Billy Bush: I Know For a Fact That ABC "News" Had an Entire Division of 75 People "Dedicated to Getting [Trump]"

—Disinformation Expert Ace

You mean George Stephanopolous continues to be a Democrat propaganda minister the same as he's been his entire life?

You've been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!

Former TV host Billy Bush alleged ABC News had an entire "division" dedicated to "get" Donald Trump during the 2016 election.

Remember, Bush used to work for NBC so he's not a rando.

Former TV host Billy Bush alleged ABC News had an entire "division" dedicated to "get" Donald Trump during the 2016 election.

"ABC News had a division. They had a division dedicated with 75 people in it -- because I knew the guy who ran the division, which was dedicated to basically getting him," Bush said on Thursday's installment of the "Hang Out with Sean Hannity" podcast.

Bush, who was swept up in the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape that nearly derailed Trump's first presidential campaign, recalled the last meeting he had with then-NBC News chairman Andy Lack before Bush was ousted at the Peacock network.

"I said, 'Andy, I understand what you want to do with this [the "Access Hollywood" footage] and what you want to weaponize this because there's a debate on Sunday night, the second debate with Hillary and Donald,'" Bush said. "And sure enough, it was the first question to come out of Anderson Cooper's mouth. He was the moderator."

The semen-hued nepo baby used to work at ABC "News" before getting hired at CNN.
He also worked for CBS on 60 Minutes.

"This was it! This was -- there has always been an 'it' to get Trump, but this was definitely it at the time," he continued.

...

When asked for comment, Bush declined to identify who allegedly ran the alleged anti-Trump division at ABC News but suggested the person no longer works at the network. ABC News did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

The Disney-owned network has had a long, contentious relationship with Trump. In 2017, ABC News was forced to retract a report alleging that fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn would testify that Trump had ordered him to make contact with Russians about foreign policy while Trump was still a candidate.

...

In December 2024, just weeks before Trump was sworn into office for his second term, ABC News paid a $16 million settlement to Trump after he filed a defamation lawsuit earlier in the year for comments made by "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Stephanopoulos had falsely claimed that Trump was "found liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll case when, in fact, a civil jury ruled he was liable for "sexual abuse." ABC News issued an apology as part of the settlement, which was reportedly approved by then-Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Sick of High Energy Prices, the Irish People Rise Up in Protest

—Disinformation Expert Ace

They're blocking the streets in cities and, a little counter-productively, fuel depots.

) Protesters calling for ​further government help to lower the cost of fuel clogged up busy thoroughfares ‌and motorways with parked lorries and tractors across Ireland on Wednesday, disrupting commuters and public transport for a second successive day.

Convoys of vehicles began converging on Dublin's city centre and other towns and cities on Tuesday, with ​protesters, including hauliers and farmers, complaining that a 250 million euro package to temporarily cut ​taxes on petrol and diesel did not go far enough to cushion the ⁠knock-on cost of the Middle East conflict.

"With the price we're paying for fuel, I'm probably two ​months away from my business folding," said Christopher Duffy, 46, an agricultural contractor who was part ​of a group blocking Dublin's main thoroughfare of O'Connell Street that is calling for the price of diesel to be capped at a lower rate.

"It's not a lot to ask for really... We're just backed into a ​corner."

Ministers said they would not agree to the protesters' demands to meet with them as they ​did not belong to representative groups with whom the government has been engaging on supports. Organisers pledged a ‌third ⁠day of disruption on Thursday.

Do you think they'd agree to meet with the protesters if they were 1, communists, 2, Islamofascists, or 3, both?

Because I do. I know there's one group of people who aren't allowed to protest and whose concerns just don't matter.

"We respect people's right to protest but what is not acceptable is people declaring that we will turn O'Connell Street into a car park," Prime Minister Micheal Martin told a news conference.

Again, I see the Extinction Agenda doing this every day and I never see European politicians objecting. I see Islamists blocking the streets during peak traffic hours to "pray" and definitely not assert their control over swathes of England and France.

But these people? They're a riotous menace that must be put down.

Indeed, the "Irish" government now says it is ready to deploy the military against its citizens.

The army is being called in to help remove vehicles blocking roads, with the Irish police now treating protests at fuel depots as "blockades".

Travel in parts of the country is being affected for the third day in a row, with slow-moving convoys protesting against high fuel prices caused by the US and Israeli war against Iran.

The Irish Minister for Justice, Jim O'Callaghan, said there would be "legal consequences" for the protests.

"It might not arise today or tomorrow but people have licences to drive vehicles, those licences will be affected."

O'Callaghan added that he expected insurance coverage to become "void as a result of the owner of the equipment deciding to voluntarily get involved in such illegal activity".

Gardaí (Irish police) can request the assistance of the Irish army in "aid to the civil power... when required".

In a statement on Thursday, a gardaí spokesperson said the force was "moving to an enforcement phase" unless those blocking access to critical infrastructure "desist and disperse".

But Muslims are still allowed to occupy the streets to "pray," yeah?

More threatening language against the Davos-hated normies, the one group of people you can brutalize when they annoy you:

"The blocking of critical national infrastructure will not be permitted to continue and the assistance of the Defence Forces has been requested," justice minister Jim O'Callaghan said in a statement.

He said large vehicles would be removed -- and warned owners to "remove them immediately" on Thursday morning, or face the possibility of them being damaged.

Owners "should not complain later about any damage caused to those vehicles during removal", he said.

"Denying people access to fuel and clean water is an unacceptable interference in the most basic of human rights," he added.

They can bully and brutalize the normies precisely because they are law-abiding and do not blow things up when they're angry.

We'll see how long that continues.

You're Not Going to Believe This, But Leftwing "Republicans" Are Pitching, Get This, Comprehensive Amensty Reform Yet Again, This Time With a Hot New Name Designed to Appeal to Your Psychology: "The DIGNITY Act"

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Well who could possibly be against Dignity?

You're not against la dignidad, are you, Racist?

This bill is cosponsored by 20 "bipartisan" Democrats and Democrats who run as Republicans because the rubes they're conning lean right. It is pushed by long, long time Amnesty Whore Maria Elvira Salazar.

Bonchie @bonchieredstate

23h

It's literally no deportations, work permits, and a pathway to citizenship.

What exactly do you think the word amnesty means?

Rep. María Elvira Salazar @RepMariaSalazar

Apr 7
READ. THE. BILL. BEFORE. YOU. OPEN. YOUR. MOUTH.

Calling the DIGNITY Act "amnesty" isn't just wrong. It's a deliberate distortion and it exposes just how little you know about the bill.

This is enforcement first: zero tolerance for criminals, permanent border security, and hard, earned requirements to step forward and face the law, so American workers are protected, not undercut.

Amnesty is the chaos you've defended, millions in the shadows, no control, no accountability, and a system that stopped working a long time ago.

No shortcuts. No giveaways. No blanket forgiveness. That's law and order. That's DIGNITY.

Does that sound like a lie to you?

Because it is:

Community Note Currently rated helpful 21h

Directly addresses the post's claim · Provides important context
It grants amnesty: permanent residency (Dream Act), deferred action & legal status (Dignity Program), and halts deportations. Wipes 3/10 year bans, creates inspected and admitted loophole, grants AG power to terminate deportation for family "hardship"

Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol

21h

Replying to @RepMariaSalazar

So, I did exactly what you asked and I sat down and read ALL 261 pages of your bill.

It does support mass amnesty and I'll tell you exactly where:

Pages 162-170... The Dream Act:

You grant conditional lawful permanent resident status to ILLEGAL ALIENS who:

>Have been continuously present in the U.S. since January 1, 2021
>Entered before age 18
>Meet education, employment, or military service requirements
>Pass criminal background checks

On top of this, in Sec. 2102(b)(3)(B), DACA recipients get fast-tracked to conditional green card status.

...which is literally mass amnesty

BUT THE BILL GOES EVEN FURTHER!!!

On pages 204-217, you present the Dignity Program:

This is a separate track for illegal aliens who don't qualify for the Dream Act.

If you are an illegal aliens who:

> Was continuously present since December 31, 2020
>Pay a $1,000 upfront "restitution" fee
>Submit biometrics, pass a background check
>No felony convictions

You get work authorization + travel authorization + deferred removal for 7 years

After completing the 7-year program (paying $7,000 total in fees, staying employed, obeying laws, paying back taxes):

We grant you:
> "Dignity Status" which is essentially a lawful nonimmigrant status, which is renewable any number of times
>Work and travel authorization

But the most important bit that you're hiding here is that it totally suspends deportation of anyone who qualifies for this.

This would effective end ALL MASS DEPORTATIONS in the United States immediately.

You are a liar, you are a fraud, everything you stand for is fake... did YOU read your own bill?

Because I just did, and you are a damned LIAR!!!!!

It's not just that, either. The bill specifically forbids the use of court records to establish someone is a gang member. It pretends that gang members aren't eligible -- but then forbids the government from using court evidence to show someone is a gang member.

Now I have a feeling I know the lie she'll offer: Well, if someone is convicted of being a gang member, then they would be barred from amnesty.

But hang on: Who is ever "convicted of being a gang member"? There is no crime of being a gang member. Gang members are frequently jailed -- but for things like extortion, murder, rape, arson, theft, selling stolen goods, importing and selling drugs, etc.

You might get a sentence lengthened if the prosecutor, during the sentencing phase, then presents additional evidence that in addition to the crimes you've been convicted of committing, you're also a gang member.

A judge might make it a condition of someone's parole that he no longer participate in gang activities -- and a prosecutor or parole officer might present to the court that the criminal has violated that condition.

But this isn't "conviction for being a gang member." It's intelligence and evidence presented to a judge in a post-sentencing hearing, not presented to a jury to determine if someone is factually a gang member or not.

But this is exactly the kind of evidence this nasty lying whore forbids the government from using to prove that someone is a gang member.

So there is literally no evidence that the government can ever present to prove someone is a gang member and hence not eligible for Salazar's Mass Amnesty.

So all gang members will be granted amnesty, because the government is absolutely forbidden to open its records to show someone is a gang member.

But she'll lie to you and say that proven gang members aren't eligible. Asterisk: There is no evidence permitted to be introduced to prove someone is a gang member.

But this isn't amnesty, Bigots.

READ. THE BILL. BEFORE. YOU OPEN. YOUR MOUTHS. RACISTS.

DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican Hello Representative Salazar,

You probably don't even know this... but he word "dignity" in your bill's title carries decades of political science literature behind it.

Dignity shifted from something that originates within the individual to something engineered from above by institutions. When the UN, NGOs, and multilateral bodies invoke dignity, they mean the replacement of organic, inherited civic bonds with managed, contractual ones administered by a professional class. That is the tradition your bill's language is drawing from, whether you intend it or not.

On the substance: the DIGNITY Act is amnesty. Symbolic barriers to permanent residency do not change that the bill provides a path to legal status for tens of millions of people who entered the country unlawfully. Others have dissected the policy details thoroughly, so I won't repeat their work here.

But I want to press a different question. Why the insistence that this isn't amnesty? The most straightforward explanation is that you know your constituents oppose it. They voted for enforcement, in the most demographically diverse Republican coalition in modern history. That coalition didn't ask for managed integration. It asked for sovereignty.

The Founding Fathers built a republic from the bottom up, starting with human nature as it actually is: rooted in specific communities. The rules-based international order builds from the top down, starting with an abstract ideal and engineering populations to match it. Your bill, whatever its intentions, belongs to the second tradition, the one that is non-American. It assumes that cohesion can be manufactured through NGO programs... public schools, civic integration, managed assimilation... rather than protected through enforcement of the boundaries that a self-governing people chose to establish.

That is not a conservative position. It is not a republican position in any meaningful sense.

And your constituents can see it.

We see you.

You are a fraud, Representative Salazar.

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals: Pornographers Have No "Right" to Sell Their Pornography to Taxpayer Funded School Libraries So That Children Have Access to Their Porn

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals announces stunning legal conclusion: Schools do not "owe" pornographers the "right" to have taxpayer-funded schools purchase their pornography to make it available to children in school libraries.

This is where we are: This was actually a live debate in the courts.

Authors of pornographic books do not have an inalienable right to sell their goods to school libraries, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday.

A coalition of LGBT groups, free-speech organizations, authors, and publishers is challenging an Iowa law requiring schools to ensure that books are "age-appropriate."

Senate File 496 explicitly refers to books with "descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act" and says school libraries cannot hand them out to kids.

This upset Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins, who all really want to place pornographic books in front of kids.

However, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a preliminary injunction against the law, holding that schools have a "legitimate pedagogical" interest in which books are accessible to kids during the day.

...

The court further ruled that children do not have a right to read certain books in schools, and this does not amount to a book ban.

"The First Amendment does not guarantee students the right to access books of their choosing at taxpayer expense," the ruling stated, citing case precedents.

Hello! Happy Thursday, one of the best days of the week!

Just a quick slumpbuster if you would, or even if you wouldn't.

Here's a little news on me: I got almost eight hours of uninterrupted sleep last night and my energy levels are yuge. I've gotten a huge amount done this morning. Went after it hard twenty minutes after getting up. Unfortunately I've been working on a bunch of things to the exclusion of the first post of the day, which is why I'm posting this quickie.

(Oh, varnishing done, but there is a little left in the can so I'm going to slop on one more coat on to the top.)

Man, do you people routinely get a full night of sleep and have this much energy? If so, I feel really cheated.

The Morning Rant: Iran Is Not Of The West

—CBD

The gulf between East and West is massive, and the best way to see it is to negotiate. Westerners, animated by 2,500 years of Western culture -- based on empiricism and truth and morality -- make implicit assumptions about the motives of the people across the table: that they are motivated by the same goals...an honest and fair agreement that recognizes the needs of both parties.

And those are laughable from the perspective of the rest of the world. Lying, cheating, outright stealing is part of the game, and they simply take advantage of the morality of Western culture to get what they want, and be damned with the other parties to the agreement.

Iran has never and will never negotiate in good faith. Their goals will never change, and until those goals are seen as 100% unobtainable, they will continue along the same path. And what are those goals? Regional hegemony. A nuclear arsenal. The destruction of Israel. The destruction of America. How can honest negotiation proceed if those goals are immutable?

Vance says "ceasefires are always messy" and U.S. "never indicated" Lebanon would be included in deal with Iran

The U.S. never promised Lebanon would be included in the ceasefire agreement, Vance said, despite Iran's claims it was, chalking that up to a "reasonable misunderstanding" between the parties.

Vance said he's not confident in how well Ghalibaf understands English, "because there are things that he said, frankly, that didn't make sense in the context of negotiations that we've had."

On Wednesday, the Iranian Parliament speaker claimed the U.S. is violating three parts of a ceasefire deal, citing continued fire in Lebanon, a drone allegedly entering Iranian airspace and a "denial of Iran's right to enrich uranium." Vance said that if Ghalibaf only has three points of disagreement, there must be quite a lot of agreement.

What is actually going on is murky, but it is entirely possible that Ghalibaf does not have overall authority, or he is simply lying and Iran had no intention of opening Hormuz. Or both. And the IRGC and the Iranian government are not one and the same, unlike Western countries with militaries that answer to civilian leadership.

That is why the only clear path to a peaceful Iran is the total destruction of their military capacity, and the decapitation of the IRGC down to the squad level. Negotiation will never change the savage focus of the Mullahs and the IRGC, and to assume that there are "moderate" factions within Iran that can take control is just silly. Absent a successful revolution and the ascension of Pahlavi or another anti-Mullah figure to a position of authority, Iran will not change.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

The Dugout
Norman Rockwell

The Morning Report — 4/9 /26

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. The situation with Iran and the ceasefire remains at the forefront of the news. And as the ceasefire begins, friend and friend of the blog, Middle East and Islam expert par excellence Robert Spencer declares, with tongue planted firmly in cheek:

Oh, Great, Peace in the Middle East Again — Hey, I’m as happy as everyone else, but I can’t help but notice those missiles raining down on Israel. . .

. . . A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else! The United States of America will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz. There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process. We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just “hangin’ around” in order to make sure that everything goes well. I feel confident that it will. Just like we are experiencing in the U.S., this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP The Islamic Republic of Iran was likewise in a celebratory mood, and in its joyful exuberance, fired off a round or two of celebratory missiles and drones into Israel and the Sunni states that it has targeted since the beginning of this conflict. Fox News’ Trey Yingst reported that on “Ceasefire day 1,” Israel “took multiple waves of Iranian missile fire after the ceasefire was announced.

WELL, not to doubt our friend but Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has declared:

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed Wednesday that Iran is under a new regime with a “new calculus” about negotiating with the United States, just a day after President Donald Trump threatened total destruction over the nation’s intractability.

That seals the deal for me, and yet we have all these doubting thomases.

When President Trump first struck Iran over a month ago, I took a “wait and see” approach. I wasn’t supportive of the foreign intervention, as it seemed unwise and reckless. But there was a possibility the blowback could be minimal. Trump had previously killed Qasem Soleimani and bombed Iran with hardly any consequences. History could repeat itself once again with the Khamenei assassination.
It’s clear now that this war was a grievous mistake. We did not achieve regime change, nor did we even get a more amenable leader to deal with Iran. The Islamic Republic isn’t going to give up its missiles or nuclear program. While Iran has lost many of its leaders and military installations, it’s still able to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and strike critical infrastructure throughout the Middle East. With these advantages, the Islamic Republic has upended the global economy and world oil supply. It’s more likely America and its allies will make serious concessions to open the strait than it is for Iran to meet Trump’s initial demands.

In all seriousness for the past 47 years, the regime in Iran has spilled oceans of innocent blood in its eternal jihad and quest to conquer the world in the cause of Islam. The fecklessness, acquiescence and surrender of prior American and western nations to Iran in not defending Western Civilization from this threat to the advancement of humanity and civilization is why we are facing an existential threat. In that regard, the attempt to take Iran down had to be done sooner or later. Trump bucked the tide of prior administrations that were at best indifferent/ineffective (Reagan, Busshes)at worst collaborationist and) (Carter, Clinton, Obama/Biden).

At this point it certainly looks as if President Trump has painted himself into a corner.

The world breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday night on news of a cease-fire in the Iran war, but this is certainly no time for President Donald Trump to go wobbly.

If he can’t work out a comprehensive deal to end the Iran threat for good, he needs to get the jets back in the air over Iran pronto — and let the bombs drop.

If not, he does risk that TACO label. Trump saw enough hope for a peace deal — and an “immediate” opening of the Strait of Hormuz — to hold off, for now, on the enormous additional devastation he threatened to inflict on the Iranian regime.

Fine.But it’s far from clear what, exactly, the Iranian leaders he’s dealing with (whoever they are) will ultimately agree to. And stick to.

That’s why any deal to be worked out over the next weeks must be absolutely air-tight.

It must cover all the bases, paving the way for a future Iran that can’t continue to threaten the world and wreak havoc, whether through actual violence or economic terrorism. . .Nor can Iran’s negotiators be allowed to drag out the talks indefinitely, spared of fresh airstrikes from the United States or Israel.

Trump must be prepared to resume bombing, including of infrastructure used by Iran’s military, if — as he would put it — he smells BS.

Indeed, he should warn publicly (and not just threaten but mean it) that he’s ready to restart the attacks, and even ratchet them up, if Iran refuses to meet his conditions.

Let’s face it: This is the world’s one chance to end the 47-year Iran nightmare once and for all — or at least to set conditions that can lead to its end.

It’s Trump’s chance to make good on his promise that Iran will never have nuclear weapons. Not in a year. Not in 10 years.

Remember, it took 47 years for any US president to confront the ayatollahs the way Trump has. No other leader will have the guts to do it again. Look at North Korea’s nukes if you doubt it.

Yet Trump himself may be less willing to prolong the war now: Oil prices fell the minute he announced the cease-fire. The markets shot up. .

Back here at home there are other things happening. On a related note we have a point counterpoint to contemplate:
POINT:

The Fall of Islam It will start here in Texas, and inspire others in America to stand.

To Colonel Allen West I would say "Unless and until Islam falls in Mecca and way too much of the rest of the western world and in the hearts nd minds of all its billion and a half adherents, we're merely trying to hold back the tide."

Counterpoint: with backstabbing blithering fools like this, we're going under.

Texas AG Candidate Tried To Force Towns To Greenlight Development Of Muslim ‘Sharia Cities’

Elsewhere we have madness from the courtrooms to contend with:

In an apparent effort to delay and thus perhaps permanently undermine justice for Iryna Zarutska's killer, prosecutors have accepted the assessment from Central Regional Hospital, leaving a judge to decide whether to reject the assessment and proceed with the April 30 hearing to delay 180 days as the hospital and prosecutors recommend. The new claim that Decarlos Brown is "incapable to proceed" on state murder charges became public in a motion filed April 7, according to the New York Post. Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr. already had 14 arrests on his record when he boarded a Charlottesubway train in August 2025 with violence on his mind. Brown did not know Iryna, who was also riding the subway and quietly minding her own business. But Brown suddenly and randomly approached Iryna and stabbed the young woman to death while most of the other passengers looked another way, refusing to intervene. Just before he got off the train, video of Brown shows him gloating to himself, "Got that white girl." 

Thankfully Gavin Newsom's concubine has words of wisdom to calm us down.

In a video clip resurfacing on social media, Gavin Newsom’s activist wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom is heard describing how she told a group of convicts in San Quentin about the childhood incident in which she killed her own sister with a golf cart — something she was never punished for because it was accidental. “Yours were probably accidents too…” she told the prisoners.

What an utterly evil filthy diseased pudenda! Makes Michelle Obama look like Dolly Madison by comparison. Or not.

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.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s critics cry “war crimes” while ignoring decades of U.S. precedent—revealing less a legal argument than a reflexive, and deeply selective, political outrage.
  By All Means, Let the War Crimes Trials Begin!
  
• Critics argue the bill weakens freedom of expression and religion by removing the ‘good faith’ defense for religious texts.
  Canada Pushes Law That Would Classify Bible Quotes as Hate Speech.

Daily Tech News 9 April 2026

—Pixy Misa

• Apple MacBooks slow down after 49 days due to a MacOS time bomb. (Notebook Check)
  
  Not just MacBooks. Anything running MacOS:

  This bug means that after exactly 49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes and 47.296 seconds from the moment a Mac is switched on, network connections are no longer terminated correctly. This initially leads to an increase in CPU utilization, because after some time hundreds or even thousands of connections are managed that should actually have been terminated. As soon as the available ports, usually 16,384 in number, are used up, no more new connections can be established.

  49 days, 17 hours, 2 minutes, and 47.296 seconds?
  
  That number might ring a bell for the 29 year olds in the audience, because the same bug caused Windows 95 and 98 to crash outright when they were running for just shy of 50 days: It's a 32-bit unsigned integer counting milliseconds.
  
  Of course Windows 95 and 98 had the saving grace that they would usually crash for some other reason well before that time ran out.

Wednesday Night ONT - April 8, 2026 [TRex]

—Open Blogger

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random 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. This is a Tucker, Candace and Megyn free zone. Please.

[Top photo: Peek a boo. NASA Artemis II mission]

***

Does anyone follow the prediction markets? Event contracts are simple - you put money on a bet with a binary outcome. If a designated event happens, you get paid out. If not, you lose your money.

Such bets used to mostly pop up once a year with Super Bowl bets about the length of the national anthem. Yes, big casinos or your local bookie might quote odds but now prediction markets have gone online with platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi. These platforms make participation very easy.

There are no odds, but the higher probability of an event, the more expensive the contract. The lower the probability, the cheaper the contract.

There is a wisdom of crowds element to all of this. Because people are putting their money, arguably the prediction market is more credible than polls. Insider trading is prohibited (in theory).

What events? Obvious candidates like sporting events and political elections, but also financial indices, commodity prices, and geopolitical developments. Cultural bets are fair game like celebrity marriage or divorce. Distasteful or illegal bets are not allowed on Polymarket and Kalshi.

The legal eagles among the Horde will appreciate the regulatory gymnastics around federal versus state law and drawing lines between gambling and investing. That debate and argument is very active and the resolution will set precedent for decades. What is the legal difference between a prediction market event contract on the S&P 500 and an S&P 500 option or future contract?

The other interesting angle is clarity around the language of the bet. For example, an event contract for "boots on the ground" presumably contemplated offensive kinetic action, but what about a rescue mission for a downed aviator? Assassination bets are not permitted, but what about a change of Iranian leader by bombing? The bigger money involved, the more people care about the outcome.

Here are a handful of contracts from Polymarket and Kalshi for giggles (current as of Monday PM). Remember - these are predictions for what people think will happen, not necessarily wishes for what will or should happen (although both may be true in some cases).

***

***

Lancaster County Wendy's manager allegedly made fake employee, collected pay

An audit of a Lancaster County Wendy's found that a former general manager allegedly stole almost $20,000 from the eatery by creating a fake employee.

According to the charging documents, Linda Johnson allegedly clocked in and out as a "ghost employee" at the Manheim Township Wendy's from July 2021 to April 2022 and then had the paychecks go to her bank account.

Paychecks from the fake employee showed police that $19,898.15 was allegedly stolen by Johnson, who also created 128 shifts for the "worker." Detectives learned later that Johnson would be the only one who could create the shifts, police said.

When other managers were questioned about the "worker," police said some could not remember working with them, while one reported that they met him once and that Johnson did provide a timecard for the employee but never worked with him.

Shocked. No, not really.

***

Pigs in Space:

***

Mom gives birth to twins with different dads after sex with 2 men on same day

This new mom had a "one-in-a-million" conception: Her babies may be twins - but they have different bio-dads.

A 19-year-old Brazilian woman gave birth to twins nine months after having sex with two men on the same day. As their first birthdays loomed, she began having doubts over who their father was, so she decided to take a paternity test to confirm her suspicions, local news outlet news outlet Globo reported.

The anonymous woman originally suspected only one of the two men to be the father of the twins, so she collected his DNA - but it only turned up positive for one child.

"I remembered that I had had sex with another man and called him to take the test, which was positive," the new mom, who asked not to be identified, told the outlet. "I was surprised by the results. I didn't know this could happen. They are very similar."

Heteropaternal superfecundation "is an extremely rare phenomenon that occurs when a second ova released during the same menstrual cycle is additionally fertilized by the sperm cells of a different man in separate sexual intercourse," according to the journal Biomedica.

Even my small dino brain can think of another obvious reason this is a rare phenomenon. Maybe she needs a hobby. I mean a different hobby.

***

This winter train ride on the Bernina railway in Switzerland from St. Moritz is a nice way to travel.

The ride in the summer is pretty nice too.

***

With all the moon excitement, it seems like a good time to use this photo that has been sitting in my files waiting for an opportunity. I have no idea where it came from or why it exists but this seems like an opportunity. Sometimes, you just have to go with it... If one of you sent it, thank you. You're lovely and twisted.

***

Mandatory reading in case you missed it:

NATO is in far bigger danger than anyone realizes. And the reason has nothing to do with defense budgets.

The real danger is psychological. It’s cultural.

Europeans didn’t just free-ride on American security for 80 years. They built an entire identity around the idea that they…

— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) April 6, 2026

Was this written with help from AI? Dunno, but it hits the mark. We don't usually do geopolitical content on the Wednesday ONT. Welcome to the random.

***

The Pittsburgh police scanner keeps giving. Thank you people of Pittsburgh!

***

A little upbeat fiddle and banjo music for the big ONT finish:

***

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter. Beware - reading ONT content may result in being whelmed.

Close it up

Givers, Takers, and Fakers Cafe

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The Chosen Fawn
Kristin Mae Photography

"Mummy said that monsters aren't real. But they are real."

Hypersocial pittie.

Humpdays.

Border collie keeping a balloon aloft.

These dogs are so happy just to touch grass.

Cute: Helping a lost dog find his way home in an apartment building.

Flat-Earthers cope and seethe over the Artemis II launch. They'll be on Tuq'r Qarlson next week.

A white otter.

Baby sea otter.

Christopher Rufo Uncovers a New California "Fraud Magnet," Costing Us $30 Billion Per Year

—Disinformation Expert Ace

You know how Somali Pirates claim to be "day care providers" for each other's kids? And get paid $150,000 per year for sitting on their asses at home?

Well here's another grift: "In-Home Support Care."

Does your Uncle Mohammad need "in-home support"? Is he willing to claim he does?

Well, here's $100,000 to provide that service. We promise -- we won't check up with you and won't even balk at your claiming to provide federally-compensated "in-home supportive services" to your spouse.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is embroiled in a national fraud scandal. Thus far, much of the coverage has focused on alleged schemes related to unemployment insurance, hospice care, and food stamps. In this exclusive investigation, we shine a light on one of California's largest initiatives: the In-Home Supportive Services Program, or IHSS, which pays family members and other individuals to provide home-based care for the elderly and disabled--at a cost of nearly $30 billion per year.

On the surface, IHSS presents itself as an instrument of compassion, directing billions to caregivers who help with cooking, personal care, laundry, and other daily needs inside recipients' homes. But a growing number of experts and critics argue that the program is rife with fraud, losing roughly an estimated $6 billion to $12 billion yearly to scammers. Meantime, the state's powerful home-care unions collect more than $149 million in membership dues, funneling money into the political network supporting Newsom and California Democrats.

This is the story of a government that has allowed compassion to become a mask for fraud, creating a self-reinforcing system that keeps the Democratic establishment in power.

In 1973, California created what became the IHSS program to provide in-home care to the elderly and disabled. The IHSS caseload exploded in the 1980s, prompting the state to impose hour caps on care providers. California offers the program through Medi-Cal, its version of Medicaid, and pays providers with a combination of federal, state, and county funds.

IHSS has long been considered a magnet for fraud. In 2009, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated that up to 25 percent of IHSS claims were fraudulent. A Sacramento grand jury report that year found that providers had "no meaningful oversight, no assessment of skills to meet client needs, no monitoring of the validity of service hours, and no background checks."

After growth of the program's rolls exploded in the early 2000s, Schwarzenegger signed legislation aimed at curbing abuse, requiring IHSS providers to undergo criminal background checks and introducing random claim reviews.

But soon after the law's passage, a state workgroup, teaming with representatives from "labor organizations," introduced a key loophole. Citing concerns about disruptions for "vulnerable members of the IHSS community," the task force barred regulators from conducting fully randomized, unannounced home visits, leaving the program more exposed to scammers.

Yes, they do this on purpose. Minnesota stopped all auditing and verification precisely to allow Democratic Somali Pirate voters to use Minnesota paperwork to defraud the taxpayers from other states.

They approve of this because they see it as Back-Door Reparations. Evil White Racists won't agree to provide reparations to Somalis -- a people we have virtually no historic connection to, for good or for ill, and so owe absolutely nothing to them -- so they deliberately blind the government to fraud. Let the Somalis pick whatever level of Unofficial Back-Door Reparations they think they're "owed."

It's barely even fraud -- it's the politicians like Ellison and Walz who are the criminals. They're the embezzlers.

Since then, the program has expanded dramatically again. "IHSS provider" has become the largest low-wage occupation statewide, with more than 800,000 taxpayer-funded caregivers offering everything from grocery shopping to personal care.

...

The system operates largely on trust. Providers self-report their timecards and check-in records. In roughly 60 percent of cases, providers and beneficiaries live together, delivering care in private homes--typically without the threat of random, unannounced visits.

Just sign up for to provide "in-home supportive services" to your own f***ing spouse. California will pay you do to so, taking money from the federal government for the payments.

...

California, in other words, is sending billions of dollars per year to a program that is easy to exploit, difficult to administer, and almost impossible to supervise.

In 2024, the federal government began a series of enforcement actions. As part of a nationwide crackdown on health-care-related crimes, the United States Department of Justice announced prosecutions for alleged IHSS fraud in California.

In one case, the DOJ alleged that San Dimas resident Giacomo Lorenzo Garbarino billed the state for more than $170,000 in fraudulent IHSS and Medi-Cal services over a five-year period. The patient in his care was reportedly hospitalized or living in a facility at the time and thus ineligible for IHSS reimbursement. In another case, Joseph Depiazza allegedly billed the state for more than $50,000 in fraudulent IHSS services. According to prosecutors, he kept submitting claims after the patient entered the hospital--and even after she had died.

Last year, federal officials announced another round of IHSS fraud prosecutions. In one case, prosecutors alleged that Maryam Erambakhsh falsely claimed payments for caring for her parents while they were outside the United States. In another, Cindy Lynn Fromm allegedly billed the program for more than a year of services while the recipient was incarcerated.

These cases may be the tip of the iceberg. Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions for Government and a nationally recognized fraud expert, estimates that annual IHSS fraud could amount to 20 percent to 40 percent of total program spending. Applied to projected IHSS outlays for fiscal year 2025--26, that suggests roughly $6 billion to $12 billion in losses. Multiple senior officials at the Department of Health and Human Services have described a similar pattern, estimating that about 25 percent of the Medi-Cal budget is lost to fraud. The share is likely higher for IHSS, given the program's structure and its susceptibility to abuse.

Earlier this year, Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, set off a firestorm of controversy with the claim that criminal networks, including the "Russian Armenian mafia," were running massive hospice and home care scams in Los Angeles. He suggested that Armenians in Los Angeles were disproportionately represented among the leaders of hospice fraud rings.

Read the whole thing, after you've taken your blood pressure medicine.

Even CBS is covering Democrat fraud.

A CBS News Investigation found one Los Angeles County hospice physician's name, Dr. Rajiv Bhuva, on Medicare claims for nearly 2,800 patients across 126 California hospices in 2024, according to the last full year of available data.

In one year, mind you. Even if she saw each patient just once and worked seven days a week, she'd have to see about 8 patients per day to rack up 2,800 patient visits.

Update: I made an error. I said she would have to see 40 patients a day.

No doctor in California is connected to more hospices than Dr. Rajiv Bhuva. In 2024, his name appeared on Medicare claims across 126 hospice companies in California -- 115 of them in Los Angeles County alone.

In 2024, Medicare paid out tens of millions in taxpayer dollars for care attributed to Dr. Bhuva -- a figure that surpassed nearly every other hospice physician in the state.

The average California hospice doctor cares for about 140 patients a year. In 2024, claims with Bhuva's name were submitted for 2,791 terminally ill patients.

Only one hospice doctor in California was identified as receiving more Medicare reimbursement than Bhuva in recent years: Dr. Domingo Barrientos. His reimbursements totalled $90.3 million. He is currently in federal prison for conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

...

Dr. Kristina Newport, chief medical officer at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, said the kind of numbers linked to Bhuva and other highly prolific medical providers in the industry raise an array of questions.

"They would have a superhuman schedule to do that in a meaningful way," Newport believes.

In a brief interview at the front door of his mid-century stucco home in a mountainside suburb of Los Angeles, Bhuva told CBS News he doubted the figures and said there was no statutory limit to the number of hospices any one physician can staff. But after a brief exchange, he declined to speak further.

...

The data shows Bhuva's national identifier was tied to the one of the largest volumes of Medicare hospice reimbursements in California in 2024. The data does not establish whether Bhuva personally authorized the claims, whether his credentials were used without his consent, or whether there is another explanation.

CBS News found Bhuva's name among the physicians billing Medicare at several hospices that lost their Medicare certification for what regulators called an "abuse of billing" -- a pattern of submitting improper claims. Those hospices were banned from Medicare for a 10-year period.

California state auditors say that anytime records show a doctor working for more than three hospice providers at one time, it could be a hallmark of fraud and prompts reasonable questions about "whether they are actually participating in the operations of those hospices." More than 600 doctors exceed that threshold in California, according to Medicare data obtained and analyzed by CBS News.

On paper, those 600 doctors appear to be both incredibly busy -- and profitable to the businesses they serve. While they accounted for roughly 7% of California's hospice physicians, they generated more than half of the state's $4.2 billion in Medicare hospice reimbursements in 2024, the last full year of data available.

In state and federal records, certain names stand out. The ten busiest hospice doctors -- those whose names are linked to the most operators in California -- generated more in Medicare reimbursements than 90% of their peers in 2024.

The Democrats are not "asleep at the wheel" -- they are active co-conspirators in the greatest mass-looting in the history of the Earth.

The Party of Third-World Looters:

DeCarlos Brown, the Racist Killer Who Slit Iryna Zarutska's Throat for No Reason Other Than Her Race, Found by Psychiatrists to be Too Mentally Incompetent to be Tried for Murder

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The judge will now decide whether to accept this report.

If she does accept -- I assume it's a she because that's how these things I always go -- at some point, we're just going to "bypass" the judges and juries.

This will not be allowed to go on forever.

Justice will be done. Whether in an orderly way or a disorderly way -- justice will be done.

The deranged homeless man accused of savagely butchering Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, on a Charlotte light rail train has been found "incapable to proceed" on state murder charges.

According to a motion filed April 7, Decarlos Brown Jr. was evaluated Dec. 29 at Central Regional Hospital, and the subsequent report determined he was not competent to stand trial, according to WBTV.

This article is written vaguely, so I'm forced to guess at the procedural aspects here. What I'm guessing is that a defense "expert" found he was incapable of standing trial, just as the client, the defense, wanted.

I'm not sure though. This whole report is sketchy and, frankly, amateurish.

The results were previously sealed in state court, and were only revealed as the motion was filed.

A judge must now determine whether to accept the report's findings, and the case against him will likely be delayed until his capacity is determined to be "restored" by the court, the station reported.

In the motion filed by Brown's public defender, he claimed the court-required capacity hearing cannot take place with the accused killer in federal custody, and that the court also can't order to have his capacity restored.

Brown has been in federal custody in Chicago since a grand jury indicted him on Oct. 22 for violence against a railroad carrier and mass transportation system causing death.

He's been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation pursuant to his federal case, but court filings viewed by the outlet last month show it hasn't been completed and that the evaluation period has been extended.

See? There the article says the evaluation hasn't been completed, but it also claims some report -- maybe this one, maybe another one -- was completed and found him too incapable to be tried.

This is why I'm forced to guess that there are two separate reports, the official one which is incomplete, and one performed by a psychiatrist hired by the defense, which, of course, found him incompetent.

The outlet reports that restoring competency can take a long time in North Carolina because of limited space in state psychiatric facilities, and said it's not uncommon for defendants to wait a year or more for a bed to open up.

Brown, 35, whose mother told The Post is schizophrenic, was arrested at least 14 times in North Carolina for crimes ranging from assault and firearms possession to felony robbery dating back to 2007.

At the time of the senseless attack in late August, he was free on cashless bail after a magistrate released him with a "written promise" to show up for court after placing a bogus 911 call.

Trump to Megyn Kelly: "May She Rest in Peace"

—Disinformation Expert Ace

I didn't even hear she was sick. Does she have blood coming out of her... whatever?

Megyn Kelly, the Norma Desmond of Podcasters, is raging about... Trump's tweets.

Yes, everything is 2015 again.

But let's face it -- this was Megyn Kelly's real position all along. She just goes to where she thinks the traffic is. From 2023 to 2025, the clicks were in pretending to be More MAGA Than Trump.

And now? The clicks from Pakistan are in attacking Trump as a madman and not a "normal person" and sucking up to Cavernous Nostrils and her army of lunatics spreading lies about Erika Kirk being a lesbian child sex trafficker and a murderess.

Megyn Kelly TORE into President Trump over his "completely irresponsible and disgusting" social media posts on Tuesday: "I don't know about you, but I am sick of this sh*t! I'm just-- I'm sick of it. Can't he just behave like a normal human? I mean, honestly, like the president--'3D chess'--just shut up! F*cking shut up about that sh*t! You don't threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. We're talking about civilians, just casually in a social media post."

"I am the first to try to understand Trump and his strategy and not freak out over his weird social media posts and language that is loose and incendiary. Truly, I've lived with it for ten plus years. I learned it the hard way, when I was on the receiving end of it for nine months, and truly I think that was a gift to me in many ways because it helped me really come to understand what he does with his social media. But this is completely irresponsible and disgusting. This is wrong. It's wrong. He should not be doing it."

"I don't care that it's a--his negotiation tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians--men, women, and children-- an American president, so that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened? It's just wrong. It's not hard to say it, it's not hard to recognize it. I wish he would stop doing this. Like, he can't negotiate without doing this? What does that say about him?"

"What does that say about the position that our country is in right now in these negotiations? He's got to say this? He can't be a dignified, strong leader without threatening a bunch of war crimes? Like what is he, Genghis Khan? Like, what is he trying to do and why can't he do it with strength -- threats, sure, go for it -- that don't diminish and demean the United States of America in this way?"

Republican Clayton Fuller Wins Marjorie Taylor Greene's Old Stank-Ass Seat in Rome, Georgia

—Disinformation Expert Ace

This is technically a pick-up. Because Marjorie Taylor Greene quit mid-term in January-- on the exact date that her five-year congressional pension kicked in -- Rome, Georgia has been without a Representative for three months, and the GOP has been down a seat in Congress.

So yes, this is a win of a seat we had already won, but that seat was abandoned and has been unfilled for an entire season.

But now we've taken it back. Our slim congressional majority holds (shakily).

If you're sports nerd, we gained a half game in the playoff race.

The highlight from the left and the Woke Reich -- which is now just straight-up a Democrat voting block, like the NeverTrunpers before them -- is that the seat was won by only 12 points instead of 30 points as in 2024, so it's all because we won't agree to the left's and Islam's demands to just let them have Israel, serious you guys that's all we want, just Israel, you gotta believe me bro, we just want Israel and that's it, we don't want to force traffic to a standstill as we ostentatiously and conquerishly pray in the streets during rush hour, we do not want to raid your treasuries like the Barbary Pirates, we just want Israel, why won't you believe us bro?

I wouldn't call the change in margin of victory pure spin. Yes, the Woke Reich and their fellow travelers of the Islamocommunist Left are spinning the fact, but it is a fact, and a worrisome one.

But then -- it's also the case that the former winner of the seat has been running against the party she formerly belonged here. That has to have an impact on party cohesion.

Clayton Fuller won a Georgia special election to replace retired Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday night, growing the House Republican majority by one.

However, Republicans won by a slimmer margin than in years past, an ominous sign with just over half a year to go until the midterm elections.

Fuller, a District Attorney, defeated Shawn Harris, a Democrat whose website describes him as a "retired Brigadier General" and "cattle producer," by a 55.9 to 44.1% margin, with 99% of votes counted by 9:30 AM Wednesday.

The election's results mark a double-digit shift in favor of Democrats, as Greene won in 2024 by an almost 30-point margin.

Greene, once a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, retired in January after a falling out with the president, who called her a "traitor" for standing against him on foreign policy and economic issues.

The president had indicated his intention to support a primary challenger against Greene before her surprise retirement.

DOJ Civil Rights Division Opens Investigation of Madison Cornbread for Perjury

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The criminal airhead Madison Cornbread -- street name, "Cassidy Hutchinson" -- lied under oath and as you know, No one is above the law.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has opened a probe into former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, according to a news report Tuesday.

Hutchinson testified in 2022 before a special House committee on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that implicated President Trump.

The DOJ is looking into whether Hutchinson committed perjury during her testimony, unnamed sources told The New York Times, which is reporting the story.

The department assigning the case to the division appears unusual considering it focuses on potential civil rights violations -- not allegations of crime, which would include lying to Congress.

...

A probe regarding perjury before Congress would typically be handled by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., which is run by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

However, she has also experienced several setbacks in her attempts to pursue criminal cases in federal court against Trump's political opponents.

DOJ leaders didn't offer Pirro the opportunity to open the probe into Hutchinson, instead giving it directly to Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon, the anonymous sources also said.

Off to do the final (?) coat of varnish.

Update: Done. At least the upper-facing surfaces are. I only did two coats on the undersides and legs so at 6:30 I'll flip the desk over, give it a quick and sloppy sanding, and dump the rest of the varnish on the underside.

Communist Dingbats Yesterday Until 7pm: Trump Is a Madman! He Will Nuke the World!
Communist Dingbats at 7:01pm: TACO! Trump Is a Huge Pussy Too Afraid to Do What Is Needed and LET THE NUCLEAR BIRDS FLY!!!!

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Remember, the "smart people" are also the "thoughtful" and "responsible" people. They have all the answers, they'll tell you. They definitely do not simply spam out random disingenuous claims completely incompatible with each other as the day's news cycle might require.

David Strom wrote about this. I've seen it all over myself.

The "nuke" thing was absurd. Trump threatened to use a top-secret conventional weapon the world had never seen before. What was it? I dunno. Maybe some kind of non-nuclear EMP to take out the power plants without harming the child human shields Iran stuffed them with? At no point did he threaten or imply a threat to use a nuke.

Now I might think "Trump is making up some secret uber-weapon," but then again, Delta Force does seem to have unleashed absolute top-secret Sci-Fi weaponry in the Venezuela Snatch-and-Stash operation.

But he never hinted at a nuke.

But the "reasonable," "responsible," "thoughtful" people -- you know, the really "smart" people you can rely upon for their intelligence and probity and smooth emotional restraint -- all just went on twitter and did what they usually do, shriek lies that no one including themselves believes.

Are you ready to abase yourself now that Trump has negotiated a ceasefire rather than nuking Iran? Trump was NEVER going to nuke Iran. Any serious person knew that. It is shameful that you participated in this ridiculous charade.

— David Strom (@DavidStrom) April 7, 2026

“Trump is a madman who will nuke everyone and must be removed from office!”

“Also, he’s a big chicken for not nuking everyone like I said he would!”

If you actually believed the first thing with any seriousness, you’d never say the second thing. https://t.co/2V4X0YLpNu

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 7, 2026

Some of the ones I saw:

As I said, they never actually cared about Iranian civilians or nukes or whatever else they were ranting about.

It was always just a game to them, and the moment their hysterical predictions didn’t come true, they were ready to pivot.

Like predicting the sun will rise. pic.twitter.com/hDxEuKQVpr

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 7, 2026

Saagar Enjeti this morning: “Trump is a madman, everyone in his administration must resign.”

Saagar Enjeti now: “Trump TACO!”

Do you see the game yet? pic.twitter.com/33liE8vV1D

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) April 7, 2026

This isn't exactly the same, but CNN's DEI Hausfrau veers from claiming:

1, that Iran is nowhere close to building a bomb when Trump says he will wipe out their nuke-production plants,

2, that Iran is now closer than ever to building a bomb after Trump wipes out their nuke production plants, and then back to

3, Iran was never at any time close to building a bomb, when Trump launches Operation Epic Fury.

It's really disgraceful. As they say: They know they're lying, they know their audience knows they're lying, they know their enemies know they're lying, but they lie anyway because it's what their Satanic Cult demands of them.

Lying, and abortion of course, and transing children are their sacraments.

Now you know that of course Noted Thoughtful and Responsible Smart Guy Commentator Bill Kristol had to be part of the Satanic Lie Offensive:

These two tweets are 8 hours apart. This morning, he wanted generals to make advance promises to disobey civilian leadership. Now he complains that Trump chickened out. https://t.co/bEjF5y7SWX pic.twitter.com/ORtDJClB1e

— Bluesky Libs (@BlueskyLibs) April 8, 2026

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lateness. I wish I had a good excuse but I don't.

Update: Kindletot said this is all what AlextheChick calls a "bitch eating crackers rant."

I asked commenters what this means. I asked Alex the Chick, too, and she sent this meme:

Close it up

Monkeyshines Open Thread

—Disinformation Expert Ace

I need a little more time.

Wednesday Morning Rant

—Joe Mannix

With Trump's fairly blunt threat to start aggressively targeting Iranian power and transit infrastructure (at the time of writing, anyway - by the time this goes live, it might have started or been obviated with a "deal" of some kind), Iran is doing everything in its power to try to make Trump and Hegseth blink. As Ace covered and various Hordelings expanded yesterday, Iran appears to be leaning heavily on it's fifth column in this country. Such strikes would be evil, or war crimes, or inappropriate, or whatever else. These fifth columnists are always happy to help, but they - much to the chagrin of their masters - appear to have relatively little real influence at the moment.

But Iran is not resting on its laurels and putting all of its chips on its fifth column in isolation. They apparently hope to significantly amplify its Stateside allies and deal a PR blow to the Trump administration in the same way that Islamists always do: by putting people in harm's way. Unable to defend against the American-Israeli attacks due to the latter's air superiority, they will settle for making infrastructure attacks as bloody and graphic as possible. Islamists love human shields because the enemy is usually squeamish about slaughtering civilians, and various sources are awash with claims that Iran is gearing up to burn through a lot of them.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Nightlife
Archibald John Motley Jr

The Morning Report — 4/8/26

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. And so Peace is at hand in Iran. . . Or is it really? After threatening to obliterate Iran from the face of the earth the President Trump announced that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz was reached that hinges on a two week ceasefire.

President Trump expressed optimism Wednesday that the Iran war cease-fire agreement will usher in a “Golden Age” in the Middle East. 

“A big day for World Peace!” Trump wrote on Truth Social following the two-week cease-fire announcement. “Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so has everyone else!” 

The commander in chief said the US “will be helping with the traffic buildup in the Strait of Hormuz” and “loading up with supplies of all kinds, just ‘hangin’ around’ in order to make sure that everything goes well.” 

Trump indicated he felt “confident” the reopening of the key waterway, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily, would go well. 

“There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process,” he said. “Just like we are experiencing in the US, this could be the Golden Age of the Middle East!!!” 
Trump branded Operation Epic Fury a “total and complete victory” — more than a month after the first US strikes in a joint operation alongside Israeli forces on Feb. 28.

“100 percent,” he told Agence France Presse. “No question about it.”

Trump didn’t rule out strikes on power plants if the ceasefire collapsed.
“You’re going to have to see,” he said when probed.The exact terms of the cease-fire framework have not been released, but Trump described the proposal as “workable” and the temporary pause has been welcomed by Washington’s allies.

Iran’s embassy in India has since claimed the US is “fundamentally committed” to lifting all sanctions against the Islamic Republic, accepting enrichment and agreeing to Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.
“You started the war, but Iran will set the conditions for its end,” the embassy warned. ..

This came after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed the US, Iran and their allies agreed to a cease-fire everywhere, including Lebanon.. .

“In accordance with directives from the political echelon, the IDF has ceased fire in the operation against Iran, and is highly
prepared to respond defensively against any violation,”
IDFofficials said Wednesday. “Overnight, the IDF conducted a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting missile launch sites and
launchers across Iran, in order to significantly degrade its
launching capabilities. “Simultaneously, in Lebanon, the IDF is continuing to conduct targeted
ground operations against Hezbollah... Hezbollah chiefs are set to release a statement outlining their position on the ceasefire...

And so here we are weeks after the first bombs were dropped comment on the heels of the first wave of attacks that were designed to take out Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities.and collaterally hopefully take out the Mullahs and their evil regime and replace it with some minimally benign government that would no longer export global terrorism and persecute its own citizenry.

while Iran's nuclear and missile capacities have surely been degraded, considering that the same Armageddon-seeking Islamic ideologues are still in power and that they are whom we via their Islamic brothers in arms in Pakistan are who have been negotiating with and that Pakistan is a close ally of Red China, Can President Trump truly declare not only"Mission Accomplished" but that a new golden age is about to be ushered into the Middle East?!

Mr. President with all due respect that's not going to happen until Islam itself disappears either via a mass cultural shift among its over one billion adherents or some black swan event that brings about its utter defeat and dismantling and defanging.

At least the ceasefire brings a bit of positive news:

U.S. stock futures jumped higher and oil prices plunged after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire and a potential longer peace deal with Iran on Tuesday night. Futures indicated a two percent rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. S&P futures were up 2.3 percent and Nasdaq futures were up nearly three percent. Oil prices fell sharply. Brent crude futures fell by around 13.5 percent to $94.50 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate futures dropped 14.7 percent to $96.40 a barrel. U.S. natural gas prices dropped by 3.6 percent. U.S. home heating oil futures dropped by more than 18 percent.

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.