Strange Vegetation Cafe
—Ace
The Giant Groundsel, a plant that survives from prehistory
atop Mt. Kilamanjaro
Strange vegetation. JackStraw will be all over this thread. He enjoys various "Wacky Weeds," if you know what I'm saying.
Little girl complains like an adult about having to walk to school while carrying a backpack. She complains the backpack weights two kilos because she has a water bottle and apple in it.
Man climbs streetlight pole to free a bird who's gotten himself stuck.
Penguin gets in on the Hunter Biden Art Grift. Duncanthrax was right!
A big pod of orcas enjoy the surf.
Goofy camel tries to join a herd of horses.
The thing he's riding is a "FoilScoot," an aquatic scooter. If you want one, it only costs $8,399.
If you want to experience some real anxiety, watch this video of a free diver beneath a river's ice with no air hole.
The oarfish, often called the "doomsday fish" because Japanese folklore says they only appear to herald the coming of an earthquake or typhoon. They're rarely seen because they live in the deep ocean between 650 and 3000 feet down.
ICYMI: A very senior dog has arthritis but still has happyfeet for his owner.
The Canyon of the Crescent Moon.
The Dragon Blood Tree in in Yemen.
Deer enjoy the cherry blossoms in Nara Park, Japan.
Namibia, where the desert runs right into the ocean.
Corgi somehow got hired to be a police dog.
Paralyzed dog is so excited to get his new wheelchair.
Just clean up the neckhair, please.
A giant bear is scared by photographic flashes. He knows he's up to no good.
Absolute jackass slams on the breaks in the middle of a high-speed highway because he missed his exit. He causes a huge traffic pile-up. I want to warn you before you click on this. It's just maddening that people do this instead of just driving a two or three miles and taking the next exit.
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Ten Democrats Cross the Line to Vote for Cloture on Continuing Resolution; Democrats Defeated
—Ace
I kept looking for updates but missed it.
My absolute least-favorite subject to have to post about are these stupid CR battles.
So I'm glad this is out of the way.
Late Friday afternoon, the Senate voted yes on cloture 62-38, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans. That sets the bill up for passage on what will likely be a party-line vote after a few amendments are voted on.Almost before Schumer's speech on the Senate floor ended Thursday, House Dems started hammering him, and that continued through the day Friday, with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries publicly criticizing Schumer, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying that it would be "a big mistake" for Schumer to vote for cloture, which would allow the CR to pass with a simple majority, and mobilizing her base to call Senate Democrats.
Democrats were "melting down" about Schumer's cave before the vote. Kinda dog-bites-man on that one. When are they not melting down?
House Democrats erupted into apoplexy Thursday night after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans' stopgap government funding measure.Why it matters: House Democrats feel like they "walked the plank," in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
"Complete meltdown. Complete and utter meltdown on all text chains," said the member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer sensitive details of members' internal conversations.
A senior House Democrat said "people are furious" and that some rank-and-file members have floated the idea of angrily marching onto the Senate floor in protest.
Others are talking openly about supporting primary challenges to senators who vote for the GOP spending bill.
LOL. Eat all the bags containing all the dicks.
Keep in mind that the leftwing cope is that all Republicans are regretting our votes.
Art Candee @ArtCandeeThe Republican CR to fund the government just passed the procedural hurdle in the Senate because of these Democrats:
Chuck Schumer
Catherine Cortez Masto
Dick Durbin
Brian Schatz
Angus King
Maggie Hassan
John Fetterman
Gary Peters
Kirsten Gillibrand
Jeanne ShaheenShame on you all.
Trump said he "appreciates" Schumer's decision and was "very impressed by that."
Is Trump on the level or is he trolling? Is he trying to doom Schumer by declaring him MAGA For a Day?
Either way, this is bad for Schumer.
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RFK Jr.: Trump Has Lost 30 Pounds, "Despite All the Crap He Eats," Just By Taking the Buns Off His Burgers
Plus: GAINZZZ
—Ace
Today is the fifth anniversary of "15 Days to Stop the Spread." Talk about a Grim Milestone.
The President of the United States just declared war.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested President Trump has lost 30 pounds, while commenting on the unhealthy foods the president eats.Kennedy, during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity, said he saw Trump the day before, adding, "I think he's lost 30 pounds." His comment came after the news host said the president "is getting healthier."
"He looks great. And he told me, he's not using ... for example, if he has a burger now, he usually doesn't have it with a bun," Hannity said.
Kennedy replied, "Oh, I didn't know that he was actually changing his diet."
"I have to say this ... and even with all the -- can I say -- crap that he eats," the recently confirmed secretary added.
The interview took place at a Steak 'n Shake in Florida after the company announced it would be using beef tallow instead of seed oils to make its french fries, a swap Kennedy has been promoting for health purposes.
...
They joked that Trump likes McDonald's, KFC, pizza and Diet Coke, which prompted Hannity to ask Kennedy if he has an issue with sugary drinks or diet sodas.
"Yes," the secretary said.
Hannity asked, "But, again, you're not going to ban it."
"I'm not going to take them away from people, but we shouldn't be subsidizing them," Kennedy said. "We shouldn't, as you said, 10 percent of food stamps, which are federally funded, taxpayer-funded program ... is going to the poorest neighborhoods."
On that point, the American Heart Association -- a grifter organization that will say anything is healthy if you just pay them enough money -- appeared in Texas to argue that people should be allowed to use SNAP vouchers on cookies and soda.
Why Does The Heart Association Favor Subsidizing Cookies, Potato Chips, and Sugary Soda? Guess.
You would be forgiven to assume The American Heart Association would top the list of organizations supporting restricting government subsidies for cookies, potato chips, and sugary drinks.You would be wrong. The AHA flew its top lobbyist to Texas to testify against a very simple bill that would restrict SNAP recipients from using their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from purchasing these products. After all, the largest percentage of the assistance goes to buying sodas, one of the biggest sources of non-nutritious calories in a child's diet.
Texas Senate Bill SB 379 is very short and to the point. It doesn't cut benefits, doesn't even restrict most processed foods; it just bans purchases of sugary drinks, candy, cookies, and potato chips using SNAP benefits. And since SNAP is supplemental--intended to increase the amount available to purchase food for lower-income folks, it doesn't even prevent such people from purchasing these products with their own food budget.
...
Frankly, you shouldn't be surprised. The AHA is part of the "blob," and the blob is all apart ensuring that the current establishment remains fat and happy. It's stated purpose is to promote heart health; its real purpose is to perpetuate a system in which its donors and partners make as much money as possible.
...
I looked up who funds the AHA Nutrition Forum, and as you would guess, it is filled with big food industry corporations including Cargill, PepsiCo, and seed oil companies. And even more troubling is that the VAST majority of Heart Association funding comes from Big Pharma.
Conflict of interest, much?
It's so much worse than that. The American Heart Association lets companies print their "Heart Healthy" seal of approval on the most unhealthy foods.
They still think it's the 1970s and that they can get away with telling you that health beef tallow is bad for your heart -- but seed oils are good, healthy substitute.
I'm not at all down with banning foods. But I would like to see the real science promoted by the government. Not what Kellogg's and Pepsi pay NGOs to claim to be healthy.
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A New Beltway Mystery: Follow the Biden EPA Money
—Ace
The biggest heist in human history.
Here's what makes this potentially criminal, according to the reporting of Real Clear Investigation's Jim Varney: They didn't just push out billions to their political cronies, but then they covered their tracks attempting to make it impossible to trace the money.
In law, that is evidence of conscienceness of guilt. If you shoot someone while hunting, you could claim that you thought your friend was a deer so you didn't have a guilty mind.
But if you attempt to conceal the body, or flee the scene and pretend you weren't there, juries can infer from your actions that you knew you were guilty of a crime.
When the Biden administration announced $27 billion in environmental grants last April, it set the clock ticking on a predicament: how to get the unprecedented sums for the President's envisioned NetZero future out the door before the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30?
The task was complicated by the fact most of the money -- $20 billion -- would go to just eight nonprofits that, like the Environmental Protection Agency itself, had never handled such gargantuan grants.In hindsight, it's easy to suspect that corners were cut, or laws were broken, or, at the very least, extraordinary measures were taken.
Those possibilities are clearly on the mind of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as he tries to unravel what happened to Inflation Reduction Act spending that the Biden White House's Office of Management and Budget and the EPA decided to expedite before the November election -- an effort that included moving the roughly $20 billion to a private institution, Citibank, away from oversight of the Treasury Department.
On Wednesday, Zeldin moved to terminate the arrangements as the enriched nonprofits have filed lawsuits looking to protect their grants. The battle has thrust into the spotlight what had been a rather quiet attempt by the Biden administration to spend the $27 billion.
The money was put into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a new entity born in 2022's Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats pushed through Congress without any Republican support.
...
The grants, unveiled April 4, 2024, came with its built-in deadline to push the money out just months away. So a political deal was struck between the White House's Office of Management and Budget and EPA, current agency officials told RealClearInvestigations. As a hedge against future administration attempts to curb the program, the deal classified the now-suspect $20 billion in a novel way making it hard to track.
Zeldin has asked the EPA's inspector general and the Department of Justice to investigate the unorthodox arrangement.
...The fund was broken into three parts. The two largest, the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator (CCIA), received huge sums, totaling $20 billion. Notably, as RCI reported last October, grants went to nonprofits that had paltry assets, had been granted their nonprofit status only the month before, or had people associated with them that had previously served various federal or state Democratic administrations. For example, the Coalition for Green Capital, Wise's former outfit, was awarded $5.1 billion.
Three weeks later, an arrangement was made between OMB and EPA in which the money was designated "non-exchange" rather than "exchange" -- a first for EPA funds, according to current officials. That label allowed for the money to be moved to recipients in lump funds rather than parceled out over the length of the deals with the nonprofits, which in most cases were slated to run until 2029, 2030, or later, records show. It also called for an outside financial institution to manage the money, in part because the agency had zero experience in handling grants of this size.
Although the language in the Inflation Reduction Act dealing with the Greenhouse Gas funds does not use "shall," the word Congress usually employs to indicate that something is required, the law did impose a deadline of Sept. 30 -- the end of the fiscal year -- EPA officials and legal experts agree.
On June 27, as the EPA was making its deals with the nonprofits, Biden had his disastrous debate with Donald Trump, and on July 21 Biden ended his re-election campaign and threw his support to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The Greenhouse Gas fund money remained unobligated at that point, according to EPA officials.
The deals were finally completed and the National Clean Investment Fund and the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator money was obligated to the nonprofits on Aug. 16, according to a timeline provided to RCI. That left $7 billion, the portion that comprised the third component of the fund, Solar For All.
At that point, the $20 billion, though obligated, remained with the Treasury, officials said. A memorandum of understanding between EPA and the Treasury Department on moving the mountain of cash was not signed until Sept. 6.
Two weeks later, the Republican-led House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee held a hearing to learn more about EPA funding oversight, calling the agency's inspector general Sean O'Donnell to testify. O'Donnell made clear he had never seen the maneuvers the EPA was making with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and said neither he nor his staff would be able to stay on top of it.
...
Yet it was not until Nov. 12, three working days after Trump beat Harris in the 2024 election, that the EPA began talks with Citibank about taking control of the $20 billion, Trump administration officials told RCI. During those negotiations, on Dec. 5, Project Veritas released an undercover video of an EPA official laughing about what he considered an extraordinary process, likening it to "throwing gold bars off the deck of the Titanic."
The Citibank arrangement effectively removing direct EPA oversight, and with interest on the $20 billion going to the grant recipients, was signed on Dec. 27, agency officials told RCI....
Critics of the spending said the timeline smacks of shady politics.
Steve Milloy, a skeptic of apocalyptic global warming, said he has received a government grant and his experience was profoundly different than the one enjoyed by Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund winners. His process was an uncomfortable one that lasted 10 months, he said.
"They crawled up my ass, and that was for a small grant," he said.
The contrast is striking, in his opinion.
"I've never seen anything like this," he said. "It is fishy ... I think they thought they would win reelection and panicked when they lost. It seems like all of this is being done without due diligence or accountability."
Daredevil, a Series Disney Was Counting on to Revive Its Failing Marvel Franchise, Posts Low Ratings in Debut
Plus: Is This Something?
—Ace
The show isn't that bad. Kingpin, they say, is based on Trump, but I don't hear that there's much wokeness in it. I don't really like it, but it's mostly like the old Netflix show, which I also wasn't a big fan of.
What I mean is, it should satisfy the old audience.
But the old audience isn't tuning in.
Interest in the Marvel brand is now down at Star Wars levels, so even relatively "good" (by comparison) projects are passed over.
Marvel Studios had high hopes for Daredevil: Born Again, positioning it as a major revival of the Netflix-era Daredevil series and a key effort to win back longtime fans. However, despite Variety and Disney painting the numbers as a success, a closer look reveals a starkly different story.According to Disney, Daredevil: Born Again drew 7.5 million views in its first five days. Variety calls this a "strong launch," but in reality, this number falls well below expectations for a series of this magnitude.
For comparison, The Acolyte--a series that performed so poorly it was shelved after one season--managed 11.1 million views in its first week. That was already considered underwhelming, coming in 3 million below Ahsoka. Even Agatha All Along, widely regarded as a disastrous misfire for Marvel streaming, managed 9.3 million in its first week.
This raises serious questions about the future of Marvel's television projects. If Daredevil: Born Again, with its strong brand recognition and returning fan-favorite cast, can't outperform some of Marvel's weakest streaming entries, is the studio truly capable of turning things around? Disney and Variety can attempt to spin these numbers, but the reality is clear--this was supposed to be a major comeback, and instead, it signals further decline.
...
At this point, Marvel Studios is facing an uphill battle to regain audience trust. The push to reclaim the momentum of the past is growing more desperate, and projects like Daredevil: Born Again were meant to be the remedy. Instead, with a launch this lackluster, it seems the studio is still struggling to bring audiences back. If Marvel's legacy characters can't drive engagement, what does that mean for its future?
Midnight's Edge calls the ratings a "disaster."
Below: Is This Something?
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House DOGE Subcommittee Demands FBI/DOJ Investigation Into the Coordiated, Democrat-Financied Violent Terrorism Against Elon Musk and Tesla
—Ace
Open their books. Subpoena all of their financial records and emails.
The House DOGE subcommittee, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), is demanding a federal investigation into what she calls "organized attacks" on Elon Musk and Tesla. Greene has sent a formal request to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, citing incidents of vandalism, arson, and violence that she argues should be classified as domestic terrorism.Key Details:
Greene and fellow House Republicans on the DOGE subcommittee have sent a letter to the DOJ and FBI, calling for an investigation into a "wave of organized attacks" against Tesla and Elon Musk.
The letter cites incidents such as a shooting at a Tesla dealership in Portland and vandalism in Colorado, with Greene claiming these acts are linked to Democrat-affiliated groups.
The subcommittee seeks to determine who is behind the attacks, whether NGOs are involved, and if any federal funding is indirectly supporting these actions.
Diving Deeper:
Greene took to X (formerly Twitter) to publicize the subcommittee's request, writing, "Who is behind it? Who is funding it? Is there a link with Democrat-leaning NGOs? We look forward to exposing these terrorists and bringing them to justice!" The letter, co-signed by Reps. Brian Jack (R-GA), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Michael Cloud (R-TX), William Timmons (R-SC), Brandon Gill (R-TX), and Pat Fallon (R-TX), details the committee's concerns over growing hostility toward Musk and his enterprises.
The subcommittee's concerns stem from Musk's role in curtailing government spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). This move, Greene argues, has made him a target for left-wing activists opposed to fiscal restraint. Protesters have disrupted Tesla showrooms, defaced vehicles, and, in more extreme cases, resorted to violence.
A particularly troubling case mentioned in the letter involved a March 6 shooting at a Tesla dealership in Portland, Oregon, where gunfire shattered windows and damaged vehicles. While no injuries were reported, the incident raised alarms about escalating aggression. Another incident saw a woman spray paint "Nazi" on Tesla cars in Colorado, echoing the broader hostility Musk has faced since taking control of X and pushing back against left-wing influence in technology and media.
Greene and her colleagues are pressing federal authorities to answer several questions, including identifying those orchestrating and funding the attacks, potential connections to Democrat-linked NGOs, and whether federal tax dollars are being used to support these activities. "The American public deserves transparency and assurance that their tax dollars are not being used to fund domestic political terrorism," Greene wrote.life."
Here is what they're "protesting" to save: communists and violent anarchists and terrorism-supporters being paid hundreds of millions of dollars by exploited taxpayers.
A Columbia Professor Marched for Hamas--and Received Millions in Public FundingJennifer Manly has been associated with over $100 million in grants over the past 20 years.
Columbia University has been ground zero for the Ivy League's pro-Hamas demonstrators...
This student-led movement is also supported by some faculty. We have identified one Columbia professor, neuropsychologist Jennifer J. Manly, who participated in the pro-Hamas protests and stood in a human blockade intending to prevent administrators from dismantling the unauthorized encampments last April. In photos taken of the event, Manly is visible wearing an orange vest and standing with fellow Columbia professors as they marched for Gaza, in front of banners reading "Demilitarize education" and "Palestine is Everywhere"; others called for financial boycott and divestment from Israel.
Our research has revealed that Manly is not only employed by the university but also subsidized by the American taxpayer. According to the National Institutes of Health and other publicly accessible databases, she has been named in connection with over $100 million in grants over the past 20 years. Much of her research is based on the so-called social determinants of health thesis, which posits that racism, sexism, and homophobia can cause brain disease in "Black and Latinx communities"--a thesis that critics have described as pseudo-science. (Manly, Columbia, and NIH did not return requests for comment.)
Manly's appearance at a pro-Hamas rally, coupled with her activist academic research, raises serious questions about the medical establishment, which has directed large sums of taxpayer dollars to ideologues disguised as professors and to activism disguised as science. And it gives further grist to officials in the Trump administration, who have argued that funding cuts are necessary to disrupt the pipeline of left-wing radicals.
Manly's work routinely advances the idea that racism causes physical illness, such as Alzheimer's disease. She claimed in an interview last year that "we shouldn't blame people for their lifestyle choices in terms of their brain health." Rather, "systems of oppression" and "discriminatory beliefs" cause black people to suffer dementia at disproportionate rates. "Any biological differences are driven by . . . racism," Manly has said, later defining racism as "the pathway through which race is 'biologized.'" Her academic work reflects these views. One paper Manley coauthored blamed "historical patterns of segregation" for higher rates of dementia among blacks. Another paper blamed "structural sexism" for declining memory, with the effect found to be stronger among black women.
Manly's work is lavishly funded by taxpayers. Most recently, the National Institutes of Health gave her and her team nearly $700,000 to produce work linking racism to brain disease. As part of this grant, in January 2025, Manley and colleagues published an article implying that blacks living in states with "high lynching proportions" experienced higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a factor associated with greater risk of dementia. The authors claimed that "racism is associated with inflammation and dementia risk" because it "cumulatively taxes the body resulting in worsening biological and cognitive health." Another paper concluded that "racist U.S. policies" had an "influence on cognitive health over time and dementia risk later in life."
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Of Course: German Intelligence Rated It as 80-95% Likely that Covid-19 Was Manufactured in the Wuhan Lab (But Kept It Secret All These Years)
—Ace
From David Strom: You don't hate the Regime enough.
For five years, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has assumed that the coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory. The BND classifies the laboratory theory as "probable" and is "80 to 95 percent" certain. Since then, the German government has kept secret the BND's findings that the virus originated in the biolab in Wuhan . This is reported by NZZ, Zeit, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.To date, it remains officially unclear whether the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is of natural origin or originated in a laboratory. Despite intensive research, no intermediate host has been identified that naturally transmitted the pathogen from animals to humans. At the same time, controversial experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) that supported the laboratory theory came into focus.
Virologists meeting at the foreign intelligence service?
According to reports, several scientists at the German foreign intelligence service, the Federal Intelligence Service, have been meeting in recent weeks, initiated by the Federal Chancellery. The first meeting took place last year, with the participation of renowned virologists. A central topic of these discussions was the possible origin of the virus. According to Zeit, the Federal Chancellery has been keeping relevant information under wraps for five years.
Strom quotes from the Daily Mail, which has additional details:
In Wuhan, the BND agents 'struck gold,' coming 'as close to the origins of the pandemic... as possible in China,' German media Die Zeit reported.They found unpublished dissertations from 2019 and 2020 that allegedly discussed the effects of coronaviruses on the human body.
Additionally, uncovered materials revealed Chinese scientists had 'an unusually large amount of knowledge about the supposedly novel virus available at an unusually early stage.'
Based on the materials BND agents found and analyzed, they used a 'Probability Index' to measure the reliability of information, which determined the lab-leak theory was 'probable' with an '80 to 95 percent' certainty.
Further, the agents also accused Chinese scientists of actively carrying out dangerous experiments with the deadly coronavirus MERS.
Trump Demands Supreme Court Rein In Lawless Leftwing Tyrants in Judge's Robes
—Ace
Leftwing hacks have been overstepping their bounds and elevating themselves to Acting President:
Judge blocks Trump from revoking clearances of firm connected to Russia-collusion hoax
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, blocking enforcement of key provisions in an executive order that would penalize Perkins Coie, the Democratic-linked law firm involved in the discredited Russia-collusion narrative during President Trump's first term.Key Details:
Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, ruled that Trump's order could cause "irreparable harm" to Perkins Coie, violating its First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights.
The executive order sought to revoke the firm's security clearances, prohibit government contracts with entities using its services, and restrict employee access to federal buildings.
Perkins Coie, which once employed Democratic election attorney Marc Elias, was instrumental in hiring Fusion GPS, the firm behind the debunked Steele dossier.
Thousands of fired federal workers must be rehired immediately, judge rules
A federal judge on Thursday ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump's turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy.U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a "sham" strategy by the government's central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce.
Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to "immediately" offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an "unlawful" decision to terminate them.
Charlie Kirk @charliekirk11Federal judges issued 15 nationwide injunctions against the Trump Administration in February alone. In just one month, that's more nationwide injunctions than there were issued for the first three YEARS of the Biden Administration.
District court judges are out of control.
SCOTUS must rein them in.
Trump is demanding that the Supreme Court rein in the hacks.
The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to rein in lower court rulings that have prevented a ban on birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide.Judges should not be able to govern "the whole Nation" from their courtrooms by issuing universal injunctions that block policies across the entire country while litigation is pending, the administration told the justices in its application.
"District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [temporary restraining orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration," the application states. "That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court's emergency docket."
The Trump administration is not yet asking the justices to weigh in directly on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship. Instead, they ask the justices to limit the common practice of universal injunctions that "compromise the Executive Branch's ability to carry out its functions, as administrations of both parties have explained."
"These cases--which involve challenges to the President's January 20, 2025 Executive Order concerning birthright citizenship--raise important constitutional questions with major ramifications for securing the border," wrote. "But at this stage, the government comes to this Court with a 'modest' request: while the parties litigate weighty merits questions, the Court should 'restrict the scope' of multiple preliminary injunctions that 'purpor[t] to cover every person * * * in the country,' limiting those injunctions to parties actually within the courts' power."
The Trump administration's requests arise out of orders blocking the ban in Maryland, Washington and Massachusetts. Trump's executive order prevents children born to parents either illegally in the U.S. or on temporary visas from gaining automatic citizenship.
Several Supreme Court justices have previously expressed disapproval of lower court's use of nationwide injunctions. Justice Neil Gorsuch criticized what he called "a rash of universal injunctions" during oral arguments in a case on the abortion pill in 2024.
Benjamin Weingarten @bhweingarten🚨The Trump Administration is taking the fight to end universal injunctions to the Supreme Court.
"...[T]he government comes to this Court with a 'modest' request: while the parties litigate weighty merits questions, the Court should 'restrict the scope' of multiple preliminary injunctions that 'purpor[t] to cover every person * * * in the country,' limiting those injunctions to parties actually within the courts' power."
"...Universal injunctions have reached epidemic proportions since the start of the current Administration. Courts have graduated from universal preliminary injunctions to universal temporary restraining orders, from universal equitable relief to universal monetary remedies, and from governing the whole Nation to governing the whole world."
..."This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched."
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After Vowing That Democrats Would Shut Down the Government, Chuch Schumer Caves Completely
—Ace
Chuck Schumer more like Cuck Schumer am i rite?
On Wednesday, this ridiculous pompous flabby tick vowed that Democrats would vote against cloture on the House-passed CR, thus shutting down the government.
Schumer's got his big fat flabby ass in a bind. On one hand, his left flank is as unreasoning and hate-filled as ever, and they demand he "fight" Trump on everything, and destroy the country if Trump says he wants to save it.
On the other hand, his left flank is wildly unpopular with the public, and obeying their petulant entitled demands has brought the Democrat-Communist Party to the brink of extinction.
So he decided to take his Clever Pills and settled on a plan:
First, he'd announce he was shutting down the government to block Trump's rush to "dismantle" the government.
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THE MORNING RANT: Bad News! Coffee Prices and Bond Yields Are Up...or Down
—Buck Throckmorton
Until November 2028, the prevailing theme of the legacy media’s coverage of economic news is going to be “More bad news for the Trump presidency…” With its credibility burned up, most of us will have no problem disregarding it.
But irrespective of that politically-driven negativity, there are certain business topics that are usually reported as bad, no matter who is President, with an emotional emphasis on why this is problematic.
With that introduction, there’s no great thesis to today’s post other than that I am weary of those business and economic topics I have an interest in being subject to journalistic framing that tends to contain some level of fear-mongering or worrisome foreboding rather than simply focusing on the economic facts. I’ll quickly talk about two of them: Bonds and Coffee.
Coffee is my favorite beverage, and all aspects of the coffee business is interesting to me, from where it’s grown to where it’s sold. But of course, the news being reported about coffee is always bad. If coffee prices are up, it’s bad news. If coffee prices are down, it’s bad news. If bad weather causes a shortage of coffee, it’s bad news. If a perfect growing season leads to a glut of coffee, it’s bad news.
A version of this headline has been in most newspapers in recent weeks: “Bad news for coffee drinkers as prices set to keep going up” [Yahoo – 3/06/2025]
Brazil and Vietnam are the two biggest coffee exporters, and both have smaller crops this year. In Vietnam it’s due to coffee farmers replanting much of their cropland to grow durian (a fruit) for the Chinese market. In Brazil, the crop is smaller due to bad weather.
“Brazil drought punishes coffee farms and threatens to push prices even higher” [AP – 9/20/2024]
But just a few years ago Brazil had a record crop, and that was also reported as bad news, of course.
As such, there should be little respite for the world’s coffee farmers who have been struggling under low prices brought on by Brazilian output.
“Why are Many Coffee Farmers Abandoning their Crops?” [Merchants of Green Coffee – 4/09/2021]
In 2019, Arabica beans traded at 86 cents per pound, representing a 14-year low for prices. According to analyses, coffee prices have fallen to less than a third of their level in 1960, despite being one of the world’s largest export commodities, and the seventh-largest agricultural export.
Enjoy your coffee. Pay the market price. And disregard the doom reporting about this wonderful beverage.
For most of my adult life, the liquid portion of my investment portfolio was exclusively stocks (mutual funds.) But with retirement looming in less than a decade, and with interest rates on bonds having risen dramatically from the near-zero rates that prevailed for so long, I have balanced my portfolio somewhat to include some bond funds.
Therefore, I am starting to pay attention to financial reporting on bonds for the first time. Guess what? It’s usually bad news.
If interest rates rise, it’s bad news for bond investors because the principal value of existing bonds decreases.
If interest rates decrease, it’s bad news for bond investors because they’re going to start earning less interest.
Here are examples of how both a reduction in interest rates and an increase in interest rates were reported as bad news.
1) Here is a bad news story about an interest rate cut in 2024…
“Why Fed Rate Cuts Are Hurting Treasury Bonds” [Barron’s – 9/19/2024]
It looks like the party in the bond market is over. The Federal Reserve made a bold move on Wednesday, cutting interest rates by half a percentage point instead of starting slow with a quarter point.That is bad news for bond investors…
2) And here is a bad news story about an interest rate increase in 2025…
“It's been a brutal start to the year for the bond market” [Business Insider – 01/10/2025]
The US bond market is off to a tough start in 2025.This has been reflected in spiking yields, which trade inverse to the price of bonds. On Friday, US Treasury yields surged to their highest level since October 2023.
The catastrophism and emoting in general interest news stories is bad enough. Can’t I even read about what is going on in the bond market or the coffee business without being warned why this is bad news? The fact that it’s almost always bad news makes me dismiss the grim analysis altogether.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
The Morning Report — 3/ 14 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. In noting the passing of the longtime Democrat Rep-robate from Arizona Raul Grijalva, considering some of the items making news this morning , perhaps the word of the day is harbinger. And he's the second Dem congress-vermin to join the choir invisible this week. A few notes from his rap sheet at the invaluable DiscovertheNetworks:
Former Democrat Member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Former member of MECha, which seeks to facilitate Mexico’s reconquest of the Southwestern U.S. Former leader of the Raza Unida Party Supporter of open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens
Vaya con... something Raul. Certainly not Dios, since he is heading south of the border - between the Lithosphere and the 9th Circle of the Infernal Reaches. Let's leave it at that, but from my perspective we need more Wallenbergs, and no more Grijalvas.
With Democrats threatening to force a partial government shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is being confronted with a warning he delivered just last year.The “Rapid Response” account on X for President Donald Trump’s White House posted on Thursday a “flashback” clip of Schumer’s remarks from September — when the top Democrat pinned a potential shutdown at that time on Republicans. “If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer most. A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social Security could be thrown into chaos …” Schumer said.
“So what changed, Chuck?” the White House account asked. . . “The Trump Derangement Syndrome continues,” said Sen. Thom Thillis (R-NC). “One of the first things Democrats did when they controlled the Senate was to make a failed push to nuke the filibuster because [Joe] Biden was President. Now they are shamefully filibustering and on the verge of shutting down the government to appease their radical base because Trump is President.” Elon Musk, who is overseeing the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), replied: “Paging 2024 Schumer …”
The Democrats for years as we all know have shrieked about how shutting down the government will cause death and destruction from coast to coast, unless they get to raid the treasury to fund their bureaucracy (the real doomsday machine as we all know. So now the Democrats are having to swallow their own bullshit rhetoric about shutting down the government lest the public finally understand how generally unnecessary thbulk of the federal government is. And that only reinforces what DOGE is all about. And, so long as Mike Johnson and the GOP don't cave (a tall order) they have the chance at accomplishing in Congress what w is their duty, in slashing the budget and size of government through the budgetary process. One way or another, a lot of politicians are going to be foisted on petards of their or Trump's making!
But here's Chip Diller insisting that everything's under control!
To me, it sounds like a nail bragging about its rivalry with a hammer. (Or a bag of doughnuts bragging about its rivalry with Lizzo.) But nonetheless, here we are:“We have the Republicans on the run!” announced House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Turns out the Democrats aren’t just bravely battling back against President Trump. They’re actually winning — and now Old Man Trump is running scared!
In a call with party leaders, Jeffries described Trump’s recent speech to Congress as “one of the most divisive speeches by a president in American history” and predicted, because of the economy, MAGA’s end was nigh:
Keep huffing those whippets Hakeem.
Of course, when cornered, Democrats go to their strength: Incite violence. Do I really have to quote slithering vermin like Maxine Waters and Jeff Merkley? It's in the links for those who really need to get their blood boiling.
And talk like that gets the blood flowing, mostly from knife and bullet wounds, as well as from bricks hurled a la Ignatz Mouse at Krazy Kat's head - - prepositioned on pallets from sources unknown. Patel and Bondi need to go after Soros, Antifa and ActBlue because that's where all the violence ultimately begins.
And it raises some cromulent questions about the nature of free speech that CBD and I touched on in the latest episode of the podcast, here and in the sidebar.
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 weekend.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Anyone affiliated with or even speaking an ounce of praise towards President Donald Trump’s administration have become targets of a violent left that knows they have no coherent arguments, or propagandistic arguments, that work anymore, so they’ve resorted to basically declaring Civil War against anyone that doesn’t chew their tongue like they do. After the “alleged” murder of InfoWars reporter Jamie White Sunday evening, yet another InfoWars reporter/host has been targeted by, “allegedly,” by an ideological counterpart. InfoWars host Chase Geiser posted to X, along with a video, that he was “swatted” twice within 12 hours.
Domestic Terrorism? Attempts on Conservative Journalists & Their Families Lives, 'Swatted' Multiple Times
- Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva died Thursday morning at the age of 77 due to complications from lung cancer treatment, his office announced, just a week after the passing of late Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner.
Arizona Democrat Rep (robate). Raul Grijalva dead at 77, second House Dem to die this Congress
- Bowman said, “It’s definitely organized at a broader level. There is a website up that people can go visit that’s out there today, and I’ve actually posted this on my X account, I’ve shared some of these events, but they’re coordinating it with people locally across…not just the Indivisible groups, really, but, like, multiple groups and individuals that are, like, posting these events where people show up and they already have, like, pre-printed graphics…signs and stickers and things like you mentioned that basically depict Teslas being set on fire.”
Revealed: Tesla Vandalism, Terrorism Coordinated Across Vast Leftwing Online Network
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Daily Tech News 14 March 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- OpenAI warns that China will take the lead in stochastic garbage generators - colloquially called "AI" - if the company is not allowed free rein to ingest all copyrighted data regardless of the wishes of the rights holders, which curiously is not as one-sided and self-serving as it might seem at first glance. (Ars Technica)
Because copyright law prevents you from making copies of protected works. It doesn't prevent you from reading them or learning from them. It doesn't mean you can't cite them, use facts from them, remake the ideas from them.
That's the whole point of books, after all.
There are particularly egregious cases such as Meta torrenting 82TB of books and then not seeding afterwards but if you paid for the books, or borrowed them from a source that did, and you don't reproduce copies, you are complying with copyright law.
More specifically, OpenAI is asking for federal clarification of what the law is, with a flood of varying state laws and district court decisions currently all differing on the question.
The Ars commentariat helpfully clarifies this issue by being so stridently and consistently wrong. And they're against it.
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Belugas Cafe
—Ace
Yup, that's me all right.
You nailed it dude.
A fox enjoys the banjo. A bear, which is out of control, enjoys the guitar.
Feeding time for the mooses. Put the sound on. They make funny noises.
Friendly elephants roam the streets in Nepal.
German shepherds open and close the gate for their master's jeep.
I don't know if this is real. I doubt it. Amusing though.
It's been a while since I linked a sugar glider.
Leopard tries to eat a baboon -- but the baboon's mob delivers some Community Justice.
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Trump Set to Invoke Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to Speed Removal of Illegals
—Ace
NEW: The Trump administration is expected to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a sweeping wartime authority, in the coming days, sources familiar w/ the move tell @priscialva @jmhansler & meThe move is designed to speed up the president's mass deportation pledge
The announcement, which could be made as soon as tomorrow, will come in the form of a presidential proclamation
The move would likely pave the way for quicker removals of certain immigrants
Trump promised to do this at his second inaugural.
President Donald Trump is reportedly set to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to facilitate the mass deportations of illegal immigrants.The president repeatedly vowed to take such action on the campaign trail and after he was elected last year. Now, it appears the plan will be set in motion, according to CNN White House correspondent Alayna Treene who reported the move in a post on X.
During his second inaugural address, Trump declared that, "By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities."
It is unclear exactly how the administration will carry out this strategy, but there are indications that it will be used to target criminal gangs. A senior White House official told CNN in February that "Labeling Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization was the first step."
The advantage of invoking this law is to deport criminal aliens without allowing them to remain in the US while their phony asylum claims are processed. It takes 6-10 years for the immigration courts to resolve an asylum claim -- and of course most of these claims are frivolous, and the illegal alien ignores his ultimate deportation order anyway.
After having 3-6 anchor babies, naturally.
But CNN talked to some "experts."
Experts told CNN last year that if the Trump administration does invoke the Alien Enemies Act, immigrant and civil rights advocates are likely to argue it's illegal to use the law to detain and deport foreign nationals under these circumstances."There is no military invasion or military predatory incursion being perpetrated by an actual foreign nation or government," says Katherine Yon Ebright of the Brennan Center at New York University. "And so, irrespective of how broadly or narrowly he would like to apply it, we would oppose any invocation as an abuse of a wartime authority."
Relatedly: Now it can be told. Biden "cooked the books" on illegal alien deportations to make it seem like he was deporting illegals while in reality, he was keeping almost all of them.
Check this fraud out: When they released an illegal alien they found illegally crossing the border into the country, they counted this as an "arrest."
Hey, they did stop the illegal alien for five minutes before releasing him. That technically counts as an "arrest" (a stop in movement, however temporarily).
ICE uncovers Biden Admin "cooking the books" on illegal alien arrestsThu Mar 13 2025
ICE officials revealed that the Biden administration falsely inflated illegal alien arrest numbers by counting individuals processed and released into the U.S. as ICE arrests. Since President Trump took office, actual arrests have already surpassed all of 2024.
Key Details:
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons stated that the Biden administration misled the public by categorizing released individuals as "arrests."
A review found tens of thousands of falsely recorded arrests in 2024.
ICE has made 32,809 arrests in less than two months under Trump--nearly surpassing the 33,242 at-large arrests from all of 2024.
Over 1,150 gang members have been arrested since Trump took office, more than double the same period last year.
Diving Deeper:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has accused the Biden administration of manipulating arrest data to mislead the American public about its enforcement actions against illegal immigration. According to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, an internal review found that the Biden administration had been classifying individuals who were simply processed and released into the U.S. as ICE arrests.
"We have uncovered that the previous administration... was cooking the books on ICE data," Lyons told reporters Wednesday. "They were purposely misleading the American people by categorizing individuals processed and released into the interior of the United States as ICE arrests."
Rosie O'Donnell Flees Drumpf's AmeriKKKa for Leftwing Basketcase Nation Ireland
—Ace
Why Ireland? Because she's a potato-shaped individual and she heard the Call of the Tater.
Trump was asked about the aged nobody when he met with the Irish PM.
When a reporter asked Irish Prime Minister Martin why he allowed the American comedian to move to the country, Trump was quick to respond."Ireland is known for very happy, fun-loving people," a reporter noted to Martin at the White House.
"Why in the world would you let Rosie O'Donnell move to Ireland?" the reporter asked. "I think she is going to lower your happiness."
Before Martin could answer, Trump chimed in and replied, "That's true, I like that question. Do you know you have Rosie O'Donnell? Do you know who she is? You're better off not knowing."
...
Trump made the comments after the comedian revealed she has been living in Ireland and is in the process of applying for Irish citizenship.
"It's been pretty wonderful, I have to say," the 62-year-old said in a video on TikTok. "And the people have been so loving, so kind and so welcoming. And I'm very grateful."
...
Despite her ongoing sparring with Trump, O'Donnell said she and her daughters are "happy" in Ireland.
"I miss my other kids," she added of her five grown children. "I miss my friends. I miss many things about life there at home. And I'm trying to find a home here in this beautiful country. And when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America, that's when we will consider coming back."
The "Flintstones" star additionally said she thinks about the U.S. every day, and "I am hoping that we can turn things around. I'm counting on you, all of you, to do what's right. And I think deep down inside we all know what that is."
Sounds like a sotto voce call for violence.
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You're Not Going to Believe This, But Democrats' Line of Attack on Trump Is Spreading Lies About Trump Cutting, Get This, Social Security
—Ace
Wigged-out leftwing harridan Karen Tumulty got the lie-ball rolling:
Karen Tumulty @ktumultySCOOP: Social Security, facing pressure from DOGE, weighs big cuts to phone service. Agency considers ending phone program that helps with claims processing and is used by millions, by @hannah_natanson
Oh no! Cutting phone service! Seniors won't be able to get their checks!
A Democrat congressmen pushes the lie along:
Jared Moskowitz @JaredEMoskowitzOkay, I've seen some all time boneheaded plays but this takes the cake. Seniors are already waiting hours on the phone for social security , and you're gonna cut more phone agents or push seniors to the internet or AI?
The truth: Fraudsters use the phone lines to change the method of payment to seniors, sending their payments to their own accounts and stealing the money from the seniors (and also costing the government billions).
Musk and Trump want to require in-person appearances to have money diverted from the old bank account to the new one, because foreign fraudsters in India and Niger and Russia obviously aren't going to walk into a US office to perpetrate their fraud.
Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichterJared is lying to you. The big change is they are not going to allow you to alter your routing number over the phone because people are defrauding Social Security recipients by calling in and changing how they get their direct payments. That’s the change. It’s pathetic how these people lie to you.
Bonchie @bonchieredstateThe Trump administration stopped social security bank routing numbers from being changed over the phone (because it's so easy to commit fraud), and journalists rushed to claim seniors couldn't make claims anymore.
Some might suggest you can't hate the press enough.
You don't hate the media and the left enough. But I repeat myself.
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OOOOpsie! CNN's Deranged Propagandists Have Another On-Air Shart
—Ace
Via Instapundit, CNN's Kaitlin Collins has once again revealed herself to be a clueless but arrogant Democrat shill.
It begins with CNN's biased anti-Trump know-nothing Bill Weir asserting, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, that the Trump press release stating that he would reform "OOOO" was a "typo" or "place-holder" for the real section name which would be added later.
Kaitlin Collins says "Oooops," mockingly.
WEIR: Uh, today, Lee Zeldin put out a video on X, and they were putting out press releases with such a flurry, about 31 different actions and rollbacks, that some of them had typos or placeholders at the top. We have one of those there. Trump EPA announces zero, zero, zero, you can see there.COLLINS: Oops
WEIR: It's sort of shoot first, fill out the press release later.
But here's the thing that these "journalists" and "truth-tellers" never bothered to look up: "OOOO" is not a "place-holder" nor a "typo." "OOOO," or "Quad O," is the actual name of the section Trump is talking about reforming.
It's not zero-zero-zero-zero, it's Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh, and it's a real part of the law.
The "fact checkers" do not bother with two second searches to check their own fake "facts."
This is why the "fact-checking" industry is such a joke. It is filled with supposed "experts" who have no idea what they are actually talking about, yet are more than willing to make false assertions with total confidence. The press release shown in the clip does not read, "Zero, zero, zero." Those are the letter "O," and they are the identifier for a specific regulation under the Clean Air Act.
Zeldin took to social media to correct the record after Weir's embarrassing flub.
ZELDIN: Another media "fact check" face plant where the fact checker doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about. "OOOO b/c" is not a typo. 40 CFR Part 60 Subpart OOOO, or Quad O, is a federal reg under the Clean Air Act.Also, those aren't zeroes, it's the letter "O"....
My absolute favorite part of this entire thing, though, is Collins sarcastically mocking Zeldin by saying "Oops," even as it is her correspondent that is in the midst of getting the story completely wrong. That is the kind of arrogance that has led to the press suffering its worst approval ratings in history. Will she correct the record and apologize on her show on Thursday night? She should, but somehow, I doubt she does.
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Terrorist-Supporting Insurrectionists Take Over Trump Tower By Force, Demand that Trump Release Terror-Supporting Foreign Alien Mahmoud Khalil
—Ace
And they also demand that the police release the other terror-supporting radicals they've arrested.
Will Capital One Bank and Bank of America be debanking these insurrectionists...?
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