Thursday Overnight Open Thread - December 11, 2025 [scampydog]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to the Thursday night ONT. Thank you for braving the traffic and holiday crowds to be here - the best place on the internet to spend your Thursday evening.
Been about a year since my first ONT post (with CBD patiently doing all the back end work - I figured it out eventually).
Your regular host, Doof, is in parts unknown - not saying he is on a secret mission, he will be back soon with a proper alibi.
Before we get started, please grab a snack and a second look at your therapy pamphlet.
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Cuteness Overload Cafe
—Ace
A photographer shoots portraits of senior dogs
to bring attention to these experienced puppers
Pygmy marmosets dining on peas. This is cute: A pygmy marmoset pets an insect.
More "Strandbeasts" or "Beach Animals." This is actually not AI. Just some sticks, some serious engineering know-how, some wind, and a lot of free time. The artist calls these weird creations "kinetic sculptures."
An oldie: A dog decides he's really what the paying public came out to see.
A, B, H. Always Be Herding. Always Be Herding.
Some kind of crazy Loony Toons situation.
Dog wants to know if he can keep the dog he found.
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CNN: Obama's White House Counsel Routinely Advised and Defended Jeffrey Epstein
—Ace
Gee I wonder why.
When billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein needed legal advice, help responding to negative press, or just moral support, he often turned to an unexpected confidante -- Kathy Ruemmler, an elite attorney who served two US presidents and was once a top candidate for US attorney general.As thousands of new documents tied to Epstein have been released, many of those closest to him have paid a steep price for their friendship by forfeiting influential jobs and weathering fierce public blowback. Yet Ruemmler, a former White House counsel for Barack Obama, has maintained a prestigious post as chief legal officer for Goldman Sachs.
Friendship? Really?
The bank has continued to stand by her -- even as emails show Epstein calling her "my great defender" and seeking her help pushing back on reports detailing his abuse of underage girls.A CNN KFile review of Epstein's emails and travel schedules sheds new light on his relationship with the power-broking lawyer and shows that their ties went far beyond professional advice and into the realm of a friendship.
Among the many high-profile and notable names that appear in the Epstein messages, Ruemmler is one of the most frequently referenced, with more than 100 exchanges between her and Epstein over several years. Epstein's schedule reveals that he was set to meet with Ruemmler more than 50 times between July 2014 and May 2019, including for lunches and dinners with celebrities, apartment hunting, and personal beauty appointments.
As early as 2014, the year that Ruemmler left the Obama White House, the pair already appeared close, with Ruemmler telling Epstein in one email, "I'll be here all week -- you may get sick of me."
Note this is after Jeffrey Epstein's conviction for prostitution. Which was understood to actually be about underaged child sex trafficking.
But their "friendship" endured.
In a statement to CNN, Ruemmler said, "In 2014, I barely knew Jeffrey Epstein. My remark was a throwaway line in response to his invitation to attend multiple meetings with business contacts."Across the many messages, Ruemmler emerges as a confidant and advocate for Epstein, at times helping him manage his public reputation following his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Epstein's estate is fighting to keep hundreds of additional emails between Ruemmler and Epstein private, arguing that they are protected by attorney-client privilege. The privilege log shows that Ruemmler continued to communicate with Epstein through at least June 2019 and suggests she was more involved with Epstein's legal affairs than previously known.In a statement to CNN, Ruemmler referred to Epstein as a "business referral source" when she was at the law firm Latham & Watkins and that she knew him in a "professional capacity" when she served as head of the white collar defense group at the firm. But she said she "did not represent him and was not compensated by him."
Perfect! Then the emails are not privileged.
CNN sent a series of questions to Ruemmler and Goldman Sachs prior to publication. Ruemmler provided answers to several of them, but others she declined to directly answer -- including whether she was involved with drafting a public relations statement for Epstein or took part in discussions to help him respond to media inquiries about his sexual abuse.
I assume this is the statement she drafted for her "friend" the pedophile sex trafficker.
In 2019, as major outlets reexamined Epstein's long history of sexually abusing minors, he invoked her advice directly. In a text message from that year, Epstein said Ruemmler helped him craft a public-relations statement in response to a forthcoming Washington Post editorial calling for Congress to investigate him.At 4 a.m. on March 7, 2019, Epstein texted a draft statement to a contact redacted by House investigators, calling it a "Ruemmler proposal" and writing, "this is what Kathy suggests we tell Waco," correcting the typo seconds later to "Wapo." The statement -- which Epstein said Ruemmler provided -- rejected claims he received a "sweetheart deal" in his 2008 conviction and argued prosecutors had pursued him too aggressively.
"The criticism is wrong and reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both [the] facts underlying Mr. Epstein's case and how it was prosecuted by both local and federal authorities. Far from a receiving a sweetheart deal, Mr. Epstein was subjected to a lengthy, aggressive, and highly unusual federal investigation for what were, in essence, local offenses of sexual solicitation. He accepted responsibility, served time and prison, and paid significant monetary settlements to the victims involved," said the statement.
While Jeffrey Epstein's other "friends" have paid a price, this Democrat woman -- no privilege here! -- continues working for Goldman Sachs.
But Ruemmler has managed to fly under the radar despite working as the top lawyer for one of the world's largest banks, where she made $22.5 million last year.
Obviously no lawyer is actually worth $22.5 million per year. She's being paid for political influence. She's a fixer. She knows what officials to call when you need a favor or you're in a jam. That's why she was "friends" with Jeffrey Epstein.
And I do not believe that her "friendship" was uncompensated.
I think, based on this revelation, that The Walls Are Really Closing In on Trump now.
Lowly District Judge Orders "Maryland Man" and Human Trafficker Kilmar Abrego-Garcia Released from Custody
—Ace
The judge was appointed by Obama. Weird how the media never points that out. They only note which judges were appointed by Republicans.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued the order, granting Abrego Garcia's petition for relief.
"Since Abrego Garcia's return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority. For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia's Petition for immediate release from ICE custody," Xinis wrote.
...
Federal law enforcement have floated deporting him to an alternate destination, though they have struggled to secure the judicial go-ahead.
"Maryland Obama Judge Panagiota (Paula) Xinis is a lawless and dangerous radical," Article3Projecte found Mike Davis posted on X.
She just illegally ordered the release of "Saint" Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an MS13 terrorist and the Democrat patron saint of wife-beating and human trafficking."
Camilo Montoya-Galvez @camiloreports5m
BREAKING: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being released from ICE detention in Pennsylvania after a federal judge ordered his release, his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg tells me.
"They're booking him out as we speak."
Meanwhile, the communist press is badgering Republicans about missile strikes on... "fishing boats."
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Tom Homan: You Better Believe We're Investigating Ilhan Omar for Immigration Fraud
—Ace
She is here illegally. Deport her.
Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, said during a Newsmax appearance on Monday that the administration is investigating Representative Ilhan Omar for alleged immigration fraud."I just got advised by a fraud investigator the other day on that. I asked the question, can we review the files? You know, there was immigration fraud involved," Homan said on Newsmax. "The statute of limitation became an issue in the last four years when this was first brought up."
He continued, "Pulling the records now, pulling the files, and we're looking at it. But this fraud investigator, who I know personally, one of the best fraud investigators in HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, said there's no doubt he'd review the file. So, I'm running that down this week as a matter of fact, and we'll see."
The following has been credibly alleged and supported with evidence:
Ilhan "Omar" Nur committed immigration fraud twice.
The second time was when she married her own brother -- while already married to her real husband -- to get her gay brother permanent residence in the US.
The first time was when she first came over. The patriarch of the Omar family had refugee status for his family. But Ilhan was not his daughter -- she is the daughter of a man named Nur, who she repeatedly called her "father" before people noticed her calling this man Nur "father" instead of her supposed father Omar. (She would later claim that it's a custom in her particular village in Somalia to call people who aren't your father "father" out of respect. No one else has ever heard of this "custom.")
She pretended to be part of the Omar family when she came over. But she wasn't. She's part of the Nur family, and never had legal permission to come.
The Atlantic Admits That the 100% Safe Covid Vaccine Killed Children (But Finds Room to Attack Vaccine Skeptics Anyway)
—Ace
Steve Jobs' Widow's Vanity Magazine The Atlantic takes a "pox on both their houses" position on the covid vaccines: The "health authorities" and their I-Believe-In-Science allies are criticized for denying the undeniable, that the covid vaccines did cause myocarditis and death in children, particularly young boys.
But the article of course also criticizes those who correctly and honestly pointed out that the vaccine was dangerous for children, particularly young boys, because... well, because they're On the Other Side and it's very gauche of them to be right about The Science.
David Strom excerpted this yesterday.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving, Vinay Prasad, the FDA's top vaccine regulator, made a claim that shocked the public-health establishment. "For the first time," he wrote in a leaked email to his staff, "the US FDA will acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines have killed American children." The agency had supposedly identified at least 10 children who died from getting COVID shots....
To say the email was poorly received by vaccine experts and physicians would be an understatement. Prasad's claim provoked a rapid series of rebuttals. A response from 12 former FDA commissioners, published in The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, called Prasad's memo "a threat to evidence-based vaccine policy and public health security." All of the potential vaccine-related deaths reported to the government, presumably including those to which Prasad referred, had already been reviewed by the agency's staff, the former commissioners wrote, and "different conclusions" had been reached. Elsewhere, doctors and scientists declared that absolutely no evidence links COVID-19 vaccines to death in children; and that in order to suggest otherwise, Prasad and his colleagues had engaged in an "evidence-manufacturing mission," a "dumpster dive" for shoddy data, or--worse--a campaign of lying.
...there's something troubling--and telling--in the fact that his memo has provoked people to deny even the possibility of COVID-vaccine-related deaths. The idea that mRNA-based shots have, tragically, killed a very small number of children is not far-fetched. It also doesn't imply a catastrophic threat to public health, given that tens of millions of doses of these vaccines have safely been given out to young people. From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, lack of nuance has been a problem with public-health messaging--one that anti-vaccine advocates have made use of to great effect. Now, in a moment when public health in America is under existential threat, this insistence that no evidence exists for vaccine-related deaths risks adding to the crisis.
But children did not need the "vaccines," meaning that the risks of mandating it to them -- and the deaths that then occurred -- were absolutely unnecessary.
No public-health authorities deny that COVID shots can have some ill effects. Adverse reactions are possible with all medical interventions. The mRNA-based vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, in particular, are known to cause myocarditis--inflammation of the heart--on rare occasions, especially in teenage boys and young men. The form of myocarditis that occurs after vaccination is typically far less severe than the one caused by viruses; for unclear reasons, mRNA-related cases have largely disappeared in recent years. But this condition can be deadly, and considering the hundreds of millions of mRNA doses that have been administered to Americans, even extraordinarily unlikely outcomes may well be inevitable.
He doesn't want to lose his Leftwing Pinhead Membership Card, so he now pivots to attacking those who correctly said that children do not need the vaccine and in fact seem to be harmed by it:
The possibility--perhaps the likelihood--that a handful of vaccine-related deaths occurred and were downplayed by medical authorities does not undermine the fact that COVID vaccination, on the whole, has prevented death on a massive scale. Nor does it justify sweeping changes to vaccine regulations. Rather, it suggests the need for some targeted reforms, such as improvements to the country's vaccine-adverse-event reporting system--and also tells us that a strategy of minimizing tragic outcomes, however rare, may not be the best way to protect a vital instrument of public health.
Strom points out that this joker believes that RFKJr. is an "existential threat" to public health. Not the people who mandated that children take a vaccine that they did not need and which actually murdered a couple dozen of them, but the guy saying "Let's review the necessity and efficacy and safety of vaccines."
Strom mentions that once upon a time, he assumed the best of public health officials. Not any longer, of course.
I've written about this, but I'll mention it again: My own realization that public health officials consider it a badge of honor to blatantly lie to the pubic about public health -- to convince the uneducated to do what the educated want them to do, through any means necessary, including public disinformation campaigns -- came when I saw CNN's health correspondent Sanjay Gupta interview Obama's head of the CDC during the ebola outbreak.
During that outbreak, "The experts" decided to downplay the risk of the disease, instead of being hyper-alarmist. They did so because Obama had decided that the First Black President must never impose a temporary travel ban to any African country, even one in the midst of an ebola outbreak. So the marching orders went out to public health officials to convince the Uneducated Bigots of America that ebola was no big deal, really, You Racists.
Obama's CDC director claimed that ebola wasn't a danger for spreading because it could not be spread by "airborne transmission" but only by "direct contact." He said this specifically to allay fears of people on planes, trains, and buses that they could catch ebola from a fellow passenger.
Gupta asked, "So there's no risk if someone with ebola sneezes on another passenger? "
Obama's lying CDC directed reiterated that "ebola cannot be spread by airborne transmission," asserting that this statement answered the question.
But it didn't. Because we later learned that "airborne transmission" refers to disease-carrying bodies remaining in the air for hours and hours after the infected person has left the room. It refers to particles so light that they just "bounce" up and down in the air and don't sink to the ground for days.
But a sneeze is not considered "airborne transmission," even though it sounds like it should be, and even though Obama's CDC director insinuated that a sneeze would be a case of airborne transmission and ebola could not be spread by airborne transmission.
No, Gupta later told viewers in an update: A sneeze is considered direct contact with the infected person -- the spittle passes directly from them to anyone hit by the spray -- so yes, ebola is easily spread by a sneeze. And Obama's CDC director knew this, but he wanted to lie to the public, per Obama's wish to downplay the outbreak, so he told the world that ebola could not be passed via a sneeze.
It was a straight up lie. But he told it because the "experts" had decided that the value of keeping travel open to Africa outweighed Racist Americans' bigoted ideas about ebola being a killer disease that could literally liquify your internal organs, so "The Science" was changed to convince people of the political decision the "experts" had decided was best for them.
Earlier this year I started watching House, MD. The main character is an arrogant sociopath who routinely lies to patients about the risks or benefits of a course of treatment. He justifies this by noting that he went to medical school whereas most patients did not, and so he knows the right course of action and they simply don't. When told that this violates the law of informed consent, he snaps back that informed consent is a lie because informed consent is impossible for non-experts. So might as well lie to them or trick them into doing "the right thing," at least according to "the experts."
I mention that, of course, because it's not just a trait given to a fictional character on a TV show. There are a lot of people in medicine and particularly in the highly political field of government "public health" who share House's view on the impossibility of true informed consent and therefore the justification for simply lying to people to get them to do the "right" thing.
If you meet with a doctor, you're the client.
But you are not the client of "public health officials." The government, specifically the President or the state governor, is their client.
That's the person they are working for. You are just the rubes they're hustling to sell a product to.
Marjorie Taylor-Greene Now Pallin' Around With Terrorist-Supporting Chinese-Funded Antiamerica Group Code Pink
—Ace
The founder of the left-wing Code Pink organization, Medea Benjamin, hailed outgoing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Wednesday, saying she will "miss" her support for peace.Many on social media expressed shock and criticism at the odd pairing, while some observers mentioned "horseshoe theory" -- the idea that the extremes on the right and left have more in common with each other than with moderates.
"We visited Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene today to thank her for becoming such a strong anti war voice in congress and tell her we will miss her," Benjamin wrote in a statement on X.
Greene faced heavy backlash for the meeting from conservative commentators who argued it was a betrayal of values.
...
Greene herself explained the meeting in a statement on social media, saying he was committed to her anti-war stance.
...
"I've learned to find bridges with others and that's how we all win and ultimately leads to peace," she added.
I noticed a while ago that some people on the "right" -- the psuedoright, I call it -- seemed to be so happy to finally be able to be frenz with left-wingers that they rushed to adopt their positions. I remember being glad myself that some far-left people like Jimmy Dore seemed kind of based on a lot of issues, like covid vaccinations and Russiagate. It felt good to end the long political war with at least some members of the left.
But then I noticed that people like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly weren't just happy to hear Glenn Greenwald and Anna Kasparian agreeing with some rightist positions. They decided to return the favor and begin endorsing some extremist left-wing opinions themselves, like blaming Israel for Hamas' 10/7 massacre and generally adopting the Islamofascist talking point that Islam is a religion of peace and the only group making trouble between Christians and Muslims are, get this, The Jews.
Glenn Greenwald is apparently so charismatic that he honeytrapped Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson. He honeydicked them.
They've literally all adopted the exact positions held by the far left a year after 9/11. Except they don't just Blame America First, they Blame Israel First, and Blame America Second.
Other than that: Identical.
In their rush to oppose every part of neoconservativism, they've now made themselves enemies of foundational basic conservatism as well.
This isn't the far right, it's the far left.
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James Comer: We'll Subpoena Tampon Tim Walz to Prove His Involvement In Somali Fraud
—Ace
Yes. And audit all the finances of his family.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says he is willing to subpoena Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and failed vice-presidential candidate, over a fraud scheme in his state that reportedly saw hundreds of millions of dollars routed through nonprofits to Somali immigrants and others."If anyone that has received correspondence from us thus far requesting information, if they don't turn over that information, then they will get a subpoena. And we're serious about this. We're not going to back down," Comer warned in an interview with Just the News.
...Comer noted to Just The News that Walz and other Minnesota officials, like Attorney General Keith Ellison, have "hid" as the investigation proceeds.
"You know, Walz gets due process, but the way he's handling this, and the way Ellison, the attorney general, has kind of hid right now, makes me pretty confident that there's a massive amount of waste, fraud and abuse that's about to be detected here, and I'm going to predict that Walz's political career is closer to an end than somewhere in the middle."
Walz is running for his fourth term as Minnesota governor. I'd like to think that even leftwing Minnesotans have had enough, but we can't forget that left-wing Virginians happily voted for an AG who advocated for killing cops and killing political opponents' wives.
...
Comer reiterated that sentiment and suggested this is not an anomaly. "I think what we're going to find in Minnesota is probably happening in many other states. Minnesota could be, and hopefully is, the worst offender, but there are other blue states run by Democratic [Party] governors who refuse to turn over any data, not only to Congress, but to cabinet secretaries like Brooke Rollins who are trying to get a handle on programs like SNAP."
Of course, Democrats have a long history of enriching themselves in office:
During his tenure, Comer uncovered bank records showing that Hunter Biden received $6.5 million from Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, where he served on the board despite lacking expertise, with testimony from Devon Archer revealing that Hunter placed Joe Biden on speakerphone over 20 times with foreign associates to sell the "Biden brand" for influence, and allegations that Joe Biden's push to oust prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2015 aligned suspiciously with Burisma's pressure on Hunter for protection.
Mario Rubio Orders the State Department to Ditch Its Woke... Font
—Ace
Well if it's woke it's gotta go.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed all diplomats to revert to using the Times New Roman typeface in official communications and criticized his predecessor for shifting to Calibri, a font deemed too woke for the Trump administration.Two years ago, Rubio's predecessor, Antony Blinken, switched to Calibri, a softer, simpler-shaped, and wider font than Times New Roman, in part to assist individuals with certain visual disabilities such as low vision and dyslexia.
"Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence," Rubio wrote in an "action request," obtained by Reuters and the New York Times.
Times New Roman is lean and angular and masculine. Calibri is "plus-sized" and effeminate. It's a Gay Font.
Rubio reportedly dinged the Blinken-era switch to Calibri as "wasteful" and woke in his Dec. 9 cable to personnel."To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department's written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility] program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface," Rubio reportedly wrote.
Okay, so this is super-silly, but I'm in a spiteful mood and I don't oppose the instinct to wipe away all vestiges of the old demented Regime, even the trivial ones.
The Morning Rant: Superior American Edition
—CBD
The smug pomposity of Western Europe in the face of overwhelming data that show a rapidly collapsing culture and society is fascinating to behold. Birth rates among natives are far below replacement, church attendance has cratered, tax rates are onerous, crime is exploding, Churches are being burned or turned into mosques, free speech is now at the mercy of increasingly totalitarian governments, and on and on.
But they have "free" (but rationed) healthcare, and their trains are lovely and fast and mostly on time! Oh...lots of vacation too!
Apparently, being able to get around on nice trains trumps the loss of freedom, the lack of purchasing power to own an automobile (freedom's conveyance), Muslim rape gangs, life in tiny apartments with no air conditioning, minuscule appliances, sclerotic municipal services, and all the other complexities of an overweening regulatory and administrative state.
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The Morning Report — 12/11/25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. So, on the latest episode of the podcast, linked here as well as in the sidebar and on the outlets listed at the bottom of the post, CBD and I discussed the outstanding leadership of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in terms of revitalizing and reviving the readiness, capability and morale of our armed forces. With the ever present threat for sure posed by the Chi-Coms and a number of other bad actors including Iran, it is vital that President Trump has the absolute cream of the crop in terms of leadership at the Pentagon and so far Hegseth has proven himself quite capable. Now, with the President determined to thwart the influx of deadly fentanyl and other narcotics from overseas (primarily via south and central America, over land and via the sea lanes) that over the past decade and longer has left a staggering body count of dead and wasted lives that is akin to a small war or a very large and sadly ongoing bloody battle. To swipe the hyperbole of the Left when describing the January 6th non-insurrection non-riot, the body count is likely akin to several 9/11 style attacks combined. Add in the pain and suffering of their loved ones and the toll we have taken on so many levels is staggering. Lest we forget, the successful smuggling of these chemical weapons of mass destruction, and that's what fentanyl and opioids in the last analysis truly are, could not really happen without people in place on our shores to facilitate in the offloading and ultimate distribution of them right down to the dime-bag pushers on a street corner. Hence the crucial nature of border and immigration enforcement as well as the general law and order push vis a vis the ordering of National Guard troops to aid and assist local law enforcement in the apprehension of criminal elements, resisted by local politicians who are beholden to the insane policies of defunding the police, and decriminalization of crime by blue shit hole mayors, governors and DAs exclusively of the Democrat/Leftist persuasion.
So the shedding of oceans of crocodile tears for the drug smugglers that the US Navy has blown out of the water is disgusting in the extreme, although quite instructive as to who and what the anti-American Democrat Left actually care about. Hegseth as both a man and as a leader is everything that the Left is not and will never be. He, and of course Donald Trump, who Hegseth represents, is a nemesis to be destroyed. Not just because of that which is reason enough for the Left, but for what he is accomplishing, which to a large extent is the will of the people, but also for his potential future as a national political leader. — no I am not endorsing him for POTUS in 2028, but merely pointing out the salient fact that if he is allowed to continue with his successes without being hindered by his and our enemies, or should he step on a rake down the road (the laughable at best charges of infidelity or some other concocted closet skeleton), he does indeed from where I sit have a shot at national office at some time in the not too distant future (he's only 45)
The U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday.The tanker’s ownership and origin were not revealed, but Trump said the vessel was “very large” while speaking to reporters on Wednesday. The president did not offer the rationale behind the seizure during his remarks. “As you probably know, we’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela,” he said. “Large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized actually.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted video of the U.S. raid on an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday.
The video shows U.S. forces boarding and taking control of the vessel as part of an operation to enforce U.S. sanctions on the sale of Venezuelan oil.“[T]he Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” said Bondi. “For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” she added. “This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues.”
. . . The decision to seize the oil tanker strikes directly at Venezuela’s main source of revenue, its state-controlled oil industry. The oil it can produce through its state-owned oil company, PDVSA, is often sold internationally to countries such as Iran and China at steep discounts because of the risk of running afoul of U.S. sanctions.
Neither of the links state the final destination of the tanker, but although I cannot find where I read it, I'm fairly sure that I read somewhere that the tanker was bound for Cuba. Oh boy! Chee-Wah-Wah on so many levels if so. First, Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez have been a gigantic pain in our ass for years, let alone the long suffering Venezuelan people who, despite being awash in petroleum are among the poorest in Latin America and the world. But yes young Americans, let's all rush to transform the USA into a socialist paradise on earth, but I digress.
Venezuela aside, a number of South and central American nations are running in the opposite direction, much to the dismay of the Castro regime that still lords over the giant tropical gulag of Cuba. Thank you JFK. As for Venezuela, that regime has a long-standing partnership and close relationship with the mad mullahs of Iran, as well as Xi and the Chi-Coms who are itching to set up shop right on our doorstep to hamper if not strangle us economically, politically and if push comes to shove militarily.
That's why it is refreshing and sane that President Trump as well as Secretary of War Hegseth and Secretary of State Rubio are speaking with one very loud and clear voice in the aggressive reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine.
Western Hemisphere: The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.
It would be quite something to finally see Cuba libré after 65 or more years of being a communist slave state, if for no other reason than to see the jug-eared dog-eating piece of shit Barack Obama (who propped up the regime after Fidel was dragged down to Hell) shriek in agony as Donald Trump dynamites the statues of Castro, Lenin and Marx at that Havana reviewing stand, in the same manner as that giant Swastika was blasted off the reviewing stand at the Nuremberg Nazi rally site at the end of World War 2 – I Have a Dream Today!
Of course the treasonous, traitorous venal tyrants in our midst will do their best to prevent that from happening:
I give you a whore who babbles on . . .
During a recent interview with the far-Left Daily Beast, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), one of six Democrat lawmakers who collaborated on the infamous video telling service members they have a duty to refuse “unlawful orders,” made an extraordinary claim. She said they felt compelled to act because:There [were] so many people coming to us, who were on active duty who — recent veterans, family members of service members — who were coming to us individually and saying two things: One, ‘I’m concerned I’m going to sent in uniform to an American city, you know, like L.A., Chicago, Memphis, and I’m going to be asked to do things I either don’t think are legal or I’m not trained for. What do I do?
As CBD and I noted on the podcast, while President Trump perhaps ought to have informed Congress of his intentions to interdict and destroy Venezuelan drug running terrorists on the high seas and that he considers the Maduro regime and Maduro himself as complicit in running drugs and de facto terror leaders in doing so, the fact that he didn't do so beforehand makes little difference to me.
Given who and what the Democrats are, if past is prologue, someone for sure would have spilled the beans to Maduro ahead of time. Even if it meant putting the lives of American military personnel in danger. They hate Trump with the heat of 10,000 suns and hate America itself as much if not more because they, for the time being, have been thwarted in seizing absolute power. When they say "By any means necessary" they're not kidding as we have seen for almost 200 years now.
Sowing mutiny in the ranks. Look what was done to Derek Chauvin who merely did his job as a police officer, and how that affected police morale and recruitment. Luckily Trump and Hegseth are at the top of the heap and the average soldier and officer have little to fear in terms of a politicized attempt to drum someone out of the service for following orders, no matter how ridiculous or loudly SLUTkin and her ilk shriek "WAR CRIMES!" But if God-forbid a Democrat administration once again takes power, then you better believe a Stalinesque purge will sweep through the flag officer corps if not go down the line to just the average dogface for obeying, legitimate orders handed down by the C-in-C Donald Trump.
And so, with no other means to prop up their allies, that is America's enemies, resort to destroying morale and readiness. It's the Chicago/OBAMA way...
Unto my last breath, the greatest threat to America's national security was is and always will be the Democrat Left.
Have a good day.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
- Victor Davis Hanson: America warns Europe that only one of them is truly fighting to reverse the West’s decline—and the clock is running out for the other to follow suit. Cry the Beloved Europe?
- “I grew up in a Somali clan-based society … [where] Loyalty to kin was absolute. Loyalty to the nation was theoretical at best,” she writes ... (The Democrat Party is KLAN-based!, with a culture of civic corruption! - jjs) Hirsi Ali: Americans Must Suppress Somali Culture of Civic Corruption
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Daily Tech News 11 December 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Had a thunderstorm roll through last night and some of the lightning strikes came pretty close, but it passed without event. Or so I thought.
When I went to turn off the lights in the kitchen, it got very dark and very quiet. The only light remaining was the clock on the oven; everything else had lost power. And when I went downstairs to reset the breaker, it wasn't having it.
Put the fridge on an extension cord overnight - the rest of the house had power - and left it for the morning.
This morning I unplugged absolutely everything, reset the breaker - which now accepted its fate - and plugged things in again one at a time, waiting for it all to go phut.
Got down to the bar fridge and the dishwasher, which are on the same plug somehow. Took a deep breath, and plugged them in.
They work. Everything works.
I dunno.
- Operation Bluebird wants to steal Twitter's trademark from Twitter. (The Verge) (archive site)
We have built a social platform that will look familiar to those that used legacy Twitter, but with new tools that provide a safer experience and empower the user to decide what types of content they engage in.
It's a hugbox for crazies.
Like Bluesky. But we already have Bluesky. For now; it's dying pretty swiftly.Intellectual property attorney Douglas Masters says he is doubtful that Operation Bluebird's claims will be successful. "I don't know that the record ultimately will show that even though they [X Corp.] switched to X, that they intended to give up all of their commercial use and rights in the word Twitter," Masters tells The Verge.
Well, yeah. You can go to twitter.com right now and it works.
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Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - December 10, 2025 [Frosty Rex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for 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.
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Exciting Innovations in Photography Cafe
—Ace
Grand Central Station, 1929
The caption noted that this shot is no longer possible,
as tall buildings outside the station block the sun
Cutting edge baby photography.
Yesterday I posted a too-good-to-be-true video I was sure was AI. Today, I present one that's even more obviously fake as f***. I don't even need your help in finding the fakery and AI slop here.
High speed photographs of goofy dogs catching treats in dey moufs.
Firefighting helicopter drops water with laser accuracy.
Cute little lizard hides in water, using his own scuba tank.
Four day old giraffe is a shortie.
An "ice shove."
Big horn sheep butt heads.
Humpback mom and calf.
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The National Republican Senate Committee Tricked Jasmine Ratchet Into Running for Texas Senate;
Kumala Harris Still Wants to Run for President
—Ace
Marxist rag the New Republic reports on Republicans high-fiving each other for manipulating low-IQ narcissist into running for Senate. Apparently the Democrats were not polling to see how the plus-sized imbecile would do in a primary, so the Republicans did run one. And then they publicized the results when it showed her as a genuine threat to win the primary.
A source familiar with the process told NOTUS that GOP machinations to prop up Crockett's run first began in June, when Texas Democrats met to discuss 2026 midterm elections--and the firebrand Democrat wasn't invited, or included in any initial polls.In July, the National Republican Senatorial Committee published a poll that found that Crockett was the preferred candidate among Democratic voters. "When we saw the results, we were like, 'OK, we got to disseminate this far and wide,'" the source told NOTUS.
After the NRSC included Crockett's name in their poll, other surveys started to include her too. The source told NOTUS that those polls were then aggressively seeded into progressive digital spaces by NRSC allies to "orchestrate the pile on" of promising polling numbers and drive the narrative that support for Crockett was "surging."
The source dubbed the system of trying to pull in a weaker candidate who would lose to the Republican challenger as an "AstroTurf recruitment process."
This is a deception campaign that will go down in history as the greatest since the Allies convinced Hitler they would invade at Calais rather than Normandy:
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Fed Cuts Prime Rate 0.25%; Trump Pivots to "Make America Affordable Again"
—Ace
A big reason for the loss of support from independents is the persistent Biden inflation and not-yet-hot economy.
The Fed is resisting actually boosting the economy, making the smallest possible reductions in the prime lending rate incrementally to have the smallest possible positive impact on the economy.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced its third interest rate cut of the year as policymakers moved forward with the cut to support the labor market despite elevated inflation.Fed policymakers voted to lower the benchmark federal funds rate by 25 basis points to a new range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The move follows rate cuts of that size in September and October, which were the first of the year.
Policymakers have been tracking economic data showing a slowdown in the labor market in recent months as companies adjust to shifts in trade and immigration policy. Meanwhile, inflation has trended higher as tariff-related price hikes filter through the economy.
Those dynamics have put the Fed in a difficult spot as it looks to fulfill its dual mandate goals of stable prices in line with the 2% long-run target for inflation as well as promoting maximum employment.
Trump has sensed the dissatisfaction and the complaint that he's too focused on foreign policy. He's now on tour pushing his Make America Affordable Again agenda.
President Trump began his affordability tour in northeastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday, telling supporters he's focused on one thing -- driving prices down nationwide. Steering clear of insider chatter about political fallout or what the pundits say Republicans "should" be worried about, Trump framed the stop as the opening salvo of a national push to restore economic sanity."I have no higher priority than making America affordable again," he told supporters, hammering Democrats for driving prices higher and insisting his policies are already reversing the trend. "They caused the high prices, and we're bringing them down. It's a simple message."
...
On energy, Trump pointed to what he called "the greatest amount of drilling" and fuel production the country has seen in years -- a supply boost he credits for driving oil prices down. "When energy comes down, your other prices come down," he said, arguing that lower fuel and shipping costs ripple across grocery aisles, construction, and manufacturing.
Trump also previewed what he cast as immediate relief coming on January 1, when key provisions from his Big Beautiful Bill take effect. "We're putting thousands of dollars in the pockets of hard-working Pennsylvanians," he said. "No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors."
He blasted the "four years of disaster" under the Biden administration, reminding the crowd that inflation hit 9.1% on Biden's watch and insisting that Democrats have no credibility lecturing anyone about affordability. "When Biden and congressional Democrats had power, they blew up our economy, sent prices soaring," he said. "Now they want to take us right back to Bidenomics."
He also got the UK to drop artificial drug price controls, which will allow him in turn to reduce tariffs on imported British drugs, thus reducing some drug prices in America.
Under the terms of the deal, the U.K. will relax its artificial drug price controls, and in return the U.S. will refrain from imposing tariffs on British medicines, pharmaceutical ingredients and medical devices. That constitutes a win/win for both nations.For decades, America has led the world in drug innovation, accounting for approximately two-thirds of all new medicines introduced to the world annually. That's the direct result of our greater emphasis on free markets and protection of intellectual property (IP) -- patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets -- compared to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, over time that has cultivated a "free rider" problem vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
...
Simply put, for too long Americans have disproportionately subsidized the world's drug innovation pipeline.
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Iran May Abandon Its Capital Tehran Due to Severe Water Shortage
—Ace
"I didn't do nuffin'," emails God.
This story has been brewing for a while. It's a glacially slow news day, so I'll post it.
Tehran may be forced to evacuate due to a severe water crisis, with experts warning that all taps in the city could soon run dry.Officials say that the Iranian capital is facing a Day Zero moment in the near future -- when all water supplies run out.
I like that, So Dramatic.
Iran has faced severe drought for six years, with Tehran's rainfall in the first two months of the current water year, which begins on 1 October, at near zero, leaving reservoir supplies at dangerously low levels.Officials in Tehran have undertaken a number of measures, including reducing water pressure, discussing rationing and imposing cuts. They have also suggested more radical solutions, such as evacuation or moving the capital if rain does not return.
"We are talking about a few days or even weeks of water left for Tehran," Kaveh Madani, director of the UN's University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, told Canada's CBC broadcaster.
"Day Zero, as we call it in the water sector, is near. It's a day that the taps would run dry."
In early November, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian warned: "If it doesn't rain in Tehran by late November, we'll have to ration water. And if it still doesn't rain, we'll have to evacuate Tehran."
Typically, rain should start falling in Iran in autumn, following Iran's hot summer. But the September to November period just gone is the driest the country has seen in half a century, the National Weather Forecasting Centre has reported. Rainfall has been 89 per cent below the long-term average.
God is sitting back, filing His nails.
Mr Pezeshkian described the situation as "extremely critical", citing reports that Tehran's dam reservoirs have fallen to their lowest level in 60 years, some as low as 10 per cent of capacity. Officials say that in the east of Tehran, the Latyan Dam -- one of five key reservoirs -- is only about 9 per cent full. The Karaj dam, which supplies a quarter of Tehran's drinking water, is 8 per cent full.
This is interesting -- Tehran's reservoirs are apparently administered by LA Mayor Karen Bass. Who knew.
I've heard about a lot of Impending Disasters and most of them didn't pan out. So I'm not anticipating an abandonment of the capital.
Jewish Space Weather Control Lasers
Making the deserts bloom and making blooms into deserts for 60 years.
Justice Ketanji D-EI: The President Must Defer to the Unelected "Experts" Who Should Really Run Our Lives for Us
—Ace
Ketanji D-EI doesn't bother hiding her Marxist disdain for the popular vote, preferring all powers to be held by a, let's say, Revolutionary Vanguard of some kind.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson used Tuesday's Trump v. Slaughter arguments to float a genuinely stunning view of executive power -- one where the president of the United States couldn't fire the very people serving inside his own government. The case itself centers on whether President Trump had the authority to remove former FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a long-standing restriction on presidential oversight of so-called independent agencies.Jackson argued that scientists, economists, doctors, and other agency "experts" should be insulated from presidential authority entirely, claiming that allowing a president to fire them is "not in the best interest" of Americans.
Her exchange with U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer made her philosophy unmistakable. Jackson questioned why these agencies answer to the president at all, saying she didn't understand why they aren't effectively controlled by Congress instead. "Congress established them and can eliminate them," she said -- a remarkable suggestion that the legislative branch, not the president, should control vast stretches of the executive branch.
She then laid out the scenario she fears: a president firing "all the scientists, and the doctors, and the economists, and the PhDs" and replacing them with loyalists. In her view, that hypothetical alone justifies limiting a president's removal power across agencies that shape everything from transportation regulation to monetary policy.
Sauer pushed back, arguing that her position flips the Constitution on its head. Allowing unelected boards to operate beyond presidential control, he warned, "subjugates" the separation of powers. The president isn't a spectator -- he's the elected official charged with running the executive branch, not rubber-stamping decisions made by bureaucrats no voter ever chose.
I called this from before the election. The Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) began a propaganda campaign to convince the country that while the GOP won all three official branches of government, there was a Secret Fourth Branch of Government -- the permanent left-wing bureaucracy -- which Akshually had the power to overrule the other three branches of government and run the country.
Needing some power center in government, they're willing an independent, permanent, unelected, unaccountable fourth branch of government into existence.
We heard the same thing under George W. Bush. Locked out of the government, the communist Democrat Party and the media (but I repeat myself again) insisted that it was unfair of Bush to fire Clinton's US Attorneys because those Attorneys had a constitutional duty to check Bush's power. They also insisted the DOJ should be "independent" of the actual President and his appointed-and-confirmed AG.
It's always the same playbook. As soon as Democrats get a political rebuke, they assert that the unelected, nigh-unfirable federal bureaucracy is the Real Legitimate Government of the country.
There is no "fourth branch of government," as Gorsuch instructed Ketanji D-EI.
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Federal Judge Okays the Release of Epstein Grand Jury Transcripts
—Ace
U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman reversed his earlier decision to keep the transcripts sealed, citing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was enacted last month, creating a narrow exception to rules that normally keep grand jury proceedings confidential, The Associated Press reported. The law requires the government to open its files on Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Berman previously cautioned that the roughly 70 pages of grand jury materials slated for release are hardly revelatory.
The law requires that the Justice Department release Epstein-related records to the public by Dec. 19.
Based on the lack of earth-shattering disclosures so far, I think we're going to continue to not see earth-shattering disclosures. We will see the names of people we already knew were connected to Epstein, like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Clinton Energy Secretary and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, and it will be good to have that official confirmation, but I do not expect we'll get confirmation of QAnon/Pizzagate/Tucker Carlson claims of an Israel-CIA pedophile blackmail operation.
Maybe we will. We'll see.
But a heuristic I apply without even thinking about it is noting the general "shape" of a theory that turns out to be true. The "shape" of a true story features drip-by-drip disclosures that, while maybe not proving the theory, nevertheless build confidence in the theory until, at some point, the theory is proven.
Look at the theories that covid was man-made and specifically leaked from the Wuhan Covid Lab. (Giveaway right there, huh?) Every few weeks we got another bit of information that tended to suggest -- and sometimes strongly suggest -- that covid was man-made in the Wuhan lab. And that Anthony Fauci knew it, and bribed scientists to lie about it.
The theory did not sit for years and years with no confirmatory information being discovered.
In the case of a theory that does sit for years without actual evidence emerging to support it: I begin doubting that theory.
As Fermi said about aliens: If they exist, well, where are they?
And if this theory has actual evidence supporting it: Well, where is it?
They say an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but.... come on, when people are digging for the evidence and not finding it, yeah, it is at least evidence that that evidence doesn't exist.
If you set out to prove dodos actually survived and spend years looking for dodos but can't find any, it does suggest that yeah, dodos probably did go extinct.
If there continues to be no evidence of the Strong Form of the Epstein theory, the claims that the CIA and a foreign state, sometimes unnamed but always believed to be Israel, engaged in a huge blackmail operation against the political leadership of the United States, at some point, we have to accept that this theory, while plausible and even attractive, just isn't true.
But that won't be admitted. We'll have Chromatic Aberrations all over again.
Well, they're hiding the documents that prove that, that information never came out during the grand jury investigation because Israel and the CIA warned the prosecutor not to "go there," etc.
As they say about capital C capital T Conspiracy Theories -- the unfalsifiable kind, the nigh-religious dogma kind -- lack of evidence of a Conspiracy Theory is just further proof of the how deep the Conspiracy goes.
I was completely willing to speculate about such a multinational conspiracy theory. I didn't dismiss it out of hand.
But at some point: We either need evidence for it or the people pushing it need to admit they don't care about evidence of the lack of evidence, and that in their minds, it's not a Conspiracy Theory. It's a Conspiracy Fact, period, and no contrary evidence can change that.
But like I said: We'll see. It could turn out that the transcripts do point to a much bigger operation going on on Pedo Island, beyond a pedophile making his young girls available to his politically-connected, financially-connected pals.
Update: It just occurred to me that people think about a foreign blackmail operation because they don't know how Epstein made his money or why he was so determined to cultivate pedo-friendships with people like Bill Clinton or Larry Summers.
Well, I just remembered, we know that every Congressman winds up a millionaire in five years from stock trading. Hillary Clinton made a fortune in cattle futures in the 90s, which she always lied about, claiming she made the picks herself just by reading the Wall Street Journal.
So: We know that the politically connected are routinely given non-public insider-trading information by industry insiders.
Couldn't Epstein's operation just be based on simple greed? He cultivated pedo pals who had access to insider information, which he then used for his own profit, while rewarding them with access to underage girls.
I'm not saying that's what was going on. I'm just offering that as a counter-explanation to the major foreign/domestic intelligence community blackmail theory.
