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Bandersnatch 2024
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AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
These people demented space aliens. They have no conception of how actual humans think.
Real humans do not go to Museums of Bureaucracy.
I used to laugh at conspiracy theories about "the Reptilians."
Now I want to know more.
EPA Museum -- Yes, One Actually Existed -- Shuttered After Zeldin Calls Out Massive Funding, Lack of Visitors
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under Administrator Lee Zeldin, has decided to close the National Environmental Museum and Education Center, a project launched during the Biden administration, Fox News reports.
Despite its mission to "highlight environmental achievements," the museum struggled to attract visitors leaving taxpayers with a hefty bill for a largely empty space. Even with free admission, relatively no one could find any desire to walk through the doors. Although the lack of visitors is likely not surprising anyone, the money being poured into the museum just might.
The museum, located at the EPA headquarters near the White House, opened in May 2024 with the goal of celebrating America's environmental progress. Former EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan envisioned it as a space to honor bipartisan efforts to protect public health and the environment. However, the museum saw fewer than 2,000 visitors in its first nine months, which some may call pathetic.
Taxpayers had invested $4 million to bring the museum up to Smithsonian standards, with an additional $600,000 per year required for upkeep. That worked out to about $315 per visitor--a price tag that Zeldin and his team argue cannot be justified.
According to Zeldin's EPA, the museum leaned heavily on themes like "environmental justice" and climate change, which critics argued felt more like partisan messaging than an inclusive celebration of environmental progress.
"Environmental justice" is just another gayop propaganda word for "using environmental funding and arguments to move money to Democrats' minority grifter NGOs."
Maintenance expenses included everything from artifact storage and landscaping to security and audiovisual upkeep.
Artifacts?
Like halogen-filled display cases showing EPA regulations?
According to Fox News, "a breakdown of estimated annual costs to operate the museum, which was provided to Fox Digital, shows taxpayers were expected to foot the bill for an estimated: $123,766.29 in annual cleaning and landscaping costs, $37,899 for audio and visual maintenance, $54,292.99 in annual 'artifact storage' costs, $8,900 for 'Magnetometer maintenance,' $46,000 for X-ray maintenance, an estimated $123,000 in utility costs, and $207,326 in annual costs to fund two security guards for the museum during operating hours. The total annual operating costs totaled just more than $600,000."
X-ray machines and magnetometers are expensive security apparatuses. So they're spending millions to protect a fake museum from all its literal ones of visitors.
More spending on "artifact storage." Now, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I just googled it and it turns out that the $52,292.99 spent on "artifact storage" just happens to be what it costs for a large incubator for Reptilian Eggs.
Coincidence?
Serious, and possibly controversial question:
Remember when we all thought Obama was the worst president ever?
My apologies, but personal obligations prevented time for much content today. But here are a few quick shots:
There are some conservative legal minds I follow on Twitter, whom I greatly admire, and I am very impressed at their efforts to document all the legal machinations going on with the rogue federal judges and their extra-constitutional interference in the Executive Branch. Unfortunately, documenting this nonsense is like trying to be the scorekeeper in a game of Calvinball. The Trump administration is trying to play by judicial rules that are constantly in flux, and outside the enumerated powers of the Constitution.
I assume the day is coming when Donald Trump will let John Roberts know that the Chief Justice had a chance to sit on that zoo judiciary of his, but now it’s too late, and those rogue judges will just be ignored going forward.
In fact, President Biden already set the precedent that the President can boldly ignore judicial rulings, including from the Supreme Court itself. In Biden’s own words, “The Supreme Court blocked me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me.” Democrats, the media, and the Washington establishment were uniformly ecstatic at Biden for ignoring the Supreme Court.
Thanks to Joe Biden, President Trump has the green light to ignore not only the rogue federal judges, but also SCOTUS itself, and no one has any standing to complain. They didn’t think the new rules would ever come back to haunt them.
The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me.
I’ve relieved student debt for over 5 million Americans. I’m going to keep going. pic.twitter.com/m1yh6lYGph
I stumbled upon this quote from Donald Kingsbury’s book “Courtship Rites.” It is a brilliant and concise corollary to Chesterton’s Gate.
Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back.
*****
Throckmorton’s First Law of Live Music: “If There’s an Upright Bass in the Band, It’s Probably Going to be Good”
Ace of Spades reader “Average Guy” sent me some links to a band named “Over the Rhine” whom I was not familiar with. There is so much that is good in this song, “Beyond the Recognition.” The slide guitar and piano really create a mood.
Good morning kids. And so the big story this morning are the reactions to and predictions about President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff regime. While I am certainly no economics expert, I certainly know enough to recognize what the offshoring of quite a large chunk of our manufacturing sector overseas has done to our economy and society in general going back now to the 1960s. The regulatory and bureaucratic factors as well as big labor unions were certainly factors that led to industry seeking cheap sources of labor as well as cheaper overhead by moving overseas.
Yes the usual suspects in the propaganda press, the Dems and globalists and/or Trump averse Rinos on our own side of the aisle are raising a huge stink about it.
Economist Thomas Sowell suggested that President Donald Trump may be taking a “ruinous” approach to tariffs and international trade. Sowell commented on Trump’s trade policies during an interview on April 1, a day before Trump enacted sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries. The “Liberation Day” announcement, as the White House billed it, put in place a system of “reciprocity” on international trade where foreign countries are tariffed in accordance with the trade barriers they impose on the United States.
“It’s painful to see what a ruinous decision, from back in the 1920s, being repeated,” the 94-year-old Sowell said on an episode of “Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.” “Now, insofar as he’s using these tariffs to get various strategic things settled and that he is satisfied with that.”
. . . “If this is just a set of short-run ploys for various limited objectives limited in time. Fine, maybe,” Sowell granted. “But, if this is gonna be the policy for four long years, that you’re gonna try this, you’re gonna try that, you’re gonna try something else. A lot of people are gonna wait.” Sowell noted the recent dips in the stock market that have followed many of Trump’s announcements on tariffs and said that “people are holding on to their money before they do anything because they don’t know where this is gonna lead.”
As I alluded, when Thomas Sowell speaks, people who know and respect his great intellect, listen attentively. Sowell makes reference to FDR and how his mistakes which exacerbated the '29 crash are being repeated by Trump. Yeah, everyone and their uncle are now screaming "Smoot Hawley" but the '29 crash became the Depression primarily because of the failure of the New Deal. Which, in a way DOGE is attempting to address.
“[W]e built a sustainable economy, we did this thing, starting with Alexander Hamilton, where we said it’s really going to matter that we make things in the United States. … Yeah, we’re going to import stuff, we [were] never not going to buy stuff from abroad, but we were going to make sure that the internal American economy was healthy, could produce a lot, provided jobs…not just for people with graduate degrees, not just for somebody who is going to work on Wall Street, but for people with less education…so that means you need an industrial base. We built that economy…behind a very high tariff wall…it built America into an economic powerhouse.”
People seem to not know or have forgotten that nations to this day protect their workers and their economies via tariffs. Also, 200 years ago there was no Federal government and bureaucracy nor a Federal reserve to screw around with our economy and interfere with the way people do business. But of course it took almost 200 years to build that economic powerhouse as well as the concomitant attitude of the people via the American work ethic, and the freedom to pursue one's dreams as well as to fail repeatedly before succeeding.
And regardless of Liberation Day, we're not going to suddenly become the great industrial powerhouse we once were overnight. It's going to take time. Sadly the one key element that is missing is anything even resembling a scintilla of national unity that we had at the time of Pearl Harbor that allowed American industry to kick into overdrive and finally get us out of the Great Depression that the New Deal created.
Now, is Trump correct in his assessment of the fundamental trade unfairness/imbalance that has been hammering us for decades? Absolutely. While the propagandists are shrieking about the Dow Jones tumbling, remember this creates an opportunity for investors to pick up stocks at bargain prices, if they are willing to hold onto them for the long term.
Moving beyond tariffs, here's an oldie but a goodie, how about significantly lowering taxes or exempting taxes altogether for an extended period of time in the interest of enticing manufacturers to either build new factories and re-shore jobs and manufacturing back to the States? That and cut the regulatory regime of the federal bureaucracy so investors and enterprises can compete and, here's a radical idea, actually make a profit.
Critics claim President Trump’s reciprocal—‘kind’—tariffs will destroy jobs. This could not be further from the truth. In reality, President Trump’s tariffs have the potential to create 15 million new jobs. Many of these jobs will be high-paying manufacturing jobs, jobs with employee benefits—the very sort of jobs that were lost over the last 50 years to offshoring and the “race to the bottom.” How?
Reciprocal tariffs are an olive branch. If foreign countries come to the table and lower their own tariffs, then Americans will benefit from freer—and most importantly, fair—trade. This will open up new markets potentially worth trillions of dollars to American businesses.
If not, then tariffs will level the playing field and protect American workers from foreign labor—who often work in slave-like conditions for next to nothing. This will reshore America’s factories, creating millions of jobs in the process. . .
. . . To begin with, we need to remember that America is not an economy. We are a nation bounded by blood and tradition. The Constitution does not give anyone a right to buy “cheap goods” from China or Bangladesh. The President is obligated to do what is in America’s best interests—even if this prevents liberals from buying imported European cars.
In 2024, America exported $3.19 trillion worth of goods and services. This is in spite of the fact that most of our trade partners impose massive tariffs—as well as other non-monetary barriers to entry such as Byzantine regulations—on American goods. This goes to show just how efficient and competitive America’s industries are. Nevertheless, the playing field is not level.
Let us assume that trading partners see the error of their ways and reduce their tariffs to reciprocal levels. This will allow American businesses to compete on even terms and will open foreign markets for American businesses like never before. If we assume that a 1% reduction in net tariffs results in a 1% increase in trade—which is a reasonable assumption based on current economic models—then America’s exports would increase by $1.6 trillion, bringing total exports up to $4.8 trillion.
Increasing America’s exports would create millions of good-paying jobs. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that every billion of GDP supports between 5,000 and 5,500 jobs. Based on this, these increased exports would support some 8.4 million new jobs. If we assume that only half of our trade partners play ball, we are still looking at over 4 million new jobs.
Elsewhere on the economic front, there is actual broad support for what Trump is trying to do, some of it bipartisan in nature, and unemployment filings plunged in March signaling a robust labor market, this with the full knowledge that Liberation Day was on the horizon. So, we shall certainly see.
Trump’s "Liberation Day" tariffs aim to create millions of U.S. jobs by reshoring factories and pressuring trade partners to lower barriers, prioritizing national strength over cheap imports. How Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs Can Create 15 Million Jobs
If Trump’s approach works better than all those trade deals at bringing down other nations’ tariffs, who can complain? Certainly not free traders. If Trump’s Tariffs Work, It Will Be Epic
One of the things President Trump is predicating his tariff war upon is the idea that trade deficits are inherently bad. . . In reality, I think the Trump administration is likely to try and leverage headlines out of various foreign nations suggesting they’re going to invest in America to the tune of some billions of dollars before lowering the tariff rates again. I do have faith that President Trump actually responds to headlines and to the news. He lives in the world of reality and won’t simply ignore that the markets hate all of this. Liberation Day. What’s The Plan?
“NKE was last seen 11.3% lower at $57.62, as investors digest the long-term impact of rising supply chain costs on the company’s margins,” Schaeffer’s Investment Research reports. “The stock is set to snap a three-day win streak, extending its late-March post-earnings bear gap and hitting its lowest level since November 2017. Nike stock now carries a 23.5% year-to-date deficit.” Nike Stock Plunges as Low-Wage Factories in China, Vietnam, Indonesia Face Trump’s Tariffs
Antoni insisted, “Trump is being attacked for being anti-free trade or for starting a trade war, but the opposite is true. For most of the last half century, the global economy has become entrenched in a pseudo-free trade that artificially disadvantages American exporters.” He added, “In this sense, other nations declared a trade war on America decades ago, and our leaders never fought back.“ Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are meant to pressure other nations that do, in fact, rely on American trade and American consumers “to reduce their trade barriers and end a trade war that already exists.” Economist: Trump Isn’t Starting a Trade War; He’s Fighting to Win the Decades-Long War
President Donald J. Trump’s move to protect American businesses and workers from unfair trade has received widespread approval from various sectors, reflecting a significant shift in policy-making. Democratic Representative Jared Golden expressed his support, hailing the President’s tariff agenda as a necessary move to address economic challenges posed by globalization. Golden said President Trump’s tariffs align with proposals in the BUILT USA Act, underscoring the urgency of tackling trade imbalances and protecting American jobs. Support Swells for Trump’s America First Trade Strategy.
From the letter: “Under the directive, covered businesses must adhere to a set of ESG-focused compliance measures, many of which are aligned with political and ideological objectives that have not been approved by U.S. lawmakers. … Not only will many large U.S. businesses be forced under the CSDDD to adjust their internal operations to comply with these mandates, but they will also be required to ensure that their suppliers and business partners—no matter where they are based or the size of their operations—adhere to many of the same restrictive ESG standards.” Free-Market Coalition Urges Trump Administration, Congress to Counter Economically Ruinous European Union Law
“[W]e built a sustainable economy, we did this thing, starting with Alexander Hamilton, where we said it’s really going to matter that we make things in the United States. … Yeah, we’re going to import stuff, we [were] never not going to buy stuff from abroad, but we were going to make sure that the internal American economy was healthy, could produce a lot, provided jobs…not just for people with graduate degrees, not just for somebody who is going to work on Wall Street, but for people with less education…so that means you need an industrial base. We built that economy…behind a very high tariff wall…it built America into an economic powerhouse.” America Became an Economic Powerhouse Behind a Big Tariff Wall
The American labor market continues to defy skeptics and remain robust and stable despite market analysts predicting sizable layoffs across industries. Data released by the United States Department of Labor on Thursday shows that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, defying analysis forecasts that expected claims to rise. The filing for jobless benefits dipped by 6,000 to a total of 219,000 for the last week of March, coming in below forecasts, which predicted 226,000 new claims.The four-week moving average for claims, which provides a more stable view by minimizing the volatility of weekly reports, showed a decrease of 1,250, bringing the average to 223,000. While this suggests the labor market continues to remain strong, the number of individuals receiving unemployment benefits did increase by a small amount. For the week ending March 22, the total rose by 56,000, reaching 1.9 million. Number of Americans Filing for Unemployment Benefits Drops Again, Signaling Robust Labor Market Under Trump.
The Senate advanced a budget blueprint, including a permanent extension of the expiring 2017 Trump Tax Cuts, during a vote of 52 to 48 Thursday. GOP lawmakers have said that failure to extend the tax cuts would lead to roughly a $4 trillion tax increase on Americans’ pocketbooks in 2026. Senate GOP Poised To Deliver On Permanent Tax Relief In Trump-Backed Bill
The 25-hour speechifying New Jersey senator would rather no one dig up the horrific event that occurred on his watch as Newark’s newly elected mayor. Cory Booker and an MS-13 Massacre
“Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, the administration has taken bold, decisive action to restore control at the border. Border Patrol agents are empowered like never before to shut down unlawful entry and protect American lives,” said Acting Commissioner Pete Flores in a written statement on April 1. “The message is clear: the border is closed to illegal crossings, and for those still willing to test our resolve, know this — you will be prosecuted, and you will be deported.” TRUMP EFFECT CONTINUES: March Border Apprehensions Fall to Historic Low Level — Down 95 Percent from Last Year
“You may very well disagree with the enforcement of our federal immigration laws, but it is inappropriate to suggest to the public that federal officers can be criminally prosecuted by your office or any other state or local prosecutor’s office for performing their official duties.” Boston DA Threatened With Felony Charges After Finding ICE Agent in Contempt
ISRAEL vs IRAN & GAZA/HAMAS . . . AND Democrats
Sanders has been one of the most vocal opponents of the Israeli government in Congress. Though he acknowledged the horror of the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, and said Israel should be able to defend itself, he has also pushed for an arms embargo that would prevent Israel from doing so. Anti-Israel Bloc in Senate Declines from 19 to 15 as Sanders Arms Embargo Fails
Daniel Greenfield: Scratch a journalist, find a terrorist. Al Jazeera is Hamas
* * * * *
Robert Zimmerman: "Alverque is however merely another symptom of the mad hatred that now permeates the left and supporters of the American Democrat Party. Facts or rational ideas no longer matter. They hate Trump. They hate Musk. They hate Republicans. And if you oppose their allies, such as Hamas, they hate you too." Hamas and American leftists: both driven solely by mindless hate
Douglas Murray: And, as Khalil and his friends have made clear, Israel is only the first country in their sights. But it is by no means the last. These groups hate America more than anything. That is why they use this country, abuse this country, spit on this country, say they want to destroy this country and burn the American flag at any opportunity they get. This is a civilizational moment. And I believe Israel shows how we can win it. How did young people go so wrong they cheer killers and rapists of Hamas?
In February, Trump’s Education Department warned 60 institutions, including Brown University, that it would take action if they “do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.” Due to a previous federal civil rights investigation into the school, Brown is “currently subject to ongoing monitoring,” following an earlier agreement with the Department of Education. EXCLUSIVE: Trump Admin Freezes Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Another Ivy League School
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
“This decision has been made out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the safety of all within proximity to public demonstrations planned near the White House on Saturday, April 5, 2025,” the White House said, advising that the Saturday tours will be rescheduled to Sunday. . . The rescheduling of the garden tours could impact thousands of tourists who had tickets for tours scheduled on Saturday. Meanwhile, the mass demonstration is notable as it will be the first large-scale protest against Trump since he returned to the White House. Far-Left Demonstration Forces White House to Reschedule Staturday’s Spring Garden Tours.
During a committee meeting on Wednesday, she revealed, without even the slightest sense of shame, that she got her first legal job solely because of her race, not her experience or ability. I Can't Believe Jasmine Crockett Admitted This
“He probably didn’t even make the decision,” Dershowitz said about how the payments to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen were described. “The decision was made by some underling to simply list it as [a] legal expense. He didn’t deduct it. He just listed it. I think there was a chart, a fall-down thing where you can pick one or two [or] three or four, and one of them was legal experts. It was checked. It’s not a crime. That’s just not a crime. Again, Thomas Jefferson [said] for something to be a crime [that] the statute has to be so clear that a reasonable person could understand it if he reads it, while running.” Dershowitz Predicts Supreme Court ‘Liberals’ Will ‘Go Along’ With Halting Lawfare Against Trump
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
A number of Big Tech giants are intensifying their efforts to acquire the social media app TikTok as the deadline for its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest itself from the company or face its banning in the United States looms. While Oracle has long been considered the most likely serious buyer to acquire TikTok, the multinational software company may now face significant competition, with Amazon showing interest in purchasing the app. President Donald J. Trump has mandated that TikTok must be sold to a non-Chinese company by April 5, or the app will be banned from being downloaded in the United States due to national security concerns. Amazon Enters TikTok Acquisition Fray as Sale Deadline Nears.
The Chinese government is calling the shots, as it does when you’re dealing with China Inc. You have to convince the apparatchiks there to give up control — but not total ownership rights — to a majority-owned US investor group. President Xi & Co., have refused to sell TikTok’s key component, its algorithm that keeps people glued to the app by supplying an endless stream of videos based on user preferences. Why Trump isn’t keen on Amazon being involved in US’ TikTok deal
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is hammering Republicans in the state legislature over their embrace of the latest green agenda policy scam that purports to reduce the impact carbon emissions have on climate change. While DeSantis works to push his plan to eliminate Florida’s sales tax, he contends the Republican legislative supermajority is wasting time and political capital on creating a far-left state task force charged with developing a framework to implement a carbon sequestration program in the state. RINO Lawmakers in Florida Are Using Their Supermajority to Impose the Latest Green Agenda Scam.
In a slobbering Vanity Fair profile lauding Stanley’s brave and stunning decision to run away from what he characterizes as an existential threat to his own country in order to secure another lucrative, cushy teaching position in another First World country where he can continue his self-aggrandizing sophistry about fascism or whatever for money and clout, the distinguished professor repeatedly likened Trump to — you’ll be shocked to learn — Hitler. Yale ‘Fascism Professor’ Flees Country to Escape Trump’s Fourth Reich
Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would mandate proof of citizenship during the voter registration process. Schumer threatened to filibuster the bill Wednesday evening if Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune were to bring it to the floor despite previously voting to eliminate the Senate procedural rule requiring 60 votes to advance most legislation. (RELATED: Georgia Democrats Walk Out In Support Of Taxpayer-Funded Sex Changes For Inmates) Chuck Schumer Threatens To Use Tactic Democrats Once Called ‘Jim Crow Relic’ To Block Bill Securing American Elections
In the lawsuit, attorneys general from 19 states called to block provisions of Trump’s executive order, alleging the president is attempting to “seize control of elections” in an unconstitutional manner. The lawsuit was filed by Arizona, California, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Guess How Many Democratic Party State AGs Are Now Fighting Trump’s Executive Order To Stop Voter Fraud
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
Victor Davis Hanson: A Ukraine-Russia ceasefire looms, with Trump pushing deals, Zelenskyy negotiating leverage, and Putin weighing risks—while the West quietly concedes it never had a real plan to win. All the Ukrainian Known Knowns
President Donald J. Trump has extended an invitation to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele for a visit to the White House. The April 14 invitation was outlined in a letter, which Bukele shared on the social media platform X.The invitation acknowledges Bukele’s participation in U.S. initiatives to combat illegal immigration. It also highlights his administration’s use of the newly built prison facilities for housing criminals from notorious gangs such as Tren de Aragua. Trump praised Bukele’s handling of these security matters as a model of leadership.“Yo text
Activist Laura Loomer visited the Oval Office on Wednesday and presented Trump with research she had on staffers, pushing him to fire them, Axios first reported, citing a U.S. official. A day later, Trump fired several staffers from his National Security Council, according to Axios. The outlet could not confirm whether the firings were tied to the meeting. One of CNN’s three sources said the firings were a direct consequence of Trump’s conversation with Loomer. (RELATED: Trump Admin Intel Officials Say No Classified Information Was Leaked In Signal Messages) Trump Reportedly Fires Several Staffers From National Security Council
The American Cancer Society states that your risk of developing a brain tumor at all during your lifetime is less than 1%. According to Healthline, your risk of developing a brain tumor is low, though the risk increases as you age. 80% of primary brain tumors are diagnosed in people over the age of 40, with 61 years old being the average age to receive such a diagnosis. . . A nurse, who wishes to remain anonymous, from the hospital's maternity ward claims that she, along with at least nine other nurses who also work or have worked in the same ward on the fifth floor over the last few years have all been diagnosed with brain tumors. Most are reportedly benign, but she claims some are cancerous. (I should point out that others are reporting that the number might be greater than 10 nurses, as well as the fact that some of the group have developed other health concerns beyond the brain tumors.) Why Do 10 Nurses at the Same Hospital Have Brain Tumors?
From May 1940 to November 1944, about 30,000 people, including disabled individuals, mental patients, prisoners, and laborers, were killed in gas chambers at Hartheim Castle and burned. (May their memories be for a blessing - jjs) Mass grave of Nazi victims found at Hartheim Castle in Austria
ALSO: The Morning Report is cross-posted at CutJibNewsletter.com if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Oracle staff informed some clients this week that the attacker gained access to usernames, passkeys and encrypted passwords, according to the people, who spoke on condition that they not be identified because they're not authorized to discuss the matter.
Note that this is the same company that very recently proclaimed:
There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud. The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data.
Basically, the data that was stolen in the breach that Oracle so strenuously denied ever happened is real, but old, and likely useless.
Speaking of Oracle, in MySQL 8.0.17 and later you can create multi-valued indexes on JSON arrays if - and this is important - all the indexed data is in the form of unsigned integers.
This index is automatically used for comparisons like MEMBER OF and JSON_CONTAINS if... Something. I don't know what, because in my case it can't see the index at all and the end result is somehow slower than before I did all that.
? [1/9] I recently had a passionate debate with a German friend about whether Islam lies at the root of the dysfunction in Islamic societies and whether it can be reformed. Like many of my privileged Western liberal friends, his understanding of the Islamic world seems to rest… pic.twitter.com/19I1WEWfPv
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett has become a sort of enigma among avid Supreme Court observers.
After filling the vacancy left by deceased Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in late 2020, many conservatives were hopeful that the former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia would offer a much-needed dose of originalism to the high court’s majority of Republican appointees. With Barrett joining Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and (on his good days) Neil Gorsuch, the prospects for decisions abiding by the Constitution as written would be far more likely, or so the conventional thinking went.
To her credit, Barrett has shown the potential do just that. During her time as a justice, the former Notre Dame law professor has been instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade and Chevron deference, upholding certain religious liberty protections, and several other high-profile matters that have come before the high court in recent years.
However, what continues to stump constitutionalists and Barrett hopefuls alike is the associate justice’s abject failure to consistently apply originalist doctrine in her rulings.
Safety in rural areas. Our dream is to buy a farm and live peacefully, but where I live, it's so dangerous it's unreal. When I see movies or programs about people living on ranches or farms in some town in the US, it looks amazing. We could never.
And of course, they didn't forget the important stuff:
My country never would have thought of replacing the bread in a KFC chicken sandwich with TWO PIECES OF CHICKEN. Genius. Keep 'em coming.
USA! USA! USA!
Say Dave, How Drunk Have You Seen People Get On The ONT?
Students are not absolutely illiterate in the sense of being unable to sound out any words whatsoever. Reading bores them, though. They are impatient to get through whatever burden of reading they have to, and move their eyes over the words just to get it done. They’re like me clicking through a mandatory online HR training. Students get exam questions wrong simply because they didn't even take the time to read the question properly. Reading anything more than a menu is a chore and to be avoided.
They also lie about it. I wrote the textbook for a course I regularly teach. It’s a fairly popular textbook, so I’m assuming it is not terribly written. I did everything I could to make the writing lively and packed with my most engaging examples. The majority of students don’t read it. Oh, they will come to my office hours (occasionally) because they are bombing the course, and tell me that they have been doing the reading, but it’s obvious they are lying. The most charitable interpretation is that they looked at some of the words, didn’t understand anything, pretended that counted as reading, and returned to looking at TikTok.
Has anyone seen any of those social media posts displaying things like eight grade exams from 100 years ago? Inevitably, the questions are more detailed and harder than many people get in college today. Here's an example.
For the first time, a team of Israeli archaeologists has uncovered ancient artifacts at northern Israel’s “Armageddon” site that might offer proof of an epic battle documented in the books of Kings II and Chronicles between a king of Judah and an Egyptian pharaoh.
Two academic papers published earlier this year explained how an unprecedented amount of 7th-century BCE Egyptian pottery was found in recent excavations at Megiddo, suggesting that Egyptian soldiers were indeed in the right biblical place at what could be the right biblical period.
“Megiddo is the only site in Israel and the neighboring countries mentioned in the Bible and in all great records of the Ancient Near East,” said Prof. Israel Finkelstein, head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa and long-time director of the Megiddo Expedition.
Weird how they keep finding 10,000 year old artifacts in Israel from the people who “colonized” the poor Palestinians. Very strange.
Perfect Your Racism!
Actually, this is a fun little website. It shows you two pictures, a male and a female, typical of different ethnic groups from around the world. You have to click on the map where you think they're from, and then it tells you how far off you were.
Google's terrible AI describes the smell of the durian fruit this way:
The durian fruit is notorious for its pungent, often described as "stinky" smell, which has led to its ban in public places in some areas, though many find the taste delicious.
Here's a more detailed look at the durian smell:
Descriptive comparisons:
The smell has been likened to a mix of rotten onions, turpentine, raw sewage, gym socks, stale vomit, skunk spray, and even pig excrement.
Trump's Department of Education Orders Schools to Certify That All DEI Programs Are Defunded, As a Precondition of Receiving Any Future Federal Funding
Because all of the leftwing school administrators are already lying, renaming DEI officers as just "Officers" while keeping them on the payroll (yes, the Air Force did that).
As a condition for receiving federal money, the Trump administration is ordering K-12 schools to certify that they are following federal civil rights laws and ending any discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
A notice sent Thursday by the Education Department gives states and schools 10 days to sign and return the certification. It's the latest escalation against DEI policies, apparently giving the Republican administration a new lever for terminating federal money.
"Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right," Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. He said many schools have flouted their legal obligations, "including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another."
The certification asks state and school leaders to sign a "reminder of legal obligations" acknowledging their federal money is conditioned on compliance with federal civil rights laws. It also demands compliance with several pages of legal analysis written by the administration.
"The use of certain DEI practices can violate federal law," the administration wrote in the certification, adding that it is illegal for programs to advantage one race over another.
Schools and states that use illegal DEI practices can face a loss of federal money, including grants and contracts, and can be held liable under the False Claims Act, according to the certification. It specifically threatens Title I funding, which sends billions of dollars a year to America's schools and targets low-income areas.
That hints that maybe prosecution is in the offing for those who fraudulently sign the certifications while keeping renamed DEI policies and departments in place.
...
It follows a Feb. 14 memo declaring that any school policy that treats students or staff differently because of their race is illegal. It aimed to fight what the memo described as widespread discrimination in education, often against white and Asian American students.
It wouldn't be an AP "news" article without now giving the left, and only the left, the chance to attack the policy, with zero comment from anyone supporting the position that Racism Is Bad.
The certification letter drew blowback from critics who said it conflicts with Trump's promise to return education to schools and states.
"Is this what the Trump administration calls local control? You can't say you're giving control back to states and then dictate how they run their schools," said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union.
And of course it wouldn't be an AP "News" article without giving Randi "Shutdown" Weingarten the last word, to let everyone know what they're supposed to think:
The union's president called the certification requirement illegal, saying federal law prohibits the White House from telling schools and colleges what to teach, and that federal money cannot be withheld without due process.
"He's wielding a cudgel of billions in federal aid to tens of millions of children, of all races and ethnicities, to force educators to kowtow to his politics and ideology," said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT.
This system where we spend a lot of taxpayer money to subsidize "women's" sports but then allow random dudes to crybaby their way in has got to go.
A female fencer is speaking out after she was disqualified from a tournament in Maryland for taking a knee and refusing to compete against a transgender-identifying male opponent.
Stephanie Turner, 31, was black-carded and booted from a tournament this past weekend for refusing to compete against Redmond Sullivan, who is male and identifies as transgender. Sullivan formerly competed against males and was permitted by USA Fencing to compete in the women's tournament, the organization confirmed to The Daily Wire.
"I want to thank God for trusting me with this mission to fight for female exclusive sports and putting me in a place to effectively protest," Turner told The Daily Wire in a statement.
"I also want to add that I am grateful to the Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS) for their encouragement and support," she added. "They have helped me and so many other women who have been put in this unfair and confusing situation."
...
The transgender did what transgenders usually do when women refuse to support their delusions: He told her that he had the backing of a liberal member of the board of directors and threatened to use his power to squash her.
"Redmond says to me, 'Well you know, there is a member on the board of directors here who supports me, and there is a policy that acknowledges me as a woman, so I am allowed to fence, and you will get black-carded,' and I said, 'I know.'"
Sometimes backlash is unfortunate.
It's not in this case. The backlash is well-earned and justified.
Chubby Theater Kid Spazz, The Fiercely Heterosexual Corey Booker (TM), Carries On Shouting and Stamping His Feet for 20+ Hours and Lefties Think He Really Did Something
—Ace
The constantly attention-seeking, beard-"dating" Senator Spartacus did a talking filibuster for some reason, shouting -- get this -- Orange Man Bad and also -- get this -- turning on the fake tears to show how much Passion and Fight he has.
Most people who saw clips of this had the same thought: "Vin Diesel is really porking out. And he's a lot gayer than he seems in the Fast and Furious movies."
Lefties are calling this obvious low-effort stunt to position himself for another failed run in 2028 heroic and inspiring.
I swear to God, it's so condescending to praise black people so extravagantly for dumb stunts like this. White liberals are always screaming their genuine beliefs about black people by gushing about how amazing it is that they can do relatively easy things.
Thus far, it has been a gloomy 2025 for the late night comedy shows as they have attacked Democrats from the left for not doing anything to stop Republicans, but on Wednesday, a trio of them claimed to have reason for optimism as they reacted to Sen. Cory Booker's 25-hour talk. Some suggested he get an award, while others claimed he spoke for all of America, while others tried their hand at media criticism, arguing the media hasn't praised Booker enough.
CBS's Stephen Colbert teed up a clip on The Late Show of the final moments of Booker's speech where he compared himself to the Civil Rights Movement, "There were many great moments, but Booker saved, I think, the best for last."
After the clip and audience cheers, Colbert declared he was such a fan that he invited Booker on the show, "Yes, sir. That was beautiful. Give that man an award, eventually. First give him a toilet and a bed and a cauliflower steak or whatever he calls food. And I'm happy to say Cory Booker will be my guest on Monday right over there to talk about what is going on in the Senate, what is going on in America, and what can be done."
Over at NBC and Late Night, host Seth Meyers welcomed MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and recalled, "Cory Booker, last night, did speak for 25 hours and then went straight on your show before declaring, "I did think, you know, as for what it accomplishes, I don't know, but it did, at least, say, I think, to, you know, his voters 'Look, I do still have some energy for this fight.'"
Well, that certainly is a high compliment. "I don't know what he did but I guess he did something!"
[Maddow] claimed, "Senator Booker said his constituents told him, 'Take risks, do something you don't think you can do, you need to show people that this not normal times and it is worth doing everything we can' and he did."
"Everything we can do" = blabbing in an air conditioned room for twenty hours
Frank Luntz: Booker marathon speech 'may have changed the course of political history'
I mean...
Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) "may have changed the course of political history" with his marathon speech breaking the Senate's record for the longest floor speech in its history.
"I want to emphasize what Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history. I watched a lot of it. I listened to words. I listened to phrases," Luntz said during a Tuesday evening appearance on NewsNation's "On Balance."
Wow. Corey Booker talked for a long time, which changed the course of history, and Frank Luntz did his part, too! "I listened to words. I listened to phrases."
Frank Luntz is doing Everything He Can to Fight Fascism, too!
He confirmed that Booker's unprecedented feat "struck a tone" with Americans in the midst of the Trump administration's controversial policies.
"He struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country too," Luntz told anchor Leland Vittert.
...
"That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028," Luntz said.
Yup, he just has to find another LGBQT+ supporting woman to pose as his girlfriend and he's all set.
🎥 WATCH: Senate Democrats applaud Corey Booker for wasting 25 hours of everyone�s time and accomplishing absolutely nothing. pic.twitter.com/8fYswYs9bO
Meanwhile, Jake Tapper says that it's okay to attack Elon Musk for using his money to influence politics, but it's not okay to attack George Soros, because Musk stands in the arena and announces his positions while the Billionaire Gollum George Soros slinks in the shadows working his influence ops.
🚨🇺🇸 CNN ACCIDENTALLY ADMITS IT: SOROS IS OK BECAUSE HE HIDES IN THE SHADOWS
Jake Tapper and Kara Swisher just revealed the incredible double standard in their coverage of political donors.
When discussing Elon's Wisconsin involvement, Tapper openly admitted:
Tapper is a longtime defender of Soros, and routinely attacks people as "antisemitic" for pointing out that a foreign-born communist billionaire who once bankrupted the United Kingdom is currently using his billions to push America towards full-blown Sovietism.
Tapper is defending George Soros, calling Elon Musk�s comments about Soros a �baseless attack� sounding Antisemitic by connecting the villain Magneto and Soros.
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) May 17, 2023
You see, it's an "antisemitic trope" to object to a Jewish (by the way, Soros is not Jewish and only claims to be now in order to get his defenders to attack his critics as anti-Jewish) billionaire, but it's totally okay to attack non-Jewish billionaires.
Violent Leftwing Professor -- the Chair of the English Department -- Suspended After Flipping Table Where Republicans Were Peacefully Providing Voter Information
—Ace
Don't worry, it's just some paid time off. He'll be back in class in a week or two, because the left insists that its fellow leftists have the right to attack the right without consequence.
People don't resort to "self-help" -- using violence to vindicate their rights -- because we trust, or used to trust, supposedly objective and fair institutions to vindicate our rights for us.
If that system is no longer in place -- and it's obviously not -- we will have to revert to older, more primitive, more violent methods.
Is that what the left wants? The left with their 350-pound shemales and spaghetti-armed theater kid "bullies"?
We'll see. We'll see.
Wisconsin university professor placed on leave after allegedly flipping College Republicans' table
University department chair on leave after allegedly flipping College Republicans' table
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire English Department chair has been placed on leave pending an investigation into allegations that he flipped the College Republicans' table. Video: UW-Eau Claire College Republicans
The chair of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire has been placed on administrative leave after allegedly flipping the College Republicans' table on campus Tuesday morning.
UW-Eau Claire Interim Provost Michael Carney confirmed the incident with Fox News.
"I am deeply concerned that our students' peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted," Carney said in a statement. "UW-Eau Claire strongly supports every person's right to free speech and free expression, and the university remains committed to ensuring that campus is a place where a wide variety of opinions and beliefs can be shared and celebrated."
He added that "civil dialogue is a critical part of the university experience, and peaceful engagement is fundamental to learning itself."
The average college student is "functionally illiterate," writes "Hilarius Bookbinder," who teaches philosophy at a public university that attracts students with mid-range academic records.
Most students "could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read," nor do they have "the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read and most certainly not the attention span to finish," writes Bookbinder. They don't read textbooks or primary texts, "even in upper-divisions courses that students supposedly take out of genuine interest."
Students write at the eighth-grade level, he writes. They submit the cheapest cliché as novel insight.
Exam question: Describe the attitude of Dostoevsky's Underground Man towards acting in one's own self-interest, and how this is connected to his concerns about free will. Are his views self-contradictory?
Student: With the UGM its all about our journey in life, not the destination. He beleives we need to take time to enjoy the little things becuase life is short and you never gonna know what happens. Sometimes he contradicts himself cause sometimes you say one thing but then you think something else later. It's all relative.
The alternative is a coherent answer written by a bot.
The average student goes to college to qualify for a middle-class job, he writes. That's not new. But, these days, professors are seeing "a stunning level of disconnection."
Students are much more likely to skip days or weeks of class without explanation, the professor writes. If they show up, they walk out in the middle of a 50-minute class to look at their phones, to which they are addicted. Or they pretend to type notes on laptops while looking at social media. Or gambling.
Students expect faculty to do the work for them, he writes. "No, you can't have my slides. Get the notes from a classmate. Read the book. Come to office hours for a conversation if you are still confused after the preceding steps. . . .Try coming to class."
Students miss quizzes, then can't be bothered to show up for a make-up or talk to the professor about it.
The professor says that he'd like to fail most of his students -- but the administration would crucify him, because if you kicked out all of the illiterate phone-addicted dum-dums, there would not be enough money coming in to keep the university solvent.
EXCLUSIVE: Jose Felipe Alvergue, Chair of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire English Department, violently flipped over the @UWEauClaire College Republicans' table on campus this morning. Campus Police are investigating. https://t.co/ftwDpxTEqMpic.twitter.com/AszVQm8clU
DOGE finds Veterans Affairs paying $350K per month for website modifications
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under the leadership of Elon Musk, revealed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had been spending an astounding $350,000--$380,000 per month on minor website updates before canceling the bloated contract.
Key Details:
The VA paid a contractor nearly $380,000/month for minor website modifications.
DOGE confirmed the contract was not renewed; the work is now done by one internal staffer in 10 hours/week.
The revelation follows DOGE's termination of 113 federal contracts worth $4.7 billion in total.
Diving Deeper:
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the agency created by executive order on President Donald Trump's first day in office, has uncovered yet another striking example of wasteful federal spending. This time, the target is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which until recently had been paying nearly $380,000 a month for relatively simple website modifications--work that a single staffer now handles internally with just 10 hours of effort each week.
DOGE broke the story via a post on X, formerly Twitter, praising the VA for not renewing the contract. "VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications," the agency wrote. "That contract has not been renewed, and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week."
The left is celebrating that their literal domestic terrorism campaign against Musk has worked, but Musk and the Administration say he was always expected to step away from the job after 130 days, which is the term he was appointed to.
I don't know -- maybe he'd have sought an extension if not for the terrorism. I'm not sure if the terrorism worked or not.
The left sure is happy that their terrorism may have worked. Note that for your records.
Did you hear? A temporary government employee whose legally limited term of employment is 130 days is going to leave government employment after 140 days?!
Shocking, I know. Somebody in the government is going to obey the law, which explains why the news media is printing screaming headlines that Elon Musk is leaving government employment.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk loudly proclaimed when Elon Musk was hired that he would be in his position for 130 days. Given how things work in recent years, it is shocking that somebody in the government is obeying the law. That almost never happened under Obama and Joe Biden.
Yesterday, X was filled with celebration that Elon Musk had been pressured out of the government by all the attacks on Tesla. It was all started by a POLITICO "scoop" that the Trump administration had had enough. Trump liked him, but his cabinet did not.
...
Every single of word of that "scoop" was a total invention. It was a Narrative(TM), and everybody in the media picked it up, amplified it, and created a story that was essentially a hoax as invented as the "fine people" hoax.
POLITICO didn't make a mistake. The invented--or rather spread an invented hoax for somebody who cooked it up--because the left needs to create the sense that their coordinated opposition is working. Trump is losing momentum, his cabinet is revolting, and Musk has become a liability. It is part of their plan to cripple Trump by crippling Musk.
The left is doing what it always does when it's defending their zealous religious-cultist devotion to an unpopular position -- they're lying. They're claiming that they all really, really, rilly want to cut government spending too, they just don't like the exact way it's currently being done. But if it was done in the "right way," of course they'd support cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget, Silly-Head!
And when you ask them for a list of cuts they support, they go silent. Though they might say "We need to stop giving away tax bonanzas to billionaires," which isn't a cut in spending but an increase in taxes. (Which they count as "a cut in spending," because they claim the government is writing checks to the rich.)
Of course their main lie has been "We support cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse, because of course we do, but we don't like that this billionaire Elon Musk is doing it, looking at IRS transactions so that this near-trillionaire, literally the richest man who has ever lived on earth for all of history, can jot down Granny's bank routing information so that he can nab her sweet $1,300/month Social Security payments.
And also, they don't like that "no one elected Musk," which is true of every single Administration official in every single Administration, except it's less true of Musk, who appeared at Trump campaign rallies with Trump promising that if we elected him he'd appoint Musk as head of DOGE.
My point is this: The left is going to have to quickly change its lies post-Musk to claim some other objection to the exact way government spending is being cut, and who it's being cut by.
But don't worry -- the truth-seeking media will call them out for changing their story about why they oppose these particular cuts. The media will not let the Democrat Party get away with its usual lies, don't you worry one second Buddy!
Joe Scarborough: I Was Such a Rock-Ribbed Super-Conservative That the Republican Party's Liberal Leadership Repeatedly Threatened Me, But I Am Too Courageous and Tough to be Frightened
NewsBusters readers know that Joe Scarborough has the braggadocious habit of mentioning his former congressman status at every possible opportunity. They're also aware that Scarborough, whom we've dubbed Muy Macho Joe, likes to brag about what a tough a hombre he is.
Scarborough earned that moniker back in 2023 by bragging that if he ever saw a Capitol tourist snapping a photo somewhere Joe didn't like, he'd say: "Put the camera down or I'm gonna make you eat it. I would slap the camera out of his hand." Dirty Harry was a wimp in comparison.
On Wednesday's Morning Joe, Scarborough seized as a two-fer on the result in yesterday's judicial election in Wisconsin, in which the Democrat won despite Elon Musk campaigning in the state and donating heavily to the Republican candidate.
Scarborough not only dragged his former congressman status into the conversation, he also bragged about how tough he was when Republican leaders threatened to campaign against him when he took votes they didn't like.
As Scarborough described his display of extreme machismo. There's only one major problem. Does anyone actually remember the national GOP establishment opposing Scarborough in the 1994 primary, when he ran as a rock-ribbed conservative?
I had the Republicans doing everything they could to beat me in 1994. And I won.
And so, I get up there, and I start voting in ways they don't want me to vote, and they threaten me. And at one point, I had a member of leadership say, if you, you know, if you don't go this way, Scarborough, we're going to, and I cut him off.
I go, what, come into my district? Please come into my district. I won by 62% the first time you did. Come in again, and I'll win by 75%, and I turned around and walked off.
Video at the link.
Greg Gutfeld lauds Joe Scarborough for his "honesty" as well as his "dime-slot Hillbilly eyes," as Scarborough claims that he first became aware of Biden's mental infirmity during the "shocking" debate.
His cover of the Beatles "I've Just Seen a Face," which he repurposed as a tribute to health care workers during the covid lockdowns he championed, is so bad that he murdered this song and stuffed it into a locker at work.
Here's Karoline Leavitt lighting up the media for insisting that rapists and child-killers have a permanent right to live in America because they touched American soil.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reads out the crimes of the illegals the media is telling her shouldn�t be deported
- They raped and strangled a 20 year old autistic woman to death in Maryland - They hacked 4 people to death with machetes in a park on Long Island - They have� pic.twitter.com/9EWHXiqgcd
The late and decidedly unlamented five year or 10 year or 20 year environmental plan of the Biden administration to transform America's evil addiction to fossil fuels into a beautiful garden of unicorns and pixies and lovely and abundant clean energy ran into two problems: Reality, and Donald Trump.
Reality came in the form of physics and economics; fossil fuels are incredibly energy dense, easily transported, the industry is amazingly efficient, and the fuel is cheap! Contrast that with the mess that is the current state of battery technology, the high cost of heating with electricity, the inability to transport that energy to its intended users, the pathetic range of EVs, and the awful environmental impact of just about everything involved with this massive worldwide boondoggle, and it's an easy decision.
Of course, our highly educated and profoundly stupid elites made the wrong decision, and that's where we needed Donald Trump. Physics and economics would have eventually saved the day, but not before countless billions more dollars were wasted on unproven or simply impossible technology, and with that the destruction of our superb energy production and distribution systems.
Within days of his inauguration, Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that the future of energy in America was not some pie-in-the-sky nonsense about solar/wind/tidal generation that can never supply the demands of our current economy, much less the hopefully growing economy of the future. The only way to do that is to decrease significantly total demand while increasing cost, and that is an economy and society-killing plan.
A green company’s years-long effort to use the power of eminent domain to seize farmland in the Plains States was derailed after Republican South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden signed legislation on March 13 barring the condemnation of private property for the construction of a CO2 pipeline.
Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion, 2,100-mile climate project envisaged pumping 12 million tons of carbon dioxide captured annually at Midwestern ethanol plants across five states – Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota – via a highly-pressurized pipeline before burying it deep underground in North Dakota.
Dubbed the “CO2 pipeline,” the project is part of a larger carbon capture and storage scheme, a taxpayer-subsidized investment fad touted to help heavy industries reach the Biden administration’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) supported the technology by offering participating companies a tax credit of up to $85 per ton of CO2 emissions captured and stored.
This is exactly what America needs. The 50 state laboratory that is the United States of America can act as each state sees fit. If North Dakota thinks green energy is crap, then good! And if California wants to kill its economy with a $125 billion train to nowhere, close all of its fossil fuel power plants, force everyone into electric cars, ban gas appliances, then have at it! Luckily, the last person to leave California won't have to turn off the lights, because they won't have any!
But the top-down diktats of the federal leviathan are a thing of the past. And those hugely expensive tax credits and graft-filled green energy grants are going away as well. If green energy is actually possible for a 1st World economy, then it must pass economic muster, and that means it must compete on the same level as every other energy source. And if that means that EVs are a thing of the past, or a plaything for the wealthy, then so be it. We have no responsibility for the financial success of any product, much less ones that would not exist were it not for massive government subsidies (read: a big tax on us).
It's time to return to market pressures as the primary measure of success. If Tesla fails...oh well! And if Tesla or any other green energy company succeeds on the merits? Fantastic! We will all have more choice!
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!
Sen. Cory Booker’s 25-hour congressional floor rant is being hailed as a major achievement, but nobody has ever questioned Booker’s ability to talk endlessly. It’s his greatest talent. That and making other people’s money disappear. The 25 hours of rambling summed up everything wrong with Booker as a politician and a man. Booker and his media allies tried to bill it as a filibuster, but it wasn’t because the senator from New Jersey wasn’t trying to fight an actual piece of legislation, just calling attention to himself.
Why did Booker actually ramble for 25 hours in the Senate? To run for president.
As stunts go, this was the most obvious one yet. Booker’s next Senate election is in 2026, but he has a campaign page up which claims that “he cannot stay quiet and complacent while Donald Trump and Elon Musk shatter constitutional checks and balances” and urges, “Stand with Cory by making a donation today.” But his obvious long-term goal is 2028.
There’s a problem with Booker’s presidential aspirations. And it’s not just that every time he speaks, he reminds everyone of an unsuccessful Obama.
It’s his corrupt track record.
well, Obama was elected twice and ran the Biden junta from 21-25 from Kalorama after the 2020 election theft. Aside from that, Daniel Greenfield takes a good hard look at Booker's record of malfeasance, rank corruption and criminality during his stint as mayor of a quintessential Democrat Shithole Newark NJ and then his abortive 2020 presidential candidacy and asks the rhetorical question of where did all the millions in campaign cash thrown at him go?
Considering that, despite what happened in Wisconsin with the election of an in-your-face commie to the state Supreme Court and preserving the Leftist stranglehold on the court as well as much of the state government, the Democrat Party and Leftism in general is in total disarray as Donald Trump rolls on with his agenda, the criminal judicial law fare and borderline/crossing the line acts of domestic terrorism against Tesla and other targets notwithstanding. Here's just the latest example.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents from Dallas, Texas, arrested a man for making “terroristic threats against ICE agents” and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem.
In a post on X, HSI Dallas, revealed that they had taken a man named Robert King into custody and explained that his “social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire'” if ICE agents were spotted “in his neighborhood.”
“Robert King, a U.S. citizen was recently taken into custody in McKinney, Texas for making terroristic threats against ICE agents and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem,” HSI Dallas said. “King’s alarming social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire’ if agents are seen in his neighborhood.”
The Democrat Party is polling about 27 percent approval — and sinking.
In 2024, it lost the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and both the popular vote and the Electoral College, 312-226.
In 2024, Donald Trump won over 46% of the Hispanic vote, including a majority of Hispanic men. Trump also likely captured 26% of the Black male vote, doubling his 2020 total.
In 2024, Trump increased his 2020 vote total in every single state. And he won 89% of all the counties in the United States.
On every issue, Democrats sided with strident leftist movements rather than the majority of Americans. . .
Democrats claim no formal role in such terror — but more or less seem to approve of its ends and means.
Left-wing comic Jimmy Kimmel winks and nods on national television about the current violent Tesla terrorist campaign. Tim Walz celebrates the resulting drop in the Tesla stock price. As Minnesota’s governor overseeing his state’s sizable investment in Tesla, Walz could care less about trash-talking his own taxpayers’ investments. Rep. Jasmine Crockett boasts that Musk “must be taken down.”
. . . Senator minority leader Chuck Schumer, who once issued threats to Supreme Court justices Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by name, now boasts, “We have people going to the Republican districts and going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to either change their vote or face the consequences.”
Furious at their own increasing impotence, these contemporary Democrat Jacobins are dabbling with their own version of a reign of smut terror.
All Trump has to do is keep on delivering on the promises he has made, one of the more critical and difficult things is not only turning the economy around, but reversing the disaster that globalism and unchecked trade unionism did to our once gargantuan manufacturing sector that over the east 60 years or so has been dismantled and shipped overseas.
President Trump and his team are telling top financiers his tariff plan unveiled today is all about playing the long game — getting trading partners who are clearly protectionist to reduce or remove their barriers to US exports in exchange for us doing the same.
In the end, they claim, everyone will be happy — including the American public that will be on the receiving end of the long-term gain of economic prosperity.
But The Post has learned that top Wall Street execs have been warning the White House and Trump himself in recent days that getting to that long-term gain, while feasible, will not be easy.
It could well result in a significant degree of short-term pain, more than just the markets going haywire. It could ignite something known as stagflation of higher prices ie., inflation, and lower growth, a possible recession. It’s an economic disruption not seen in decades as we upend the global trade ecosystem and play chicken with the rest of the industrialized world over tariffs.
Will Trump play that game of chicken? He knows trading partners will respond in kind; US goods will get more expensive overseas and import prices spike. That’s where the stagflation comes in. Everyone I know who knows Trump says he’s committed to the tariff hammer because he believes in his heart that they will rebuild America, bring jobs back to the Rust Belt and as he explained in his press conference, the trade deals we have crafted with even our allies are so unfair.
But you never know what a little stagnation will do to a politician, even one as steadfast as Trump — which is exactly the warning financiers made to the president in recent meetings.
The White House was said to be all ears during these meetings, as Wall Street executives explained the grim details of the short-term tariff pain: Uncertainty over what Trump would announce has stymied business spending for large swaths of the economy, and it will fall further once the tariffs go into effect.
US automakers are readying price hikes because they source much of their parts overseas. Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported autos.
As a Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Wednesday in a note: “The concept of a US car maker with parts all from the US is a fictional tale . . . tariff policy will cause pure chaos to the global auto industry and will raise prices to the typical Us consumer by $5k to 10K out of the gates.” Tariffs will impact farmers because we provide grain overseas and to China; our natural gas exports will be hurt, meaning a slowdown in growth on top of spending cuts businesses already enacted before in preparation of the tariff announcement.
That’s the bad news, but here’s what good could happen down the road: Trump’s art-of-the-deal making skills will change the protectionist behavior of our trade partners. He wants that stuff to stop, and if they do, he announced that he will reciprocate and things go back to normal. Perhaps even better than normal with new trade deals that don’t put US exports at a disadvantage, and bring jobs back home. . .
. . . Put all that together and it sounds like a great place to start talking and make this short-term pain that’s coming as short as possible.
Along with the effects of DOGE as well as the reversal of regulatory tyranny on American business, and the bolstering of our labor force by the sealing of our borders and sane immigration policy, we of a certain age might not live long enough to see the Rust Belt brought back to its former glory as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
Certainly, there are far too many individuals and institutions in and out of government, domestic and foreign which are desperate to thwart the American renaissance, economic, political, cultural and societal for a host of reasons.
So we shall see if the estimable Victor Davis Hanson is correct about the Dems' seeming impotence in thwarting the MAGA agenda. The seemingly lackluster turnout here in the Wisconsin special election is a puzzler given Trump's performance in '24. Is it mere complacency or what is it? Yes, it doesn't help that the GOP-e is worse than useless, and at times downright collaborationist with the enemy. We need to figure that out. See here and also see here.
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
Victor Davis Hanson: The Dems are too impotent to derail the country, but they are certainly destroying themselves. From Profanity-Chic to Terrorist-Smut
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
“Robert King, a U.S. citizen was recently taken into custody in McKinney, Texas for making terroristic threats against ICE agents and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem,” HSI Dallas said. “King’s alarming social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire’ if agents are seen in his neighborhood.” DHS Arrests Man for Threatening ICE Agents and Kristi Noem
The March figure sharply outpaced February’s upwardly revised 84,000, and beat Wall Street’s consensus forecast of 120,000. In other words, despite the policy “uncertainty” and alleged “downbeat” consumer mood cited by critics of the Trump administration’s trade agenda, businesses kept hiring at a healthy clip. Hiring Accelerates in March Despite Tariff Hysteria, ADP Reports
Gasparino: Will Trump play that game of chicken? He knows trading partners will respond in kind; US goods will get more expensive overseas and import prices spike. That’s where the stagflation comes in. Everyone I know who knows Trump says he’s committed to the tariff hammer because he believes in his heart that they will rebuild America, bring jobs back to the Rust Belt and as he explained in his press conference, the trade deals we have crafted with even our allies are so unfair. But you never know what a little stagnation will do to a politician, even one as steadfast as Trump — which is exactly the warning financiers made to the president in recent meetings. Trump tariffs could stoke massive short term pain for better trade deals
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
AMERICA AND THE WORLD IMPRISONED: CHINESE+Fauci-created CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
Grady was given the boot as part of the post-pandemic restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to the New York Times and STAT News. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his top aides have said the layoffs are aimed at consolidating administrative functions and overhauling a failed status quo in Americans’ health. . .Even an NIH official who described Grady as well respected acknowledged that her marriage to Fauci impacted the ability of the institutes to tackle ethical questions that risked reflecting poorly on the former White House medical advisor. Fauci’s Wife, An NIH Bioethicist Who Never Probed Ethics Of Wuhan Research, Fired
On Tuesday, Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna teamed up with Democrats to push the U.S. House to consider legislation allowing new parents to vote remotely, also known as proxy voting. Her fight to force proxy voting, which is unconstitutional, down the throats of House members caused House Speaker Mike Johnson to cancel all votes in Congress this week. This means another week is going by without the House working to codify President Donald Trump’s agenda. Republicans Sabotaged By Their Own Feminist Infiltrators, Again
Liberal Susan Crawford beat conservative Brad Schimel by about 10 percentage points in the race to fill a vacant seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court roughly five months after Trump won Wisconsin in the 2024 presidential election by a little over 29,000 votes. Spicer said that the margin in Wisconsin, where the conservative lost an election to fill a vacant seat on the state supreme court, was a warning sign during an appearance on 2Way. ‘That’s A Huge Problem’: Sean Spicer Sounds Alarm About GOP Turnout When Trump Isn’t On Ballot
I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything here — this was a horrible result for Republicans in Wisconsin. However, the supreme court race there has no bearing on the nation's economy or national security, which will be the two biggest things upon which President Trump's eventual success or failure will be judged. And given what a hot mess the Democrat Party is right now, its propaganda pimps might want to hold off on ordering any champagne for 2026. I'll Just Be Over Here Relaxing While Media Dems Read Too Much Into WI Supreme Court Race
Daniel Greenfield: In a 25-hour speech, Sen. Booker talked about everything but where his money comes from. Crooked Cory Won’t Shut Up
President Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on four Republican senators ahead of a key Senate vote that could unravel his efforts to hold Canada accountable for its role in the fentanyl crisis. The measure, a joint resolution backed by Democrats, seeks to terminate the national emergency Trump declared on fentanyl, effectively overturning his executive order imposing tariffs on the country. ‘What Is Wrong With Them?’ Trump Unloads on Four GOP Senators
“John Cornyn has waved the white flag on election integrity, border security, protecting the 2nd amendment, and everything else constitutional conservatives care about.” — Ken Paxton.. . Cornyn’s ouster would strengthen the America First movement in the Senate, where establishment Republicans such as the outgoing Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski still hold significant sway. Trump Ally Ken Paxton Would Crush RINO Cornyn in Texas Senate Primary, Data Confirms.
Kamala Harris emerged from whatever bunker she's been hiding in to celebrate Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court race results — and boy, was it a spectacle. Kamala Harris, whose public appearances have become increasingly erratic, posted a TikTok video that left many wondering if she'd hit the sauce before hitting the record button. Is She Drunk? Kamala's Latest Public Appearance Was… Yikes…
Defense analyst and retired Israeli fighter pilot/special forces soldier (what a combo, right?) Naftali Hazony reported on X Monday that "At least six U.S. B-2 bombers are now stationed at Diego Garcia air base in the Indian Ocean." Trump's Latest Move Ought to Keep Iran up at Night
Even dedicated space buffs were a bit taken aback when news of Fram2 reminded us that human beings had never flown a polar orbit before. You might wonder why, but Fram2's five-day mission has a stellar rationale. This Private Spaceflight Is a Very Big Deal
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
“I knew what I had to do because USA Fencing had not been listening to women’s objections regarding [its gender eligibility policy],” Turner said. “I took a knee immediately at that point. Redmond was under the impression that I was going to start fencing. So when I took the knee, I looked at the ref and said, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot do this. I am a woman, and this is a man, and this is a women’s tournament. And I will not fence this individual.” Women’s Fencer Takes a Knee in Protest, Refuses to Face Trans Opponent: ‘This is a Man’
Which is how you end up with a Uranium Bomb recipe that calls for 1kg of uranium-235, or a recipe for Actual Cocaine, where the first step is "Acquire coca leaves from South America."
28nm is a good choice. Reliable and cost effective. Of course TSMC is rolling out 2nm right now, and Intel has entered early production on 1.8nm, so it's a bit like stealing the design of the F-4 Phantom - because that's all you have the ability to build.
Compared to the previous model it has a bigger screen (7.9" vs. 6.2") running at a 1080p instead of 720p, and internal storage has been bumped from 32GB to a more respectable 256GB.
Remove the controllers (which you can still do) and it could make a useful if somewhat chunky tablet.
Not much longer before Mad King Matt Mullenweg has no subjects at all.
My 128GB RAM kit arrived, and I also picked up a couple of XFX RX 580 graphics cards.
These are not recent cards (the chip they use first appeared in 2016) and they're not fast cards (slower than AMD's latest integrated graphics) but they are cheap cards. You can find no-name Chinese models on Amazon - new - for $85. I paid about $100 for my name-brand models.
(Yes, they're the slightly cut-down 2048 SP version, but they still have the full 8GB of RAM, and thanks to AMD's OpenGL updates can push Minecraft to 500 fps at 4k.)
A special welcome to those who have given up commenting on Ace of Spades for Lent and have assumed temporary lurker status. The rest of you know what that means. More commenting to take up the slack. Comment of the week honors are at stake.
I thought I saw a Putty Tat! I did! I did saw a Putty Tat!
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One Froggy Evening (featuring Michigan J. Frog):
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What other characters should we acknowledge? Speedy Gonzales? Foghorn Leghorn? Pepe Le Pew? The Abominable Snowman? Granny?
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Mel Blanc famously gave voice to the Looney Tunes family. What a remarkable range.
Warner Brothers published this poster on his passing:
He is buried at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles:
Here is Mr. Blanc on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:
As the animator, Chuck Jones provided the visuals and movement to tell the story. He showed so much with such simple sketches. He has no cemetery headstone. He was cremated and his ashes spread at sea.
Here is an interview while he was still among the living.
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Who among us hasn't taken a little C4 home from work for our pup?
Joshua King is charged with possession, use, or removal of explosive devices after his wife alleges she found a block of C4 explosive among his things. King is a sergeant in the 588th Engineer Battalion, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson.
Law enforcement said his wife told law enforcement she and Joshua were going through a divorce. She said she was cleaning out the home when she found the C4 in a small wooden dresser in the garage.
His wife told investigators that he allegedly brought home the plastic explosive shortly after her father gave them a retired explosives detection canine. She said Joshua had told her not to tell anyone that he brought the C4 home from Ft. Carson. At the time, she said she didn't realize exactly what C4 was.
Investigators later spoke to another ex of King's who was living with him at a different residence.
Someone signed for the C4 at some point, so going to be some 'splainin to do. Don't think C4 is in the same category as office supplies.
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Dear Wednesday ONT readers, I give you...the Guinness World Record for the most standing jumps onto a pair of raw eggs in one minute. This one just baffles me. I don't get it, but somehow it earned a World Record?
The most standing jumps onto a pair of raw eggs in one minute - 5 achieved by Lan Guangping (China) pic.twitter.com/p6Q0Z5J9Da
You knew it was coming. Ozzy Fudd for our big ONT finish:
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Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking? Come out and play. Did you take a wrong turn at Albuquerque?
Podcast: CBD is joined by journalist and film critic Christian Toto, and Jim Lakely of The Heartland Institute. We discuss Hollywood's contempt for its customers, in particular the catastrophe of Snow White, and whether its failure is a signal of a sea change in Hollywood.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: I Can't Believe It's Not Bryan Adams Edition
Well I saw you on the avenue
And as usual you're with someone new
I guess there's nothing left for me to do but turn away
I'm growing tired of all your alibis
There ain't one you can justify
I ain't gonna take it anymore and I'll tell you why
You know, I wrote "I Can't Believe It's Not Bryan Adams" and then realized, "Wait, this is so blatantly a Bryan Adams-style song this might actually be a genuine Bryan Adams song, let me look this up." In fact, yes, it's co-written by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. And I guess I would have realized that if I just watched the video, in which Bryan Adams plays guitar and contributes backing vocals.
Jason Statham's Working Man beat Snow Woke at the box office this weekend. The Chosen, a movie made up of three episodes of a show available on TV, almost beat Snow Woke too, cashing in $11 million over the weekend.
I't's time to let go. Actor Val Kilmer dies at 65. Doc Holiday in Tombstone was his ultimate role, but I'll always love his comedic turns in Top Secret! and Real Genius. RIP. [Weirddave]
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click I see the problem start
I watch the tension grow
I see you keeping it to yourself
And then instead of reaching conclusions
I see you reaching for something else
Podcast: CBD and J.J. Sefton babble on about the tempest in a teapot that is the Goldberg files, the economy, including tariffs, that is improving, deportations are lovely, Crockett2028, the deep state hanging on like leeches, and more!
I feel bad about this but I'm going to have to post about Rachel Zegler again...
Masih Alinejad "Where are @AOC, @IlhanMN, the left-wing activists who called me an Islamophobe, and the campus protesters chanting "I am Hamas"? The killers sent by the Islamic Republic to assassinate a woman on US soil were convicted in federal court, You're silent. Why?" [CBD]