Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
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CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Jay Guevara 2025 Jim Sunk New Dawn 2025
Jewells45 2025 Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
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
Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - August 26, 2025 [scampydog]
—Open Blogger
Road between Wallowa and Troy - Oregon
Would you look at that. It's Tuesday ONT time. Big science section this evening and some other random items. Pour yourself a tall water or adult beverage.
A bit of housekeeping before we get started. My sentence (or yours) has been completed. This ONT marks the end of our regular Tuesday night adventures. A hat tip to the Horde for enduring - whether reading or scrolling past with minor confusion. Thanks to bosses for not blocking the login and letting me get away with as much as I did. A special thanks to publius, Pete Bog – Bogs Rules!, Sock Monkey - Americana, Anonymous Rogue in Kalifonistan, and nurse ratched for their content and contributions. TRex, CBD, MisHum, and yes…Doof, cheers and thanks for the backchannel fun. It’s been a genuine honor to regularly contribute to what is, and has been the best place on the internet for a couple of decades.
A quote from Feynman to kick off the science portion of the evening. “You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.” - Richard P. Feynman
***
Unleash the Kraken? Nope, but we are unleashing regular ONT commenter and AoSHQ contributor, publius. Whether this evening or later, highly recommended reading. Take it away, publius.
The Rotation of the Erf and its relation to the Significance of the Passage of Time:
You may have seen some stories that the earth’s rotation has been speeding up of late. Lots of click-bait articles have appeared (looking at you, Daily Mail) that sensationalize this. Of course, they don’t really know what they’re talking about. I got interested in this. Let’s unravel what’s going on. First, we need a brief history of time and its measurement. This is quite an interesting historical excursion.
From time immemorial, the notion of time has been intricately and almost inseparably linked to the motions of the earth and other celestial bodies. These cycles have been imprinted on just about every form of life on earth, plant, animal, and other. The main cycle is the diurnal one, the day/night cycle. The lunar cycle is also imprinted, through tidal action and the effect on certain marine life. And there's the cycle of seasons, the year, or more precisely the tropical year.
Life on Erf goes way back in time. The human species in modern form goes back maybe 180,000 years. However, modern human history goes back only five or six thousand years, a twinkling of the eye relative to astronomical and geological time scales. But from what we know of that history, our ancient ancestors were obsessed with observing and tracking the motions of the celestial bodies. Much superstition (think astrology as we know it today) abounded, but the basic reasons were practical, as they served as calendars and clocks, foretelling the seasonal changes, the time to sow, the time to reap, etc, etc. The ancient Egyptians, way back around 3000 BC and before were big on the heliacal rising of Sirius, and the ancient Greeks, c. 500 BC, were likewise big on the heliacal rising of the Pleiades. For the Egyptians this event heralded the annual flooding of the Nile. For the Greeks, the Pleiades rising signaled it was safe to sail the Aegean. In modern times, with our modern technology and all the time-keeping and navigational systems we have, the connection with the sky is lost. But to the ancients, observing the sky was a matter of life and death.
The main astronomical cycle is the day. 24 hours. To a first approximation, we think of that as the earth completing one revolution around its axis. This is not quite the case. One solar day is a little more than one revolution of the earth. Why? Because the earth moves around its orbit a bit in the meantime as the earth rotates. The earth must turn a little more than one revolution to line back up with the sun relative to a point on the surface. This is thus a "synodic period", known as a solar day. The actual rotational period, relative to (almost) inertial space, is known as the sidereal day. This difference resulted in the Gemini 5 mission splashing down 80 miles short of its intended location – someone not thinking naively programmed the earth’s rotation rate as 360 degrees per 24 hours, and not the correct sidereal value of ~361 degrees. The ancients knew this difference, although they had no understanding of a rotating earth or the heliocentric solar system. They thought the
sky rotated around the earth, and the “wanderers”, the planets, and the sun and moon moved in more complex ways against the background of the stars. Now, some heretics and crazy conspiracy theorists as far back as the 4th Century BC suggested the earth rotating could explain the motion of the stars, but this was rejected as crazy talk, mis- and disinformation and all that.
Thus, the synodic day, the diurnal cycle, is what has governed our notion of time of day. How did this business of dividing a day into 24 hours come about? It goes back as far as we know to the ancient Egyptians who first divided the day into 24 pieces, 12 for the day, and 12 for the night. That passed on through to the ancient Greeks and then the Romans. It was the Romans who first engrained this into mechanisms of civil society, religious, legal, and literary. The word "hour" and "horology" derive from the Latin "hora", which comes from a similar Greek word that meant roughly "period of time" or "season". The Woke lunatics who complain about rigid time schedules and demands of punctuality being "whiteness" can blame the Romans, I guess, if not the Greeks or Egyptians. They really need to blame Nature herself, as life on earth demands attention to the significance of the passage of time.
Now, where did minutes and seconds of time come from? That goes back to Ptolemy, in the 2nd Century AD, who formalized it, although he didn't invent it. He and his fellow Hellenistic astronomers adopted the Babylonian sexagesimal system. The hour, like a degree of angle, was divided into 60 smaller parts, which they called "mintua prima", the first small part, and then each of those was divided into 60 even smaller parts, dubbed "mintua secunda", or second small part. So, there you go, a second is just that, the second, smaller part of the hour.
And there we have it, the solar day is divided into 24 hours, which in term are divided into minutes and seconds, for a total of 86,400 second small parts per solar day. A second is thus defined as 1/86,400th of a solar day. But there’s a little problem there. The solar day is not constant, not uniform. Remember, the earth has to rotate a little more than one revolution to catch back up to the sun due to orbital motion. But, due to the eccentricity and the tilt of the earth’s axis relative to the orbital plane, this extra amount of rotation varies over the tropical year. Today, that varies from about 30 seconds longer to about 18 seconds less than 24 “uniform hours” over the course of the tropical year.
The ancients were aware of this as well, probably back to the Babylonians. Ptolemy and the boys were certainly aware of it and published crude tables to correct for this. But there was no understanding of the actual mechanism. Anyway, they came up with the concept of an average or mean motion of the sun. The difference between the actual position of the sun and this average position is called the Equation of Time and was used to correct sundials to “mean time”. This early understanding was crude, but they were aware of it that far back.
And that’s the way it was. Now, fast forward through the Middle Ages and to the Renaissance. There came Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and the development of classical physics and understanding of the solar system and the mechanism of the motions of the celestial bodies. Also, we had the invention of mechanical clocks, which made using the “small parts”, minutes and seconds, practical. Mechanical clocks attempt to track “uniform time”, of course, and this made the Equation of Time notion must more apparent. Flamsteed (first Astronomer Royal) and Huygens worked out the Equation of Time precisely from Newtonian orbital mechanics and published accurate tables by the beginning of the 18th century.
And thus, the notion of “mean solar time” became theoretically defined and understood to high precision. This was very important for the development of precision navigation and the Longitude Problem and all that. But for the common man, it didn’t become that important until later. Clocks and watches were still mostly directly set by the sun, using apparent solar time to synchronize. It wasn’t until the concept of Standard Time and time zones came about that this became the standard for everyday use.
Thus, mean solar time was now the standard of timekeeping. The variable motion of the sun (more precisely, the earth’s orbital motion coupled with axial tilt) was averaged out. The length of the mean solar day and thus mean solar time depended only on the rotational speed of the earth. The earth was much more accurate over the long term than even the best mechanical clocks of the day. Precise astronomical observations were used to synchronize these clocks as needed. But then another little problem came up as astronomical observations and orbital mechanics became more and more accurate and precise. Based on Newtonian orbital mechanics, and calculations of the complex perturbations (look up the 3-body and N-body problem), the motions of the planets could be predicted to high precision. But they got to noticing some discrepancies there, which couldn’t be explained by the known perturbations. The moon, or Mars, or the Sun wouldn’t be exactly where it should be as a function of mean solar time.
They began to suspect the problem was with mean solar time, the earth as a clock. Maybe the earth’s rotation wasn’t as constant as we thought. This was strongly suspected in the late 18th century and was confirmed by the middle and late 19th centuries. The earth was not an absolutely accurate clock compared to the current precision of astronomical prediction and observation. Thus, the need for a truly uniform, or “Newtonian”, time scale was needed. It’s a bit hard to get your head wrapped around the concept, but the idea is to let the motions of the celestial bodies be your clock, and not the rotation of the earth. This is conceptually the same as that of a mechanical clock itself. We have some physical process, some motion involved, which by the laws of physics can be predicted as a precise function of time. The position of the hands on a clock are governed by this. The position of the hands tells us what time it is. And likewise, and to much higher accuracy, the positions of the planets, moon and Sun relative to the background stars can be the hands of clock that tell us what time it is.
In general, this is called a “dynamical time scale”. The astronomical version here became known as ephemeris time. This became well developed by the early 20th century, and allowed comparisons of mean solar time to this more accurate time scale. But soon thereafter, atomic clocks were invented, which were a game changer for timekeeping. The accuracy and precision became orders upon orders of magnitude greater than the most accurate mechanical clocks before. We now had a physical device to measure uniform time very precisely, far better than ephemeris time, down to the nanosecond.
The “second small part”, the second, had become our fundamental unit of time. We now got very precise in how we defined it. Previously, it was 1/86,400th of a mean solar day. With ephemeris time, it became defined as a certain fraction of the sidereal, and then tropical year. It was chosen to be as close as possible to the current solar day definition and was roughly about the length of one solar day second around 1850. Then with atomic clocks, it became defined in terms of the frequency of a particular transition of cesium atoms. IOW, it’s the period of a particular frequency of light, well microwave not visible light, waves. We now have an independent, uniform standard of time independent of astronomical processes. And thus, we can now measure to high accuracy what’s going on with the variable rotation of the earth.
Now, the accuracy of this, the estimates of the length of the mean solar day at any given time, depends on the accuracy of astronomical observations, which gets less and less as you can back in the past. Turns out, the accuracy is pretty good back to around 1830 or so, and with modern ephemerides, we have even more precise predictions of where things should be when they were observed. Timeanddate.com has a page with a graph of the mean length of the day, and hence the variation in the earth’s rotation here: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/earth-rotation.html
Since atomic clocks came into use, it’s possible to get much finer grained data and see the variation of the earth’s rotation on a day-to-day basis. IERS is the official source of all this, but a wiki article has a good graph in the link below of the LOD since 1962:
The green line is a yearly moving average which corresponds to the graph above, which we can call a “mean mean” solar day (one “mean” averaging out the sun, the other mean being the yearly earth rotation average). The gray line is the short-term variation in the length of day. You can see that over the course of year; the length of the day varies by around 2 – 2.5ms.
So, around 1870, the earth was spinning about 3 milliseconds (ms) faster than 24 hours of uniform SI time. And that’s a lot faster than even the speedup of today the Daily Mail and others were click-baiting about. But, by the early 1900s, it had slowed down to about 4 ms slower than 24 hours. So, it swung about 7 ms in 30 years. In another 30 years, it sped back up to around 0ms, then slowed down again. By 1972, when the UTC time scheme was put into place, the earth was about 3 ms slow. That’s the “root cause” of leap seconds, given the definition of the UTC scale. And then the earth started speeding again, with some bouncing around up until now. What’s notable is around 2020, the earth sped up enough that it was faster than 24 hours for the first time in nearly 100 years.
So, what is going on with this variation? A lot. A lot of geophysical and celestial processes are afoot there. You can see there are many cycles going on in that curve, and spectral analysis can reveal the frequencies involved. There are more than few periods there. Over the short term, the variation from day to day and month to month over the course of the year is driven by tidal friction and atmospheric and oceanic angular momentum exchanges. We’ve got fluids, air and water, sloshing around on this spinning ball. Angular momentum is exchanged between that and the solid earth below. Next are seasonal periods of the atmosphere and ocean over the course of a tropical year. Then we have periods longer than a year up to 30 years. Some of these are understood, while some are not so well understood. The 18.6 year lunar cycle comes in there for longer term tidal variation. Longer term climatic processes like El Nino and similar weather patterns are also in there. Core-mantle dynamics are in there as well, and this is one of the poorly understood ones. The 11-year solar cycle is also seen in there as well, not well understood either.
Now, what about the long term, the very long term, time scales of tens of thousands to millions of years? The main driver is the moon and tidal friction which is gradually and inexorably slowing the earth down (and, by conservation of angular momentum, causing the Moon to recede from the earth). Over geological time scales, this rate is variable, depending on how close the Moon (also the Sun, which is a secondary tidal driver, but the Moon is the main drive) is. It also depends on just how big the tidal bulges are, which depends on a lot of complex factors, including the rotation speed itself. Right now, (and this “moment” right now is probably 100,000 years or so, and certainly 10,000 years), the current rate of tidal slowing is about 2.3 ms per century. That is, absent all other factors, the length of the day should be increasing at 2.3 ms per century.
The curve on that timeanddate.com page graph goes back to 1830. It’s possible to go back even farther than that, but with less accuracy. 1623 is the limit, and below is an IERS page with yearly LOD values back to then:
Values over the 1700s are reasonably accurate, but the data before then is a bit sparse and scattered but nonetheless is not so bad as to be unusable. The first thing that jumps out is the earth seems to have been spinning pretty fast around 1623, 11 ms fast compared to 24-hour SI base time but slowed down pretty rapidly over the next 30 years. After that, things look more reasonable. Is that real, or just poor data? Well, it’s likely something real. The uncertainty there should be no more than 3 ms. And that time period is interesting. That was just a little before the Maunder Minimum, the little ice age. So, did the relatively fast spinning earth slowing down rapidly have any relation to that? Don’t know for sure, but it’s damned interesting.
And finally, remember the tidal slowing rate of 2.3 ms per century. While complex, that value is well known from current tidal dynamics. However, if we take that data since 1623 and calculate a linear trend line over that 400-year period, we find it was indeed slowing down, but only at 1.33 ms per century, not the 2.3 ms tidal rate. Either way, the earth was spinning about 6 to 8 ms faster than it should be relative to expected baseline in 1623.
But beyond that 1623 fast spin, something is counteracting the tidal braking at least over those 400 years. Estimates of this can go back much farther in geological time. The main driver of the difference there is thought to be GIA, global isostatic adjustment, or glacial rebound. The earth is still adjusting to the loss of the ice sheets from the last glacial period, those big ice sheets covering Canada and northern Europe and all that. The net effect, which is a gradual long-term process, is the earth becomes less oblate, and the moment of inertia decreases. This is sort of counterintuitive at first, but it has to do with how the mantle responds to the shifting weight of the ice sheets.
That’s likely one factor. Another is that elusive core-mantle coupling thing. And then something else might be going on, some unknown unknown. At any rate, over the last ~12,000 years ago, since the start of the Holocene, the long-term trend is about 1.7 ms per century. So, we’d expect the earth was spinning about 0.2 seconds faster in 10,000 BC than now – that doesn’t seem like much, but with the current definition of the UTC time scale, that would require a negative leap second every 4 days. Going back a lot farther, the day was about 23.5 hours (give or take a few minutes) about 65 million years ago, when the SMOD wiped out the dinosaurs. The dinosaur year would’ve been about 372.36 solar days per year. We could have 12 months of 31 days each and a leap year every 3 years (Feb. 32nd?). And finally, there is now good evidence that the earth’s rotation stalled at 19 hours for a period of 1 billion years, from about 1.8 billion years ago to 800 million. In a complex process, the solar atmospheric tide cancelled out the lunar tide. During this time the calendar would’ve required 461 days per year.
Big thank you, publius!
*****
Cookie jar can be surprisingly noisy in the middle of the night.
A bit more time related content. Watches and quartz. What makes them tick is fascinating. A good amount of science, persistence, and an attention span required to make them work properly.
Why are young people—in the US and around the world—shifting right?
I wrote about a phenomenon I call Generation C—the young people whose experience with COVID's health, political, and economic crises caused a strong shift right among young ppl across the developed world.
AI and Jobs - A discussion with a Gen Z with a brain.
Had a youngin' over for dinner recently. He's in his mid-20s, has a degree in data science, and is heading into his final year of law school. His well of knowledge isn't yet deep, but his brain is impressive. He has the ability to distill ideas quickly, logically, and with the end goal in mind. I really enjoy hearing his perspective.
Young guy/oldish guy post-dinner conversation ended up mirroring many of the same themes discussed here at AoSHQ. We agreed that AI is a tool - more accurately a wrench/implement in the toolbox. Plausibly a very useful and common one, like a Phillips screwdriver or a 1/2" combo wrench. Not something obscure like a sink basin wrench.
We chatted about past "game-changing" technologies that were supposed to redefine or eliminate entire professions. We got sidetracked on how Excel was once predicted to make accountants obsolete. Obviously, that didn't happen. Instead, it created new opportunities - accountants now use it to crunch and present more data, and analyze more information to better serve their tasks.
Our next topic was that of job displacement. Yes, there will be some. But many of the roles most susceptible to automation aren't major pillars of the broader economy. That's not to dismiss the personal impact of job loss - just to say the macroeconomic effect may be limited. Think: proofreaders, entry-level bookkeeping, graphic design. And yes, coding came up.
AI can write syntactically correct code faster than humans. But that doesn't mean it replaces human coders entirely. The young man codes in Python (he hates HTML), and deploys AI for straightforward coding tasks, but builds out routines when specific logic is required - riddle solving. In his view, coding is just another tool to amplify human ability - not eliminate it. Smart kid.
Plenty of studies out there trying to predict which jobs AI will create or eliminate. Scroll through a few articles, and you'll see the same roles landing on both sides of the ledger. As usual, the alleged Smarties, simply don't know.
Which brought us to our final discussion point/topic: AI can assist, but it can't pull the mental levers that drive real value - strategy, negotiation, leadership, communication, creativity. Those remain the domain of Morons. And other humans.
Share your AI thoughts in the comments.
*****
This ONT brought to you by: An inside straight draw (Ace of Spades high) and Three Dog Night.
The UK Is Roiled Again As a 13-Year-Old Scottish Girl is Arrested... for the Crime of Brandishing a Knife and Hatchet to Keep a Foreign Man from Sexually Harassing Her 12-Year-Old Sister
—Ace
Aesthetica
@Anc_Aesthetics
Haven't been able to get this story out of my head. I think this moment is the turning point.
You're either the type of country that allows little innocent girls to be fed to the wolves and forced to defend herself against migrant rapists or you're the type of country where the men say enough is enough and take their country back.
It's now or never.
Why was this man so absolutely insistent on his "right" to speak to 12- and 13-year-old girls on the street?
They're obviously afraid of him. One brandishes the weapons, but does so in a retreat. The man, filled with arrogance and superiority -- and Colonizer's Privilege -- films the girls demanding that he leave them alone as if they're the ones causing the breach of the peace, as he continues dogging them.
A 14-year-old girl in Scotland has been charged with possession of a knife after viral footage showed her and another minor being approached and filmed by at least one foreign man.
The girl brandishes a knife and an axe before walking away from the scene.
A 14-year-old girl in Scotland has been charged with possession of a knife after viral footage showed her and another minor being approached and filmed by at least one foreign man.
The girl brandishes a knife and an axe before walking away from the scene.
The incident occurred on Saturday evening in the Lochee area of Dundee.
"She will be reported to the relevant authorities," said a Police Scotland spokesperson.
Via Beege Wellborn, the little girl was indeed "reported to the authorities," probably by the same adult man harassing them.
And then she was arrested.
For telling an adult man to stay away from her 12-year-old sister. (Or "friend" -- not sure.)
Elon Musk is on a tear about this:
Start by condemning the grovelers and collaborators in positions of authority in Britain who aided the rape epidemic of their own people or turned a blind eye to their responsibilities.
If one immigrates to any given country, they must respect the laws and culture of that country and contribute to that country to the best of their ability, doing no harm.
That applies to ALL countries.
85 cities in Britain where local authorities were complicit in the rape of children … https://t.co/20tp9VFFAv
Rupert Lowe was kicked out of Reform for backing mass deportations, which Farage opposes.
Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
Farage has just attacked me for backing mass deportations -- let me be clear about what happened.
What he is referring to is my support for removing foreign/dual nationals who were aware that their husband/brother/uncle/son was raping vulnerable young white girls on an industrial scale.
If they knew, and did nothing, then yes. They should be removed from our country. I make absolutely NO apologies for stating that. I do not want such evil walking our streets. Deport them all.
If that results in entire communities being deported, then that is what must happen. Obviously.
The number is irrelevant. Everyone who knew and did nothing must go. If a Pakistani woman knew that her husband was raping a young white girl, facilitating it? Then yes - she should go back to Pakistan with her husband.
It's shocking that Farage doesn't agree.
At a Reform event in Essex, Farage even removed the line 'mass deportation' from my speech.
He later told the Telegraph he thought it was 'a very grave, dark and dangerous use of language.'
What's changed?
In that same speech he instructed me to remove a reference to deporting these complicit foreign nationals. I refused. I'm glad I did.
He says millions can't go? I disagree.
My position is clear, and it's one the British people agree with.
Mass deportation of every single illegal migrant. Abolish the entire asylum system. Review all refugee claims given to illegal arrivals, with deportation the default. And actually, the biggest problem of them all? Legal immigration.
A large number of legal migrants, who have failed to uphold their end of the deal, need to go home too.
Not working, not contributing, not integrating, not even speaking English? Go home.
From what I can see - the Reform plan is nowhere near enough. Even on deporting illegals. It's just not enough. It's weak. They ALL must go. Not some, ALL.
Farage was also questioned why my plan would cost far more than his? His response?
Because "Zia is really good at maths".
No. It's because it's because your plan is weak.
All very disappointing. We need to be brave to take our country back, and this is not brave.
We have already shifted the entire public debate in six months. Let's keep pushing.
Mass deportations, and I mean proper mass deportations, must happen.
Farage has just attacked me for backing mass deportations - let me be clear about what happened.
What he is referring to is my support for removing foreign/dual nationals who were aware that their husband/brother/uncle/son was raping vulnerable young white girls on an industrial… pic.twitter.com/Jkvt4eGgZv
Meanwhile, the British woman who was literally imprisoned for a single tweet objecting to the mass colonization by third-world grooming gangs and sex-pests has been released from prison.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on Tuesday confirmed to President Donald Trump that his department is still on track to publish information identifying "interventions" that are contributing to a rise in autism.
Kennedy first announced a joint research effort to find the root causes of autism in April as part of the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" mission. One-in-36 children have autism spectrum disorder, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2020.
Trump also established a commission in February that would look at everything from the rates of autism and asthma in children to how much medicine is being prescribed to children for ADHD or other conditions.
The update comes after Trump asked Kennedy how the research was going during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, according to The Hill.
"We are doing very well," Kennedy said. "We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions, now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism. And we're going to be able to address those in September."
Health "experts" claim there is no epidemic, just increased "awareness" of autism and therefore increased diagnosis.
We'll see. If it does turn out that Kennedy can prove his case, and it turns out the government allowed or even curated this epidemic for political reasons, there will be absolute hell to pay.
I'm skeptical, just because vaccines are tested a lot, and supposedly, the tests say they're "safe."
But then, we've learned an awful lot about Big Pharma's "tests" and the self-dealing of FDA officials who hope to one day work for Big Pharma for the high six-figures.
🚨 BREAKING: RFK Jr. says HHS believes they have FOUND "interventions" which caused a MASSIVE spike in autism in children -- will announce in September
TRUMP: "There HAS to be something artificially causing this. Meaning a drug or something...I think we maybe know the reason..."… pic.twitter.com/0Rnlcd5ZqX
As though it's a bad thing, the far-left New York Times reported that for the first time in decades the immigration population has dropped in the U.S.
"For the first time in decades, more immigrants are leaving the United States than arriving, a new study finds," the Times reported, adding that this signifies "an early indication that President Trump's hard-line immigration agenda is leading people to depart -- whether through deportation or by choice."
"An analysis of new census data released ... found that between January and June, the foreign-born population in the United States -- both lawful and unlawful residents -- declined by nearly 1.5 million," the report continued. "In June, the country was home to 51.9 million immigrants, down from 53.3 million six months earlier."
Naturally, the Times summed it all up using unnamed, cherry-picked "experts":
But experts predict looming negative economic and demographic consequences for the United States if the trend persists. Immigrants are a critical work force in many sectors, and the country's reliance on them is growing as more baby boomers retire.
The Times even went as far as to advocate for illegal alien labor...
"Restaurants, farms and assisted-living facilities are already grappling with labor shortages that could become more pronounced," one so-called expert told the Times. "Many of those roles are filled by undocumented immigrants, whose population reached 14 million in 2023[.]"
If the Times is telling you the overall illegal population is 14 million, you can bet it's at least twice that.
The Times won't say how many of "immigrants" leaving are actually criminals, but Nolte has the answer:
According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study released this month, the overall foreign-born population drop is higher than what the Times reported: 2.2 million, which is made up of 1.6 million illegal aliens.
The District of Columbia has gone 12 days without a single murder following President Trump's federal takeover of DC police -- a feat seen only one other time since the pandemic spike in bloody violence.
The current streak of no killings is uncommon in the nation's capital, which has one of the highest murder rates among major US cities. There have already been more than 100 homicides so far this year.
In March, Washington went 16 days without a murder, which was the longest period in "at least six years," an MPD spokesman told the Washington Post at the time.
But a bloodless streak in the heat of summer is even more impressive, because killings usually spike as more people spend more time mingling outside.
The last recorded murder in the US capital was Aug. 13, two days after Trump announced the department would be federalized and the National Guard would be deployed on city streets.
Some DC locals told The Post they felt the presence of agents helped keep would-be lawbreakers on their best behavior.
"With all these agents around, people are not gonna be stupid and just go out there and commit crimes, so I think that's helped subside everything that's going on," Dion, a barber in downtown DC, said of the show of force.
Though he conceded the federal officers' presence has overall been good for reducing crime, he questioned why the effort started in Washington instead of the president's hometown.
"Trump is from New York, why didn't he take this up in New York first?" he said. "It may be worse than DC."
It is, in fact, worse in DC.
Washington's murder rate was 26 per 100,000 residents in 2024 -- though killings dropped by 30% from a year prior, according to an analysis from the Council on Criminal Justice.
By comparison, Chicago had a murder rate of 21.8 per 100,000. In New York City, it was 3.8 -- one-seventh the rate for the nation's capital.
Stephen Miller celebrated the results, and noted that the pre-surge DC crime figures are far, far worse than reported, because the government has been cooking the books to make "decarceration" look successful.
🚨 BREAKING: Stephen Miller just revealed that a "massive scandal" has been uncovered in Washington DC. The Democrat-run police department has been extensively hiding crime statistics, going so far as reporting homicides as "accidents instead of m*rders."
Why is punishing criminals "racist," Black Power Brandon? You have to explain this to me.
Surely you don't mean that black people have a right to commit crimes without punishment. Surely you can't mean that.
(Spoiler: He does mean that. They all mean that.)
WOW. Iris Tao, a White House Correspondent, THANKS President Trump for cracking down on D.C. crime after revealing she'd been robbed and pistol-whipped outside her apartment.
"Mr. President, thank you so much for what you're doing right now... Thank you for now making D.C.… pic.twitter.com/ZDDYsV4HJz
Woke black racist Abby Philip keeps platforming notorious MSNBC black racist Tiffany Cross.
Cross stated on her show that it is a "fact, not opinion" that Stephen Miller is a "white supremacist."
Unfortunately I think a leftwing judge will claim this is an "opinion" that can't count as defamation, despite the racist Cross repeatedly insisting it's a fact.
But he should definitely sue this nasty fat Black Nazi Skank.
"Any time that we play something from Stephen Miller, it would be journalistic integrity to point out that he is a white supremacist and he is the brainchild behind this policy. That's not my opinion. That's actual fact."
Judge Orders Fani Willis to Provide More Information About Her Alleged Search for Emails Between Her Office and Trump Prosecutor Jack Smith
—Ace
Records searches are usually done electronically those days. You enter a series of search terms and the computer spits out results. These are the emails termed "responsive documents" -- they are responsive to your search terms.
Criminals in the government have long used pseudonyms so that you can't find their very responsive emails by search terms. John Brennan can claim he has no "responsive" documents scheming about prosecuting Trump with the anti-American foreign plant Barack Obama, because Obama used a lot of fake names in his emails.
And, of course, someone pretending to "search" her records with Jack Smith could deliberately avoid searching for the key terms that would bring up Smith's emails. She could say "I found no responsive documents" even though she rigged the search to not find the documents.
Judicial Watch seems to suspect that Fani Willis is an untrustworthy criminal and actually corresponded with Jack Smith while claiming "no responsive documents." Who knows what Willis is hiding -- her, and her illicit gigolo lover Darrius "Sweetdick" Honeycum, Esq., or his "legal partners" Lance Clamhammer and Rex DeQuim.
Judicial Watch on Monday announced that a Georgia judge last week ordered Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to provide additional information in her search for records related to her prosecution of President Donald Trump.
...
Willis' office later admitted that it had found some missing records during a fifth search of her office, and her office was ordered to supply over 212 pages of records and provide an affidavit detailing how the records were found.
The Judicial Watch lawsuit as well as a House Judiciary inquiry were seeking to find out the extent of cooperation between Willis' office and the highly politicized January 6 Committee, along with Jack Smith's office. But when Willis originally claimed she had no such records, it also became a question of what she was hiding and why.
The judge noted in last week's order that Willis' recent affidavit regarding her office's search for the Trump-related records did not include information on whether the devices owned by former Fulton County Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade [government name: Darrius "Sweetdick" Honeycum, Esq.] or Chief Investigator Michael Hill were searched for the records.
The Georgia judge instructed Willis to clarify whether Wade's devices were searched and to search the devices if they were not. The judge also directed Willis to provide the search protocols used on Hill's and Wade's devices.
"Fani Willis can't be trusted," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
NYT obtained a letter from Jack Smith's attorneys insisting he did not violate the Hatch Act by bringing two unprecedented criminal indictments against President Trump a little over a year before the 2024 election.
Meanwhile, Public Masturbator and Abortion-Procurer Jeffrey Toobin says there has never, ever been a weaponization of government like we're seeing from Trump.
— Nick Searcy, Actor/Director/Producer/Author (@yesnicksearcy) August 26, 2025
A very incomplete list of prominent Republicans prosecuted during the Biden Admin:
Donald Trump (4 separate jurisdictions) Rudy Giuliani Mark Meadows John Eastman Sidney Powell George Santos Jeff Fortenberry Steve Bannon Peter Navarro Kenneth Chesebro Jenna Ellis Jeffrey Clark… https://t.co/IJxbu985AO
Top Investor Tried to Warn Cracker Barrell That Their Abandoning of Tradition in Favor of "The Modern Audience" Was "Folly"
—Ace
I don't know much about Cracker Barrel. From what I gather, we're watching another corporation with a defined customer base deciding to abandon and spurn that dedicated customer base in pursuit of a newer, different, more diverse customer base.
This has been tried, and tried, and tried, and tried some more, and it fails every time.
Once the "old" customer base figures out that the corporation considers them Undesirable and Deplorable, and would rather go bankrupt than take their dirty traditionalist money, that corporation goes into a death spiral. They can't admit they were wrong, and even if they did, they'd have to admit that their error consisted of disrespecting and disliking the "old" customer base.
Cracker Barrel, I think, had a brand based around comfort food served in a friendly, kitschy style, with the walls covered with tchotchkies suggesting a country/farm-life vibe.
The New and Improved Cracker Barrel looks like the cafeteria at a hospital:
The old logo was indeed a throwback, hearkening back to the days when a corporate logo was actually a logo and not just a word or two in a "modern" font.
Cracker Barrel's top investor warned the Woke AWFL DEI CEO that she was throwing the brand away to make it yet another charmless uniculture/Marxist anti-culture gray wasteland, but the Woke AWFL DIE CEO decided to be the GirlBoss and tell him to pound sand.
Cracker Barrel's CEO dismissed warnings from a top investor who called the rebranding 'obvious folly'
Julie Felss Masino and board ignored Sardar Biglari's criticism of $700M transformation plan calling it 'obvious folly'
Cracker Barrel's rebrand sparks outrage as company's stock plunges
Cracker Barrel's slide into a rebranding debacle began with a phone call at 4:30 p.m. on May 16, 2024.
That day, Cracker Barrel's new CEO, Julie Felss Masino, got on the phone with investors and unveiled the details of a "strategic transformation plan" her board of directors had approved. The first of "five pillars" in the plan would be "refining" and "evolving the brand across all touchpoints."
Over the next months, Masino and her board of directors dismissed at least four warnings by a top investor, Sardar Biglari, that the rebranding was "obvious folly," filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal.
"Cracker Barrel is not a broken brand but it has a broken board," he wrote, in a scathing seven-page letter to shareholders.
He laid out his criticisms in a 120-page slide-deck presentation with the title, "CRACKER BARREL IS IN CRISIS," next to the company's longtime logo of an old man in overalls leaning on a barrel -- a logo that Masino would wipe out, unbeknownst to Biglari at the time.
While the dynamics of company executives pursuing politically correct, woke rebranding are now well-documented, a timeline of the last year-and-a-half behind-the-scenes at Cracker Barrel reveals a classic case of corporate myopia, ignoring caution and barreling forward with rigidity.
On the call in May 2024, Masino announced she'd hired a new "leading" branding agency to "refine and strengthen positioning to delight existing and new guests." The other pillars included "enhancing the menu," "evolving the store and guest experience," "winning in digital and off-premise" and "elevating the employee experience."
Biglari, a San Antonio, Texas, venture capitalist sometimes nicknamed "Big," didn't buy the corporate gobbledygook.
...
Other investors also didn't react well to the news, the company's share price falling the next day to $48.98.
...
A series of Cracker Barrel boards and senior executives dismissed him as a wayward "activist investor" with a suspect "ultimate agenda," and his criticism last year fell on deaf ears. Biglari has earned a reputation as a "bully" and "evil genius" with a "Type X" personality, driven by money. Early into his investment in Cracker Barrel, he created a website for his critiques: enhancecrackerbarrel.com. Cracker Barrel responded on a webpage devoted to investors.
The CEO and the board barreled ahead, hiring a new chief marketing officer, Sarah Moore, in July 2024 from MGM Resorts International, doubling down on expensive store remodelings and "refreshes."
Its 2024 annual report, released last September, included a "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" section, featuring its seven "Business Resource Groups" for promoting "diverse members," Black leaders, "Hispanic and Latino culture," "LGBTQ+ Awareness," military veterans and women leaders.
Hauntingly, in the report, executives warned that "failure to achieve or sustain" its "strategic transformation plan" with the rebranding "could adversely affect our results." They also noted, "Unfavorable publicity could harm our business," as could "activist shareholders," like Biglari.
By Oct. 8, 2024, Biglari had had enough. In his blistering seven-page letter to shareholders, he warned them about the board's "obvious folly," greenlighting Masino and "her new transformation plan." He criticized the board's alleged dysfunction and mismanagement.
"Cracker Barrel is in perilous times," he wrote.
He laid out stark numbers. In 2011, Cracker Barrel reported $167 million in operating income on revenues of $2.4 billion. By 2023, after $1.4 billion in cumulative capital expenditures, operating income had fallen to $121 million, even as revenues climbed past $3.4 billion.
"...the problem lies not in the seating but in getting more people to sit in it," he warned, continuing, "We do not believe changing the furniture and altering the décor are going to change the Company's trajectory or solve the Company's underlying problem of declining traffic."
...
After the CEO and board ignored his October 2024 warnings, Biglari responded with an even sharper two-page critique on Nov. 13, 2024. "If you had $100 in Cracker Barrel stock in January 2019, five years later it is worth about $30. Therefore, there is just $30 to go before the entire investment is lost," he wrote.
Instead of correcting the company's course, he alleged, board members circled the wagons around the management team. "They value collegiality over accountability," he wrote.
He described the "transformation" as a "mistake" of misguided executives falling into a "textbook trap of overspending on cosmetic remodeling."
He noted, a bit humorously, "The day Cracker Barrel opened," in 1969, "it was already old -- its theme derived from the 1920s. I am concerned that not only will the remodel not work but it could actually damage the brand further."
Cracker Barrel employee CONFIRMS their business is way down because of their woke CEO destroying their heritage
She says normally employees have at least 9 tables each, they are down to JUST 2, “So, as y'all can see, I work at Cracker Barrel as a waitress, and we're struggling”… pic.twitter.com/ZuQ7xZkiza
You cannot separate what has happened with Cracker Barrel from its efforts to curry favor with LGBTQ activists. In the 90s, the company was known for family values, famously requiring its staff to display "normal heterosexual values."
The Woke CEO, who wears Progressive Politics Signalling Mega-Glasses and looks like a Queefier Marie Harf, says the "overwhelming majority" of people "appreciate" their hard-gay rebranding, implying that it's only a tiny minority of angry noise-makers who don't like it.
They tried this with Marvel, Star Wars, and Bud Light, too.
"Tiny minorities" don't cause brands to lose $121 million.
Customer’s Hate It: Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino says people love their new rebrand. Comments on X say otherwise! She’s taken a beloved Americana Brand and trashed it with DEI Wokism. Masino promised to “identify, recruit, and advance” hires by race and now the company… pic.twitter.com/LYy6kwW3ur
Georgia Man Announces a Super-Secret Anti-Trump Meeting He Attended With His Neighbors in Northern Georgia
—Ace
It's so secret, you guys, the guy appears on social media with his face exposed to tell everyone that he and "his neighbors" attended this super-secret anti-Trump club, it's so secret, shhhh, no one knows.
Trump's letter directly invoked Article II of the Constitution and the Federal Reserve Act, telling Cook: "You are hereby fired from your position on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, effective immediately."
The firing stemmed from a criminal referral dated August 15, 2025, alleging Cook submitted conflicting mortgage documents for properties in Michigan and Georgia.
Trump stressed his duty to enforce the law, stating: "The executive power of the United States is vested in me as President... I have determined that faithfully executing the law requires your immediate firing from office."
...
At the heart of the firing is a criminal referral sent on August 15, 2025, from Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to Attorney General Pam Bondi. That referral accused Cook of falsifying records to obtain more favorable mortgage terms, highlighting discrepancies between a $203,000 Ann Arbor home she purchased in June 2021 and a $540,000 Atlanta condo she purchased just two weeks later. In both cases, Cook affirmed the properties would serve as her "primary residence." By 2022, however, the Atlanta condo was listed for rent, raising concerns that she misrepresented the mortgage status and potentially failed to disclose rental income.
Trump wrote in his letter that the referral was sufficient to establish cause for firing under 12 U.S.C. § 242: "You signed one document attesting that a property was an owner-occupied residence while you signed another attesting that the same property was an investment property."
The president underscored the importance of integrity in the Federal Reserve's leadership: "The Federal Reserve has tremendous responsibility for setting interest rates and regulating financial markets and banks. That authority must only be vested in officials who are beyond reproach."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries noted that Lisa Cook is "the first Black woman ever to serve on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors."
Yeah, so she's yet another Biden DEI hire. Is crime therefor legalized for her?
"Donald Trump is trying to remove her without a shred of credible evidence that she has done anything wrong," Jeffries said.
The evidence is that within the space of a month she declared two different homes her primary residence to get government-subsidized mortgage rates.
The Congressional Black Caucus also condemned Trump's unprecedented actions: "In the 111-year history of the Federal Reserve, no president has ever attempted to remove a governor of the central bank until now."
"Let's be clear: this is a racist, misogynistic, and unlawful attack on the integrity and independence of the Federal Reserve," the caucus said in a statement.
Fuck you.
As you know, Trump has his eye on the Fed because they refuse to cut interest rates -- a favor they did for Biden even in the face of never-ending "transitory" inflation.
The pressure might have gotten to Fed chief Jerome Powell, because he's hinting at a likely quarter-point fed rate cut in September. That's the smallest possible cut, but it's still a cut.
The Morning Rant: Mortgage Fraud Is The New "Resistance!"
—CBD
Lisa Cook is a leftist hack who espouses political positions that are antithetical to the political philosophy on which our country is based. That her nomination got out of committee, much less confirmed, is a testament to how broken the United States Senate truly is. How could they confirm someone for a supposedly non-partisan position who is so obviously partisan?
Vomit inducing? Yes. Worthy of termination for cause? That is less clear.
But she is also a liar and a crook, and for that she should be fired. If the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency has the evidence he cites, then she is guilty! And even if she isn't technically guilty (which seems improbable), what she did is unbecoming of a senior official of the Federal Reserve, and she should resign out of embarrassment!
In his letter to Cook, posted on Truth Social, Trump said that there was cause to remove Cook because of a criminal referral related to alleged false statements on mortgage documents.
“In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, [the American people] cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity,” wrote Trump in the letter.
Following Trump’s announcement, Cook said she will not resign and will continue to carry out her duties. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in a statement.
Her lawyer Abbe David Lowell said Trump’s demands lacked proper process, basis, or legal authority, and “we will take whatever actions are needed to prevent his attempted illegal action.”
Notice that this DEI leftist didn't deny the accusation. No, she is hiding behind the curious position the Federal Reserve holds in our government. It is supposedly independent and non-political, and thus is insulated from political maneuvering. That is transparently false, as her nasty street-thug socialism proves.
I am a little disappointed that she didn't play the race card, but I imagine that is coming soon.
Donald Trump didn't fire her because of political or policy differences. He fired he because she violated the trust of the American people. That is an entirely appropriate reason, and should have been unexceptional, except for the stupidity and pretense of the Fed's independence.
Hopefully the Republican hold on the senate after the 2026 election is strong enough that real reform can occur, and changing the Federal Reserve's governance is high up on my list. It won't happen, because the Republican party is a fundamentally cowardly organization that is terrified of substantive change, but making the governors of the Federal Reserve clearly answerable is a good idea.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Monday CNN’s “The Lead” that deploying the National Guard to every city over “so-called crime” was how dictators take control.
Funny, considering every Democrat controlled city and county is essentially a socialist dictatorship with honest citizens terrified by rampant crime in the streets and corrupt politicians fleecing them dry. Regardless of what the Kinzingers of this world claim, President Trump's moves to both bolster law enforcement by calling up the National Guard as well as round up as many illegal aliens and deport them are wildly popular with sane Americans. Since illegal aliens and native born criminals are protected by and used as political cover if not the vanguard of Democrat Leftist power and control, it's no wonder that Democrats are protesting and indeed attempting to sabotage the restoration of law and order to America's streets.
Democrat Mayor Barbara Lee of Oakland, California, boasted Monday during the Democrat National Committee’s summer meeting that the city defies federal immigration law.
Why has this she-beast not been shackled in leg irons and dragged off to the nearest hoosegow and prosecuted for insurrection?
President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will allow 600,000 students from China to study in the U.S. Trump said in June that allowing Chinese students to attend U.S. schools would be beneficial as long as they did not pose a national security risk. The president stated during Monday’s Oval Office event with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung that he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to continue the “very important relationship” between the U.S. and China.
Red China is hell bent on global domination and as such has represented an existential threat to our national security for decades. Chinese emigrés, students and others have infiltrated our universities and the private sector including and most dangerously our most sensitive high-tech industries for the purposes of spying and sabotage. They arguably pose as much of a threat to our safety and security as however many Kilmar Abrego Garcias roaming our cities peddling drugs, weapons and whatever else. 600,000 potential Chi-Com saboteurs given carte blanche is insane Mr. President.
Democratic think tank Third Way published a memo to “All Who Wish to Stop Donald Trump and MAGA” on Friday. It’s dawned on them that Democrats could more easily connect with voters if they would simply stop using “words and phrases no ordinary person would ever dream of saying.”
The intent of this language is to include, broaden, empathize, accept, and embrace. The effect of this language is to sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory, enforcers of wokeness. To please the few, we have alienated the many—especially on culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty and arrogant.
Reminiscent of the constant revisions to the “Newspeak Dictionary” in George Orwell’s 1984, the memo features 45 words and phrases that Democrats should stop using immediately if they want to prevent voters from leaving the party. Frankly, it’s amazing they even need to be told.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great day!
ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
Everyday voters are fed up with years of finger-wagging and language policing, and the left has finally woken up to this reality. It only took two Trump victories — thanks in no small part to a growing multiethnic coalition — to wake them up. (Mind your P's + Q's is now mind your L'sG'sB'sT's + Q's - jjs) Dems being advised to cut out ‘woke words’ they tried forcing everyone to use is a rich irony
Michael Walsh: . . . the advent of "AI" can only make things worse, as young writers will now never learn how to properly research a subject and will be unable to separate fact from the increasing fiction blurted out by Chat GPT or Grok. Why, just the other day AI informed me, in a paragraph that was otherwise correct, that I am the former Secretary of Labor. Who knew? Time to Dump 'Journalism'
Trump said in June that allowing Chinese students to attend U.S. schools would be beneficial as long as they did not pose a national security risk. (Mr. President, I love you but you are delusional; practically and politically with this madness - jjs) Trump Says He’ll Allow 600,000 Chinese Students To Study In US
The leftist news media were more than happy to report that Kilmar Abrego Garcia's lawyer was fighting his deportation to an African prison, because it was "preposterous" for him to be sent to a country "where he doesn't even speak the language." Garcia's Lawyer Made The Lamest Statement Ever
Democrats’ favorability plummeted to 29%, according to a CNN poll released in March as the party faced infighting and difficulty meeting fundraising goals, with a July poll conducted by Quinnipiac showing only 19% approved of the party’s congressional leadership. Lee was the final speaker of the day at the DNC event. (Why is she not in shackles and leg-irons? - jjs) Dem Mayor Barbara (Robert-E) Lee Openly Brags That She Defies Federal Immigration Enforcement
Initially introduced in the House in January by Representative Barry Moore (R-AL) as H.R.6976, the legislation now awaits consideration in the Senate after passing the House in June. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced a companion version in the Senate, with backing from several Republican senators, including Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Tom Cotton (R-AR). Its sponsors frame the bill as a public safety initiative to deter DUI offenses among noncitizens and enhance immigration enforcement. This Bill Would Deport Green Card Migrants for Drunk Driving.
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
Democrats in policy and words take every anti-American, anti-law-and-order, anti-accountability, anti-economic strength, and anti-family position. If Democrats regain power, America as we know it is finished (Only one way to prevent it, and it's not by winning elections - jjs)
Starting to lift the lid off a far, far larger scam, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick just nixed $7 billion in “advance payments” that Biden junta staffers aimed to divert to a “nonprofit” controlled by other Democrat insiders. The bigger scam being, of course, how the left (and lots of plain-old Dem machines) feeds off government-funded “charities.” It’s a huge part of the “swamp,” though of course its denizens pretend their motives don’t reek. Billions in ‘nonprofit’ peculation now largely fund America’s left
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
On Friday, the Trump administration announced it would acquire a 10% stake in U.S. chipmaker Intel and suggested similar action may follow with other companies. Officials say the goal is to secure industries vital to national security, but critics argue that the move creates perverse incentives that weaken the very sectors it aims to strengthen and sets a dangerous precedent that future administrations will exploit. Trump’s Intel Deal Could Set Problematic Precedent Dems Can Exploit
Some leftists are now claiming that conservatives are foolish to expect President Trump, who once went bankrupt, to turn the economy around. The Triumph of Perseverance over Failure
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Trump emphasized that the Supreme Court, which protected flag burning under the First Amendment in the 1989 Texas v. Johnson case, has not ruled that burning the flag in a manner that can incite a riot or violence is constitutionally protected. Trump Signs Order to Impose Federal Penalty for Burning or Desecrating U.S. Flag
Public schools are collapsing under woke agendas and weak reforms—parents must organize, resist, and demand real change to protect children and reclaim education. Winning School Boards Is Not Enough
AMERICA AND THE WORLD IMPRISONED: CHINESE+Fauci-created CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
“It could [happen] in a number of stages, including learning more about the data,” Malhotra, who is a British cardiologist, told the outlet. “But given the increased talk of vaccine injuries in the past few weeks among the administration, it could also come with one clean decision.” Report: Trump Administration Planning to Phase Out COVID-19 Vaccine
THE 2020 and SUBSEQUENT ELECTION HEISTS , SHENANIGANS/FRAUD and AFTERMATH
Our postal service was never intended to conduct elections. That is not its mission. The delivery standards of our postal service have been declining, such that postmarks are no longer consistently used and letters are no longer reliably received within three days of being mailed. Trump’s Right — Voting By Mail Endangers Election Accuracy
The Warren Court forced America from the original scheme of state-controlled redistricting to a contention dominated by national partisan politics. The Gerrymander Conundrum
If you are going to do something like this and you're a public figure, you’d better know your limitations. Mamdani Can’t Lift. Unsurprising.
My new GP wants to know how I'm not dead and made me swear to go to the ER if the numbers got worse. Seems like just ignoring health issues can only get you so far.
(Checking in though with my home BP machine that sparked the crisis, the numbers got better. Which doesn't mean I am better, just that things are trending in the right direction.
Everything fell apart about six weeks ago when I contracted RSV.)
Monday Overnight Open Thread - August 25, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Howdy Hordelings! The time for the Monday night ONT has arrived. Open thread, as always. Lurkers encouraged to de-lurk, as always. Content here to be ignored, as always. Come on in!
Taking advantage of Germany’s “gender self-determination” reforms, a male right-wing extremist officially changed his gender to female and will serve time in a women’s prison.
In July of 2023, Marla-Svenja Liebich was sentenced by the Halle District Court in Germany’s Saxon-Anhalt state to a year and six months without parole for incitement to hatred, defamation, and insult. Interestingly, at that time, she was known as Sven Liebich and identified as a man. He appealed the original sentence and lost, but that was only the beginning of a very bizarre situation. At the end of 2024, Liebich, allegedly a member of a far-right extremist group called Blood and Honour, took advantage of Germany’s new Self-Determination Act to legally change his name to Marla-Svenja Liebich and his gender to female.
“Whether the change is serious is doubtful. Liebich has been known for years for her right-wing extremist views and has also made queerphobic statements in the past,” German newspaper Der Spiegel wrote, alleging that he had “made the change of civil status in an abusive manner in order to provoke and embarrass the state”.
An angry café patron in Los Palacios y Villafranca, Spain, was recently arrested for allegedly setting fire to the eatery because the staff told him they had run out of mayonnaise.
Marc and Joan Hendel spent decades of savings and two years waiting for their Cape Cod home to be built.
In February, they moved into the brand new Bourne house. After years far away in Iowa, they settled into the upper Cape, close to their New England roots, their families and the beach. A “perfect, ideal place.”
Just a month later, a letter arrived taking that home away.
“On March, 3, we were delivered an eminent domain letter by MassDOT, hand delivered at our door,” said Joan Hendel. “We were shocked. We were stunned. We had no idea that this was even in the plan, or in the works, or our home could be taken after just building it.”
The Hendels are one of 13 property owners whose homes are being taken under eminent domain proceedings for the Sagamore Bridge replacement project.
The Sagamore and Bourne bridges, which are both 90-year-old federally-owned structures stretching across Cape Cod Canal, are each slated for long-planned replacements through a partnership between the Army Corps of Engineers and the state.
Dramatic video shows the moment a hiker trapped behind a California waterfall for two days was rescued.
The 46-year-old man from Long Beach was hiking with friends who decided to turn back, but he did not.
Search and rescue teams in Central California are calling it a stunning survival story.
The Tulare County Sheriff's Office says 46-year-old Ryan Wardell went hiking last weekend in the Sequoia National Forest with plans to rappel to the waterfalls at Seven Teacups.
Officials say Wardwell was last seen at the top of the falls, but never made it back to his car that night.
Wardwell got trapped after coming off his rappel lines and got caught in the river's hydraulics.
Days later, on Tuesday morning, a drone used by the Tulare County Sheriff's Office search teams spotted Wardwell behind one of the waterfalls.
News clip at the link. I'm torn on this. Nice that he got rescued, but he's kinda stupid for staying behind after his friends left. What say you, Hordelings?
DJ Doof - This Date in Music History Edition
from thisdayinmusic.com
On this date in 2024: Amy Winehouse's Radio 1 Live Lounge performance was voted the best from the past 25 years with her 2007 cover of The Zutons' 'Valerie' topping the list.
Born on this date in 1954: Elvis Costello, (Declan McManus), English singer, songwriter.
Born on this date in 1951: English singer and songwriter Rob Halford who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest.
My first rock concert was Judas Priest on the Defenders of the Faith Tour in April 1984 at the then-called Baltimore Civic Center. My dad took me and a friend because we weren't old enough to drive.
*raises a frosty cold beer to the memory of Doof-dad*
The far-left organization behind a rally on Monday for illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garica, an accused MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, and domestic abuser, is partially funded by George and Alex Soros's Open Society Foundations.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were readying to take custody of Abrego Garcia on Monday, the far-left group CASA held a rally in support of the accused human smuggler -- who has also been accused of MS-13 gang membership, domestic violence, and abuse of women.
CASA's Lydia Walther-Rodriguez translated at the rally for Abrego Garcia, who said he is a victim of President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts.
As Breitbart News has long reported, Soros's Open Society Foundations have thrown millions at CASA to advocate for mass immigration over the years. In 2023, the Open Society Foundations awarded CASA a $250,000 grant and CASA in Action, the group's political action committee (PAC), with $1.6 million.
Before he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday morning, accused MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia -- an illegal alien from El Salvador -- met again with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who says he will not "stop fighting for justice and due process for all."
You may remember that Albrego-Garcia was and is an illegal alien who was ordered deported from the US. He was never granted any kind of legal status. He conned one judge into believing that he had a "reasonable fear" of attacks by an El Salvadoran gang -- probably because he murdered the mother of one of those gang members -- and was barred from being deported to El Salvador, only.
So now Trump is sending his human-trafficking mother-murdering ass to a safe third country, Uganda.
A report on Monday from NOTUS revealed that four former Democrats, who are running as independents for Senate against Republican incumbents in red states, have created a group chat.
On Monday, in an X post previewed exclusively by Breitbart News, the NRSC responded by posting a parody video of a group chat named "Totally Not Democrats," which cleverly ties the independent candidates to Schumer, and said:
EXCLUSIVE sneak peek at @chuckschumer's group chat with the liberal "independents" he's recruited to try to fool voters in Nebraska, Idaho & South Dakota. Too bad disguised Democrats Dan Osborn, Todd Achilles & Brian Bengs will never make it out of the chat.
One of the candidates, Dan Osborn, a former registered Democrat, challenged and was defeated by incumbent Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE) in 2024. Brian Bengs, Todd Achilles, and Ty Pinkins, the other three candidates, all ran failed races as Democrats before running as independents.
All four are running this cycle as independents. Osborn is now challenging Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) after losing to Fischer. Bengs is running against Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD); Achilles entered the race against Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Pinkins is challenging Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) in another long shot race.
Notably, the only independents serving in the Senate, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and reliable Schumer vote Sen. Angus King (I-ME), caucus with the Democrats.
The NOTUS article downplays Osborn's history as a Democrat, calling him "the union worker turned independent" -- using "union worker" instead of "Democrat," Osborn's former party affiliation.
🚨EXCLUSIVE sneak peek at @chuckschumer’s group chat with the liberal “independents” he’s recruited to try to fool voters in Nebraska, Idaho & South Dakota.
Too bad disguised Democrats Dan Osborn, Todd Achilles & Brian Bengs will never make it out of the chat. pic.twitter.com/1wytqIFZSM
"We're so proud of you and we're so proud of your loved ones for giving their lives for our country," says @VP to the Gold Star Families of the Abbey Gate heroes.
"The fact that the President of the United States lost your loved ones to incompetence, but never acknowledged it...… pic.twitter.com/IRpfbA2Z2G
Never forget just how big of an asshole Biden was to the Gold Star parents who lost their children during the Afghanistan withdrawalpic.twitter.com/OTXUqsWzcd
An American tourist grabbed a pickpocket girl by the ponytail while vacationing in Italy and refused to let her go until she got her passport and credit cards back😭 pic.twitter.com/FWcscLBr61
Chuck Todd Attacks Trump for Practicing "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" Vengeance Politics, But Refuses to Admit That the Anti-Trump Lawfare Was the First Wrong
—Ace
He's kinda-sorta implying that the anti-Trump lawfare was wrong, but he's too much of a Democrat Home Team Enthusiast to ever admit that charging Trump for imaginary crimes was wrong.
So he's making this ungainly "two wrongs don't make a right" argument without admitting the first wrong.
Sorry, Fat Chuck. This is not revenge; it is a reckoning. It's justice.
If you can't even admit what you did was wrong, why should Trump or anyone else even consider the possibility that we're doing wrong?
These are your New Rules in practice. We warned about your New Rules.
My Administration will act to restore respect and sanctity to the American Flag and prosecute those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country, to the fullest extent permissible under any available authority.
I don't like this at all.
The defense being offered is this: The left is sending people to jail for burning "pride" flags or even for burning rubber on a "pride" crosswalk.
That's a good point and good context, but I still don't want speech outlawed. I think many of us flew upside-down flags during Obama and Biden. We are, sadly, keenly aware that the American government can turn savage and tyrannical, and sometimes even we might want to protest that.
Schlichter sums up my feelings:
Kurt Schlichter
@KurtSchlichter
It's an unconstitutional EO.
In the context of everything else that's going on right now and considering what the communists have done, on a scale of 1 to 1000 I care about this at about a 2.
BREAKING: President Trump signs executive order to mandate one full year in jail for protesters who burn American flags
TRUMP: “The people in this country don’t want to see our American flag burned and spit on ... They’re bad people that are trying to destroy our nation...” pic.twitter.com/Qo1Ib712F0
Update: This is why you can't assume permanent GOP majorities. As a party gets more confident, it starts dusting off its unpopular policies, checking to see if they'll fly now.
This is ridiculous. This kind of thing is a vote-loser and validates a lot of the worst opinions about conservatives and the GOP. https://t.co/9y1CuqT05Y
A couple of months ago the Minnesota Democrat Party voted to give the challenger for Minneapolis mayor, the Somali socialist Fateh, over the currently-serving mayor, who is Jewish. This had bigger advantages than just the dubious power of a Democrat Party endorsement -- Fateh was granted party monies to campaign against the incumbent.
But Democrats are now claiming that foreigners rigged the election.
The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party vacated is endorsement following State Democratic Party because of a "substantial undercount" in the nominee balloting at a recent convention.
By Natalia Mittelstadt
Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has vacated its endorsement of democratic-socialist state Sen. Omar Fateh for Minneapolis mayor, after a review panel found flaws in the voting process.
Fateh is challenging the more centrist incumbent Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey.
...
However, on Thursday, Minnesota state Democratic Party officials withdrew the Minneapolis chapter's endorsement, citing "substantial failures" during the convention, which had technological and procedural irregularities. In Minnesota, the state party is called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
With the endorsement, Fateh would have had access to party resources and valuable voter databases for his campaign, which would have helped in his race against Frey, a two-term incumbent who has raised significantly more money.
Fateh has been compared to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, as they both seek to move their cities further left by taxing the wealthy to build affordable housing, capping rent increases, and overhauling how public safety resources are spent. Each are democratic socialists, Muslim and have African roots.
The Fateh campaign's co-manager, Graham Faulkner, criticized the revocation of the endorsement.
"Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucusgoers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day," Faulkner said. "The establishment is threatened by our message."
There is no such thing as election cheating, unless the Democrat-Media Party Establishment says there is.
The year is 2032. Studying the Electoral College map, a Democratic presidential candidate can no longer plan to sweep New Hampshire, Minnesota and the "blue wall" battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and win the White House. A victory in the swing state of Nevada would not help, either.
That is the nightmare scenario many Democratic Party insiders see playing out if current U.S. population projections hold. After every decennial census, like the one coming up in 2030, congressional seats are reallocated among the states based on population shifts. Those seats in turn affect how big a prize each state is within the Electoral College -- or how a candidate actually wins the presidency.
In the next decade, the Electoral College will tilt significantly away from Democrats.
Deeply conservative Texas and Florida could gain a total of five congressional seats, and the red states of Utah and Idaho are each expected to add a seat.
...
Those gains will come at the expense of major Democratic states like New York and California, according to a New York Times analysis of population projections by Esri, a nonpartisan company whose mapping software and demographic data are widely used by businesses and governments across the world.
New York will lose one electoral vote and the once-mighty California will lose three.
...
Across all of the possible scenarios in the nine states that would be considered battlegrounds in the 2032 election, Democrats would see about a third of their current winning Electoral College combinations disappear if population projections hold. However, when looking only at the most feasible winning combinations based on voting behaviors in the 2024 election, the outlook is far worse. Of Democrats' 25 most plausible paths to victory in 2024, only five would remain.
Some groups have arrived at an even more challenging outlook for Democrats in 2032. For example, the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization, projected Republicans to have three more safe seats from Texas and Florida, and New York to lose one more seat than The Times's projection.
The Times looked at nine swing states -- the Classic 7 from 2024, plus bubble-swing states NH and Minnesota -- and they found that sixty six of the combinations that would win the WH for Democrats in 2024 will lose it for them in 2032. (Or result in a tie, which would favor the GOP in the state-by-state congressional delegation tiebreaker vote.)
Here are the first dozen of so of those win-in-2024, lose-in-2032 combinations:
Meanwhile, red states seem to be ready to redistrict in time for the 2026 midterms. Reportedly, Missouri is ready to redistrict. It's currently a 7-2 split in MO, and they hope to add red areas to Eldridge Cleaver's district to make it a Republican pick-up.
I saw someone claim that the GOP might wind up being +13 through redistricting, so that even if CA forces through a constitutional amendment to let Newsom draw the districts, we'd still wind up +8. I don't know about that, though. Seems high.
NBC's DEI Dum-Dum is mad:
NBC News’ Kristen Welker: “If President Trump’s agenda is so popular, why do Republicans need to add additional seats to the map?”
VP Vance: “Why have Democrats gerrymandered their states aggressively over the past 10-20 years… Massachusetts, where 32% of the residents of… pic.twitter.com/oxUFGn95LM
The "hip" gray corporate slop era of Cracker Barrel is put on hold (supposedly):
Bret Baier
@BretBaier
Cracker Barrel is going back to the old logo. Company statement:
"We thank our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel. We said we would listen, and we have. Our new logo is going away and our "Old Timer" will remain. At Cracker Barrel, it’s always been - and always will be - about serving up delicious food, warm welcomes, and the kind of country hospitality that feels like family. As a proud American institution, our 70,000 hardworking employees look forward to welcoming you to our table soon."
Elric the Blade says he's no longer sure that Trump will have the right to appeal in the NY fraud case: Yesterday, I thought that Trump had an appeal as of right on the fraud liability, based upon news reports that cited the second opinion as declining to find in favor of liability. That would give Trump at least 2 dissenting judges for an appeal as of right.
But now, after seeing the actual decisions, I'm not so sure. Sorry, guys. I've never seen or heard of what the second opinion did. They dissented, but ... decided not to dissent? I'm not sure what the effect is in terms of whether Trump has a right to appeal. I doubt anyone does.
I think even if Trump doesn't have a right of appeal, the Court of Appeals (NY's highest court) will take the case. But ... it's a liberal court so who knows how they'll rule.
I have the docket number so I can track what gets appealed to the Court of Appeals. If Trump wants to appeal, I think he might file an appeal as of right and a petition for permission to appeal. His lawyers know this case much better than I, but even they might know what the effect of all the opinions are.
I don't think they'll take the appeal. Judges are lazy and cowardly and will duck any hot potato case they can. These judges are also liberal hacks, and do not want to deliver Trump a full victory.
FBI raids home of John Bolton, former Trump national security advisor "The probe is eyeing multiple instances of the use of classified documents in leaks to news media. NBC reported that the investigation into Bolton began during the Biden administration, but did not go further before President Joe Biden left office in January." [CBD]
Podcast: Boots on the ground in Ukraine? We're against it! Trump shines a light on voting, Miss Universe wearing a suicide vest? And more!
"As the discussion continued, Fox News host Charlie Hurt asked Trump directly to confirm there will be no U.S. troops involved in this potential security umbrella for Ukraine. "Well, you have my assurance, and I'm president," Trump replied." Good! I hope I am wrong! [CBD]
Lost Seventies Mystery Click: The Darkest Song Ever Recorded? I think Professor of Rock (on YouTube) claimed this song was so upsetting that people used to pull over to the side of the road when it came on the radio. It's about a fatal plane crash, but obviously it suggests a fatal car crash too, which could wig out a driver. It's like one of those nasty 70s anti-war body horror movies. Not for the squeamish. I'm not even going to post the lyrics because they're upsetting too.
Compilation of Naked Gun intros That theme gets me charged. Compilation of all Police Squad! openings. They're all the same except for the last few seconds where they reveal the Special Guest Star and the title(s).
Lost 90s Mystery Click: College Radio Edition
Well you look fantastic in your cast-off casket
At least the thing still runs
This nine to five bullshit don't let you forget
Whose suicide you're on.
Also: You wax poetic about things pathetic
As long as you look so cute
Believe these hills are starting to roll
Believe these stars are starting to shoot
Podcast: In the last Episode of the season CBD and J.J. Sefton chat about Texas Gerrymandering, The Islamist who is about to be the mayor of NYC, Jim Acosta's ghoulish interview, Israel needs a new strategy for Gaza, and more!
