Quick Hits
—Ace
The Democrat Party is purging the old folks.
Democrats' generational tensions reach boiling point in House primaries
A growing number of young Democrats have launched primary bids against the party's old guard in recent months, underscoring generational tensions that burst into the open following former Vice President Kamala Harris's defeat in November.Former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) last week drew a primary challenger 50 years his junior in Harry Jarin, who cast the incumbent as representative of "a bygone era." He follows a number of other young candidates who have launched primary bids against veteran Democratic lawmakers.
The trend comes amid renewed anxiety within the party over the issue of age, spurred by new revelations about former President Biden and the recent deaths of several older House members.
"A lot of politicians in Washington, they stew in this environment in D.C., sometimes for decades at a time, and they lose touch with young people and working people and people outside the beltway," Jarin told The Hill.
"I think that's the reason for the sudden surge of primary challengers: We've now spent our whole lives seeing the same Democratic leaders do the same unproductive things in Congress and not actually deliver results."
...
The 2024 election also raised red flags for Democrats that young voters, especially young men, are shifting right.
"It's worth noting that Republicans in Congress have definitely had a lot more turnover in the last decade than Democrats have. And I don't know that you could draw a direct line to some of the gains or unexpected dynamics folks are seeing with young voters, but it's certainly the case," said Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic strategist and veteran of the Generation Z group Dream for America.
The conversations have taken on a new sense of urgency in recent weeks with the release of multiple books that have ramped up scrutiny on Biden's health. The public recriminations that have emerged following the release of the books have also played out as the party reels from the recent deaths of three Democrats in the House.
"Six members of Congress have died in the last 16 months, and all of them were Democrats over age 65. So, I mean, I don't see how you can look at the situation and not say, 'Hey, we have a serious problem,'" Jarin told The Hill. "I'm not putting down any of these people or the work that they've done. But we have to be realistic."
...
Still, young candidates and activists alike stress age isn't enough to make a winning pitch for the House.
...
"It's about efficacy and accountability and being results-oriented," he added. "It's not enough to just say, 'Hey, I'm young and I'm fresh.' It's about being serious. It's about being strategic. It's about being able to take on a broken system and win."
...
As 2026 approaches, young Americans are "looking for new conversations," Shroff said.
"If this next wave of young candidates doesn't bring that, then it's the same old, same old."
Here's the trouble with this purge of the Olds: The Olds may be old, but they're not the ones pushing toxic horsehit like "Defund the Police" and "Decarcerate the Prisons" and forcing children to learn fake pronouns and inviting Drag Queens to lecture kindergarteners about anal sex.
That's the Young Dumb Things in the Democrat-Media Party. (Except for San Fran Nan.)
Speaking of the Democrat-Media Party's loss of young men: The DMP has finished its "Speaking with American Men" study -- wow, it took a week and a half, it must be super-rigorous -- and they find that young men are just young liberal girls waiting to be liberated.
I mean: that's the gist. Basically they find that young men want the same thing the Democrat-Media Party's preferred liberal female voters want, and they just have to tweak their messaging to bring them aboard.
Pretty much exactly what we all expected. No changes in policy -- just try to sell young men on permanent status as second-class citizens while talking about drinkin' some brews and watchin' porn.
Thus they determined to explore the heretofore unknown expanses of New Bro-Land, donning pith helmets and native guides to find out about this amazing yet elusive tribe. Politico reports that the $20 million excursion has concluded, and that young men turn out to be just like you and me.Or something:
"Democrats are seen as weak, whereas Republicans are seen as strong," Hogue said. "Young men also spoke of being invisible to the Democratic coalition, and so you've got this weak problem and then you've got this, 'I don't think they care about me' problem, and I think the combination is kind of a killer. ...The focus groups found that young men feel they are in crisis: stressed, ashamed and confused over what it means to be a man in 2025. They vented about conflicting cultural messages of masculinity that put them in a "no-win situation around the meaning of 'a man,'" according to the SAM project memo.
Here's a challenge for the Democrats reading this study: Define "man." The problem isn't "conflicting cultural messages," it's that Democrats have endorsed fantasy life over biological reality. They have wrapped themselves around the trans and queer movement to such an extent that Democrats can no longer safely state without reservation that a man is an adult male human based solely on biology....
The rest of this study produces a much more generic set of criticisms that could apply to voters across the spectrum:They described how the Covid pandemic left them isolated and socially disconnected. They also said they now feel overwhelmed by economic anxiety, making "traditional milestones," like buying a home or saving for kids' college, "feel impossible," an analysis of the research said."The degree to which those economic concerns are also impacting how they think about themselves and quote-unquote success of being a man, and living up to their own expectations or the expectations of their family or society," Della Volpe said. "There's another layer of economic anxiety that I don't think I fully saw until now."
In other words: Men are anxious, neurotic, and don't "feel seen" and "feel unsafe."
In other words: Young men are just like the largely-mentally-ill neurotic liberal female voters that the Democrat-Media Party far more enjoys pandering to.
That's the word from Tim Walz's teenaged son, at least:
Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz turned to his high school aged son to figure out why President Donald Trump appeals to young men.Trump made historic inroads with men, particularly those who are young, black or Hispanic, in the 2024 election, causing Democrats to ask themselves why they have lost the demographics in such large droves. Walz said that his son, Gus, explained to him that Trump "understands belonging," and said that the Democrats failed to welcome young men into their movement.
"[Gus] is pretty in tune to this, but what he said was, he said, 'dad, a lot of these young guys [aren't] voting on the policy issues.' And he wasn't dissing them, he said they may know the policy issues, but most of them don't. They're doing it because there's a sense of excitement, a sense of thrill in this, it's entertainment or whatever. We all dismiss that. 'Donald Trump's a clown. Donald Trump's rallies [are] a clown' ... But there's a peripheral side of that that's not criminal but is going down the same road of saying 'you've got a place to belong.'" Walz said.
Walz compared the sense of belonging young Trump voters felt to being on a high school sports team, stating that they felt they were part of a movement and belonged.
"If you don't give a kid a place to belong, they'll go flying away," Walz continued. "So while you want them to be involved in sports and music and things in school, because they will go find a group of folks. And I think Donald Trump understands belonging, he understands groups because look at it, he gives them a uniform, the red hat. He gives them some chance, some talking points, whatever, it's not all that different than when we built sports teams in high school. You belong, you're part of this."
Once again, the diagnosis of young men is exactly the same as their diagnosis of young women: they want to belong in clubs and movements and feel accepted.
Sure, young men want to feel accepted, same as anyone. But men have a much, much greater tolerance for going it alone than women do. Social acceptance is not nearly as strong a survival instinct for young men as it is for young women.
But once again, the diagnosis of the Democrat-Media Party is that young men are exactly like young women, because the sexes are exactly identical and all it takes is some pills and a light spot of 10 years of surgery to turn one into the other.
The "Speaking With American Men" report did at least acknowledge the most minimal amount of truth:
Disinformation Expert Lizzy @StarChamberMaidThey spent $20m to learn this: "The Democratic Party is missing that we're not going to be able to message our way out of these deep problems men are facing, starting with the fact that they know the Democratic Party doesn't really like or respect them."
Again with this very feminine understanding of men, though: that we want to be "liked." Again, yes, sure, everyone wants to be liked, but it's not about being liked. It's about being officially disadvantaged by US government policy at every turn, from college admissions to hiring to promotion.
But they can only see things in "girl logic" terms. Men just want to be liked, so if we just are a little "nicer" about it, we can continue making them second-class citizens as encoded into US law and they'll accept it.
Graduation Speaker Returns Honorary Degree After Plagiarizing Speech At Elite Women's College
Musician and activist Evelyn Harris returned her honorary degree from Smith College after it was revealed that she plagiarized much of her commencement ceremony speech.According to Smith College president Sarah Willie-LeBreton, Harris "borrowed much of her speech" without "typical attribution" and decided to give up her degree.
Advertisement"Ms. Harris was forthcoming about her choices while also acknowledging that she sought to infuse the words of others with her own emotional valence," Willie-LeBreton said in a statement. "With appreciation for the requirement of academic integrity so central to the values of Smith, Ms. Harris has chosen to relinquish her honorary degree."
"I appreciate those who brought the dissonance of this moment to our attention and am very grateful for the graciousness of Evelyn Harris's decision," Willie-LeBreton wrote.
Two of Harris' bandmates in the cover band Young@Heart defended her actions in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, claiming that "plagiarism works a little differently for us."
"We sing lyrics and play music written by others without explicitly crediting them from the stage, without asking their permission, but often getting the original artist's enthusiastic response when they eventually hear our version," Bob Cilman and Julia van IJken wrote. "We imagine Evelyn may have been doing something similar in her speech and was honoring the words of others."
Why yes, she's a DEI pick. Why do you ask? I'm offended you would even ask that.
Last week, UNC fired a DEI administrator for bragging that she was still doing illegal anti-white, anti-male discrimination "covertly." UNC, under pressure from the state that funds them, supposedly banned DEI.
Well, now another UNC administrator made the mistake of bragging about being a criminal.
You see, Janique Sanders wasn't at all representative of how things work at UNC. She was a rogue administrator whose ideas don't reflect the school. At least that's the story UNC was telling. But here we are a week later and another administrator has just been caught saying basically the same thing, this time at UNC-Asheville. This administrator's name is Megan Pugh.Newly released undercover video shows a university administrator in North Carolina boasting about DEI efforts still taking place at the school despite state and federal efforts to roll back the policies, prompting the school to sever ties with that employee."I mean we probably still do anyway... but you gotta keep it quiet," UNC Asheville Dean of Students Megan Pugh tells an undercover journalist in a video released by Accuracy In Media and exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, after being praised for continuing to do "equity work" at the school.
"Keep it on the down low?" the journalist responds, to which Pugh says, "Yeah."
"But, I love breaking rules," Pugh then says.
Megan Pugh is another DEI administrator straight out of central casting.
Boy is she though.
Continue reading
Jim Acosta Threw Himself a #Resistance Party But No One Showed Up
—Ace
Well, practically no one. Some union members paid to be there and act as a Rent-a-Mob apparently turned up.
From Andrew Stiles of the Free Beacon:
WASHINGTON--"There are some tickets left," Jim Acosta told his Substack followers a few hours before taking the stage at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C., to host a live town hall version of the online chat show he started after his "voluntary" exit from CNN earlier this year.
He wasn't kidding.
The lineup for the first (and apparently only) stop on the "Fire Within Tour" would struggle to draw a crowd almost anywhere else in the country: Rosie O'Donnell, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas), and an assortment of professional Trump haters whose names you wouldn't recognize unless you're the sort of mentally deranged liberal who owns an Anthony Fauci prayer candle and refuses to watch CNN because it's right-wing propaganda. Only the most delirious of hyper-online partisans could stomach the pretentious tagline: "Fueling Courage. Defending Freedom. Igniting Truth."
The Beltway, of course, is teeming with this variety of freak, which is why the lack of turnout on Monday night was so humiliating for everyone involved, not least for the people who actually did show up to have their courage fueled. Venue staff informed a Washington Free Beacon reporter that the upper balcony, comprising nearly half of the venue's 1,200 seats, was closed--for reasons that were soon obvious. Generously estimated, the lower section was roughly three-quarters full--about 500 people. As the night wore on, it became clear that a significant portion of the attendees were either members of a federal employee union invited to denounce Trump, or had personal or professional connections to one of the "performers." Acosta, a fierce opponent of so-called mis- and disinformation, had claimed to be expecting a "big crowd" based on conversations with the organizers.
In retrospect, a large retirement home in the Maryland or Virginia suburbs would have been a more appropriate venue for an event of this nature. At the very least, fewer people would have been able to get up and walk out before the end.
Acosta opens the show with his costar Michael Fanone, a former D.C. police officer who became a professional anti-Trump activist after clashing with protesters on Jan. 6. Setting the tone for the show, Fanone laments, "We are in a tough fucking spot." Acosta agrees. "We are. We are." Fanone hates Republicans almost as much as he loves punk rock and tattoos. He hangs out with Sean Penn and Kathy Griffin. He's not afraid to express his feelings with expletives. House Speaker Mike Johnson is a "petty bitch" surrounded by "cock-sucking colleagues." Not to be confused with the unelected Trump supporters, who are "dick-sucking ass clowns." Acosta tries to change the subject by asking his other costar Olivia Troye, a former Republican who spoke at the 2024 Democratic convention, about the tragedy that has befallen her Northern Virginia community of federal bureaucrats since Trump took office. "It's super upsetting," she says. "And I just have to say to you that the American people, they may not realize it right now, but they will realize it in time, the incredible treasure that they've lost."
Below: The amazing "show."
Continue reading
The Washington Post: We Ran Unverified Terrorist Propaganda Falsely Claiming that Israel Was Machine-Gunning Civilians.
Whoops! Whoopsie!
BIDEN JUDGE BLOCKS DEPORTATION OF BOULDER TERRORIST'S FAMILY
—Ace
UPDATE: JUDGE BLOCKS THE DEPORTATION OF THE BOULDER TERRORIST'S FAMILY
Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_BREAKING: Colorado federal judge Gordon Gallagher, a Biden appointee, has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from deporting the wife and five children of Boulder terror suspect Mohamed Soliman.
Someone commented: this will be the end of Article III.
They just gave Trump the permission to simply begin ignoring all of their rulings.
...
The Washington Post is not retracting the false claims they made WITHOUT EVIDENCE. They're merely "correcting" these claims while insisting that they were right to run this completely-fabricated terrorist propaganda -- they should have just given Israel's denials a more prominent placement than "buried at the end of the story."
Otherwise, they insist, this was all done perfectly.
In a post on X Tuesday, The Washington Post said its earlier versions of an article about an alleged incident where Israeli troops fired on Palestinians receiving relief supplies and a previous social media post "didn't meet Post fairness standards" due to a failure to weigh Israeli denials of the incident. Hurt said the issue was accuracy, not whether the Post was fair to the Israeli military."The thing that baffles me about this more than anything is the actual correction. The idea would say it violates our fairness standards," Hurt told "America's Newsroom" co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino. "No, it violated accuracy standards. The story was wrong. It wasn't that it was unfair."
The Washington Post has consistently demanded that accounts spreading "misinformation" be deplatformed. They demanded that Twitter suspend Donald Trump's account on the theory that his "disinformation" about the election would "cause harm" in the form of angry lunatics resorting to violence.
By the Washington Post's own standard, their Twitter account should be suspended. As should CNN's.
In further news of the Terrorist Media: the "protester" who punched three Jewish people in the face while "protesting Israel" turns out to be a self-described Jew-hater who's in direct communication with Hamas.
The media has been crusading (see what i did there?) to undo this guy's visa ban for months.
A "Jew-hater" who protested against Israel on Columbia University's campus and contemplated setting a student on fire allegedly had a direct link to Hamas' deadly al-Qassam Brigades militant group, The Post can reveal.Tarek Bazrouk -- awaiting trial after being indicted on three federal hate crimes against Jewish people -- was "a member of a chat group that received regular updates from Abu Obeida," the official spokesperson for the brigades, according to allegations in federal documents.
The accusation is the first evidence of an agitator receiving information directly from Hamas and taking action during protests on the university campus.
Bazrouk, 20, who was not a Columbia student, also frequently wore the green headband used by Hamas terrorists and boasted to friends about having relatives overseas who were part of the terror group, prosecutors claim in a letter filed with the court.
While on Columbia's campus during protests in April 2024, Bazrouk allegedly texted a pal saying he lit a flare and considered lighting someone on fire, but that there were "too many" people around for him to take on, otherwise he "would've hurted [sic] them."
"Would've hurted them." Thank God we've given this Scholar a visa. I'm certain he's discovering All of the Particles in his basement basement high-energy centrifuge.
Columbia University said it has no record of Bazrouk being on campus and wanted "to be clear that this individual is not affiliated with our University in any way," adding that the school "strongly condemns antisemitism and violence, and we are horrified by the violence and hate crimes described in the indictment."Bazrouk, a US citizen born and raised in New York, was also arrested next to the campus in December 2024 for one of the three attacks against Jewish people of which he stands accused.
...
At the time, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said "professional outside agitators" were behind the escalated protests, which at one point saw an illegal takeover of one of the university's buildings.
In Gaza, Hamas has previously taunted Israeli hostages by boasting that its tentacles are everywhere and "bragged about having Hamas operatives on American university campuses," specifically showing now-freed hostage Shlomi Ziv photos of antisemitic protests at Columbia, according to a lawsuit.
Bazrouk's cellphone was "littered with pro-Hamas and pro-Hizballah [sic] propaganda" showing his "support for organizations that have murdered thousands of Jews and Israelis, killed and wounded US citizens and repeatedly avowed that they want to destroy both the United States and Israel," federal prosecutors allege.
The phone was found to have a picture of a late al-Qassam Brigades founder, terrorist Yahya Sinwar, who is credited as the architect behind the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre against Israel. He was killed in 2024.
He also had a picture of Obeida and one of an individual waving a Hamas flag, and an al-Qassam Brigades meme, which reads: "By God I would not trade the Al Qassam Brigades for the world and everything in it. May God be pleased with them and allow them to break the wicked enemy through him."
Also included are quotes from text messages in which Bazrouk allegedly identified himself as a "Jew hater," labeled Jews "worthless," exhorted "Allah" to "get us rid of [Jews]," called an acquittance a "F--ing Jew," and told a friend to "slap that bitch" in reference to a woman with an Israeli sticker on her laptop, according to court documents.
...
In a text message four days later, he wrote that if he "ever see(s)" a Jewish person, he is going to "boom boom them," according to prosecutors.
...
He was arrested in that state in December 2024 for "operating a drug factory," possessing drugs and having an intent to sell them. Federal documents detail how police also found "large quantities of marijuana products" worth $25,000 at the business.
A drug factory for curing cancer you mean, Racists!
Meanwhile, the Biden Special who attempted to recreate the ovens of Dachau on the streets of Boulder says he's proud of what he did, that he'd do it again, and that he loves jihad more than his family.
Continue reading
O Frabjous Day! John Cornyn Down Twenty-Two Points to GOP Challenger Ken Paxton in Poll
—Ace
Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist @DeAngelisCoreyBREAKING: Ken Paxton is beating John Cornyn by 22 points in the Texas Republican Primary Election for Senate.
John Cornyn: 28%
Ken Paxton: 50%John Cornyn is the incumbent.
Poll conducted May 27-28.
Continue reading
LOL: Latrine John-Pissoir Says She's Leaving the Democrat Party to Become an "Independent"
—Ace
So this is a huge pile of bullshit right here.
She isn't leaving the Democrat Party. They have ejected her. She is now persona non grata because the Democrat/Media Party response to the Biden Dementia Gaslighting Operation is to pretend that all lefties were "fooled" by the lies of Biden insiders.
She has no more ability to grift from the left, so she's going to try a gambit where she poses as an "independent" and attempts to grift from disaffected Democrats.
Also, she has a book about working with Biden coming out, and she has to hint that she's breaking with the Democrats and is ready to Tell All about Biden's dementia in order to sell any books at all. She will not, in fact, Tell All, but she has to sell that lie if she wants to sell any books. No one is going to spend actual money to hear Exciting New Variations of the lies she told from the briefing room podium for free.
Just more lies and grifting from a lying grifter.
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is no longer a Democrat, according to her upcoming book....
In her new book, "Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines," will come out Oct. 21.
"Until January 20, I was responsible for speaking on behalf of the President of the United States," Jean-Pierre said in a statement released to news outlets on Wednesday.
"At noon on that day, I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically."
...According to a statement from Legacy Lit, Jean-Pierre's book will take readers "through the three weeks that led to Biden's abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision."
"She presents clear arguments and provocative evidence as an insider about the importance of dismantling the torrent of disinformation and misinformation that has been rampant in recent elections and provides passionate insight for moving forward," the announcement said.
Oh gosh, I was wrong. She's not trying to sell this book to people who want to read the "real story" of Biden's dementia. She's trying to sell this book to the 1% of mentally-ill #Resistance lefties who still think Biden was "sharper than ever" and just "betrayed" by Democrats.
And I guess she'll say, "Speaking as an Independent with no remaining allegiance to the Democrat Party whatsoever, you should totally believe me when I tell you that this version of Biden is the best version of Biden, ever."
That's adorable. That's so Karine.
Too young to collect social security, but too old for OnlyFans-- she's going to have to really work to make this new grift pay her off for the next twenty years.
Bonus: Total Failure and Dum-Dum Ding-a-Ling Kamala Harris mulls 2028 presidential run.
more like a presiDON'T run, amirite
As Kamala Harris weighs a return to California politics or a second presidential bid, Democrats on both coasts are growing impatient, questioning whether the former vice president's ambitions match the moment or the party's mood, Politico reported.Harris has set a late-summer deadline to decide whether to run for California governor. Still, Democrats in two influential states are already signaling skepticism, and in some cases, fatigue.
At simultaneous Democrat gatherings this weekend in California and South Carolina, Harris' name surfaced repeatedly, though often with a tone of caution rather than enthusiasm. The former vice president, who lost her 2024 presidential bid to President Donald Trump, has yet to clarify her political future. Her deliberation is leaving donors, candidates, and activists in limbo.
This is also a grift. She's not running for anything. She will, however, start an exploratory committee to collect donations intended to be a pay-off for not sincerely running. She hopes to collect enough for retirement.
Documents: Chris Wray Lied About the Memo Calling Catholics Terrorists Having Never Been Distributed to FBI Field Offices; It Was Distributed, and Then the FBI Deleted Records of It Being Distributed
—Ace
The FBI loves prosecuting people for obstruction of justice -- lying to an investigator -- so I'm sure Chris Wray will enjoy the irony.
Newly released documents show the FBI shared a controversial memo targeting conservative Catholic groups with over 1,000 employees--contradicting prior claims by Director Wray that the effort was limited to one field office. Sen. Grassley is demanding accountability.Key Details:
The memo, originally said to be isolated to Richmond, was shared across FBI field offices in multiple cities.
Internal emails show no objections to the memo labeling "Radical Traditionalist Catholics" as threats.
Grassley says the FBI tried to delete records tied to the memo's distribution once it became public.
Diving Deeper:
The FBI under the Biden Administration circulated an internal memo branding certain Catholic communities as domestic terrorism threats to over 1,000 employees nationwide--far more than the bureau previously admitted, according to internal documents obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
The memo, known as the "Richmond Domain Perspective," was originally portrayed by FBI Director Christopher Wray as a rogue product of a single field office. But newly surfaced records show it was disseminated broadly across the country, with FBI offices in Buffalo, Milwaukee, Portland, and Louisville among those receiving it. One of the offices even acknowledged that some of the Catholic groups mentioned in the memo were active in its jurisdiction.
"This raises serious concerns that FBI field offices may have relied on the Richmond memo, and placed groups in their areas of responsibility under suspicion based on reporting from the deeply biased sources used in the memo," Grassley wrote in a letter Monday.
The February 2023 memo, which was publicly released by a whistleblower, warned of supposed extremist elements within "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" communities--accusing them of promoting "anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology." That language mirrored reporting from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization known for labeling politically conservative and religious groups as hate groups.
Far from being withdrawn as Wray told Congress, the memo's claims were reportedly embedded in other FBI documents, including a Strategic Perspective Executive Analytic Report prepared for wider internal use. Though that version excluded SPLC references, it repeated the central allegation linking traditionalist Catholic ideology to violence.
Even more troubling, according to Grassley, is that internal FBI communications indicate a scramble to delete the memo and related files from bureau systems after its public release. A senior official allegedly ordered the deletion of an Excel spreadsheet listing employees who accessed the memo--potentially eliminating key evidence of its spread.
Obviously Wray did not disclose the efforts to delete the evidence, either.
The Left Has a New and Improved Coordinated Messaging Operation Against Trump, and It's Just as Fake and Gay As Everything Else They Do
—Ace
Proudly closeted homosexual Tim Walz announced that the right way to counter Trump, who has now been the victim of two assassination attempts, one of which succeeded in hitting his head with a bullet, is to "bully" hi mmore.
Continue reading
Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
One element of our culture war - perhaps the element of the culture war - is the running battle of symbols. Cultural symbols are always destroyed by a conquering force. The vanquished's old symbols are razed and the conqueror raises his own in their place. Whether it's a likeness of Stalin in Budapest or of Hussein in Baghdad or a street name in Detroit, symbols count. The powers that be erect theirs and destroy others.
Sometimes there's a nod to historical or cultural value that allows some symbol or treasure to survive, but sometimes not. Red China still has the Forbidden City despite the destruction of the "Four Olds" during the Cultural Revolution, but no non-Islamic symbols stand in Afghanistan. When the cultural shift happens as a result of shooting war, this process is usually fairly fast - the statue topples, the church is razed, and the new potentate puts up new stuff. When the war is primarily cultural, it's slower and muddier. Subversion is never as fast as direct assault, though it can be more successful.
Continue reading
The Morning Report — 6/ 4 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Well, I guess we know why the Chi-Coms were buying up massive tracts of farmland as well as property adjacent to or near American military installations. That foreign governments, entities or even individuals are allowed to do so is insanity.
Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, citizens of the People’s Republic of China, were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the United StatesThe FBI arrested Jian in connection with allegations related to Jian’s and Liu’s smuggling into America a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a potential agroterrorism weapon. This noxious fungus causes “head blight,” a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year. Fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.
According to the complaint, Jian received Chinese government funding for her work on this pathogen in China. The complaint also alleges that Jian’s electronics contain information describing her membership in and loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum into America—through the Detroit Metropolitan Airport—so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where his girlfriend, Jian, worked.
Meh, Anthony Fauci was given government funds to work directly with the Chi-Coms in a laboratory on their soil to develop the Franken-virus that ran rampant across the world, with the "cure" perhaps already in the pipeline of big pharma ready to come to the rescue, or in the event cause more misery, death and illness than the virus itself.
Can this be construed as an act of war, the precursor to an act of war, or state-sponsored terrorism? The Ci-Coms and indeed their globalist friends here in the USA knew back in 2020 the threat that a Donald Trump re-election posed to their geopolitical plans and voila, a global pandemic that gave the cover they needed to rig and steal the election from him and us.
As lethal if not more than a biological pathogen are the intellectual saboteurs plying their trade in our colleges and universities under the guise of Confucius institutes. Beyond pimping anti-American and anti-Western propaganda to young skulls full of mush (pace Rush Limbaugh). Of late, they have been implicated in helping foment pro-Hamas anti-semitism on campus as well. Beyond that, Chi-com agents are actively engaged in stealing scientific research at colleges as well as industrial espionage up to and most especially in our defense and IT sectors. If only Harry Truman let MacArthur cross the Yalu River and perhaps nuked Beijing, world history might have gone very differently. No Vietnam War and subsequent killing fields, perhaps no Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union sooner than it did? And America not being reliant on Chinese slave labor and keeping our industrial base here at home.
Meh, what's done is done. It is here and it is now. What are we, that is what is President Donald Trump going to do about this? What should he do and what can and should he do?
Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs, Google founder Eric Schmidt, and the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation are among the Democrat heavyweights bankrolling the anti-Israel charity of activist Kamau Franklin, who called Elias Rodriguez’s alleged assassination of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., a "morally righteous" act.Franklin runs Community Movement Builders, an Atlanta-based nonprofit that promotes "liberation" ideology for black Americans, Palestinians, and other groups. The organization embraces radical rhetoric in support of those causes, referring to police as "pigs" and calling the state of Israel "the result of a war crime." The Heising-Simons Foundation, funded by prominent Democratic donors Mark Heising and Liz Simons, gave $100,000 to Community Movement Builders. The Tides Foundation, supported heavily by Soros, gave around $100,000 to Community Movement Builders for "equity" programs, tax records show.
Franklin also serves as treasurer for the Black Voters Matter Action Fund PAC, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Soros has contributed $2.4 million to the PAC, which spent heavily in support of Harris and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.). New Georgia Project, an organization by Warnock and professional Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, gave $50,000 to Community Movement Builders in 2021.
Wonderful and long overdue that the Muslim Brotherhood will be at long last officially declared a terrorist organization, unless the Democrats can actually summon the balls to publicly vote "NO" on the resolution and explain to the American people why. But President Trump and the GOP must declare the Tides Foundation, and every other organization and private citizen who supports Hamas, the MB and other groups that threaten not just Jews but all of us as terrorist or terror supporting organizations and move to dismantle them completely.
Well, on a positive note, completing the grade school thought of there's a fungus among us, the penis between us is at long last being addressed.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the United States Navy to remove the name of slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk from oiler USNS Harvey Milk, according to several reports. A memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, which was viewed by Military.com, showed that the Navy was preparing to change the name of the ship, and a “defense official” confirmed to the outlet that Hegseth had ordered U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan to change the name of the ship: A defense official confirmed that the Navy was making preparation to strip the ship of its name but noted that Navy Secretary John Phelan was ordered to do so by Hegseth. The official also said that the timing of the announcement — occurring during Pride month — was intentional.
Oh the humanity! PRIED off the fantail and right at the start of PRIDE month.
And thank you Mr. President!!!
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that there are “no plans” for a “Pride Month” proclamation. . . The Trump White House is doing a complete 180 from the Biden junta's focus on LGBT issues. While Trump celebrated “Pride Month” with a tweet in 2019, he never issued a presidential proclamation for the LGBT festivities.
Seriously, what is there to be "proud" of. at the risk of ruffling the feathers of any homosexuals out there (including a number of good friends and family members), If fornication with someone of the same sex is your kink — and from a purely biological standpoint — it is not normal since sex first and foremost is about procreation, regardless of Michelle Obama's theories on the matter.
And Harvey Milk was a pedophile and sexual predator. To defend him let alone honor him is despicable, period full stop.
On another front, something that kind of puzzles me is this Big Beautiful Bill BS. I kind of don't understand the sanity of more debt and raising the debt ceiling while at the same time pushing DOGE. I think both Rand Paul
. . . and Elon Musk I think are right to be upset about this.
Frankly, I;m not interested in Government Efficiency. I want Government Reduction and Elimination.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Daniel Greenfield: "Billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year"
Two Chinese Scientists Busted Smuggling Agroterror Weapon
- “The alleged actions of these Chinese nationals — including a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party — are of the gravest national security concerns,” Gorgon said in a statement. “These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme,” he added.
Chinese national couple charged with smuggling crop-killing fungus into US: ‘Potential agroterrorism weapon’ - Jobs gave $1 mil to Kamau Franklin's Community Movement Builders, which Google founder Eric Schmidt and the Soros-backed Tides Foundation have also supported
Dem Heavyweights, Including Laurene Powell Jobs, Bankroll 'Black Liberation' Activist Who Called Jewish Museum Shooting 'Morally Righteous'
- Michael Walsh: I've long made the argument that the 19th Amendment was not an unalloyed good, a sentiment shared by half the women in the country at the time of the amendment's passage. It was not animated by misogyny but by the very real fear that the delicate balance between the sexes could be upended for no good reason other than luxurious generosity. (In fact, much of the motivation, as with that behind the 18th, was the fear of the Protestant majority that they would soon be outvoted by hordes of foreign Irish and Italian Catholics and shtetl Jews, and something must be done.)
THE COLUMN: The Political is Now Personal. Women Hardest Hitters (I read that as Hitlers! - jjs)
Continue reading
Daily Tech News 4 June 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- We can remember your pet for you, wholesale. (The Atlantic) (archive site)
Your pet can live forever. Except when it dies. But then we can bring it back, better than new, ready to chew on your shoes and piddle on the rug all over again.
Also, race horses. Because that's where the real money is.
ViaGen just missed one thing: The name.
Continue reading
Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - June 3, 2025 [scampydog]
—Open Blogger
Good evening busy brains, insomniacs, overthinkers, trivia champions, armchair experts, confidently confused, and those just trying to remember which day it is. Thank you for checking in on the Tuesday, ONT.
Repeat of the wise words from AoS commenter, mikeski. Scrolling? Sure. Read the content? Just an appetizer. The commenting is the main course.
Continue reading
Runaway Zebra Cafe
—Ace
I got you a Father's Day present, daddy.
Dog waits for his brother to wake up.
Who runs Bartertown? Master Blaster runs Bartertown.
Scientists pumped ten tons of cement into an abandoned ant hill. They had quite the complex down there.
Dog goes HAM on the trampoline.
A pet zebra got loose in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
A pet zebra has escaped in Tennessee, stunning drivers as it repeatedly raced down residential streets -- even bringing a busy interstate to a standstill.The still-at-large animal was spotted several times across Rutherford County, southeast of Nashville, on Saturday, and sheriffs say the animal remains at large, unless its owner has found it and not reported it.
Dodging vehicles and narrowly avoiding getting hit, the pet caused havoc when it ran along a busy Greater Nashville interstate over the weekend.
The zebra broke loose on Saturday, just a day after its owner purchased it, the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office said.
Continue reading
White House to Ask Congress for a Teeny-Tiny $9.4 Billion in Rescissions to the Budget
—Ace
This is almost embarrassingly small.
I don't entirely blame Trump. The GOP, as you have probably begun to suspect, is simply not serious about any of the things it claims to be serious about.
The White House on Tuesday sent a $9.4 billion rescissions package to Congress in order to codify some of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts as DOGE Chief Elon Musk publicly excoriates the GOP for its failure to address the debt in the "big beautiful bill.""Today, we have officially received the rescissions request from the White House to eliminate $9.4 billion in wasteful foreign aid spending at State and USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS," House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed, according to The Hill.
The sum represents a small fraction of the $175 billion in estimated savings DOGE has claimed, and an even smaller portion of the $2 trillion in spending cuts necessary to eliminate the deficit.
Elon Musk minced no words in denouncing what he sees as a betrayal of the DOGE mission:
Continue reading
Disney Lays Off Hundreds of Employees In Its TV and Film Divisions
—Ace
Disney is cutting hundreds of employees across several TV and film teams as the company focuses on expanding its streaming services.Employees in the marketing for film and television, as well as TV publicity, casting and development, and corporate financial operations will be impacted by the cuts, a spokesperson for Disney told FOX Business.
...
It comes after Disney's ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks announced plans to lay off just under 200 employees in March.
Those cuts represented nearly 6% of the total ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks workforce, and the majority of the impacted staffers are from ABC News, according to a source with knowledge of the headcount reduction.
Disney's Bob Iger.
Crowds at Disney World were small over Memorial Day weekend. Universal's Epic Universe just opened and is making a splash. (Link replaced with a current story.)
Meanwhile, Disney just screened the Fantastic Four for the public, I think at a Long Beach theater.
They understand they have another bomb on their hands and that this is pretty much the end of the M-She-U. When the Fantastic Four fails, that will be three failures in a row, and there will be zero momentum or interest for the upcoming two part Avengers movies.
It's strange to do test screenings so close to the planned release date. Apparently they're attempting last-minute reshoots to change the ending of the movie.
Marvel Studios may have a problem on its hands. According to multiple sources, the most recent test screenings of The Fantastic Four: First Steps were held earlier this week in Los Angeles--and the reactions are mixed. Though it's still in the post-production phase, initial viewer feedback suggests the reboot might not be the triumphant return for Marvel's First Family that Kevin Feige was hoping for.Industry scooper Jeff Sneider of The InSneider shared details from a source who attended the screening, describing the film as "mid" and "meh," clarifying that it was "not that bad, but not that good, either." Perhaps more concerning are criticisms about "weak character development" and "bad CGI," the latter of which Sneider notes should improve in the coming weeks as visual effects are finalized.
"In general, Marvel doesn't do public test screenings unless they're worried," Sneider wrote. "That was the case with Eternals, The Marvels, Quantumania, and Brave New World."
While Sneider initially reported that Marvel was high on the project internally, another unnamed source reportedly described the film as "a mess" and "a huge problem movie"--echoing language that was once used to describe The Marvels before its disastrous release.
...
ViewerAnon described the overall response as "'okay,' but not a big sample size," adding that "a couple people have said the first act's shaky but it gets better once Galactus shows up." They also noted that the version screened was "very unfinished," with only about 25% of VFX completed--something that could certainly skew audience reactions.
...
While the film isn't eliciting the kind of extreme reactions being reported from Superman test screenings, the fact that Marvel felt the need to hold a public test run suggests some internal anxiety. The studio hasn't had a runaway hit since Deadpool & Wolverine, and with Bob Iger reportedly disappointed in the 2026 release slate, The Fantastic Four was expected to anchor the brand moving forward alongside the upcoming X-Men reboot.
Woke reviewer Grace Randolph heard from people who saw the movie, and they report that the M-She-U is back in full force. (Of course.) Even though she's super-woke and stupid and hates the term "The M-She-U," she says she has no choice but to report that Disney is once again going full M-She-U and giving haters (like me) a reason to bash the film. Apparently, Galactus is defeated by the gender-swapped female Silver Surfer and Sue Storm (with the help of her newborn baby Franklin). They just didn't feel like giving the three male members of the Fantastic Four a meaningful role in the resolution of the plot.
Continue reading
The CNN Reporter Found Liable for Deliberately Defaming the Navy Vet Announces His Sad! Departure from CNN
—Ace
I can't help but notice that a ton of #Resistance "journalists" have been fired by the leftwing media over the past year.
There have been a lot of reports that Hollywood studios and game studios have decided to use the cover of their plunging income to fire a lot of their wokest, worst-performing activists, too.
Woke activists and DEI employees are luxury expenditures. You can only afford their wealth-destroying presence when times are so good you can still make money even deliberately attempting to lose it.
Once you've had a string of $300 million bombs (in both movies and videogames), it's time to tighten the belt and shed the Woke Wealth-Destroyers.
Is that why CNN has parted ways with this professional defamer who cost the company at least $5 million?
But who knows, maybe he's just really hot to get in on this Podcast Hustle he's heard so much about.
In a Monday morning X post, chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt announced that he would be leaving CNN "after 8 terrific years." But Marquardt's departure comes four months after he cost the network several million dollars and tarnished their reputation with a maliciously defamatory report against Navy veteran Zachary Young."Some personal news: I'm leaving CNN after 8 terrific years," he wrote to his followers.
Adding: "Tough to say goodbye but it's been an honor to work among the very best in the business. Profound thank you to my comrades on the National Security team & the phenomenal teammates I've worked with in the US and abroad."
Marquardt was at the center of a January defamation trial as his reporting about Young, a security contractor who was coordinating efforts to get innocent people out of Afghanistan, was found to be maliciously defamatory and cost CNN $5 million in economic and emotional damages, plus an undisclosed amount in punitive damages.Through discovery, messages between Marquardt and his "phenomenal teammates" (as he described them) proved that he had targeted Young with actual and pressed malice. He had boasted to an editor that he was "going to nail this Zachary Young mfucker," and he agreed with another co-worker that Young had a "punchable face."
During the trial, it came to light that Marquardt had fabricated a call with Young, falsely giving the impression that he tried really hard to get a hold of him before the story went to air. In footage that was left on the cutting room floor, but was played for the jury, he joyfully called the fake phone call "theater!"
Continue reading
ICE's "Operation Patriot" Rounds Up Almost 1500 Mostly-Criminal Illegal Aliens in the Leftwing Shithole State Massachusetts
Updated: Family of Boulder Antisemitic Terrorist Arrested
—Ace
To be honest, I'm not sure why Trump is sending ICE into the blue states right now. I think I'd rather he just works with jurisdictions that cooperate -- so that all illegals migrate from non-sanctuary states and cities to the sanctuary states and cities. Let them enjoy the skyrocketing crime rates as the rest of the country enjoys falling crime rates.
Brooke Taylor @Brooketaylortv#NEW: 142 criminal aliens from the Houston area were deported to Mexico in the past two weeks who have illegally entered the United States a combined 480 times and been convicted of 473 criminal offenses. This includes documented gang members, convicted child predators, and a criminal alien who illegally entered the U.S. 21 times.
Once all the illegals are cleared out of cooperating jurisdictions, then go to the blue states. (Maybe.)
But that's just my preference. ICE just executed "Operation Patriot" in May, nabbing almost 1500 illegals in Massachusetts alone.
Operation Patriot, the largest ever ICE operation, resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegals, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and child sex predators, in the deep blue sanctuary city-heavy state of Massachusetts.Operation Patriot concluded on Saturday after netting 1,461 illegal aliens throughout the Greater Boston area and the state of Massachusetts, which includes numerous sanctuary jurisdictions.
Sources at ICE told Fox News that 790 of those arrested had criminal convictions or charges and 277 had final removal or deportation orders. The sources said that all the targeted criminals were roaming the streets of Massachusetts cities freely before being apprehended.
The operation ran throughout May and included ICE teams from other states in the Northeast and authorities from the FBI, DEA, and ATF.
Fox News was embedded with ICE Boston on Thursday as part of this operation. While Fox News was embedded with ICE, agents arrested a murderer, two child rapists, including one living next to a playground, one fentanyl trafficker, one adult rapist, and one child sexual assaulter, all within the span of a few hours.
Prior to this, the largest ICE operation was Operation Tidal Wave in Florida, which netted 1,120 arrests. Fox News was told Operation Patriot was significantly more difficult because, unlike Florida, ICE received no local assistance from Massachusetts sanctuary jurisdictions.
Sources said the operation was in direct response to leaders in the city of Boston and Massachusetts refusing to cooperate with ICE.
The sources said "hundreds" of the arrested targets had been released by local sanctuary jurisdictions with ICE detainers ignored. ICE also said it encountered daily interference from anti-ICE activist groups throughout Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has responded to ICE's operations in her state with outrage. Healey took to social media on Sunday evening to demand answers after ICE agents arrested 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes, who was an illegal and a junior at Milford High School in Milford, Massachusetts.
In her post, Healey says she is "disturbed and outraged" and that she wants answers immediately explaining why the student was taken into immigration enforcement's custody.
Healey asserted that "the Trump Administration continues to create fear in our communities, and it's making us all less safe."
ICE and Tom Hohman continue making the same point: if you'd just hold illegal criminals when we send you a detainer request, we could just pick them up at the jails.
But you refuse. So we have to go out into the field to round up the illegal criminals and, when we're out there, we're also going to arrest illegals who aren't wanted criminals. So you yourselves are to blame for these "collateral" arrests of illegals.
Speaking during a press conference on Monday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons commented on the resistance from Massachusetts leaders, saying: "If sanctuary cities would change their policies and turn these violent criminal aliens over to us into our custody instead of releasing them into the public, we would not have to go out to the communities and do this."
Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do Update:
An illegal immigrant in the Bay State is accused of raping a child, according to police who say the victim was "tied, bound or gagged."Lorenzo Lopez Alcario, 30, was recently arrested by Marlboro Police on five charges: rape of a child with force; pose/exhibit child in sexual act; assault and battery; resisting arrest; and assault.
He's accused of having sex with a child under-16 in April.
"... And did compel such child to submit by force and against such child's will, or did compel such child to submit by threat of bodily injury, and such sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse was committed while the victim was tied, bound or gagged," reads the criminal complaint.
Alcario was arrested over the weekend, and he was arraigned in Marlboro District Court on Monday. A not guilty plea was entered on all charges.
...
Alcario was held without bail on Monday, pending a dangerousness hearing later this week.
...
Earlier this year, a different migrant rape case was reported in Marlboro. A migrant who was staying at a state-run shelter in Marlboro was arrested for allegedly raping his 14-year-old daughter, according to officials.
The alleged sexual abuse at the Marlboro Holiday Inn was recorded as a "Serious Incident Report" by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
The shelter site had been investigating the pregnancy of the 14-year-old girl. The father had reportedly impregnated his daughter in the past, according to the serious incident report.
"Her father has had sex with her multiple times, both on the journey to the U.S. and in the U.S.," reads the report.
Marco Rubio had a blunt warning for foreign illegal alien terrorists: We're not just coming for you, we're going to deport your dogshit terrorist-adjacent families as well.
Update:
StopAntisemitism @StopAntisemitesFox News reports the wife and five children of Boulder terrorist Mohamed Soliman have been arrested by ICE and Homeland Security.
They're now in federal custody.
A clear nod to Secretary Rubio's warning yesterday about dangerous individuals exploiting our immigration system.
Continue reading
Deranged Democrats Begin to Fret the Mental Health Gap
—Ace
Democrat poll analyst Nate Silver notices that Democrats are winning with those with diagnosed mental illness.
And, on the other hand, are being trounced among the much larger group of people in good mental health.
Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11Nate Silver's latest blog post notes that conservatives are up 31 points among those with self-described excellent mental health, and down 26 among those with poor mental health.
Democrats have turned themselves into the party of the neurotic, the unstable, and the miserable.
If you're happy and well-adjusted, vote Republican.
It's almost as if the Democrat Party is the party of grievance and misery and mental illness and scapegoating others for your huge failures.
Below, he uses the term "Village Democrats." He doesn't mean that they're part of the Village People, who of course have realigned and now support Trump.
He uses the metaphor of "The Village" to describe risk-adverse, controlling people -- Democrat Establishment and Regime people -- and "The River" to describe risk-taking, entrepreneurial explorer types.
Meanwhile, unlike during the Bush Era, moderate men might think it's those Villagey Democrats who want to police their speech and their behavior. And that they're just generally unchill, turning everything into a "political conversation". Last year, Trump fared better among voters who don't consume a lot of political news, which liberals like to read as a sign that these voters were poorly informed. But that could also indicate that Trump was winning the more apolitical, "normie" vote.Obviously, this mapping is far from perfect. Some Silicon Valley leaders are free speech hypocrites and they mix uncomfortably with other Republicans on issues like tariffs and immigration. And although some Riverians see themselves as classical liberals who want government to get out of the way, others are also not so keen on democracy. This faction of the River tends to believe in the "great man theory of history" and they don't want to let anything stand in their way.
Still, I don't doubt that some of Democrats' problem with young men is that they're seen as what in the poker world we'd call "nits": neurotic, risk-averse, sticklers for the rules, always up in everyone's business.
And it's almost as if people who are mentally healthy do not want mentally ill people making decisions on their behalf.
What an inversion -- remember when mentally sane people made decisions on behalf of their mentally-incompetent patients? Now it's literally the other way around. The lunatics run the asylum.
Continue reading
Federal Trade Commission Opens Investigation Into Media Matters and Other Leftwing Media "Watchdogs" for Colluding to Suppress Free Speech
—Ace
And I hope they trace the money to George Soros.
And I hope there's an avenue towards a class action lawsuit against Soros.
The Federal Trade Commission has launched a sweeping investigation into more than a dozen left-wing watchdog and ad industry groups accused of coordinating advertiser boycotts against right-leaning websites and platforms, including Elon Musk's X.Key Details:
FTC's probe targets possible antitrust violations through advertiser collusion to defund conservative media.
Groups like Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media received investigative demands for communications and financial records.
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson warns that advertiser boycotts are "a serious risk to the free exchange of ideas."
Diving Deeper:
The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into roughly a dozen advertising and advocacy groups that may have violated federal antitrust laws by organizing boycotts aimed at defunding conservative and right-leaning media platforms, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The probe marks a sharp escalation in the federal government's scrutiny of politically motivated censorship in online advertising, and directly challenges the long-standing practice of left-wing watchdogs targeting platforms they deem objectionable. At the center of the investigation is the question of whether progressive organizations conspired to pressure advertisers into pulling ads from platforms like X--formerly Twitter--under the guise of avoiding "hateful content."
The FTC has already sent investigative letters to groups like Media Matters and Ad Fontes Media, demanding internal records, communications with other watchdog organizations, and documents related to their campaigns targeting certain content. Vanessa Otero, CEO of Ad Fontes, confirmed receiving one of the letters on May 20 and said it related to a "possible collusion" inquiry.
Media Matters, a left-wing advocacy organization with close ties to the Democratic Party, is a key focus of the investigation. The group has publicly campaigned to cut off advertising to Elon Musk's X platform, publishing reports that claim X has allowed antisemitic and "hateful" content. However, critics argue that these efforts are thinly veiled political censorship campaigns aimed at silencing opposing viewpoints.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, recently appointed and outspoken about online censorship targeting conservatives, has framed these advertiser boycotts as more than just market preferences.
"Drying up the advertising will dry up the idea, so the risk of an advertiser boycott is a pretty serious risk to the free exchange of ideas," Ferguson said at a recent conference.
Ferguson's stance sharply diverges from the previous FTC approach, which often turned a blind eye to coordinated efforts to de-platform right-leaning content creators under the umbrella of "brand safety."
Advertisers, for their part, have defended their decisions, claiming they are simply aligning spending with corporate values. But the FTC under Ferguson is questioning whether those values have been manipulated by activist groups acting in concert to silence specific viewpoints--something the agency now suggests may constitute illegal market behavior.
It's Tuesday -- do you know where your duck is now?
Continue reading
The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition
—CBD
It is difficult to be sanguine about the current Supreme Court's chaotic approach to the clear and unambiguous 2nd Amendment. Aside from the two stalwarts -- Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito, the court whipsaws back and forth with competing rulings.
The decade began well, with a solid ruling in the Bruen case, slapping down New York's onerous and blatantly unconstitutional carry licensing scheme. That sent ripples throughout the country's blue, anti-gun states, forcing them to shift from the nonsensical "may issue" to a more sane "shall issue." But the fascists in the blue states promptly attacked the ruling with a series of onerous modifications to their gun laws, including vast areas of their states that were newly restricted to concealed carry, and doubling down on magazine restrictions and "assault weapon" bans.
And the cowardly worms on the Supreme Court sank to the occasion and declined to address these clear violations of our God-given natural rights to self defense and resistance to malign government.
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two high-profile challenges to state gun-control laws—one in Maryland banning semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15, and another in Rhode Island prohibiting magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.Both denials came in a June 2 orders list that did not provide an explanation for the denials. However, three justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—dissented, indicating that they would have taken up the cases.
In the Maryland case, sometimes referred to as an “assault weapons” ban, Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the majority in its decision to deny review, but said the Supreme Court “should and presumably will” address the constitutionality of AR-15 bans within the next term or two.
Kavanaugh, otherwise known as J. Wellington Wimpy, assures us that the court will...eventually...maybe...take up these cases in the future.
Well! I am relieved that my 2nd Amendment rights are defended by such capable people!
There is no rational reason why the court can't strike down these various unconstitutional state laws by simply referring to their own previous holding in Bruen. Only a deeply dedicated anti-gun zealot could claim that AR-15s aren't in common use, since it is the most popular rifle in America. Only a deeply dedicated anti-gun zealot could claim that 30 round magazines aren't in common use. Hell, that's what the AR-15 was designed for! And most of all, only a deeply dedicated anti-gun zealot could carefully ignore the clear link between the 2nd Amendment's protections and military weapons. Militias aren't groups of hunters on leisurely walks through the forest on deer hunts. The security of a free state is not dependent on access to shotguns for upland birds.
The 2nd Amendment protects our right to arm ourselves with the military weapons of the day. Muskets and single-shot rifles in 1791, and the closest the horrid National Firearms Act of 1934 allows us today... the ubiquitous AR-15.
In a country that respects its founding documents, that would be an M-4 (full-auto), but the idea that we must be restricted to 10 round magazines and something other than the AR-15 is simply not backed up by any intelligent reading of the Constitution.
So...do we have six deeply dedicated anti-gun zealots on the United States Supreme Court? The evidence suggests that we do.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!
