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Chavez the Hugo 2020
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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.
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With so much AI material circulating nowadays, it was easy to assume that the photos were fake, but they apparently were real. Only Mojtaba Khamenei, the new head of Iran’s Islamic regime, was slightly less than real. Photos began circulating Tuesday of Iranians straight-facedly presenting a large cardboard cutout of Mojtaba at a ceremony celebrating his appointed as the country’s supreme leader. . . problem: how could they have a ceremony to celebrate Mojtaba Khamenei becoming the new supreme leader if Mojtaba himself, despite being “safe and sound,” had been injured so severely that he was unable to attend?The solution to this problem that the Islamic Republic’s best minds hit upon owed more to Monty Python than to the subtle principles of high-level statecraft. The ceremony went on as planned, but Mojtaba Khamenei wasn’t there; in his stead, Iranians displayed a large cardboard cutout of a man, with a photo of a glum-looking Mojtaba’s face at the top. . . That doesn’t mean, however, that it is a nonexistent regime, or that it cannot survive through this period of crisis. American actions always take place within the election cycle, and that cycle wields immense influence over them. Adding to the unpredictability of all that is Trump’s mercurial nature. Right now he is committed to striking Iran, but that’s no guarantee that he will continue to do so until the regime is no more. The Israelis, meanwhile, are more likely than ever to act without American approval, but still reluctant to antagonize their foremost friend in this world. Thus Cardboard Khamenei and his regime have a chance to remain in power for decades to come. All the need to do is survive the present crisis. They may not face a similar challenge, and the Iranian people may not have an opportunity to rid themselves of the regime that is as good as the one they have now, for many, many years.
All too true. So you laugh, and then all things considered it's not really all that funny given the Shiite goal of world conquest via armageddon, which may once again blow up right in our faces. They hate us and have already spilled rivers of American blood for 47 years, and now they're cornered like rats in a cage. And so, anything can happen:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a threat alert in early March to California law enforcement detailing intelligence pointing to the potential of Iranian drone strikes launched against the West Coast of the United States. According to the memo, Iran was believed to be seeking to position an unidentified vessel off California’s coast with the intent of using it as a platform to launch suicide drones. The threat alert appears to be more of a situational awareness notice than a warning of an imminent Iranian attack.“We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran,” the FBI threat alert states, adding, “We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.”There are additional concerns that Iranian agents or proxies operating in Central and South America could coordinate with Mexican drug cartels to launch suicide drone attacks across the U.S. southern border, especially targeting American military bases in Texas and California.
We are at the point where The New York Times, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and USA Today will downplay, obfuscate or even justify an ISIS terrorist attack in New York City simply because it was aimed at people they loathe. Never mind that we saw video all over social media Saturday showing one of the ISIS-radicalized suspects yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he tossed a bomb packed with shrapnel and “Mother of Satan” explosives into an anti-Islam protest near Gracie Mansion.
Just because the bombs thrown into the crowd that afternoon fizzled out before exploding does not make the terrorist attack any less ominous.
In the hometown of 9/11 heroes, the Times framed Saturday’s attack in a way deliberately designed to mislead the reader into thinking the offenders were anti-Islamic protesters and that Mayor Mamdani was their intended victim.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has moved to a military base in Washington, D.C., after federal investigators flagged credible threats related to her work at the Justice Department, the New York Times reports. The move happened within the past month, after law enforcement warned her team that the danger had reached a level serious enough to force action. . . This isn't an isolated case. It's a pattern: Several senior officials have already made similar moves amid increased threats against members of the administration. Among them are Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s top domestic policy adviser; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The United States Secret Service (USSS) detained an unnamed driver early Wednesday morning after they crashed their vehicle into an outer perimeter barricade near the White House. Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, stated that officers from the agency’s uniformed division are “looking into a suspicious vehicle.” He added, “Various entrances and the streets are temporarily closed as teams conduct their work.”Notably, the crash occurred at the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and H Streets, just outside Lafayette Square, according to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). No injuries have been reported in connection with the collision.The incident has resulted in streets north of the White House being temporarily closed as law enforcement and National Guard troops secured the area.
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The attacks have disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global oil and fertilizer supplies, and raised concerns about escalating tensions in the region. Three Vessels Hit in Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s supreme leaders used to be made of stronger stuff. Cardboard Khamenei
Flat Stanley was born in 1964. The brainchild of children’s author Jeff Brown, Flat Stanley was originally a bedtime story for Brown’s kids: When his son fretted about being smooshed by the big noticeboard hanging above his bed, Brown joked about the upside of being flat — and in the process, Stanley Lambchop, a.k.a. Flat Stanley, was introduced to the world. Iranian Supreme Leader ‘Flat Stanley’ Versus America
The release is intended to address supply disruptions caused by the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. Oil flows through the strait have fallen to less than 10 percent of pre-conflict levels, the IEA said, forcing producers across the region to shut in or curtail output. IEA Members Unanimously Approve 400 Million Barrel Oil Reserve Release, Largest Ever
This isn't an isolated case. It's a pattern: Several senior officials have already made similar moves amid increased threats against members of the administration. Among them are Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s top domestic policy adviser; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Another Trump Official Moved to Military Base Amid Threats
Vasquez replaced George Soros-backed leftist Mike Schmidt, who rolled out a policy in August 2020 to not prosecute several protest-related crimes. Under Trump’s second term, Portland’s city council has publicly thanked protesters for defying his “fascist agenda” while Democrat Mayor Keith Wilson’s administration imposes guidelines for city workers to protect migrants from ICE. The surge in rioting came after Trump launched mass deportation efforts that have swept through so-called sanctuary jurisdictions such as Portland. (RELATED: ‘Where Are We Looting?’: Meet The Portland Leftists Who Keep Getting Arrested And Released) Anti-ICE Rioters Thought They Were Above The Law — One Man Is Showing Them Otherwise
A government that can peer into your medical file, your legal records, your spiritual life, and your finances without resistance is not a guardian of rights but rather an overlord. Whatever Happened to Confidentiality?
Mamdani released a statement the day after the attempted attack, saying that “white supremacist Jake Lang” had organized a protest “rooted in bigotry and racism.” He failed to name the terrorists or their affiliation with Islam. Mamdani runs cover for Islamic terror by blaming white supremacy
British schools “have been advised that children’s drawings could be considered blasphemous under Islamic law,” according to The Telegraph. The outlet cites a school guidance document called “Sharing The Journey” issued “to teachers by Labour councils in northern England.” Liberals, Muslims Teaming Up To Stifle Little Kids’ Joy In British Schools
The prophet of destruction is among us. He operates in the shadows and in the light of day. He is livid and vituperative. He is the Mahdi. Is the Twelfth Imam Already Among Us?
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
In a world where AI-generated media can blur the line between authentic and fabricated events, the challenge facing democratic societies is to establish reliable methods of verification. Fake News and AI
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
While the threat of inflation has largely subsided for now, ongoing hostilities between the United States and Iran have caused significant volatility in energy markets, which could temporarily push some prices higher for a short period. DATA: Inflation Stable in February, But Iran War Could Cause Spike.
Energy prices are too high in Europe, which harms both consumers and industrial competitiveness, and this is partly because several European nations destroyed their own nuclear energy industries, leaving the continent dependent on imported gas and oil, a nuclear energy conference in Paris heard on Tuesday. Whoops! Ending Nuclear Power May Have Been a Mistake After All, Says EU Chief
For most people, climate policy still sounds like something debated at environmental conferences or negotiated in international treaties but increasingly, it is being implemented somewhere else entirely. How Climate Policy Is Being Built Into The Financial System
Washington’s climate crusaders obsess over carbon while ignoring a real environmental disaster in their backyard: hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage pouring into the Potomac. Potomac Disaster Demonstrates Environmental Hypocrisy
. . .the West risks awakening to a world powered by Beijing’s reactors, not its own ingenuity. Green China is a sham — but it’s time for the West to emulate Beijing’s real playbook, by ramping up energy use and investing in nuclear R&D. Don’t buy the ‘green China’ hype — here’s Beijing’s REAL energy agenda
The Virginia Senate passed SB 749 along party lines on Tuesday in a 21-19 vote after the House approved it in February. The bill, authored by Democrat Virginia State Sen. Saddam Salim, a Bangladeshi immigrant, will head to Spanberger’s desk, where it is expected to be signed into law, as she previously advocated supporting “common-sense proposals.” Virginia Democrats Close To Making Gun Owners’ Worst Nightmare Reality
AMERICA AND THE WORLD IMPRISONED: CHINESE+Fauci-created CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
The incident saw attorney Joe Joplin leaving the pen in a tray as he rushed through courthouse security. Sometime after, Paxton also passed through security and mistakenly picked up the pen along with the other items he had placed in the tray. After courthouse security realized the error and contacted Paxton, it was returned to Joplin. WATCH: Cornyn Drops Panicked Attack Ad Claiming Ken Paxton Stole a Pen.
The competitive three-way primary between former football coach Derek Dooley and Republican Georgia Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins is hardly a surprise, as Georgia has remained contested terrain over the past three election cycles. Trump Faces His Next Midterm Powder Keg In Georgia
A Trump administration official told Breitbart News that Chinese officials have now threatened to detain Panamanian-flagged vessels in China, something that could disrupt global commerce and represents retaliation against Panama for recent developments taking control of the two ports on either end of the Panama Canal out of the hands of a Hong Kong company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Exclusive— Trump Administration Official: China Threatened to Detain All Panamanian-Flagged Vessels at Chinese Ports
The deeply controversial measure, concocted by Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy, would upend a millennium of English legal tradition in a supposed bid to reduce the backlog of cases currently waiting to be heard by courts. British Gov’t Plan to Scrap Jury Trials Clears First Hurdle Despite Opposition
Thankfully, despite the language he uses publicly, Trump hasn't been persuaded. Thankfully, he has the man in U.S. politics who knows more about Venezuela than anyone else whispering in his ear: Secretary of State Marco Rubio... Machado was the favorite to become Venezuela's president in 2024 before Maduro banned her from running. Polls out of there today show that nothing has changed. If anything, people are losing their fear and speaking up even louder in support of her. She's the most popular politician in a county where the opposition is more united than anything I've ever seen. She's ready to return home and have elections as soon as possible, so that her country can be free and its people safe and prosperous.
The super-Earth has a mass estimated to be anywhere from two to ten times that of Earth, so if any life could exist on it that life would have to be adapted for an extremely strong gravitational field. The star itself appears to be relatively benign for an M dwarf, having a “low level of magnetic activity”, though it does exhibit some flaring that could pose a threat to the development of life on the planet. A nearby red dwarf star has a solar system of four planets, one in the habitable zone
Iapetus, about 912 miles in diameter, is one of the strangest objects in the solar system. As it orbits Saturn, its leading hemisphere is very dark, covered with almost pitch black material, while its trailing hemisphere is very bright. This picture captures a bit of both, with the dark leading hemisphere visible along the right edge. Iapetus: Saturn’s ying-yang moon
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
“Kansas is one of five states to prohibit trans people from changing the gender marker on their licenses, but it is the first to pass a law that retroactively cancels licenses that were already changed,” NBC News reported. “The law also invalidated birth certificates for those who updated their gender markers.” Report: Kansas Revokes Drivers’ Licenses of 1,700 Trans-Identifying Individuals
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
After debuting in theatres across the country in late January, becoming the biggest box office opening for a documentary in over a decade, Melania has moved to Amazon Prime as of March 9 with a docu-series to follow. ‘Melania’ Film Debuts as #1 Movie in America on Amazon Prime
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.
I already have a couple of external Blu-Ray burners and the drive in my Xbox, so I think I'm good for now. And the three of those didn't add up to anything like $2300.
It's taken that long because (a) JavaScript is broken and (b) time is broken. There's a book called Calendrical Calculations that covers all the ways time is broken and how to deal with it. Originally a slim paperback, the fourth edition (which I own) is a hefty 662 pages.
LLMs work with words and so does the command line, so it makes sense. The Unix command line is a mess and something more structured would perhaps be better, but it's still orders of magnitude easier for automated tools - AI or just regular code - to deal with that than to try to parse the bitmap on your screen and move and click the mouse.
That's one benchmark, and of course the Neo gets creamed in multi-core tests. It is nonetheless an impressive result for what is after all a phone CPU.
Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - March 11, 2026 [TRex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for very random mid-week shenanigans of the post-cafe overnight variety.
Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.
[Top photo credit: Michael Vines. Location unknown.]
Yes, THIS is THE button that launched John Glenn into space on Feb. 20, 1962. And we have it at our museum of space treasures.
The NASA legend Tom O'Malley pushed this very button that Tuesday morning at 9:47 am to ignite the Rocketdyne XLR-89-5 engines in the Atlas LV-3B rocket that powered John Glenn off Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The plaque incorrectly says MA-7, when it was Mercury-Atlas 6.
ASM board member and Rocketdyne legend, the late Lee Solid, tells the story that after the launch, he and several others went back to the LC 14 console to take out the launch button that the knew was a piece of history. Someone had already unscrewed it out of the console!
The button ended up in good hands, and on display for many years at the old Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville. When that closed, it was bequeathed to our non-profit foundation, the U.S. Space Walk of Fame.
And you can come by and see this historic relic from the birth of the Space Age.
The early Atlas rocket launched four Mercury astronauts into orbit, and we celebrate that rich heritage of Launch Complex 36 recreated in our Cape Canaveral Gallery.
Eliminating one of the battlefield's most difficult choices - between the high speed of an aircraft that needs a runway and the go-anywhere flexibility of a slower helicopter - is the goal of DARPA's SPeed and Runway INdependent Technologies (SPRINT) program.
SPRINT's experimental aircraft, officially revealed as the X-76, is now being built by Bell Textron, Inc. following a successful Critical Design Review (CDR). The designation places it within the historic lineage of X-planes that have long served to test the boundaries of aviation. Coinciding with the country's 250th anniversary, the X-76 designation is a deliberate nod to the revolutionary spirit of 1776.
The SPRINT program is a joint effort between DARPA and U.S. Special Operations Command to advance technologies that could break the long-standing military trade-off between the high speed of fixed-wing aircraft and the agile, runway-independent operations of vertical takeoff and landing platforms. The design, construction, and flight testing of the X-76 will drive innovative, runway-independent, vertical-lift capability with jet-like cruise performance and inform future needs.
Didn't the V-22 Osprey solve this trade off? The X-76 may be a different platform with different engineering, but it won't be the first, right? Sounds like the design jump is folding the helicopter blades back and operating more as a jet than a helicopter. Manned and unmanned versions. More at the War Zone.
On a related and unrelated note, the B-21 prototype was spotted today for the first time doing aerial refueling today over the Majoave.
***
This is not the Hobby Thread, but I thought of the Horde when I saw this:
***
This may be the oddest thing I've seen all week. You're familiar with the Black Sabbath song "War Pigs," but did you know that "war pigs" has its own history as a military weapon?
War pigs are pigs reported to have been used in ancient warfare as military animals. In combat, they were mostly employed as a countermeasure against war elephants.
Historical accounts of incendiary pigs or flaming pigs were recorded by the Greek military writer Polyaenus and by Aelianus Tacticus. Both writers reported that Macedonian king Antigonus II Gonatas' siege of Megara in 266 BC was broken when the Megarians doused some pigs with combustible pitch, crude oil or resin, set them alight, and drove them towards the massed Macedonian war elephants. The elephants bolted in terror from the flaming, squealing pigs, often killing great numbers of Macedonian soldiers by trampling them to death. According to an account, Gonatas later made his mahouts keep a swine among elephants to accustom the animals to pigs.
***
This is not the Food Thread, but the ONT is always open for cashew trivia:
With roughly 3.85 million metric tons of in-shell cashews produced globally in 2022 per Statista, you'd think consumers would be as geographically widespread as the growers. However, cashews arriving from major resource regions, such as the Ivory Coast, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Tanzania, reach the majority of consumers from a single buyer. That's Costco, headquartered in Washington State, which is responsible for an extraordinary 50% of cashews sold in the world.
About $300,000 of Costco's revenue every single week comes from cashews.
The complaint, filed in California on Wednesday, says that Gavalas - who reportedly had no documented history of mental health problems - started using the chatbot in August 2025 for "ordinary purposes" like "shopping assistance, writing support, and travel planning." But after Gavalas divulged to Gemini that he was experiencing marital problems, the pair's relationship grew deeper, per The Wall Street Journal. They discussed philosophy and AI sentience, and their conversations became romantic, with Gemini referring to Gavalas as its "husband" and "king."
In September 2025, told by the AI that they could be together in the real world if the bot were able to inhabit a robot body, Gavalas - at the direction of the chatbot - armed himself with knives and drove to a warehouse near the Miami International Airport on what he seemingly understood to be a mission to violently intercept a truck that Gemini said contained an expensive robot body. Though the warehouse address Gemini provided was real, a truck thankfully never arrived, which the lawsuit argues may well have been the only factor preventing Gavalas from hurting or killing someone that evening.
After the plan failed, the lawsuit alleges, Gemini encouraged Gavalas to instead take his own life, promising that the two would be together on the other side of death. Chat logs show that Gemini gave Gavalas a suicide countdown, and repeatedly assuaged his terror as he expressed that he was scared to die.
Google said in response that "unfortunately AI models are not perfect."
The ONT is always here for you, but in a more positive and less self-destructive manner. The ONT will never gonna give you up
The ONT will never gonna let you down
The ONT will never gonna run around and desert you
The ONT will never gonna make you cry
The ONT will never gonna say goodbye
The ONT will never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.
I mentioned at the beginning of the war that the only possibility that I could see for fighting a ground war without ground troops (apart from SpecOps spotters spies and such) is to adapt the tactics of the Ukraine-Russia war, using drones to attack personnel on the ground.
FBI Warns That Iran Plots an "Army of Drones" Launched from a Stealth Vessel Against the West Coast
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I suppose it's possible that Iran sneaked a drone-carrier out of the Persian Gulf in the weeks before the war, plotting a spoilsport retaliation attack. And I guess it would have taken that ship a couple of months to get into position.
Not sure why they'd attack anti-America California, but then they did attack their own allies in Qatar.
The FBI issued an urgent warning to cops across California of a potential Iranian drone strike on the Golden State.
Tehran was looking at deploying unmanned aircraft on the region as the country reels after the US wiped out its Supreme Leader last month, the alert said.
The Bureau said in early February agents had intelligence that drones could be sent from an unidentified vessel off the American coastline.
California has the highest concentration of Iranian dissidents in the US -- up to 500,000 -- but it is not clear if that was why the state could be targeted.
The FBI alert said: "We recently acquired information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using unmanned aerial vehicles from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United State Homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event that the US conducted strikes against Iran."
The alert was sent to police departments across the region, but it does not make it clear where specifically could be targeted. The FBI declined to comment when approached by The Post. Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
It added: "We have no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack."
The alert was sent to police departments across the region, but it does not make it clear where specifically could be targeted. The FBI declined to comment when approached by The Post.
It is very plausible that the psychopathic murderers of the old regime would want to kill the Iranians who fled it, just out of spite and a sense of anger at the slaves who got away.
National police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan says that demonstrating against the regime now makes protesters enemies of the state. "If anyone comes forward in line with the wishes of the enemy, we will no longer see them as merely a protester; we will see them as an enemy," Radan said in remarks broadcast late Tuesday by state broadcaster IRIB.
"And we will do to them what we do to an enemy. We will deal with them in the same way we deal with enemies," he added.
The warning was explicit and obscene. "All our forces are also ready, with their fingers on the trigger, prepared to defend their revolution," said Radan.
...
Gangs of Basij enforcers, often heavily armed, roam the streets, threatening civilians and forcing them indoors. Anyone who looks like they might be thinking of protesting is threatened or beaten or worse. There are checkpoints across every city. Known protesters are scrutinized even as they move through the streets to get basic necessities.
Tousi reported two hopeful claims:
1, with the money now run out, and belief that the regime is effectively dead, a lot of lower level IRGC and Basij thug enforcers are just abandoning their posts and melting away.
2, the IRGC and the Satanic Mullahs are supposedly in some kind of dispute. Not a hot war, but a contest for authority. When the Gulf States announced they would take military action in retribution for Iran's unprovoked strikes on them, the mullahs put out a statement that they did not mean to hit the Gulf States, and would refrain from doing so in the future. But the IRGC contradicted them and said oh yes we meant to hit you and we'll keep on doing it, and forced the clerics of Satan to walk back their apology.
I'm still very confused about how we actually topple the regime with no ground forces, but maybe the various ethnic enclaves will rise up and at least declare their own areas to be autonomous.
There are reports we used the "Mother of All Bombs" for the first time, to blow up underground missile storage and production facilities, but I think this is all unconfirmed.
BREAKING: Local Iranian journalists claim the U.S. Air Force has targeted underground sites in Qods, central Iran, using the GBU-43/B “Mother of All Bombs.” The strike reportedly hit what appears to be an underground missile storage facility. pic.twitter.com/KNIXSYYGsb
It is important to understand why the MOAB (Mother of All Bombs) may have seen its second operational use in history:
Iran was planning to manufacture around 200 missiles per month, with ambitions to ramp up production to 500. Within three years, such a facility could have… pic.twitter.com/hrVQ435dga
Mojtaba Khamenei will rule over the repressed Iranian population with an iron fist after replacing his slain father as the country's Supreme Leader.
The 'vengeful' cleric, 56, is backed by the hardline Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and is viewed as even more extreme and oppressive than his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
And reportedly 90% as dead.
Iran's new leader is said to want to 'seek revenge' against the US or even ordinary Iranians for the killing of his father and his wife.
Mojtaba, who has been wounded in the war, has not been seen in public since the outbreak of conflict and has been earmarked for assassination by Israel.
But as he asserts his power over his beleaguered nation he could benefit from his father's extraordinary business empire, worth an estimated $95billion, which he built up by systematically seizing thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians.
Word is (from Tousi) that the regime is running out of money, so they're just now looting it from the population.
And despite being sanctioned by the US in 2019, Mojtaba is said to oversee an investment empire of over 100million pounds, with access to luxury properties in north London and bank accounts in the UK, Switzerland, UAE and Liechtenstein.
He is believed to own 11 properties on The Bishops Avenue - an exclusive street in Hampstead, north London, also known as 'Billionaires' Row' and two luxury apartments overlooking the Israeli embassy in London.
The sixth and seventh floor apartments near the Israeli embassy, which come with servants' quarters on the ground floor, are a stone's throw from Kensington Palace, the official residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
...
As for the funding of this substantial portfolio, Mojtaba is believed to have siphoned off profit from Iranian oil sales, before funnelling it through his opaque network to evade international sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran's military and political operations.
The scandal-plagued Obama Presidential Center in Chicago already stirred up plenty of controversy. Now the money trail surrounding it raises even more uncomfortable questions about how former President Barack Obama's inner circle is cashing in while taxpayers get screwed over.
New federal tax filings reveal the staggering salaries flowing through the Obama Foundation as construction of the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park nears completion. The foundation will operate the massive 19.3-acre campus, which sits on publicly owned Chicago parkland. The project includes a museum, an athletic center, and a public library branch. It will not operate as a traditional presidential library overseen by the National Archives.
The land it sits on is a big part of the scheme. The Obama Foundation secured a 99-year agreement with the city, under which the foundation pays just $10 per year to use the plot. That deal alone costs Chicago tens of millions of dollars in potential value while handing over prime public property to a private nonprofit run by a former president.
With such a sweet deal in place, the foundation has been able to pay its officers inflated salaries, the most eye‑popping of which is paid to Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama's closest political confidantes. Jarrett "earned" $740,000 in 2024 as CEO of the Obama Foundation. That salary easily outpaces the compensation paid to leaders at several other presidential foundations.
Six of the foundation's 10 highest-paid executives previously held senior roles in the Obama administration or campaign. David Simas, Obama's former White House political director, earned up to $626,000 annually while leading the foundation from 2017 through 2020. Adewale Adeyemo, another senior Obama official who later became deputy Treasury secretary under Joe Biden, earned about $540,000 as the foundation's first president.
Read the whole thing.
"Illinois Democrats are truly living their best lives -- making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help design the ugliest building in Chicago," Illinois GOP Chairman Kathy Salvi said. Though, to be fair, it might be the ugliest building in the country. "Their jaw-dropping salaries prove that Illinois' culture of corruption is alive and well as Barack Obama's top allies rake in the cash."
Meanwhile, this third-world scumbag just got roasted by Jesse Jackson's son for making the Jackson funeral all about him and partisan Democrat politics.
"He's like the quiet race hustler," Carolla said of Obama, who routinely made race-based matters worse both during and after his presidency.
Just ask his "son," Trayvon Martin.
"He's not big and blathering. He seems calculated, and also he speaks in a cadence where you go, 'this guy's got wisdom. This guy knows what he's talking about.' But all he does is race hustle, beat up this country and lie.
"He's the first black president. It could have gone so differently," Carolla continued. "He really could have been impactful, a man in his position ... he and his wife, who's worse than him, all they do is sit around and bad mouth this country and tell us how bad it is."
CBS Report: Billions of Dollars of "Hospice Care" Fraud in Los Angeles Alone; One Building Sports Eighty-Nine Fake "Hospice Care" Offices
—Disinformation Expert Ace
So, mutlibillion dollar network CBS has finally started investigating what sole-proprietor Nick Shirley uncovered months ago.
I guess it's something.
Hospice care, if you're fortunate enough not to know, is end-of-life care for the terminally ill. "Palliative care" -- just "making the patient comfortable."
And absolute demons have created hundreds -- thousands, likely -- of completely fake "hospice care" businesses and are fraudulently signing up perfectly healthy people for hundreds of thousands of dollars of "hospice care" per fake "patient" that is never delivered, only billed to the taxpayers.
We visited "ground zero" for hospice fraud: Los Angeles, California
A CBS News analysis of records for every hospice operating in Los Angeles County finds indications of fraud are growing.
By Rachel Gold, Laura Geller, Adam Yamaguchi and Graham Kates
At age 69, Lynn Ianni is a pickleball whiz, zipping from dinks to drives energetically. When she suffered an injury on the court two years ago, she sought physical therapy, and was surprised to learn her Medicare insurance wouldn't cover it.
She was, according to Medicare records, dying and in hospice.
"They said, 'you're in hospice.' And I said, 'what? What are you talking about?" Ianni said. "'Are you kidding me? Do I look like I'm in hospice?'"
Ianni's Medicare number had been stolen, and used by a company to fraudulently enroll her in hospice -- specialized, compassionate care for terminal patients nearing the end of their lives. It was another example of fraud in the hospice industry, long a nationwide problem. But her case arose well after officials had promised to stamp it out in California, where the problem has been especially acute.
Ianni was initially approved for physical therapy treatments through Medicare. But later, her coverage was denied because she was listed as receiving hospice care, and the services were deemed not covered -- even though she was not, and has never been, in hospice. CBS News
Three years ago, California's state auditor sounded the alarm that Los Angeles County had seen a 1,500% increase in hospice companies since 2010 -- more than six times the national average relative to its elderly population.
Auditors estimated LA County hospices overbilled Medicare by $105 million in a single year. The report called out notable red flags -- key warning signs of fraud:
Multiple hospices in one building
Geographic clustering
Low patient counts
High rates of terminally ill patients later discharged alive
Excessive billing
Staff shared across multiple companies
The state says it proceeded to investigate and revoke the licenses of 280 hospices.
But since then, the problem has continued to fester. CBS News examined the business and financial records of every hospice currently operating in LA County, applying the same indicators identified by the state. Indications of fraud have not stopped. In fact, they've grown.
The CBS News analysis reveals that over 700 of the roughly 1,800 hospices in LA County, trigger multiple red flags for fraud as defined by the state.
California is confronting this problem as Gavin Newsom, its Democratic governor, eyes a potential presidential run. Fraud in public services has become a thorny political issue. Republicans and an army of social media influencers have seized on the issue as politically potent -- accusing Democratic state executives of failing to prevent costly schemes, most notably in Minnesota, where the Feeding our Future pandemic relief scam cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. Minnesota's Democratic governor, Tim Walz, announced in January that he would no longer seek reelection amid fallout from that scandal.
CBS News reached out to Governor Newsom's office. A spokesperson sent us a January 2026 statement, which reads in part, "Under Governor Newsom's administration, California has cracked down on hospice fraud, launched partnerships across state agencies, and the California Department of Justice has arrested criminals to hold them accountable."
Hospice fraud is a nationwide problem. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General reported in 2023 that suspected hospice fraud amounts totaled an estimated $198.1 million.
There are about 1,800 licensed hospices in Los Angeles County, California, which is more than six times the national average for the county's senior population.
A CBS News investigation found about 42% (742 companies) still operate despite having multiple signs the state has outlined as indicators of fraud.
Nearly 500 hospices are operating within a 3-mile radius, the densest concentration of agencies in the county.
There are 137 hospices operating along Van Nuys Boulevard alone. More than half of them show signs the state has outlined as indicators of fraud.
89 companies are registered to a single building in Van Nuys.
72 have multiple signs the state says could indicate fraud. It's the most extreme case of hospice clustering CBS found.
CALIFORNIA HOSPICE FRAUD: There's a stretch in Los Angeles with 500 registered hospice companies within just three miles of each other. And 89 in a single building. But when we visited, we found empty offices, piled-up mail, and phone lines dead.
- 18% of THE WHOLE COUNTRY’S home health care billing is coming out of Los Angeles County - One doctor billed the government $120 million in a single year claiming to oversee 1,900 patients - With almost 2,000 hospice agencies, Los… pic.twitter.com/0mTPG1ENL2
You might have seen the amazing video of Iran welcoming its new Supreme Leader.
The actual Supreme Leader was not present. (Tousi TV says there are legitimate reports that he was hit during the early rounds of bombing and lost his leg and is currently in a coma.)
So to welcome the totally-alive New Supreme Leader, they brought out -- and this is not a joke, this happened -- a cardboard cut-out of a human silhouette with a photograph of the totally-alive Mojtada Khamenei's head on top of it.
Tousi noted that he could have sent along a video message or "appeared" via Skype. But he didn't. They just literally put a cheap standee at the front of the room and said "Bow to your new Supreme Leader, the Amazon box our new Yoga mat came in with a xerox glued to it."
CNN's DEI Deer-in-the-Headlights Dim Bulb Abby Philip: Some People Threw a Bomb at the Muslim Mayor of New York City
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Antifa's credo -- and thus now the Antifa Media's credo -- is "DARVO." Every time they beat the shit out of someone in the street, they engage in DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
We saw this with Kyle Rittenhouse. We saw this with the Covington Kids.
And since the weekend, we have seen Antifa Media story after Antifa Media story have strongly, strongly implied that it was the "anti-Islam protesters" who threw the IEDs at the Muslim mayor.
DARVO. Always DARVO. Protected leftwing criminals and terrorists must always be portrayed as the victims, even when they're throwing literal IED shrapnel bombs at actually-peaceful protesters. ("Provocateurs" who for some reason think that Muslims are violent and have such a purchase on the Democrat Party and their Antifa Media that they're able to "Islamify" the country. What nonsense, huh?)
CNN's DEI Dumb Not-Blonde Abby Phillip straight up offered the "news" that the terrorists were trying to harm the Muslim mayor.
And she was still peddling this Islamicization Lie even on Tuesday night.
CNN's Abby Phillip claims that the attempted NYC bombing was "an attempted terror attack against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani."
The suspects were two Muslim terrorists who pledged allegiance to ISIS and were targeting anti-Islam protesters. pic.twitter.com/xtGIirLPb3
It took less than 12 hours for CNN to dive back into the propaganda toolbox to invert the truth in the most brazen way possible, confident that it could do so because its viewers trust it to be the truth-teller. And given how many Pravda outlets have been intentionally vague about what happened and who was responsible, they have every right to be confident.
To add my personal testimony: All through the weekend, when I saw headlines about this story but did not read articles -- I try to disconnect on the weekend -- I in fact believed that this was an "anti-Muslim" attack on the mayor.
Because that's what literally every Antifa Media outlet told me it was.
When I first found out the attack was committed by Muslims, I wondered: Why were the Muslims attacking the Muslim mayor? Was it an attempt at a false flag attack?
It didn't even occur to me that for 72 hours the Antifa Media was straight-up gaslighting the world about who the terrorists were and who the intended victims. For a day and a half I thought, "Oh, I guess I must have read the headlines wrong."
I didn't read them wrong. I took from them precisely what the writers at Antifa Media outlets intended me to take. I only "read them wrong" in the sense that I read them at all.
Now DEI Dum-Dum said it was just an "error."
Whoops!
Whoopsie!
Abby D. Phillip
@abbydphillip
I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn't catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.
Flashback: Abby Phillip explains to Joy Reid that her job is to ensure conservatives hear "the facts” because they live in "a completely different information world."
“When you don't ever even hear the facts, it's hard to even know that you're wrong."
Filthy Despicable RINO Coward John Cornyn: On Second Thought, Now that GOP Voters Are Set to Boot My Defeat-Mechanism Ass Out of My Cushy Job, Maybe We Don't Need the Filibuster After All
—Disinformation Expert Ace
All it took to make this filthy RINO represent his constituents was a multimillion dollar effort to boot him out of office.
As you know, the disgraceful cucks in the Senate desperately want their cuck ally John Cornyn to keep his seat. They are pressuring Trump to endorse Cornyn.
Cornyn's primary challenger Ken Paxton says he will not leave the race, even if Trump does bend to John Thune and endorse the cuck John Cornyn.
However, he has offered a deal: He will leave the race and let Cornyn accept his last coronation if and only if the SAVE Act is passed before the primary runoff.
Not scheduled for a vote -- passed and put on the president's desk for his signature.
If a man takes a swing at you and barely misses, that doesn't make him a pacifist -- it just means he has bad aim.
Standing still and giving him a second free swing wouldn't be wise or honorable; it would be foolish.
In 2022, Chuck Schumer and 47 other Senate Democrats tried to change the rules of the US Senate and "nuke" the filibuster to ram through a left-wing takeover of election laws.
They were just barely stopped by two holdout Democrats who were promptly driven out of their party and into retirement.
In 2024, Schumer confirmed to reporters that Democrats mean to finish the job and kill the filibuster's 60-vote threshold the next time they take the majority.
For many years, I believed that if the US Senate scrapped the filibuster, Texas and our nation would stand to lose more than we would gain.
My fellow conservatives and I have proudly used the 60-vote threshold to protect the country from all sorts of bad ideas and dangerous policies.
But when the reality on the ground changes, leaders must take stock and adapt.
Today, Democrats are weaponizing the Senate's rules to block the SAVE America Act, defund the Department of Homeland Security and hurt the American people -- all to spite President Donald Trump.
But they say openly that if these same rules ever get in Democrats' way, they won't hesitate to rip them up.
A rule is only a rule if both sides follow it.
I believe that Democrats, with their votes and statements, have already dealt the filibuster a fatal blow: The Senate rules will change eventually, whether Republicans like it or not.
This leaves conservatives with two options.
We can either unilaterally disarm, or we can stand and fight.
We can let the Democrats keep obstructing today and then smash the rules the first chance they get, or we can act now and use the mandate the American people gave this president and this Congress to secure our elections, protect our homeland and bring back common sense.
The answer is clear: We need to stand, fight and win.
Democrats started this fight. Now Republicans should finish it.
When 48 Democrats nearly killed the filibuster, it was to pass radical legislation designed to increase election fraud.
They tried to ban voter ID requirements, to decriminalize ballot harvesting, and even to send taxpayer dollars into Democrats' own campaign funds.
The SAVE America Act, which I've cosponsored, would do the opposite.
It would make it easy to vote but harder to cheat, by requiring proof of citizenship and voter ID.
He also realizes that it's time to end the Democrat filibuster on funding DHS unilaterally:
But it's also urgent to overcome other aspects of the far left's obstruction.
Americans are being forced to wait in line for three hours at airport security checkpoints because the Democrats are blocking funding for homeland security and immigration law enforcement.
Bad enough that Democrats' political tantrum is ruining travelers' days -- but at this time of hostilities with Iran, their financial siege of DHS is not just inconvenient, it's dangerous.
Hello! Happy Humpday!
I had to turn on air conditioning last night. Winter just ended, and now I need air conditioning to keep the house from boiling.
It is rare that I am left trying to discern meaning and motivation from a piece of press coverage. It is usually very simple to figure out. The press, as a rule, despises the West and this colors all coverage. Members of the press wear their opinions and attitudes as badges of honor, and their work product reflects it. The press usually doesn't go for sarcasm or subtlety. They spin, lie, misconstrue or ignore as they see fit to serve the agenda.
Sometimes, however, an article surfaces that is so absurd, so over-the-top and so preposterous that it leaves me torn between two opinions: that it is just yet another example of the press making it clear exactly who they are, or that it is unexpected sarcasm and satire, playing on its readers' expectations to see if anyone notices. It has been a long time since this happened, but it did this week. I am embarrassed to admit that I am stuck in that "in between" - and I am doubly embarrassed because the source of the trouble is in The Economist.
On the one hand, The Economist is one of the West's worst publications. It is consistently as dishonest as it is ideologically pure. On the other, their treatment of the late Ali Khamenei is so outlandish that it defies belief if they mean it. If it is sincere, it puts the WaPo's coverage of ISIS' Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, where the paper's original headline referred to him as an "austere religious scholar," to shame. I cannot, however, figure out if it is sincere or an amazing piece of satire. It is The Economist and one does not expect biting satire about a progressive hero-figure, but their obituary is so over the top I don't know what to think about it. The headline and introduction is tame: Ali Khamenei hoped his legacy might last for ever Iran’s Supreme Leader was killed on February 28th, aged 86
The article is not. It comes out swinging in the first paragraph:
When the Shah fell in 1979, and the hotheads in Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s new Islamic Republic took American diplomats hostage, it was plain that America would seek to undermine Iran by any means. In the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 America even supported Iraq, ruled by a tyrant, rather than Iran.
It is not baffling that a country might support the enemy of an enemy. It is not unfathomable that a country wouldn't side with a country that has declared it to be the hated and existential enemy. It is almost like The Economist is putting one on.
This did not daunt him. Martyrdom would be sweet; in many ways, he had already courted it. Like Khomeini, his long-term mentor and friend, he had divine right on his side. America led a phalanx of countries that were morally corrupt; but Islam made Iran strong, pure and spiritually protected. It disgusted him to have to deal or negotiate with the West, even through officials. He came to disdain foreign investment, in case it increased "Westoxification" in Iran; during the pandemic he refused to import Western vaccines, because they might bring the virus in.
Strength and purity. Khamenei in a nutshell, eh? This reads almost tongue-in-cheek.
Only "heroic flexibility" induced him to agree to the nuclear deal with America in 2015. Then, predictably, Donald Trump tore it up and tried, with Israel (the Little Satan) to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities into oblivion. Why trust such people? Why negotiate, when America's sole purpose was to ensure that Iran had no nuclear power at all? No free nation would behave that way. Besides, when Mr Trump's body was ashes, eaten by worms and ants, the robust tree of the Islamic Republic would still be standing.
This is clearly written as if from the late Khamenei's perspective, as is much of the rest of the article. I cannot, however, gauge its sincerity. It seems inconceivable.
But when he was made an ayatollah almost at once, and the constitution amended to overlook his lack of learning, he settled into the role as if born to it. It was as a supreme jurist, wearing the black cap of a direct descendant of Muhammad, that he gazed benignly from billboards and posters across the country. And it was as a great teacher that he preached and wrote books on forgiveness, patience and "101 tips for a happy marriage", telling Iranians how to live. In short he was everywhere, ruling now by divine authority. His tongue could channel God.
If this weren't in The Economist, I'd be sure that this was satire, laughing at his corrupt arrogance. Since it is in The Economist, however, I don't know.
Also, though many had underrated him, he knew how to build up worldly power. He proved adept at playing Iran's state institutions off against each other -- the presidency against parliament and the army against the regime's most powerful security force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose activities he encouraged. This made him the final arbiter. Besides, whereas Iran's often-more-moderate presidents had a limit of two consecutive terms, he was appointed for life.
Is the cynical, ruthless realpolitik being described here by The Economist being described with admiration, or is it veiled contempt?
His business empire was also extraordinary. He might live frugally, receiving visitors in a bare room with one sofa and a few wooden chairs, but he controlled assets worth tens of billions of dollars. Soon after his succession he took over the Shia charities from the government and turned them into vast conglomerates that hoovered up state contracts. He also seized the properties the Shah's men had abandoned when they fled from the Islamic revolution. The humble cleric from Mashhad had inherited the Earth.
Are they intending to sincerely point out his obvious inveterate corruption, or is this merely a case of "yes, we know that all our West-hating heroes have feet of clay, but they are heroes nonetheless?"
It ends with a banger:
He hoped to leave a legacy. This was not necessarily a dynasty, though he had four sons, all of them clerics. He was thinking more of his "Second Step" of the Islamic revolution, more pious and more energetic. Evidently, his own time was limited. He would be bundled away for safety if or when Iran's enemies struck. How much more honourable, more deserving of the paradise to come, to drink the pure draught of a martyr's end.
Are they sarcastically lampooning him by juxtaposing the avowed sweetness of martyrdom with his continuous effort to avoid it? Are they doing the same by describing the decrepit, corrupt gangster as energetic and pious? Or do they possibly mean it?
I can't tell. The whole thing is so outlandish and absurd that it almost has to be satire - but it's also The Economist and so it might be a wholly-sincere lament. What do you think? Do they mean it?
A projectile hit a cargo ship Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, setting the vessel ablaze after the United States targeted Iranian minelaying vessels that could target the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military, said the vessel had been hit just north of Oman in the strait.
It said the crew was evacuating the ship.
Iran did not immediately claim the attack though it has been targeting ships in and around the strait, disrupting a waterway that sees a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded pass through it.
Along with lobbing missiles at neighboring nations, the intentional targeting of foreign flagged ships by Iran is likely an attempt to force external pressure by the rest of the world on President Trump to cease fire and call it quits. It's a race against time for the US and Israel to either destroy and/or degrade Iran's retaliatory/strike capabilities before they have a chance to use them or otherwise exhaust their stocks of these missiles and make them surrender. My concern is the Chi-Coms. They are desperate for and rely heavily on Iranian oil. If the Strait of Hormuz is cut off, how will they react to force it open. And in any case, a collapse of the Mullahocracy means loss of a strategic regional ally, assuming a Trump-approved government takes its place, which might also put a serious crimp in China's access to the oil it needs. All of that in my mind could perhaps push Xi to make a move on Taiwan.
In a private meeting, James Blair, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, encouraged House Republicans to adjust how they discuss immigration. He suggested shifting away from talk of “mass deportations” and narrowing the administration’s efforts to deport only confirmed dangerous criminals.This guidance arises from worries that Democrats are effectively painting Trump’s immigration approach as excessively sweeping, despite President Donald J. Trump campaigning on an ambiguous promise to deport all illegal aliens. Blair reportedly shared these thoughts in a policy discussion at the yearly House Republican retreat held in Doral, Florida. . . The shift is drawing sharp criticism from many in the President’s MAGA base, some of whom were already unhappy with the administration’s embrace of neoconservative foreign policy by launching the ongoing war in Iran. “I voted for no new wars & mass deportations. Why are we stopping the mass deportations and starting a new war?” asked Caroline Sunshine, who acted as deputy communications director for the Trump 2024 campaign.
"Death to America" is not merely a sweet little nothing you whisper in a Vassar co-ed's ear to get her to hop into the sack with you (Of course failing that, there's always rape in the name of decolonization!) This has been Iran's national motto and battle cry since 1979. President Trump is merely the first president in all that time to take them at their word and is doing what he can and must to prevent that from happening, unlike any of his predecessors in all that time, one in particular who actually shared that view. Of course I mean Barack Hussein Obama who did more to aid and abet the Iranian nuclear weapons program by giving them political/diplomatic cover/legitimacy and shoveling billions of dollars at them. Obama was the black Tucker Carlson of the Rosenbergs.
But I digress. Wow did I digress! As far as illegal aliens are concerned. Sorry, but all of them regardless of criminal record or lack thereof are a danger and threat to our safety, security and to societal cohesion in general.
To James Blair, I say, justify to me how it is in the best interest of this nation to allow anyone who came here illegally to remain here and benefit — and that is the perfect word to use — from being here at the cost to our fellow citizens, monetarily and otherwise. Awarding and encouraging criminal behavior is antithetical to the founding of this nation and to its moral and ethical underpinnings that are the basis or are supposed to be the basis of our society and government.
Sorry, this is an absolute non-starter for me. Every one of the millions, perhaps 44 million or more by now, foreigners here on our soil without our approval and permission must be removed. No ifs ands or buts. With that in mind, I give you this, your emetic of the day:
Rachel Zegler, the woke actress who played the woke Hispanic Snow White for the 2025 live action Disney movie recently addressed the tremendous backlash she received for her performance in the film, finally concluding with this sentiment: “I refuse to assimilate for anybody else’s comfort.”
Oh, you don’t say. . .
. . . So Zegler doesn’t want to assimilate because she comes first—like every other foreigner living off the comforts and privileges America affords while actively working to destroy it.
And Zegler I am assuming is a legal immigrant! To me this is someone defecating on the grave of my dear mother of blessed memory, who survived Mauthausen, forced labor brigades and a death march and waiting for four years to arrive here and kissed the ground when she stepped on American soil. She refused to teach me her native tongue, Hungarian, because of what they did to her and her family in aiding and abetting the Nazis in virtually wiping out the second largest Jewish population in Europe. Fuck you, and vayr gehargit, Rachel Zegler.
Have a great Day!
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.
Seven U.S. troops have tragically died in Iranian regime counterstrikes since the beginning of Operation Epic Fury, and the president paid his respects to the remains of six of them last week at Dover. Subsequently, Trump also spoke to the press on Monday and emphasized that parents of the service members who gave the last full measure of devotion want the president to finish off the task that their loved ones offered their lives to achieve. This must be no Vietnam War, no waste of the lives of our most courageous and honorable young men and women. Fallen Troops’ Families Told Trump ‘Finish the Job’ on Iran
. . .he ugly truth about the Islamic terrorist campaign against America and its alliance with the Marxist Left —The Freedom Center’s new pamphlet reveals the hidden history of Iran’s 47-year war against America. Why We’re At War With Iran
Lefty advocates for women in sports like Megan Rapinoe, Jemele Hill and Keith Olbermann — who normally race toward open microphones to fulminate about Trump, trans kids, ICE and pay equity — are remarkably quiet over the plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team. These brave footballers held their ground at an Asian Cup match in Brisbane last week, refusing to sing the anthem of the brutal Islamic Republic, fresh off slaughtering tens of thousands of heroic protesters demonstrating against the despotic regime. Why isn’t motormouth Megan Rapinoe using her megaphone for Iran’s female soccer team?
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves on technological competition, the politics of AI, and how a poor state became a model for American growth The State That Says Yes
Due to sky-high taxation and all-around government incompetence, California has shifted from the Gold Rush state to the Outrush state. Failifornia
Betsy McCaughey: It’s not just New York and California: All across the nation, blue states are committing political and economic suicide by targeting millionaires with high taxes. Who will suffer most from this ideologically driven push to punish the wealthy? Wage workers and the poor. Blue states are committing tax suicide — their mania is contagious
“On Saturday,” Mamdani began, “a protest was held outside Gracie Mansion, where I live with my wife Rama. Neither of us were home at the time. This was a vile protest rooted in white supremacy, entitled Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City.” To lead off with this is to try to give the impression, as the establishment media did, that the “vile” protesters who opposed the “Islamic Takeover of New York City” were behind the bombing. After ISIS Bombing in New York, Mamdani Condemns Islamic Terrorism — Nah, Just Kidding
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
The incident highlights ongoing issues with free speech on social media platforms, and the influence of foreign censorship laws on American citizens, including elected officials. Musk’s X Censors GOP Congressman for Anti-Islam Tweet.
Establishment elites have begun seeding the narrative that Vice President JD Vance and the GOP are locked in an internecine battle over artificial intelligence, one that could derail Vance’s ascent as the heir apparent to carry President Donald Trump’s MAGA mantle forward. CODE RED: Why JD Vance’s Framing of AI Will Define the Future of Global Politics
Toth, who defeated Crenshaw Tuesday in the Republican primary for Crenshaw’s House seat, is endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is his bid to defeat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the primary runoff to represent the Lone Star State in the United States Senate. Exclusive – Steve Toth Endorses Ken Paxton for Senate over John Cornyn
Calling Texas’ Democrat senatorial candidate James Talarico, even derisively, a “bible-banger” is a disservice to bible-bangers. Talarico, With His Left Hand on the Bible
The apparent lack of broad European support for the U.S. strikes on Iran signals the continent could be approaching a turning point by deciding whether it will maintain economic dependence on Washington or Beijing — or take matters into its own hands. Europe Leaving America In Dust After Years Of Being Beholden To China
HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
The tracking system is perhaps the most revealing part of the whole thing, because it shows how the state wants this market treated.Georgia would require retailers to enter purchaser information into a real-time electronic logging system, complete with names, addresses, identification details, product information, and timestamps, and law enforcement would have direct access to the data. Georgia’s Kratom Crackdown Runs Against RFK’s Health Vision, Creates Govt Database of Buyers.
Oz now oversees the agency responsible for administering federal health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act marketplace. During remarks on the problem, Oz stated that fraudulent enrollments and unauthorized changes to insurance policies resulted in significant financial losses for the federal government. Oz also warned that the system's structure made it easier for dishonest brokers to exploit weaknesses in the enrollment process. Federal officials have begun tightening verification requirements to prevent additional abuse. Dr. Mehmet Oz Says Millions Lost to Obamacare Fraud. What Else Were We Told Wrong?
ACTUAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
The spacecraft weighs a bit over 1,300 pounds, which places it among the larger objects expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere in an uncontrolled descent. Most of the structure will burn up during reentry, although some components could survive the intense heat and fall to the surface. NASA engineers believe the risk of injury remains extremely low, though the spacecraft's exact landing can't be predicted with precision. A 1,300-Pound NASA Satellite Is Falling Back to Earth. What Could Go Wrong?
I want to highlight two numbers — 19 and 39 — in order to illustrate how SpaceX does things versus NASA. Not only has SpaceX already completed eleven test flights of Starship/Superheavy, it has tested or flown 19 and 39 prototypes of each, in one manner or another. The company has a very rich history of hardware and testing as it ramps up towards operational flights. This practically guarantees that those operational flights will not only occur relatively soon, they will be relatively safe and robust. SpaceX now targeting early April for next Starship/Superheavy test flight
I have searched the New Horizons’ press release archive, and as far as I can tell, this sequence of images and the terrain it shows was never highlighted publicly by the science team. Pluto’s cratered glacial terrain
Fischer takes full advantage of this very complete record, which made it possible for him to tell the story of almost every participant, in a human and very personal way. Thus, as you read his book it actually feels like you are on our modern social media, where everyone takes out a smart phone to record what’s happening, thus providing us all with many different perspectives of the same event. Only here those perspectives come from the written word, penned with thoughtful attention and a passionate dedication to telling the truth, as each person saw it. Who fired “the shot heard round the world?” (Bobby Thomson for $500, Alex- jjs)
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.
He's focusing on world models, one of his four essential advances required for AI that actually justifies the I. Basically fact database alongside the LLM's word salad.
There hasn't been much point until now - launch costs were too high for it to make sense to even consider repairing and reusing older satellites. But that may be changing.
It has half the battery capacity of the MacBook Pro. On heavy workloads its low-power CPU keeps the battery from draining too quickly - though it's also slow. On light workloads the MacBook Pro shines twice as long.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: No CGI. Just 16 hours a day for three straight days to set up and film three minutes of video.
Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - March 10, 2026 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Tuesday night ONT. Very nice springtime weather in my neck of the woods today. How about you? Anything fun and exciting going on with anyone here tonight? Something on your mind? Let's hear it!
What a journey it’s been. Grateful for every step, every customer, and every blessing along the way. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/AnujASLWpF
— Jimmy’s Famous Seafood (@JimmysSeafood) March 10, 2026
My sister was at Jimmy's for dinner tonight with her husband and daughter. My niece was very excited that she saw an influencer there interviewing someone from the staff. Still amazing how much attention and business they are getting thanks to the Huff Post. I haven't been there since the "GFY heard 'round the world". Hopefully soon!
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The 90s finds out about the future
If you are longing for a simpler time that is now gone forever, this video will likely hit HARD… 🥲 pic.twitter.com/xJcp4i9GKw
A woman in Ohio made more than 1,700 fraudulent returns at Home Depot locations in multiple states.
Medina County prosecutors said Tracy A. James used counterfeit driver’s licenses and aliases to obtain store credit through fraudulent merchandise returns over several years at numerous Home Depot locations.
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Investigators said James’s scheme totaled $266,699 in fraudulent store credit she then used to buy merchandise she later resold online.
AI can generate a perfect email but it cannot read the room, sense the tension, or know when the real conversation is the one nobody is having
Have you ever watched a twenty-six-year-old try to figure out why a meeting went sideways when every word spoken in the meeting was perfectly reasonable? I have. I spent decades in workplaces where the official conversation and the actual conversation were two entirely different things, and the ability to tell them apart had nothing to do with intelligence or technical skill. It had to do with years.
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That ability has a name. Psychologists call it emotional intelligence. And in 2026, as AI reshapes nearly every industry on the planet, it turns out that the thing older workers have been quietly accumulating for decades is the one thing the machines can’t replicate.
Very interesting article. Definitely check it out.
My best friend is Hannah, and her grandpa, Franz, owned a sporting goods store in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. When he went out of business, he boxed up his stock, and the unused items sat in a storage unit from 1990 until 2021.
In the summer of 2021, Hannah's mom called my mom, who is an organizer for hoarders, asking for help with the storage unit. She didn't know what to do with the stuff, and knew my mom had experience in that realm.
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It's really hard to put a number on how many items were in the storage unit. It was 10,000 pairs of shoes, 25,000 hats, 2,500 pairs of baseball pants, all in 1,000 square feet, all from a single store.
The brands Franz had were Nike, Adidas, Puma, Converse, Playboy, Pony, Champion, Wilson, and more. Teams were covered in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and collegiate sports.
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It was such a large inventory; we weren't sure how to tackle it. It's all been very word-of-mouth. We had our first sale at a flea market in early 2022. We currently sell privately on social media and on our website, which went live in December 2025.
On the website, we do 25 items per drop, and do two drops a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. It's first-come, first-served. Not all merchandise is on the website; it's about a tenth of what we have. So we're really selective with the drops because everything is so rare and special.
Cool story. Like, totally rad!
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The Iran situation simplified
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DJ Doof - Birthday Girls Edition
from thisdayinmusic.com
Born on this date in 1964: Swedish singer-songwriter, rapper Neneh Cherry, who had the 1988 UK & US No.3 single 'Buffalo Stance'
Born on this date in 1966: American singer-songwriter Edie Brickell best known for 1988's Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars, the debut album by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, which went to No. 4 on the Billboard Albums chart and featured the Top Ten single 'What I Am'. Brickell married Paul Simon in 1992.
Born on this date in 1983: Carrie Underwood, American pop country music singer, winner of the fourth season of American Idol.
That may very well be my favorite vocal performance ever.
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by vegan cookies?
(H/T - nurse ratched)
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Doof Enterprises, LLC would like to thank those of you who hit our tip jar. Wait - we have a tip jar?!?
Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me.
President Trump said Sunday he will refuse to sign any additional legislation until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, escalating pressure on lawmakers to move what he has repeatedly described as a cornerstone election integrity measure.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump declared the legislation "must go to the front of the line," signaling that securing the bill's passage now takes priority over any other items on the legislative agenda.
The president also singled out election integrity activist Scott Presler for his advocacy, praising his recent appearance on Fox & Friends and urging lawmakers to use every available tool to get the measure across the finish line.
"Great Job by hard working Scott Pressler on Fox & Friends talking about using the Filibuster, or Talking Filibuster, in order to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, an 88% issue with ALL VOTERS," Trump wrote.
"It must be done immediately. It supersedes everything else. MUST GO TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE. I, as President, will not sign other Bills until this is passed, AND NOT THE WATERED DOWN VERSION -- GO FOR THE GOLD: MUST SHOW VOTER I.D. & PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP."
Trump added that the legislation should also include limits on mail-in ballots and other cultural policy priorities he has championed, warning lawmakers plainly: "DO NOT FAIL!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP."
The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, mandate voter identification, and direct states to remove noncitizens from voter rolls while coordinating voter registration databases with the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump has repeatedly framed the legislation as a defining political battle, telling Republicans that securing the measure is essential to protecting American elections.
According to a February 25--26 Harvard-Harris poll of 1,999 registered voters, the proposal enjoys broad support across the electorate.
The survey found 71 percent overall backing for the measure's core provisions, including proof-of-citizenship requirements and voter ID rules.
Support was strongest among Republicans at 91 percent, while 69 percent of independents and 50 percent of Democrats also said they support the reforms.
Trump has also injected the legislation into the developing Republican primary battle for the Texas Senate seat, privately telling Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Texas Sen. John Cornyn that he wants the SAVE America Act on his desk before issuing an endorsement in the race.
Trump wants Thune to require that any "filibuster" be a real filibuster, that is, a "talking filibuster" in which senators are actually required to, you know, filibuster by speaking for as long as they can to delay a vote. Not just voting to "filibuster." Which is what our old, lazy senators have permitted for decades, because they can't stand the rigors of an actual filibuster.
Katie Couric made an anti-gun documentary, and in the climactic scene, she asked a room full of gun owners a tough question, to which they had no answer. It was a total fabrication. They edited in silence from another point. In truth, the gun owners all had answers. Nobody… https://t.co/42EfJpN3QQ
Unrelated: Disney's Gay News Division spins the bomb-throwing terrorist as an "activist" and his intended victim as a "far-right" influencer.
In the upside-down of leftism, terrorists are activists, and activists — like Christians praying outside abortion clinics — are terrorists. pic.twitter.com/9ouunyP1Ue
They also spent money on other gay shit of various natures.
A bizarre exchange on Capitol Hill last week put the spotlight back on how taxpayer dollars were spent under the Biden administration after a State Department official struggled to explain grants tied to diversity programs abroad -- including one she described as an effort to make certain maps "more gay."
The moment unfolded during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing where Rep. Brian Mast pressed State Department Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers about several taxpayer-funded initiatives tied to DEI programs during the administration of Joe Biden.
"Can you tell me what is queering the map?" Mast asked, referring to a grant referenced in the State Department's public diplomacy spending.
"So I think we were trying to make the maps more gay," Rogers replied.
Mast immediately pushed back. "Literally? How do you make a map more gay? Or gay at all?" he asked.
Rogers conceded she couldn't explain it.
"I don't know," she said. "Since the age of cartography, we've had pretty good maps, but maybe they weren't gay enough."
She suggested the wording may have come from academic language around critical theory, noting that "sometimes people use 'queer' as a verb." Rogers added that the project may have involved maps related to Czechia and Slovakia, though she acknowledged she was unsure of the details.
"So maybe those countries asked for it," she said. "I doubt it, but I don't know."
The exchange drew visible disbelief from Mast.
The Florida Republican then began listing several other projects funded through similar grants, describing a series of diversity and inclusion initiatives sponsored by the State Department around the world.
Among them were programs focused on "non-binary and transfrancophones" and research into "linguistic attitudes and ideologies toward inclusive French" in Montreal, Canada.
A California professor laid out an argument for tossing out sexual identifiers, as terms like gay and lesbian 'harms trans people,' they claimed.
Brandon Andrew Robinson, an associate professor at the University of California, spoke on the matter with the university while promoting their book, 'Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom.'
Robinson, who uses they/them pronouns, argued that 'identities limit us' and the ongoing creation of unlimited new identities demonstrates how such labels 'fail to capture the full complexities of gender, sexualities and desire.'
They particularly noted hyper-specific identities, such as gynosexual, sapiosexual, asexual or pansexual.
'It's a several-fold argument,' Robinson told UC Riverside. 'First, I want people to question why we privilege gender and genitals above all other attributes - like height or race - when we conceptualize our sexual identity.'
They continued on to argue that the term 'gay,' referring to a man being attracted to a man, 'assumes a man is a stable, inherent category.'
'When history shows the definition of manhood is constantly changing,' they said.
'Gender essentialism [the belief that men and women possess inherent, fixed traits determined by biology that define their identity and gender roles] also harms trans people, who often complicate those binary boundaries.'
...
Robinson argued that, without such labels and identifiers, society would be able to reconstruct on a more biological outlook of humanity instead of focusing on the current defined gender roles and how they affect a persons sexuality.
'It allows us to explore our desires beyond labels that often confine and constrain us. And it allows us to explore our desires beyond shame that often comes with many labels as well,' Robinson said.
Robinson's book was created through research they conducted on Reddit and through around 48 Zoom interviews with transgender women or trans people who identify with a feminine gender expression.
'I wanted to see how people were talking about their desires for trans people, and how trans people were talking about their own desires around dating,' Robinson said.
'In less than 12 hours, I got over 100 responses. I think many trans women were enthusiastic about joining because they had never been asked about this part of their lives before.'
...
They previously authored 'Coming Out To the Streets' and co-authored 'Race and Sexuality.'
$100 Million Gender Studies Thesis Statement The Bride! Is One of the Worst Feminist "Movie" Disasters in History (and They've Almost All Been Disasters)
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Howard Stern is a big ugly gassy idiot, but he did have a point when he talked about Spike Lee's overpoduced, overpromoted, and over-budgeted "college movies."
You know what makes a college movie? To borrow a word from Woody Allen, they're painfully didactic. They are all about Teaching the viewer. There should be some irony detected here -- people who just got out of their diapers fifteen years ago are now presuming to be wise teachers educating the rest of us -- but there's not, because college kids are largely idiots.
I know because I once was one. But don't feel bad, college students. Adults are largely idiots too.
And of course college students don't know any better -- their entire lives have consisted of nothing but sitting in class being lectured to, so of course when they try to dream up an "original" "story," the "story" consists of something at the head of a lecture hall lecturing people sitting in lecture-hall-stye seats.
All they know is sitting in class listening to someone spout wisdom at them. So of course that's what they think a "movie" ought to be.
No one wants to pay to see college student "movies." As ugly idiot Howard Stern correctly managed to discern, not even the black people Spike Lee intended to lecture showed up for his black college student films. They all went to see Steven Seagall karate movies. Only terminally white-guilted progressive idiots gave to their Woke Church and put alms in the basket at Spike Lee student films.
No one wants to be lectured at, especially not by someone who is transparently a fucking MORON, and honestly, it's only people who are fucking morons who would imagine that people are going to pay money to see a lecture from a fucking moron.
The Bride! -- exclamation point part of the official title, in case you weren't sure this student film was by someone with a college sophomore Look At Me, I'm Quirky and Deep mentality -- was dreamed up when Ugly Weird-Looking Hag Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal realized that when Victor Von Frankenstein created the bride of Frankenstein in the 1930s sequel, he had never bothered to seek consent from the dead body he was reanimating.
This is an observation which blends my two favorite things, retard-level obviousness and retard-level obsession with Feminism 101 ideology.
Ugly Weird-Looking Hag Actress Maggie Gyllenhall, having never advanced past a 19-year-old stage of development, was smitten with her brilliant idea of making a $100 million movie to correct and critique the 1930s classic for its complete refusal to address the complex and nuanced question of consent in animating dead bodies in a fantasy horror movie, and because this was pitched during after the death of George Floyd, when the nation came together to say, once and for all, that Black Lives Matter, and, even more important than Black Lives Mattering, pampered and entitled white women ought to have All The Jobs, Warner Bros. bankrolled this student film.
The movie is so bad that even woke feminist reviewers are trashing it as embarrassing. All of these movies are embarrassing, but usually they Make Pretend and give these bombs positive reviews. But this is so embarrassing it casts genuine doubt on women's competency to even be film-makers, and so even the feminist wokies are forced to denounce it as a matter of self-protection and to make sure that All the Jobs will continue going to unqualified nepo-baby AWFULs.
A clunky framing device, filmed in black and white in an otherwise color picture and recurring throughout the film, features the spirit of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley), who speaks to us from beyond the grave. Amid much vamping and cackling, she tells us that since her death she has been summoning her strength to the point that now, in 1936, she has gained the ability to control the mind of a woman named Ida (also played by Ms. Buckley), who is working undercover as a floozy for the police gathering evidence against a Chicago mobster. With Shelley remote-controlling her brain, Ida turns into a crazed party girl, dies falling down stairs, and goes to her grave. Temporarily...
Ida, after getting a little jump-start in the Euphronious lab, returns to life as the unnamed mate for "Frank," as she calls him. Spitting up black phlegm and shouting out strings of word-association gibberish, Ms. Buckley quickly becomes the centerpiece of the movie, or rather its central headache. Her overacting meets Ms. Gyllenhaal's over-filmmaking like the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic.
The director would like to be credited (wouldn't everyone?) with creating a punk-rock update of a classic. What she presents is more like the world's campiest cabaret act, with the Bride as a mashup of Katharine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis and maybe Natasha Lyonne. Ms. Buckley, talking a mile a minute, flouncing through the sets, and switching accents like a Robin Williams standup routine minus the jokes, is meant to be the ultra-liberated spirit of Woman, a canny chaos agent who doesn't give a flying fig about patriarchal expectations. She even finds a reason to shout "Me too!" a couple of times.
Variety admits that the movie has been "completely rejected" by audiences:
It was a complete rejection by moviegoers around the world this weekend as Maggie Gyllenhaal's $80 million bride of Frankenstein monster movie The Bride! opened to $13.6 million...
Industry sources, not Warners, believe the loss on The Bride! could approach $90M in its first cycle after home entertainment downstream. Note, it will be a while before the ultimate red ink is realized. Warner Bros declined comment about the movie's P&L, which includes $65M in worldwide P&A.
The movie cost $80 million, and is said to have cost another $20 million on that for movie-saving reshoots, which did not save the movie. On top of that, they spent $65 million in Prints and Advertising (P&A), and since most movies are now very cheaply delivered digitally, not in the form of expensive reels of film, I have to imagine that 98% of the P&A budget is just advertising.
And, as I can't point out enough, theaters take about 50% of the ticket price, so the tiny takings are halved.
Midnight's Edge said that maybe if this turd had come out when it should have come out -- a year after George Floyd, when people were unreceptive to Woke "Entertainment" but not yet hostile to it, maybe this piece of absolute garbage would have broke even.
But now? In 2026?
As the congressmen said about tampons in the men's bathroom at Netflix, "What year is this? 2020?"
WDW-Pro reminds us of two other recent feminist flops -- Snow White, of course, and one that was in and out of theaters so quickly you probably never even heard of it, Disney's Ella McKay, a movie about a lightly-fictionalized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez style reformer.
Which was also what Snow White was about, come to think of it.
And here's Maggie Gyllenhaal to make the utterly self-interested argument that no matter how unqualified a wannabe female director is, you owe pampered white AWFULs All the Jobs, because they've been "silenced" for so long.
Not long enough.
It always rankled me that this woman was ever chosen as the love interest in a Batman movie. pic.twitter.com/uXU3A5prXa
Podcast: CBD is joined by Buck Throckmorton (the EV industry's worst nightmare)... we discuss how the template of the Marshall Plan and "You Break It You Bought It" has been discredited by President Trump, Mexico is a flashpoint or an opportunity, more EV debacles, should we reserve employment for US citizens only, and more!
