-year-old Brenda Ogden lost her custom-made titanium blade-style prosthesis moments before a swim in the North Sea.
She was posing for a picture with a swimming group she was a part of when a huge wave knocked them all down and took her titanium blade back out to sea with it.
Ogden had her leg amputated below the knee five years earlier following a horrific car crash. The now-retired nurse revealed she waited for over a year to get the false leg, and had only had the blade for a week before the disaster on the beach.
“The leg was specially made to allow me to access water easily,” Ogden told England’s Southwest News Service. “I had never swum in the sea before that day and it was on my bucket list to do so.”
Check out the whole story at the link.
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Well discussed here at AOSHQ has been the current state of colleges and universities. Woke curricula coupled with skyrocketing costs. Students saddled with crippling debt upon graduation. More and more people are turning to trade schools. My own son decided to enter into an HVAC apprenticeship a few years ago. He's making great money and loves what he does. The Mike Rowe Works Foundation was created to advocate for trades and even provides scholarships regularly.
Check out this surprisingly fair report from NBC News
(H/T: NR Pax in comments yesterday)
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More Bass Stuff!
3rd night in a row talking about funky bass groves. Tonight, let's hear from the great Rick Beato
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DJ Doof - This Date in Music History
On this date in 1981, Rush released Moving Pictures - the best album ever recorded.
I will be ignoring any Rush hate tonight. For those of you with taste, here is the whole album. 40 minutes of greatness!
Born on this date in 1952:
Grammy Award winning American singer and songwriter Michael McDonald, who with The Doobie Brothers had the 1979 US No.1 single 'What A Fool Believes', and the 1993 UK No.7 single 'Long Train Runnin'. He began his career singing back-up vocals with Steely Dan and has also worked with Kenny Loggins, David Cassidy, Van Halen, Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin and Toto.
Born on this date in 1950:
Steve Hackett, guitarist who had the, 1974 UK No.21 single 'I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe', with Genesis who he quit in 1977 for solo work. Hackett co-founded the supergroup GTR with Steve Howe in 1986 and then returned to his solo career.
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by crickets
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Doof Enterprises, LLC hopes you enjoyed tonight's ONT. It's not exquisite, but it's adequately quisite.
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