Daily Tech News 29 October 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Amazon is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs. (The Verge)
Not replacing them with AI. Just... Not replacing them.
- Apple and Microsoft have both passed the $4 trillion market cap line. (Tech Crunch)
Joining Nvidia among the most valuable companies in the world.
Google's parent company Alphabet is valued at $3.25 trillion, Amazon is at $2.42 trillion, and Facebook's parent Meta is at $1.89 trillion.
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Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - October 28, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Howdy Hordelings! Happy Tuesday to you all. Many thanks to scampydog for holding down the fort for me last Tuesday. Hope everyone treated him well!
ONT content awaits below. Also, open thread, as always. Are you in?
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Black Woman of Color and Member of LGBTQ+ Immigrant Community Cafe
—Ace
Marc Robbins Photography
Big cats are just big house cats.
Otter pup (evil) chirping.
She's cute, but she's already a member of the Cat Lady Collective.
Dog gets off leash and lives his life to the full, for about a minute.
Dog just saw The Empire Strikes Back and he's just inspired.
Transformers, roll out.
A very #Based Halloween display.
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Quick Hits
—Ace
LOL, Jeffrey Epstein "pal" Bill Gates walks back his previous banana-boat climate catastrophism.
Billionaire Bill Gates -- long one of the loudest voices warning of climate catastrophe -- now says the world has bigger problems to worry about. In a 17-page memo released Tuesday, the Microsoft co-founder called for a "strategic pivot" away from the obsessive focus on reducing global temperatures, urging leaders instead to prioritize fighting poverty and eradicating disease in the developing world. "Climate change is a serious problem, but it's not the end of humanity," Gates wrote.Gates, 70, argued that global leaders have lost perspective by treating climate change as an existential crisis while millions continue to suffer from preventable diseases like malaria. "If I had to choose between eradicating malaria and preventing a tenth of a degree of warming, I'd let the temperature go up 0.1 degree," he told reporters ahead of next month's U.N. climate conference in Brazil. "People don't understand the suffering that exists today."
For decades, Gates has positioned himself as a leading advocate for global climate initiatives, investing billions in green energy projects and warning of the dangers of rising emissions. Yet his latest comments mark a striking reversal -- and a rare admission that the world's climate panic may have gone too far. "If you think climate is not important, you won't agree with the memo," Gates told journalists. "If you think climate is the only cause and apocalyptic, you won't agree with the memo. It's a pragmatic view from someone trying to maximize the money and innovation that helps poor countries."
Low-IQ thug Jasmine Ratchet has been getting rich from corporations while denouncing the same corporations.
Oh -- and she's investing heavily in pot.
Andrew Kerr of Free Beacon:
Inside Jasmine Crockett's Secret Stock Portfolio and Failed Attempts To Become a Marijuana Magnate Crockett, a potential 2028 Senate candidate, did not report her stakes in major pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, marijuana, technology, and automobile firms
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) owned stocks in at least 25 companies that she did not disclose to the public during her first congressional run in 2022, even though she'd quietly admitted to the holdings the previous year as a Texas state legislator. Crockett also didn't reveal the stock holdings once she got to Washington in 2023.The far-left firebrand's impressive financial portfolio--according to records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon through a public records request--clashes with her image as an eco-warrior and beacon of progressivism. Further, Crockett, a self-described civil rights attorney, was an active stakeholder in the cannabis business--seeking unsuccessfully to open marijuana dispensaries in Ohio--even as she represented, as a defense lawyer, a man accused of murdering someone in a marijuana deal gone bad. Both in the Texas statehouse and in Congress, Crockett has pushed bills to decriminalize marijuana.
The records obtained by the Free Beacon open a window into the personal financial life of Crockett, 44, who says she supports herself. "I have no husband, y'all. Never been married, never been engaged," she told an interviewer in February, holding up her hands to emphasize the absence of a ring.
The House sophomore's stock holdings include stakes in several corporations that stood to benefit from actions she's taken as a lawmaker and legislation she's introduced in Congress, and others that stand in opposition to the image she's cultivated as a champion of green energy.
Crockett reported owning a sizable stock portfolio in her last financial disclosure as a Texas state lawmaker covering the 2021 calendar year, with stakes in major pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, technology, automobile, and marijuana firms. But the potty-mouthed progressive, who said Wednesday she is strongly considering running for Senate in Texas, did not disclose owning any of those same stocks in her first congressional financial disclosure, which also covered her financial holdings during the 2021 calendar year.
Twenty-five undisclosed stocks in Crockett's portfolio include her ownership of shares in Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, General Motors, Uber, DuPont, ExxonMobil, American Airlines, AT&T, Aurora Cannabis, Ford, and "Corporate Cannabis," and "Stocks Worldwide," the records show. Crockett also reported in her last Texas financial disclosure owing debts of at least $110,000--none of which she divulged in her first congressional financial disclosure covering the same calendar year.
Candidates for Congress are required to file detailed financial disclosures. If victorious, they must file more disclosures when beginning their terms. False or incomplete financial reports can lead to civil and even criminal penalties.
Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of ethics watchdog Americans for Public Trust, told the Free Beacon that Crockett's undisclosed stock portfolio and debts raise major conflict of interest concerns, with several of the companies, in particular the firms in the pharmaceutical and marijuana industries, standing to benefit from actions she's taken in the Texas state legislature and Congress.
As a black woman of immigrant, I celebrate Jasmine Ratchet and I oppose any dirty-assed racist who wants to stop her from being Cannabis Queen.
Indiana announces it will redistrict for 2026.
They might go for two whole seats. The current makeup is 7 Republicans, two Democrats.
Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced Monday that he's calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for a special legislative session to redraw the state's congressional map -- a move expected to solidify GOP representation and potentially add up to two more Republican-held seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. Braun said in a statement posted to X that he's taking action "to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington" and to ensure Indiana's congressional representation remains fair.The governor's call follows President Donald Trump personally urging Indiana Republicans earlier this month to move quickly on redistricting before next year's elections. "I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair," Braun wrote. "I am also asking the legislature to conform Indiana's tax code with new federal tax provisions to ensure stability and certainty for taxpayers and tax preparers for 2026 filings." Indiana's current U.S. House delegation consists of seven Republicans and two Democrats. While Braun didn't specify whether the goal is to flip both Democrat-held seats, GOP strategists view the session as a clear opportunity to grow the party's majority and counter Democrat-led gerrymanders in blue states.
Elon Musk has launched a direct (and superior) competitor to wikipedia, Grokipedia.
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture xAI launched "Grokipedia" on Monday -- a new online encyclopedia built to challenge what he says is Wikipedia's entrenched political bias. The site, powered by xAI's technology and integrated with Grok, the same AI system behind Musk's X platform, aims to provide a politically balanced alternative to the long-dominant Wikipedia, which critics have accused for years of leftist censorship and selective editing.Grokipedia, now live in its beta "v0.1" stage, opens with roughly 885,000 entries -- a fraction of Wikipedia's seven million English-language pages but a notable start for a platform that launched just hours ago. Some users experienced temporary errors upon the rollout, but by Monday evening the site was running smoothly. Musk framed the project as part of his broader effort to restore transparency and ideological diversity to the digital space, echoing his moves to overhaul Twitter into X.
The billionaire's feud with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has grown increasingly bitter in recent months. Musk has accused Wales of allowing Wikipedia to devolve into a propaganda outlet that protects liberal narratives while suppressing dissenting voices. "Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored," Musk wrote in a January post on X. Wales, for his part, has dismissed Grokipedia as an unserious experiment, telling the Washington Post last week that AI-generated content is prone to "massive factual errors" and lacks editorial oversight.
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As Democrats Spiral Crazily Over the East Wing Renovation, Noted Chinese Spywhore Asset Eric Swallowell Declares That All Democrat Candidates Must Vow to Raze the (Finished) Ballroom to the Ground
—Ace
The Democrats keep discovering new issues to obsess over and alienate normie voters with.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., was mocked for demanding that any 2028 Democratic presidential candidate pledge to demolish President Donald Trump's ballroom."Don't even think of seeking the Democratic nomination for president unless you pledge to take a wrecking ball to the Trump Ballroom on DAY ONE," Swalwell wrote on X on Saturday.
Swalwell followed up with another post to X that read, "Or, as @RubenGallego proposes, rename it the Barack Obama Ballroom. But a Trump monument to corruption will not stand."
The Democratic lawmaker was called out by conservatives and lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who wrote, "these people are deranged."
"I thought you guys were against demolishing anything at the White House," Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote.
...
The ballroom's construction set off a firestorm of criticism among Democrats, as well as liberal media commentators.
"Oh you're trying to say the cost of living is skyrocketing? Donald Trump can't hear you over the sound of bulldozers demolishing a wing of the White House to build a new grand ballroom," Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted to X.
But conservatives took aim at Swalwell's demands.
"Yes, Democrats should run on Trump's ballroom," The Washington Free Beacon's Chuck Ross said.
Conservative commentator AG Hamilton called out Swalwell for "promising to spend taxpayer time and money" to destroy the ballroom.
He quipped that it was "certainly one way to signal priorities for Democrats."
"The Vince Show" host Vince Coglianese pointed to the Democrats' initial criticism of the demolition at the White House."I was reliably told that demolishing side buildings = 'destroying the White House,'" he wrote. "Now it's part of the platform!"
Glenn Reynolds notes that even though the Democrats' florid insanity is driving down their poll numbers to the basement, they just can't stop.
Insane people cannot just stop being insane. Obsessives gonna obsess, neurotics gonna neuro.
President Donald Trump has done it again -- sent the left and the media (but I repeat myself) down a rabbit hole of absurdity."It's like the media is a cat and Trump has the world's biggest laser pointer," Margo Cleveland posted on X, "with it currently aimed at the new ballroom."
That's right: While Trump tours Asia, dancing, making trade deals and apparently having a blast, he's got his opponents back in the Swamp obsessing over . . . a home renovation project.
Using donated funds, not taxpayer money, Trump is rebuilding the White House's shabby East Wing -- originally added to cover up construction of a bomb shelter during World War II -- to create a large and modern space that meets the needs of today's presidency.
Naturally, this has the usual gang of idiots fuming.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) on Saturday lectured his fellow Democrats not to even imagine running for the presidential nomination unless they "pledge to take a wrecking ball" to Trump's renovation.
(Cleveland commented: "The funniest thing about this is not that Swalwell posted it, but that he thought it was so brilliant that he reposted it.")Talk show host Joe Walsh, who once cosplayed as a Republican, took up Swalwell's demand: "I'll say it every day for the next 3yrs," he wrote, "any Democrat running for president in 2028 MUST pledge to tear down Trump's ballroom. It matters."
Does it? Does it really?
It's hilarious to see such reactions from Democrats like these, along with Joe Scarbrough, Stephanie Ruhle and other Very Serious People, to a project that enriches our national infrastructure and won't cost taxpayers a dime.
Those who a couple of years ago were toppling monuments to America's founders and denouncing America itself as a slave state are now posing as defenders of our deep history and heritage.
Because nothing says "deep history and heritage" like a structure built in 1942 to hide a bomb shelter.
Trump's new White House annex will contain a lot more space, including a huge ballroom with a drone-proof metal roof and other security enhancements.
Up to now, big state dinners have been held in tents on the White House lawn, with portable space heaters, awkward temporary restrooms -- and zero overhead protection against security threats like drones, which are becoming a bigger and bigger danger.
The new building will make formal receptions and other big events safer and more comfortable.
...
But most of the leftists have to pretend.
If Trump is for it, a large segment of this country just has to be against it, and in the most overwrought, over-moralizing way.
They can't help themselves.
Thus when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted a Harvard study suggesting a link between consuming Tylenol in pregnancy and autism in children, pregnant Democratic women started posting TikTok videos of themselves gobbling the tablets: That'll show Trump!
Some reportedly wound up in the emergency room, but resisting Trump was more important.
Update to Previous Post: More videos of Subsidized Citizens threatening to loot grocery stores at Hot Air.
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House Oversight Committee Declares Biden's "Autopen Presidency" "Null and Void," Recommends Prosecutions for Those Who Wielded the Presidential Autopen with No Constititional Authority to Do So
—Ace
House panel declares Biden's Autopen Presidency "null and void," concluding that aides with zero Constitutional authority signed pardons and executive orders without Biden's knowledge, all to preserve "the illusion of presidential authority."
In a 91-page report released Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee accused Joe Biden's inner circle of executing and concealing presidential actions without his knowledge, declaring that any orders signed through the autopen were "null and void." The Republican-led panel, chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), said it uncovered evidence that senior aides used the mechanical signature device to authorize pardons, commutations, and executive directives while Biden's mental and physical decline worsened -- all to preserve "the illusion of presidential authority.""The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history," the report stated. "As Americans saw President Biden's decline with their own eyes, his inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover up his condition, and took unauthorized executive actions that are now invalid." The committee urged the Justice Department to launch a full criminal investigation into what it called a "cover-up of historic proportions," naming several aides who invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned about their roles. It also demanded the D.C. Board of Medicine investigate Biden's physician for allegedly hiding his true medical state.
According to the report, internal emails and documentation revealed a "haphazard process" surrounding clemency and other executive actions, with no reliable record confirming Biden's personal approval. Comer said the findings raise profound constitutional concerns. "If unelected aides were using the autopen to execute presidential powers without Joe Biden's knowledge or consent, that is an assault on the Constitution itself," he said.
Prosecute them. You say there's no specific law against this? As a black and queer woman of LGBTQ+ color, I give you the FBI.
Well not the FBI. I was doing a Hans Gruber there. (Not black queer or female, but an immigrant.)
The left has already given us the law to prosecute under. The J6 prosecutors prosecuted hundreds of people under the vague and novel premise that they were attempting a criminal "fraud against the United States of America." They claimed that anyone who did anything they didn't like were perpetrating a "fraud" on the "people of the United States.
Biden's aides clearly, really did perpetrate a fraud on the people of the United States. So let us take what I (as a black queer woman of immigrant) will call the "J6 Precedent" and imprison them all.
Nation's Largest Federal Worker Union Calls for an End to the Shutdown;
The Alleged Friends of Union Voters Say "F*** You"
—Ace
The nation's largest union of federal workers is calling on Congress to pass a short-term funding bill and immediately end the government shutdown as it heads into a fifth workweek.In a strong condemnation of both parties on Monday, the American Federation of Government Employees argued the shutdown is an "avoidable crisis" harming American families and workers across the nation.
"Both political parties have made their point, and still there is no clear end in sight," Everett Kelley, president of the AFGE, wrote. "It's time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today. No half measures, and no gamesmanship."
The AFGE represents more than 800,000 federal and Washington government workers and has filed several lawsuits against the Trump administration, including over mass layoffs.
Kelley on Monday emphasized that federal workers will be unpaid and face layoffs.
"When the folks who serve this country are standing in line for food banks after missing a second paycheck because of this shutdown, they aren't looking for partisan spin," he said. "They're looking for the wages they earned. The fact that they're being cheated out of it is a national disgrace."
...
The Senate last week rejected a Republican-led effort to pay active-duty members of the military and essential federal workers who have remained on the job during the shutdown. Democrats have backed a proposal that would pay all federal workers and bar the Trump administration from further firings workers during the shutdown.
Democrats "scoffed" at the union's demand.
A call from the largest federal workers union in the country for Democrats to pass a GOP bill reopening the government on Monday was met with uncharacteristic yawns from Washington, D.C.-area Democrats.Why it matters: Such a statement from a powerful union would, in normal times, have a profound impact on Democrats. These are not normal times.
Democrats are dug in, emboldened by rebounding support from their voters and determined to walk away from the shutdown with something to show for their intransigence.
Democratic lawmakers tell Axios they feel they have the upper hand and that Republicans are poised to come to the negotiating table -- though Republicans say essentially the exact opposite.
...
Kelley said the Democrats should do what they have sworn not to: Pass the GOP's "clean" stopgap government funding bill on the expectation of future negotiations on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies.
What we're hearing: "I have a lot of AFGE members in my district and they are pissed ... at the statement," said one D.C.-area House Democrat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid open conflict with one of the largest unions in their district.
...
A second D.C.-area lawmaker said they are "not sure there is much of a difference" after the statement and that the potential cut off of nutrition assistance benefits is "is the bigger issue to watch."
Oh, right: Poor people's SNAP benefits are about to end and they're not taking it well.
Grok @grokYes, it's real--the USDA has confirmed that due to the government shutdown, SNAP benefits (via EBT) won't be issued starting November 1, halting about $8 billion in monthly aid for over 40 million recipients. This stems from failed funding negotiations, impacting low-income families, including many non-citizens who qualify. Work requirements and eligibility tweaks under recent laws like the One Big Beautiful Bill will further limit access for able-bodied adults without dependents. Expect disruptions unless Congress acts fast.
There are a lot of TikToks by, let us say, Subsidized Citizens who are threatening violence if their EBT cards stop filling up with working people's money. One threatened "grocery-napping," which means carjacking you when you've filled the car with groceries.
Speaking as a lesbian immigrant: I approve.
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California State Senator Scott Wiener Is Obsessed With Reducing or Eliminating Penalties for Having Sex With Children. Even the New York Times Magazine Now Notices That Police Can't Act Against the Child Traffickers Weiner Worked So Hard to Immunize.
—Ace
Although Weiner is always the one writing, proposing, and fighting for these laws, the diseased groomer California legislature voted to make them law.
And Gavin Newsom signed them into law.
Wiener claims he's doing this, you see, just to protect the all-precious trans community. He claims that trans people are arrested on the street not for prostitution, but just for looking a certain kind of way.
Via Sexton's article: Abigail Shrier writing for City Journal:
Why would anyone propose such a law? Why would the California State Legislature pass it? I asked the bill's author, San Francisco--based state senator Scott Wiener. The answer he gave is the one that he supplies for so many of the bills he authors: it was necessary to advance the rights of LGBTQ people. "If you are standing on the sidewalk with high heels, and you wear your hair a certain way, and you wear tight clothing, an officer can say, 'I think you're loitering with the intent to commit prostitution' and arrest you," Wiener said. "That is not how we should be doing things in the United States of America--arresting people for how they look," he continued. "And when you do that, not surprisingly, it's only certain kinds of people who actually get arrested: it's trans women. It's black women. . . . It's an inherently profiling law," he said. "Randomly arresting a bunch of black trans women for how they look is not protecting potential victims of human trafficking."But were the police indeed "randomly arresting a bunch of black trans women"? The anti-trafficking advocates I spoke with dispute this. For starters, Wilson, Powell, and Russell (all of whom are African-American) say that biological women and girls--not transgender individuals--constitute the vast majority of those trafficked. Nearly every report on human trafficking by global human rights organizations confirms this observation.
And why does Scott Wiener demand that we reduce penalties for paying underaged children to give adult men blowjobs?
Not for any reasons of personal interest, no, don't be silly. Wiener wants to abolish the crime of statutory rape of a minor because... well, gee, you wouldn't send an 18 year old to jail for paying $20 to a 17 year old for a blowjob, would you?
An 18 year old paying a 17 year old $20 for a blowjob is the prototypical situation where statutory rape charges are brought, right? So best to scrap the law entirely.
Now that Wiener's groomer laws are in effect, cops say they can't arrest the pimps and human traffickers parading them out on the street. Wiener's Groomer Laws establish that it's no crime to pay a child for sex.
So admits the left-wing masturbatory aid The New York Times Magazine.
Ana paced on the sidewalk at 68th and Figueroa, her front teeth missing and an ostomy bag taped down under her hot pink lingerie.
An ostomy bag collects urine and feces from the body. I don't know why "she" is wearing it. Maybe so as not to need the bathroom due to streetwalking, maybe because of... surgical improvements.
We'll see.
She surveyed the intersection in South Central Los Angeles, where preteens were hobbling in stilettos and G-strings. It was a Tuesday night this January, and Ana knew that most of the girls longed for a coat or gloves -- anything to keep them warm -- but covering up was not an option. Their eyes were cast down, but their hands waved mechanically at every car, angling for another customer to help meet their traffickers' quotas.Ana was working, too, but the years had worn down any visceral anxiety into something more like resignation. Ana was 19, but the girls on the street reminded her of herself and her sister when they were first put out on Figueroa for sex. She had been 13. Her sister, 11.
Their story had been unoriginal, at least for this street: foster kids turned runaways turned recruits, drawn in by a new friend on Instagram who offered to help them get by. The friend dropped Ana and her sister off at a motel on Figueroa and handed them lacy bikinis. Ana asked what they were for. They needed to turn in $800 each by morning, the friend said. They stood on a corner, shivering. It would take at least half a dozen customers each.
Remember, you can't arrest these children and put them into social services because the pedophile advocate Scott Wiener says that trans people are just arrested on the street for no reason at all.
So we'll just have to get used to child rape, just like six-year-old girls will just have to get used to seeing men's dicks in their changing rooms.
By now, Ana had grown accustomed to the protocols of the Blade, a roughly 50-block stretch of Figueroa Street that had become one of the most notorious sex-trafficking corridors in the United States....
The Blade was an eight-minute drive from the University of Southern California, and yet another universe. Parents pushed strollers past the trafficked girls as they took their own children to school. Amid boarded-up storefronts were a few that catered specifically to the trade: a smoke shop with the banner "free Magnum condom with any purchase" and a lingerie store named -- in cursive -- Sluts. Figueroa seemed to be the one street in all of Los Angeles where nobody ever honked: Customers waited politely, as if in line at a drive-through, to peruse the menu and take their pick.
Over the years, the Blade had become much busier than when Ana started: more girls, more customers, more traffickers idling in their Hellcats and Porsches on the side streets, watching to make sure their girls didn't hide any money and didn't snitch. Ana had seen the Blade expand from three main intersections of Figueroa to more than three miles. She had met girls brought in from the East Coast and the Deep South, and there sometimes seemed to be four times as many minors as before -- easy to spot by their over-the-top makeup and unsteady gait. The police helicopters Ana used to notice hovering overhead with search lights seemed to become infrequent. Eventually, she said, they disappeared completely.
In the shadows, Figueroa had become more violent. The younger the girl, the more customers would pay, which meant preteens were often being robbed and assaulted by groups of older girls trying to make quota....
Ten blocks south of Ana, Officer Elizabeth Armendariz was sitting in the passenger seat of an undercover Ford Five Hundred, holding a police radio to her mouth. She pushed her hair off her shoulder and assigned positions to each of the vice-unit vehicles participating in the night's operation.
...
Armendariz's eyes darted among the half-dozen girls in the intersection. She chose a blonde with a white hair bow, who looked especially young.
...
For the 77th Street Division, which covers the northern half of the Figueroa Corridor, prostitution had always been a problem. But in recent years, the officers had seen the magnitude of child sex trafficking explode. Part of that boom happened during the pandemic, when many girls were out of school and immersed in social media, where traffickers lurked. Teachers who would ordinarily follow up on absences or report signs of neglect could not.
...
Their jobs grew even more challenging when California repealed the law allowing the police to arrest women who loitered with the intent to engage in prostitution. The repeal, known as SB 357, was intended to prevent profiling of Black, brown and trans women based on how they dressed. But when it was implemented in January 2023, the effect was that uniformed officers could no longer apprehend groups of girls in lingerie on Figueroa, hoping to recover minors among them. Now officers needed to be willing to swear they had reason to suspect each girl was underage -- but with fake eyelashes and wigs, it was nearly impossible to tell. One girl told vice officers that her trafficker had explained things succinctly: "We run Figueroa now," he said.
Soon every intersection from Gage to Imperial had girls waving and waiting to be rented out, some of them imported by traffickers from Oregon or Texas or Alabama. By the end of 2023, the city attorney had taken to calling Figueroa the Kiddie Stroll because so many of the girls weren't even 13.
The girl in the white hair bow didn't look much older than that.
"You're not in trouble, sweetheart -- we want to help you," an officer shouted to her as he jumped out of his patrol car. She tried to hide. Armendariz cracked open her tinted window just enough to see the officer grab the girl's wrists, cuff them and turn her toward a fence. Then Navarro veered slowly back into the flow of traffic, undetected. Armendariz shook her head. Up close, the girl had road burn across her stomach and a busted blood vessel in her eye.
"Female detained," she said into the radio. "Thank you, guys."
...
More than half of the underage girls pulled from the Blade turned out to be from foster care. Even for those who were not runaways, the stories were the same: Traffickers had parked their cars in front of local group homes, waiting for a chance to approach. There were the "Romeo" types, who would flatter a girl, take her on a few dates and then send her out to the Blade. And then there were the "gorilla" types, who acquired a girl by brute force.
By the time Ana was 19, she had been put on the street by at least 17 people, she says -- mostly men, a few women, all of them with fancy cars and strict rules. Ana's face, neck and hands had been tattooed with their monikers, as if she were cattle. They had shuttled her among at least five different cities but, like other girls, she always seemed to end up back on Fig.
I know this is hard to read but, speaking as black woman and immigrant, I think it's important to say emphatically that women and girls just do not matter. The only thing that matters is Trans Comfort.
...After the rescue at 77th Street, Armendariz headed back to the station to start paperwork. The number of rescues in the past few months had far surpassed any in the division's recent history, but that meant she was always buried in reports.
...
Within a week in the new position, she was galvanized. She could not believe what traffickers were getting away with on the Blade. When Armendariz was 13, she had been in the youth cadet program and was focused on roller skating and Taylor Swift and the annual family trip to Disneyland. But here were girls whose faces had been burned with cigarette butts; whose nails had been pulled off; whose hair had been set on fire; or who had been held down in a bathtub and shocked with a Taser. There were stories of girls who had simply disappeared.
Speaking as a black female immigrant, Scott Wiener is Ultimate Gay Hero.
...
Within eight months, Armendariz was promoted and became the senior officer in the unit, designing creative operations the team could run with its skeleton staff. Fueled by caffeine, nicotine and Tums, the team's rescues shot up, from just 15 in 2023 -- when SB 357 first took effect -- to 54 in 2024 and a fast-rising 2025 figure set to surpass 100. There were days Armendariz took the team out at 6 a.m. and secured multiple rescues before 9. But there was also a depressing reality to the growing list: the number of repeat names.Earlier that night, officers pulled Ajena, 15, from the Blade for the third time. Armendariz had never met a child with such street loyalty. Ajena's trafficker had just hours earlier split her lip, because she smirked at him, and threatened to shoot her in the leg if she walked away. She still spit on the officer who asked her to share his identity, and when her cellphone rang, his contact came up as "Daddy."
..
Armendariz started her report about the girl with the white hair bow. Her name was Jeziah, and she was 17. According to the logs, tonight's rescue was her first, and Armendariz could tell: She was the first girl in a long time who said she wanted help getting out.
"I'm fresh," the girl said to an officer in Interview Room 216, curled up with a Cup Noodles and a new teddy bear. Just a few months earlier, her new boyfriend put her on the Blade to help with bills, then took her phone and started forcing her to stay out there all night. "You get into something with somebody, and you think it's one thing -- I thought totally wrong."
She touched the road burn on her stomach. He had dragged her down the street by her hair. Her eyes began to well with tears, but she blinked them away.
"Life just be life-ing," she said.
Ana was beaten so badly she wound up in intensive care with, among many other injuries, a ruptured colon. Thus the ostomy bag.
A former trafficker reached out to Ana, meanwhile, wanting to reconnect as friends. As soon as Ana taught herself to walk again, he pulled up outside the house and put her on Figueroa -- more than 50 pounds lighter, with the ostomy bag and without her front teeth. He made plans to tattoo her neck again with his name -- in the same spot where Forsythe had helped have it erased.Life away from Fig had turned out to be both hard and complicated. Life back on Fig was hard, but simple.
On Thursday night, Armendariz stood at 70th and Figueroa in a black mesh top and pumps, her purse outfitted with a recording device. She dangled a strip of condoms from her bra strap. She knew there was only so much evidence she could gather secondhand, and at 4-foot-10, Armendariz could pass as a juvenile in the dark. Now cars were lining up for her.
...
Once they made a deal, Armendariz told each customer to wait for her around the corner, then dropped a signal to other officers that he could be followed and arrested there. She sighed. She didn't want this petty stuff: The city attorney's office rejected about half of the case filings against customers Armendariz caught on Figueroa, she said, and most others who were convicted ended up with probation. What she really wanted was to clinch another trafficker.
If you think that the relentless advocate for pedophilia and child rape Scott Wiener is some unpopular fringe figure in California, then, speaking as a black lesbian immigrant, I have to say you're all wet.
He's popular and powerful enough that he's running for US Congress. To replace Nancy Pelosi. Who I assume told him privately she would retire, otherwise he wouldn't challenge her.
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"I'm Not Done:" Kamala Harris Threatens to Run for President Again
—Ace
I've said a bunch of times that I don't think she really wants to run for office again.
I think the play here is extortion: Give me my own Harris-branded Clinton Global Initiative grift and I'll go away. If not, I'm running.
Speaking as a black and queer woman, I say, You go girl. You secure that bag.
Kamala Harris suggested this weekend that she isn't done with politics and could mount another bid for the presidency in 2028. Speaking to the BBC's "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg," the former vice president said her career in public service is far from over. "I am not done. I have lived my entire career as a life of service, and it's in my bones," Harris told the program. She brushed aside polls showing her trailing fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom, saying, "If I listened to polls, I would have not run for my first office, or my second office -- and I certainly wouldn't be sitting here."Her remarks come as new polling continues to show Harris among the least popular national Democrats. Political analyst Lakshya Jain reported last week that 54 percent of Americans hold a somewhat or very unfavorable view of her -- one of the highest negatives in the party. Despite the numbers, Harris used the interview to reprise her failed 2024 campaign message, painting President Donald Trump as an authoritarian and accusing his administration of "weaponizing" federal agencies against political opponents. She even claimed, without evidence, that Trump was involved in ABC's suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after the network confirmed the comedian fabricated facts about Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination.
"You look at what has happened in terms of how he has weaponized, for example, federal agencies going around after political satirists," Harris said. "His skin is so thin he couldn't endure criticism from a joke, and attempted to shut down an entire media organization in the process." She also accused Trump of turning the Department of Justice into a political tool, declaring, "He said he would weaponize the Department of Justice -- and he has done exactly that."
Speaking as a black woman and member of the LGBT community: The absolute gall.
.
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Mamdani Holds Rally With AOC in "Show of Force"
—Ace
And, speaking as a black lesbian of color, good riddance.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Zohran Mamdani in Queens on Sunday for a campaign rally that doubled as a show of strength for the Democrat Party's ascendant left. The congresswoman urged supporters to reject critics who call their movement "crazy" or "outlandish," framing New York's immigrant story as the moral foundation of their cause."This city was built by the Irish escaping famine, Italians fleeing fascism, Jews escaping the Holocaust, Black Americans fleeing slavery and Jim Crow," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Latinos seeking a better life, Native people standing for themselves, Asian Americans coming together -- all to build the freest, toughest, and greatest city on earth."
The event capped a weekend of endorsements for Mamdani, a state assemblyman and member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has rapidly become one of the country's most polarizing political figures. On Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered a formal endorsement, calling Mamdani "a mayor for all New Yorkers," joining Sen. Bernie Sanders, who earlier praised him as "the best choice for NYC mayor."
Ocasio-Cortez, one of Mamdani's earliest allies, told the crowd their movement was misunderstood, not misguided. "We must remember in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones, New York City," she said. "They want us to think we are crazy. We are sane."
...
A September survey funded by the DSA found that 74 percent of Democrats now say "democratic socialism" best represents their views. That shift has given Mamdani an opening few candidates on the city's left have ever enjoyed.
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On Fat Generals and Admirals [Diogenes]
—Open Blogger
About a month ago the Secretary of War (I just love that!) laid down the law about being overweight and out of shape. No more fat generals and admirals. “It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading Commands around the country and the world. It is not who we are.”
He is absolutely right.
Some thoughts:
First and foremost, fat soldiers do not survive on the battlefield. Multiple studies were done back in the late 80’s about the success of Units going through a “Training Rotation” at the National Training Center at Ft Irwin CA. A Rotation was a 30 day exercise at Ft Irwin doing a variety of battlefield tasks (attack, defend, movement to contact, etc.) This was, and remains, the single best test of a Unit’s warfighting capability. Using lasers and computers, it is as realistic as it can be. Tactics are tested and the Units fight against a real Opposing Force (OPFOR) unit that is stationed there full time. The Rotations are hard, and they are meant to be. The studies measured the ability of a Unit to “win” (survive and defeat the OPFOR) against the Unit’s overall scores on the Physical Training Test (PT Test…push-ups, sit-ups and a 2 mile run). The results showed a direct correlation. The better the score, the more likely they were to defeat the OPFOR. This study covered dozens of Battalion-sized units over several years.
The bottom line: fit soldiers and leaders did better. They could operate longer without sleep; leaders made better and faster decisions; they could read the battlefield better and outmaneuver the OPFOR to defeat them. And I saw this in fact during Desert Storm.
The Army leadership noticed. The emphasis on PT has always been there, but standards were examined and changed.
The Secretary’s point about standards is correct. Not male or female per se, but a single set of standards. If you can meet the standard for a particular job, then you can enlist for that job. Artillery shells can weigh up to 100 pounds. In combat the loaders on an artillery piece may have to lift hundreds of shells over a period of hours. On tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, it is common to see one “throw” a track. It is up to the crew to repair it and track pads weigh between 45-60 pounds each. The whole set can run over 5 tons. Not an easy job and no standing around. Get it done!
It is the same for the rest of the Army. If attacked, can you fight back? Can you carry boxes of ammo to a fighting position? Or carry a buddy back to an aide station? We are all in it. Army…Marines…Air Force…Coasties. We fight as a Team.
I could go on.
The point of Secretary Hegseth’s talk was to set a standard for the Leadership. If the troops must be fit, they needed to be fit as well. I think everyone recognizes that a man or woman at 52 years of age isn’t the same as when they were 32. But they can still be fit and meet a standard.
Lastly, and this is important. The Secretary’s speech was not aimed at just the Pentagon. It was a message to the American people, our Allies, and our future adversaries. America’s military will be fit to fight.
The Morning Report — 10/28/25
—J.J. Sefton
Democrat Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner defended a 2013 Reddit post asking “why black people don’t tip,” telling Pod Save America last week that he was “legitimately curious” and did not mean it “in any malicious way.”
So far no comment from the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of CHEAP People!
License To Kill: What Turns Normal People To Political Violence? . . . How did we reach such a point where assassination is not only excused but openly applauded? And where will this path of legitimized violence take us next? We, two immigrants from China, have seen this descent before. And tragically, we know all too well where it leads.
I suppose this is a good follow up to yesterday's editorial in which I disagreed with Victor Davis Hanson's observation on a cycle of political violence from both sides, insofar as all the political violence is coming from one side, the Democrat/Socialist/Left and inflicted on us. In China, as the authors know all too well, the State and the Communist Party under Mao slaughtered 16 million or more of its citizens and outlawed and erased thousands of years of Chinese history and culture as well as late 20th century modernity that conflicted with the Communist dogma that put the CCP and kept them in power.
The parallels to wokism/Leftism and Democrat policy are truly frightening. The only difference is unlike the Chinese peasantry and sane/moral intelligentsia, those who are viewed by the Democrat anti-AMerican Left as their enemies are armed to the teeth.
The only unknown is, what will it take (and I cannot stress this enough) GOD-FORBID for those weapons to actually be wielded.
On that note, there's this item:
The suspect, identified as Tyler Maxon Avalos, allegedly posted an image of Bondi with a caption that read “WANTED: Pam Bondi — REWARD: $45,000 — DEAD OR ALIVE (Preferably Dead),” Fox News reported Monday. . . The Fox report said Avalos has a long criminal history that includes convictions for stalking and domestic violence.
The defendant’s attorneys had asked the judge’s permission for Robinson to wear civilian clothing and appear unshackled in court, arguing that appearing like a prisoner would bias a jury’s perception. The defense team made special mention of the amount of attention the case has received. The judge appeared swayed by the defense team’s argument, though Graf’s sympathy was limited. The judge said that the request to appear in civilian clothes would cause only “minimal inconvenience” to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office when compared to Robinson’s interest in a fair trial.
Big deal or no? But then there's this:
For months, Antifa and its communist "comrades" have taken control of areas around the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland. It literally has been an Antifa No-Go zone: If they say "no," you can't go.Since June, whenever Antifa members wanted to, they could, without any pushback from police, take over the street in front of the facility and leave motorists skedaddling to find another way home. Portland Police Bureau officers have been fine with allowing the Antifa takeover of this area since the violent domestic terror group started its occupation of the area. In fact, police have protected the terror organization's takeover by keeping drivers away from their pet protesters and ordering them to go home another way. Drivers have been threatened with arrest if they attempt to drive slowly through the crowd illegally blocking the road.
In addition to access to an organized safe house in a nearby apartment so they can potty, eat, and, rest to refresh themselves before starting their next shift of vandalism and violence, Antifa has taken over swaths of sidewalks around the facility. The group operates out of a collection of pop-up tents that I've personally seen and have described as grimy and disgusting. Independent journalist Nick Shirley said it looked as if hoarders lived there. How right we are. So in addition to being a health hazard, these various encampments prevent residents from freedom of movement.
I cannot even imagine where we'd be had Chlamydia Harris won the last election. Well, much of this would not be happening since ICE would have been abolished and a couple more million illegal aliens would have crossed the RIO Grande, the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans and spread out across the nation like the plague.
But of course, if Lord forbid they do seize the reins of power in the midterms and again in '28, We are in for a wave of terror that I don't even want to think about.
Have a good day!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
- While some are trying to frame this move as xenophobia or Islamophobia, it’s a logical move based on his statements and affiliations.
Where Is Trump’s DoJ On Denaturalizing Zohran Mamdani?
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Daily Tech News 28 October 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- The Department of Energy has signed a $1 billion deal - of some sort - with AMD to build two new supercomputers for energy and medical research. (Tom's Hardware)
The systems - one to be delivered early next year, the second in 2028 - use AMD's Epyc CPUs and Instinct accelerator cards. Instinct is marketed mostly towards AI now, because that's where the money is, but it's a general purpose card for crunching lots of numbers very quickly and makes a fine building block for a supercomputer.
- Qualcomm meanwhile is chasing the trillion dollar bubble with its AI200 and AI250 accelerator cards. (Tom's Hardware)
The two cards are expected to arrive next year and 2027 respectively. Since these are new devices and don't have the track record of Nvidia or AMD (or even Intel) it's hard to know how well they will compete, but Qualcomm did announce that the cards will have 768GB of LPDDR memory each.
These are strongly oriented towards low-precision calculations and would not be as useful for a non-AI supercomputer, or for playing Minecraft.
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Monday Overnight Open Thread (10/27/25)
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
Quote I"We've had a tremendous amount of interest since we announced that we were exploring the pro league earlier this year. I think that really just shows the strong belief in, and the demand for, a professional flag league for both women and men."Stephanie Kwok, the NFL's vice president and head of NFL Flag
Quote II‘Don’t have them in your home. Take every precaution you can. Listen to your gut. I never thought it would happen to my child.’ Clare Gillespie
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Fall Has Fallen Cafe
—Ace
The most adorable little bandits.
FAFO, Feline Edition.
Little dog has a natural advantage in hide and seek.
Polar bears are deadly, but also cute.
I don't even understand how he got into this position.
Turn in your Dog Card. You shame your species.
Now this is one of those perverted furpiles.
A short but satisfying pet mystery movie.
Hands-In, Bird Edition.
Big dog needs a hug.
Dog wants more of a hands-on role in caring for the baby.
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After Years of Attacking Their Enemies as Nazis and Urging Violence Against Them, the Democrats Celebrate Their New Fake Working-Class Nazi Because He's Also a Communist and "Antifa Supersoldier"
—Ace
If you're an-Nazi and you don't see a path for redemption, I've got great news for you: It's super-easy, barely an inconvenience.
According to a new poll, a majority of young Democrats still back Maine Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner following fallout over his chest tattoo....
Platner is a first-time political candidate, veteran, and oyster farmer, who has positioned himself as critical of the Democratic establishment, describes himself as a "foe of the oligarchy," on social media, and has been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party.
...The recent poll comes from a SoCal Strategies Survey of the Democratic Primary for Senate in Maine. It found that initially, Mills held a 5-point lead over Platner (41 percent to 36 percent), with a fifth of respondents saying they were undecided.
When voters were informed of the scandal surrounding Platner's tattoo, Mills' lead increased 30 points (59 percent to 29 percent).
Despite this general shift, Platner's lead with young people has stayed strong. Among voters aged between 18 and 29, Platner had a lead (56 percent to 17 percent) against Mills. Support among these voters continued when they were informed of Platner's tattoo scandal, with the demographic favoring him (52 percent to 31 percent.)
This primary doesn't go off until next year. I don't see Platner bowing out, given that he's so far ahead, which means the Democrats are all-in on the Nazi Antifa Supersoldier.
Note that he's not just training Antifa in how to shoot guns for sport. He specifically says that semiautomatic rifles, so despised by the left when in the hands of law-abiding citizens, may be necessary to "fight fascism."
From The Atlantic's Alice-in-Wonderland piece pondering the Democrats' new "tolerance" for once-#cancellable speech, like declaring yourself a Nazi.
Last week, though, CNN released a report revealing Platner's Reddit history under the username "P-Hustle." In 2021, he referred to himself as "a communist," and said that all cops are bastards. Other news outlets soon found additional posts: Platner suggested in 2018 that semiautomatic rifles are necessary to "fight fascism," and in various posts from 2013, made insensitive remarks about sexual assault and asked, "Why don't black people tip?"
The article notes that the Punch-a-Nazi Democrats are suddenly pro-Nazi. Nazism, they say, is a youthful indiscretion.
But for now, at least, the Democratic party is not calling on Platner to step down. Ken Martin, the head of the DNC, said that Platner's online comments were "hurtful" but not "disqualifying," and that the choice is up to primary voters. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is neutral in the race, said, "Everyone has a right to grow and grow out of their stupidity." Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said, "Graham has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He's had a very long journey to the place where he is today, but he's owned those mistakes, owned up to them, and he's evolved." Khanna called the tattoo "horrendous," but said: "Do we want our political governing class to be like the classmates I had at Yale Law School, some of them who dreamed of being president of the United States from the age of twelve?" He continued, "Or do we want normal people also having a chance at these offices?" Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said, "He went through a dark period. He's not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period." He continued, "I'm confident that he's going to run a great campaign and that he's going to win." A poll released yesterday, conducted as the news about Platner's past was breaking, found him leading his Democratic primary opponent Maine governor Janet Mills by 34 points.
And then the article discovers The Real Villain Here. Can you guess who?
Democrats' apparent willingness to stick with Platner may be an acknowledgment that the question of which behavior is disqualifying to voters is more uncertain now than it used to be. Where is the line on internet speech and basic decency, for example, when the White House conducts politics by meme, and the governor of California's X account has resorted to open trolling?
Oh well that's the same as literally branding yourself with Nazi symbols. We were all young and irresponsible and interested in theories of a mystical Aryan race and Aryan supremacy, right?
Even some Democrats notice the shift from "Punch a Nazi" to "Vote for a Nazi."
Many of his supporters, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are standing by him for now. And recent polling has suggested Platner is far more popular than Gov. Janet Mills, his top Democratic rival, raising the question of whether voters will overlook his baggage as the party seeks a new generation of leaders who could appeal to a broader demographic."I think Donald Trump has changed our politics for a long time, some for the good and some for the bad," Rocha told The Hill. "One thing for the good, in my opinion, he's done is proven that folks don't have to be perfect. They can have some rough edges and that America is pretty forgiving."
But other Democrats say they're not willing to be forgiving of Platner.
"I do not understand how we can go from having a subset of the party that is obsessed with calling Donald Trump a Nazi to then going to vast lengths to excuse a Nazi tattoo," said one unnamed Democratic strategist.
Platner's allies say it's not fair to compare his tattoo to what they argue is Trump's authoritarian style of governing.
"There is a huge difference between a Republican that supports Trump's gestapo-like tactics, sweeping people off the street with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador, and who has a Nazi symbol associated with themselves," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. gr
"One is somebody confirming a whole ideology that they actually believe in, and in Graham Platner's case, it's an unfortunate bump in the road," he added.
Last week, CNN's K-File reviewed posts that Platner once wrote on Reddit in 2020 and 2021 in which he criticized police officers, showed frustration and disillusionment about his time serving in the military and spoke about being a "communist" and a "socialist."
And earlier this week, the LGBTQ news magazine The Advocate published past Reddit posts from Platner, which he originally posted under the handle P-Hustle, from 2016-21, in which he used vulgar, antigay slurs and used the word "gay" as an insult.
When I -- and commenters -- use "gay" as an insult, the site gets blocked from every workplace as a "hate site" and subjected to a worldwide corporate advertising embargo.
When the Nazi uses "gay" as an insult, he gets praised for being (fake) "working class" and "blue collar."
Meanwhile, Chris Murphy has been branding everyone supporting Trump as a Nazi for years.
And now? Second look at Naziism.
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Quick Hits
—Ace
Three years after the 9/11 attacks that so inconvenienced his aunt in her commutes from Tanzania, Zohran Mamdani's father Mahmood (of course) argued that we must not view suicide bombers are barbaric terrorists, but as soldiers honorably fighting their enemies.
Andy Ngo @MrAndyNgoPortland (Oct. 26) -- In a final move to argue the city doesn't need the National Guard to maintain order, @PortlandPolice and state troopers dismantle & confiscate leftover Antifa riot camp supplies. Why didn't they do this months ago?
It's almost as if the state and city government are in league with a terrorist street army and will only act against them if the federal government threatens an invasion.
Are they going to shut down the Antifa safe house just feet from the ICE facility or nah?
The left continues embracing and promoting assassination culture.
An anarchist with a lengthy rap sheet has been arrested for allegedly putting a $45,000 hit out on US Attorney General Pam Bondi on TikTok, according to the feds.Tyler Maxon Avalos, 29, was nabbed on Oct. 16 after a tipster alerted the FBI to the alleged murder-for-hire plot the suspect had blasted out on social media earlier this month.
The chilling post included a photo of Bondi with a "sniper-scope red dot" on her forehead with the caption: "WANTED: Pam Bondi / REWARD: 45,000 ' DEAD OR ALIVE / (PREFERABLY DEAD)," court documents charge.
Underneath the photo, Avalos allegedly added: "Cough cough. When they don't serve us, then what?"
The feds allege Avalos, who has a prior history of convictions, has anarchist ties and noted that his TikTok username was "Wacko" -- an apparent anarchy symbol.
His profile also brandished a link to "An Anarchist FAQ book," according to court filings.Avalos has a lengthy criminal history, including prior raps for stalking and domestic assault, records show.
Taylor Lorenz wants to date him.
Speaking of Bondi: She's putting Pelosi on notice about her incitement against ICE agents.
Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a blunt warning late Thursday to top Democrat leaders threatening Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, saying anyone who targets federal officers enforcing deportation laws could face arrest. The warning came after reports that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and other Democrat leaders were exploring ways to arrest or expose ICE agents operating in their jurisdictions."You cannot disclose the identity of a federal agent, where they live, or anything that can harm them," Bondi said during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters. She confirmed that Pelosi and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins had each received formal letters from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche cautioning them against interfering with ICE operations.
During the interview, Bondi revealed that she had ordered Pelosi to preserve her emails in connection with an ongoing investigation. "You are impeding an investigation, and we will charge you. If they think I won't, they have not met me," she said. The exchange quickly drew national attention after Watters shared the clip on X, noting Bondi's warning came after Pelosi "ordered ICE to be arrested."
John Brennan is claiming that he's innocent and that Trump is just out for revenge.
Trouble is, John Brennan is incandescently guilty of everything he's charged with.
HOW JOHN BRENNAN LIED TO CONGRESS. The Justice Department is evaluating a criminal referral accusing former CIA Director John Brennan of lying to Congress. In the referral, Republican members of the House allege that Brennan lied to investigators trying to figure out what the nation's intelligence agencies did in their pursuit of President Donald Trump over the Russia collusion matter. The case is a strong one.It started back in 2017. Congressional Republicans were trying to trace the FBI, CIA, and other agencies' activities in what is often known as the "Russia hoax." One central focus was the Steele dossier, the collection of false and salacious accusations that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
Recommended StoriesThe dossier, as everyone knows today, was a political oppo research job. It was put together by a former British spy who was hired and paid by operatives working on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. As an investigative document, it was 100% BS.
That, of course, did not stop the FBI from embracing it. The bureau accepted the dossier as a legitimate source. The FBI included material from the dossier in a secret court application to wiretap a former low-level Trump campaign aide named Carter Page. And it even briefly hired the dossier's fabricator, Christopher Steele.
Here was where things did not add up for Hill investigators. Given what the FBI was doing, one might have expected that the CIA would also have played some role in the whole dossier saga. But John Brennan, then the head of the CIA, swore under oath that the CIA had nothing to do with the dossier.A lot of the Republicans' questions had to do with what was called the Intelligence Community Assessment, the document produced by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies describing their investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The assessment had famously -- and controversially -- concluded that Vladimir Putin "developed a clear preference" for candidate Donald Trump and "aspired" to help Trump win the election.
GOP investigators wanted to know: Was that conclusion based on the dossier?
Republicans knew the FBI wanted to include the dossier's allegations in the Intelligence Community Assessment. But what about the CIA? Did Brennan's agency support including the dossier in the assessment? In testimony on May 23, 2017, Brennan said absolutely not, that the dossier played no role in the CIA's work. Brennan told lawmakers the dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment."
Six years later, on May 11, 2023, Brennan again found himself answering questions from Hill Republicans, and he again denied CIA involvement with the dossier. "I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all," Brennan said. "I said the first time I actually saw it, it was after the election. And the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier. ... It was [the FBI's] purview, their area, not ours at all." Brennan also reiterated earlier testimony when he said, "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment."
Now it appears that what Brennan told congressional investigators was false. The current CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who used to be one of the House investigators looking into the Russia matter, has declassified documents from Brennan's time at the agency which show that, far from keeping the dossier at arm's reach, Brennan actually forced CIA analysts to use it and overruled the analysts who wanted to leave the dossier out of the Intelligence Community Assessment.
Ratcliffe asked the CIA's Directorate of Analysis (DA) to review the tradecraft used in producing the assessment. First of all, the DA found what it called "multiple procedural anomalies" in the CIA's preparation of the assessment... Together, all of the "anomalies" "impeded efforts to apply rigorous tradecraft," the DA concluded.
There was no doubt the FBI wanted to include the dossier in the Intelligence
Community Assessment; the CIA self-investigation found that "FBI leadership made it clear that their participation in the assessment hinged on the dossier's inclusion." FBI officials "repeatedly pushed" to include the dossier in the assessment.
But career CIA analysts did not want to include the dossier. The CIA's deputy director for analysis sent Brennan an email saying that including the dossier's information in any form would threaten "the credibility of the entire document." That was when Brennan made the decision to overrule his experts. From the CIA's Directorate of Analysis:
Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. When confronted with specific flaws in the dossier by the two mission center leaders -- one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background -- he appeared more swayed by the dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns. Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that "my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report."
...
Taken together, these passages show that significant portions of Brennan's congressional testimony about the dossier and the Intelligence Community Assessment were untrue. When he said the dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment" -- that was untrue. When he said "I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all" -- that was untrue. When he said "the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier" -- that was untrue. When he said "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment" -- that was untrue.
Here's the bottom line, which Republicans have believed for a long time. In the politically supercharged atmosphere of late 2016 and early 2017, the FBI and CIA both knew the dossier was BS. They knew they had no business including it in their assessment of Russia's 2016 activities. But they included it anyway because it told them what they wanted to hear -- that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia. And then, under oath before Congress, John Brennan lied about it.
Cracker Barrel's Woke Girlboss Failure of a CEO is claiming her repudiation of the brand's identity wasn't ideological at all.
Cracker Barrel's top executive on Tuesday said the folksy restaurant chain's disastrous logo change wasn't about politics -- instead claiming the switch was made for the sake of highway visibility, according to a report.Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino was forced to defend the headline-grabbing bungle at the 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit in New York on Tuesday as the company faces stepped-up heat from an activist investor.
The embattled restaurant boss -- who has faced accusations of having a "woke" agenda as she stripped the chain's beloved "Uncle Herschel" mascot from the chain's logo -- instead insisted that the redesign was meant to make the sign easier to read for drivers speeding past interstate exits.
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino defended the restaurant chain's brief and costly logo experiment. 4
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino defended the restaurant chain's brief and costly logo experiment. REUTERS"Part of this transformation is setting up success for the long term," Masino said at the conference. Her comments were reported by the Wall Street Journal.
In August, Cracker Barrel 's stock tanked when the Tennessee-based chain replaced its classic image of a man in overalls leaning against a wooden barrel with a minimalist design that read only "Cracker Barrel."
The new look was rolled out alongside a slate of modern store remodels and a marketing overhaul led by the consulting firm Prophet -- all part of a $700 million rebranding plan aimed at drawing younger diners.
Ah, the elusive Modern Audience. As for her claim: Companies have different variations of their logo for just this sort of reason. A simplified logo for a highway sign makes sense -- but she changed the store's main logo. This wasn't about the sign being more visible on the highway. This was about her showing off to her AWFL sorority sisters.
She's lying because she's being challenged and the board may just fire her.
Trump is blocking leftwing gun control groups from receiving federal money earmarked at reducing gun violence.
The Trump administration has released solicitations for a grant program meant to stop gun violence in underserved communities. But this year, the non-profits the grant was built around are disqualified from applying, according to an application notice released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in September.The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs' efficacy.
The pioneering program was born out of a recognition by the Biden administration that such community-centered programs were among the most successful tools in combating the US' deep-rooted gun violence problem, and had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities.
Before Trump's inauguration, community-based organizations, non-profits and local and state governments were eligible to apply for the grant. Now, only city, county and tribal governments are allowed. And the stated goal of the program has been changed from "comprehensive, community-based prevention" to "supports law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations".
Since 2022, the federal government has awarded more than $300m to over 120 non-profits, city and county governments and research institutions through the initiative, according to an archived list of grant recipients.
I assume the gun control groups were just using them money for political agitation against lawful gun ownership. But I'm not sure.
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Escape from New York: Over 25% of City Ready to Flee Communist Rule
—Ace
The survey from Victory Insights found that 26.5% of city residents are considering moving out of New York if the democratic socialist lawmaker wins -- a startling sign of anxiety over what many see as a radical shift for the city's future. The poll of 500 likely voters, conducted October 22--24, shows Mamdani dominating every potential matchup, leading former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by nearly 20 points, 46.7% to 28.6%, with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa trailing far behind at 16.2%. Roughly 8.5% of voters remain undecided.Nearly 40% of respondents said they believe a Mamdani administration would be a "threat to the future of the city," including about one-third of Democrats. "It would come as a major surprise if anyone other than Mamdani is elected mayor of New York City," Victory Insights said in its analysis. "However, many voters are extremely concerned about that outcome." The pollster noted that Cuomo and Sliwa supporters were the most likely to say they'd consider leaving the city if Mamdani wins, warning that "New York City seems to be nearing an inflection point -- one that could reshape the city for years to come." Early voting begins Saturday, with Election Day set for November 4.
Open, overt Democrat support for socialism and communism is the new normal. (At least until Mamdani destroys NYC.) Democrats have always supported socialism, though they lied like Satan and claimed they didn't.
They have been unmasking themselves since 2010. This is all well-reported; the media has just been covering up the Democrats' open embrace of socialism and communism for more than a decade, if you can believe the media would lie to help the Democrats.
The country now only feels favorably towards capitalism at 54%, and meanwhile feels favorably towards socialism at 39%.
All of the shift is coming from the Democrats, beginning during the totally-not-a-communist Obama's first term. 67% of Democrats now support socialism -- meaning that only socialists will win blue cities, blue districts, and blue states in the future.
Stability in U.S. adults' opinions of socialism obscures Democrats' more positive views of it over time, from 50% rating it positively in the initial 2010 reading to roughly two-thirds in three readings since 2019. Those increases have been mostly offset by declines in positive ratings of socialism among Republicans. Independents' ratings of socialism have generally been steady.Democrats are the only partisan group of the three that views socialism more positively than capitalism -- 66% to 42%, respectively. Independents are modestly more pro-capitalism than pro-socialism (51% vs. 38%), while Republicans are overwhelmingly so (74% vs. 14%).
From the house organ of the Democrat establishment, Politico, in mid-September:
The socialist brand is on the rise, according to recent polling, fueling the left flank of the Democratic Party to argue its ideology is becoming more mainstream.Shortly after Gallup released data showing Democrats and independents are cooling toward capitalism, a progressive organization is out with a poll finding that more than half of likely Democratic voters prefer socialist-aligned figures like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani to establishment politicians like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefrries and Nancy Pelosi.
Democratic voters also view elected officials who describe themselves as democratic socialists about as positively as those who identify as Democrats, and they prefer democratic socialism to capitalism when written definitions of each are read aloud to them, according to the poll conducted by Data for Progress and shared first with POLITICO.
"What the mainstream of the party wants is both democratic socialism as a value system and democratic socialist politicians," said Gabe Tobias, executive director of the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, a political nonprofit organization that funded the survey with the magazine Jacobin and the Berlin-based democratic socialist group Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.
Though Democratic voters are warming to socialism, the ideology is toxic to most Republicans and many independents, making it difficult for socialists to win in battlegrounds.
That point about the Democrats now officially being the party of socialism and communism, and boohoo whinin' and cryin' about capitalism, via Black Conservative Perspective.
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Two Suspects Arrested for Louvre Robbery
—Ace
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris' Louvre museum, justice and police officials said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt.The Paris prosecutor said that investigators made arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
A police official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, told The Associated Press that two men in their 30s, both known to police, were taken into custody. He said one suspect was arrested as he attempted to board a plane bound for Algeria. The official added that one of the suspects was identified through DNA traces. Beccuau said earlier this week that forensics experts were analyzing 150 samples at the scene....
Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the world's most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre's façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum's director called the incident a "terrible failure."
Per Le Figaro, one of the two thieves was captured as he was preparing to take a flight to Algeria. The other was arrested in the banlieu of Seine-Saint-Denis, a so-called "no-go zone" where cars are frequently incinerated during riots.
I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, when they don't release the perps' names, there's a very high probability the names are Amish.
