Daily Tech News 16 May 2026
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- SpaceX has shown off its Starship V3 and is planning for a test flight as early as this week. (Teslarati)
The upgrades include an improved PEZ dispenser.
Disappointingly, the PEZ dispenser is the name given to the release system for satellite clusters launched to orbit and doesn't actually dispense PEZ.
Starship V3 completed a static fire test last month and the test flight is scheduled for the 19th.
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In Fair Verona, Where We Lay Our ONT
—WeirdDave
Hi everyone! Well, we made it through another week, time for the Friday ONT! Let's start with presents:
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Bird-Heavy Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Special forces capture the World's Greatest Terrorist
It's true: A guilty dog cannot look its master in the eye. How human. (Well, I mean "human" for non-sociopaths. Candace Owens can stare you right in the eyes while lying.)
Weird: All-time pin-up Betty Page dancing to "Goodbye Horses."
FAQ: Where do I get my adverbs from?
Raven steals things to get attention.
Rescuing a cute orphaned baby owl.
ICYMI: Dog sees an intruder from the spirit world and says "not on my watch, sister."
Yellow lab adopts a chick.
Rescuing a flying fox that fell the ground and can't fly.
Old but good: Bear does highway work.
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The Week In Woke
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Blue states have bled $2 trillion in wealth to red states in the last decade -- and New York leads the pack.New York had the biggest fall in cumulative adjusted gross income (AGI) -- losing $660 billion between 2012 and 2023.California came next with $503 billion in the same time period.
In contrast, Florida gained $1.3 trillion, and Texas gained $371 billion between 2012 and 2023.
It comes as billionaire bigwigs are beginning their Big Apple exodus as a result of Mayor Mamdani's wealth-bashing agenda.
Hedge fund titan Ken Griffin and Marc Rowan both announced recently that they will move jobs out of New York in response to Mamdani's calls to "tax the rich."
From Ed Morrissey, Steve Jobs' Useless Widow's Vanity Project The Atlantic says that Democrats must reduce the toxicity of their brand by denouncing racist preferences, but will not.
Racial preferences in college admissions have long been deeply unpopular, and three years ago, the Supreme Court declared them unlawful, in a sweeping ruling that portended doom for other race-conscious policies to promote diversity or remedy past discrimination. Some research indicates that, in the aftermath of the civil-rights era, the achievement gap between rich and poor students now dwarfs the gap between white and Black students. Even so, well-intentioned blue-state Democrats keep pushing for race-based affirmative action, to their own political detriment, rather than supporting a much fairer policy of providing a leg up to economically disadvantaged people of all races.In February, the California State Assembly passed, by a 54--14 vote, a measure seeking to place on the November ballot a change in the state constitution to allow racial preferences in K--12 education and in higher-education scholarships. (The state Senate has not yet acted on the measure.) In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a 375-page Racial Equity Plan last month that said, "New York's history has been one of colonization, exploitation and racial oppression"; among other measures, the plan reaffirms the city's intent to steer contracts to minority-owned businesses. Late last year, Democratic supermajorities in the Maryland House and Senate overrode Governor Wes Moore's veto of legislation to study reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.
In huge swaths of the country, the Democratic brand has become anathema. The party will struggle to recapture the White House and reclaim the Senate unless it can persuade some red-state voters to take a fresh look at it. One obvious move would be for the Democrats, who have hemorrhaged working-class voters, to abandon their stubborn support for politically radioactive racial preferences. Significantly more Americans believe that economically disadvantaged people of any race deserve special consideration in admissions and employment decisions, and such efforts do not run afoul of laws against racial discrimination. Nevertheless, many Democrats cannot bring themselves to accept the Supreme Court's ruling--or the public's attitude--even when doing so would help their prospects immensely.
Blue cities built dozens of monuments to obese drug addict George Floyd of the Sacred Cardiac Myopathy, but putting up a single mural honoring the slain immigrant Iryna Zarutska is too "divisive" to let stand.
A mural painted to honor Iryna Zarutska -- the Ukrainian refugee who was murdered while riding a North Carolina train -- is being taken down after outrage in Providence, Rhode Island.
On Tuesday, a construction crew was seen near the exterior of The Dark Lady, an LGBTQ+ club in downtown Providence, working to remove the partly finished mural. The mural, which was painted on canvas, was lowered to the ground, folded up and taken away, WJAR-TV reported.
Artist Ian Gaudreau confirmed the news that the artwork was going to be removed after local outrage.
"A lot of people voiced their frustrations, and voices were heard, and the work is coming down as a reaction to that," Gaudreau told WJAR-TV Monday.
The mural's removal came as residents and elected officials complained about the artwork. The office of Mayor Brett Smiley told Fox News that he wanted the artwork taken down, saying that the art is "divisive and does not represent Providence."
"The murder of the individual depicted in this mural was a devastating tragedy, but the misguided, isolating intent of those funding murals like the one across the county is divisive and does not represent Providence," Smiley said in a statement.
...Chairman of the Narragansett Republican Party Anthony D'Ellena created a petition in an effort to keep the mural of Zarutska in Providence.
"This is exactly what Democrats do -- they try to erase the memory of their victims and they don't fix their soft-on-crime policies," D'Ellena told WPRI-TV. "They erase the evidence, so no one sees the deadly price of their policies."
...
Records from the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction show Brown has a prior criminal history, including convictions for larceny, breaking and entering and armed robbery.
"Iryna was riding home on the train when a deranged monster, who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no-cash bail, stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body," President Trump said.
Don't worry: They have a new killer they're going to have to bury the evidence about.
They always have a new killer.
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Biden Loyalist and Registered Democrat Eric Ciaramella Perjured Himself in Denying Coordination with Adam Schiff Before Launching ImpeachmentGate 1.0
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This guy was a key cog in nearly every anti-Trump conspiracy in government.
A former inspector general who fast-tracked a "whistleblower" complaint that led to the first impeachment of President Trump in 2019 knew the whistleblower was a registered Democrat and Joe Biden loyalist yet still determined his complaint was "a matter of urgent concern that appeared credible," according to newly declassified documents.The documents also reveal the anonymous whistleblower secretly met with the Democratic staff of former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff prior to submitting his complaint in August 2019.
Yet under direct questioning, the whistleblower -- later identified by RealClearInvestigations as intelligence analyst Eric Ciaramella -- failed to disclose those contacts in interviews with IG investigators or on whistleblower forms, according to more than 350 pages of intel briefings Schiff classified as secret and locked up in a Capitol vault.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford released the papers Monday morning after National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard declassified them late last week. Justice Department insiders say the documents factor into an ongoing grand jury investigation into an alleged "grand conspiracy" by former Obama and Biden officials to illegally target Trump in political espionage activities.
Nonetheless, IG Michael Atkinson, then the intelligence community's top watchdog, did not question the whistleblower's political motivations, truthfulness or credibility.
This is the guy who rewrote the rules of what makes a "whistleblower" so that he could accept this second-hand hearsay and investigate it -- and then claimed the fact he changed the definition in the days after Eric Ciaramella whined to him was just a coincidence.
Atkinson conducted no investigation of his interactions with Schiff staffers to see if political bias played a role in the preparation of his complaint, which alleged that Trump "had clearly committed a criminal act" in a 30-minute phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During that call, which was reported listened to by dozens of people, Trump told Zelenskyy "I would like you to do us a favor," and help investigate Biden's son's role in the Burisma scandal. It was later alleged that Trump held up Ukraine funding to force that assistance, which never came. The whistleblower was not in the White House at the time to witness the phone call and relied instead on the account of former White House colleague and political ally Alexander Vindman, who is now seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Florida as a Democrat.Second-Hand Hearsay
An Obama holdover, Atkinson formally notified Schiff of the complaint in September 2019, paving the way for its release to the public.
By allowing a second-hand hearsay complaint to be processed, Atkinson bent the longstanding rules of his office, according to the declassified briefings.
He also transmitted the information to Schiff over the objections of then-acting National Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire, who had a legal opinion from the DOJ which overruled Atkinson's determination that the complaint was credible and urgent enough to warrant disclosure to Congress.
"The complainant's allegations appear credible to me," Atkinson insisted in a Sept. 19, 2019, briefing before Schiff's committee.
Atkinson called then-FBI Director Christopher Wray's chief of staff and briefed him on the complaint before filing a criminal referral with the bureau to investigate the allegations.
Atkinson also testified about the whistleblower and his complaint during a classified session held on Oct. 4, 2019, during which he stated, "The complainant was not politically biased in any way."
...
Atkinson refused to disclose the identity of the whistleblower "even now in a classified setting," because he said he felt compelled to "honor" his "request for confidentiality" -- even though the IG has the authority to disclose such information in the course of an investigation.
At the same time, however, Atkinson revealed that the whistleblower disclosed under questioning by his team of three investigators that he was "a registered member of the Democratic Party [and] had a prior professional relationship with one of the Democratic presidential candidates for the 2020 election."
Ciaramella is listed in voting records as a registered Democrat. He worked directly with Vice President Biden on national security issues involving Ukraine and Russia. Ciaramella was even involved in internal Obama White House discussions over Burisma and Hunter Biden, as RCI also first reported.
These facts did not raise flags with Atkinson.
"There is no indication of any misconduct by the complainant related to this disclosure," Atkinson briefed the committee, adding that "the complainant has played by the rules."
...
Then-House Intelligence member John Ratcliffe, now CIA director, said Schiff's office coached the whistleblower on how to file a complaint under intelligence community whistleblower protections before steering him to Atkinson, who facilitated the processing of his complaint, despite numerous alarms sounded by career Justice Department lawyers who reviewed it.
The department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the complaint involved "foreign diplomacy," not intelligence, contained "hearsay" evidence based on "secondhand" information, and did not meet the definition of an "urgent concern" that needed to be reported to Congress. Still, Atkinson worked closely with Schiff to pressure the White House to make the complaint public.
Former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz said cloaking the Biden CIA detailee in the whistleblower statute provided him cover from public scrutiny. By making Ciaramella anonymous, he was able to hide his background and motives.
More: the phone call that was the subject matter of ImpeachmentGate 2.0 -- the post-2020 election impeachment -- was, get this, illegally recorded.
Newly released depositions in Georgia confirm Federalist reporting that Democrats' attempt to imprison President Donald Trump for his 2020 election challenge in the state was based on a misinterpreted and illegally recorded phone call.For years, Democrats and the propaganda press claimed President Donald Trump had asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to steal the election, and further claimed their allegations were supported by a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between the two men. In fact, Trump asked Raffensperger to take seriously the legal challenge that his campaign had made, which cited numerous areas where votes were in question. The call became the foundation for an impeachment effort and for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' since-discredited and dismissed racketeering case against Trump and his allies.
The newly released testimony transcript confirms what The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway reported in 2024: The call wasn't just misconstrued, it was illegally recorded by Raffensperger's "second in command."
Jordan Fuchs -- Raffensperger's deputy chief of staff -- admitted under oath that she recorded the call while she was in Florida, a two-party consent state that requires all parties on a call to consent to a recording.
During the deposition, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who was also Fani Willis' lover, noted that Fuchs received "use immunity" to testify before the grand jury, meaning she could admit what she had done without being prosecuted for any crime.
"I recorded the phone call," Fuchs admitted to the grand jury, shortly before admitting she immediately leaked it to The Washington Post, which had won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for its role in perpetuating the lie that Trump stole the 2016 election by colluding with Russia.
The call was the centerpiece of Democrats' and the propaganda press's "Get Trump" lawfare. Fuchs provided another leak to The Washington Post about another phone call from Trump a few days later. The Post later admitted its source -- Fuchs -- had provided false information about that call.
"The Post misquoted Trump's comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to 'find the fraud' or say she would be 'a national hero' if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find 'dishonesty' there. He also told her that she had 'the most important job in the country right now,'" read The Washington Post's correction.
"Several other major media outlets -- including NBC, ABC, USA Today, PBS, and CNN -- 'confirmed' the fabricated quotes from the Post's anonymous source by, get this, citing their own anonymous sources," Mark Hemingway explained. House Democrats would go so far as to cite the fake contents in their impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Raffensperger's office and the media they leaked to made it seem as though Trump was asking Raffensperger to commit fraud or do something illegal. But as The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway pointed out, "Anyone familiar with the lawsuit knew Trump was saying his team had already 'found' nearly 150,000 irregular or fraudulent votes and simply needed the secretary of state's office to agree ... just that fewer than 10 percent of them were problematic." The provision of information from the secretary of state's office was sought in part because of the urgent timing issues in play. The court date the Trump team had secured for their legal challenge was Jan. 8, after Congress was scheduled to certify the Electoral College votes.
Sonny Hostin: No Definitely Helen of Troy Probably Was Black. I Read a Stupid Book One Time That Said Greek Culture Came from Africa.
—Disinformation Expert Ace
And Cleopatra, of course, was black. Source: "I don't care what they tell you in school!"
Who is Sonny Hostin, whose ancestors were slave-masters, to lecture us about blackness?
By the way, the rest of the panel -- consisting of liberals who impose racial quotas on everything -- shriek "what does it matter who plays Helen of Troy?"
Well, if it doesn't matter, then you shouldn't insist on perfect Black and Brown Representation in histories about white racial groups, should you?
But you do. Liberals are fond of demanding "But why do you caaaaare so much?!!" about topics they obviously care themselves about a great deal.
Buck Sexton @BuckSextonAbsolutely perfect that Hostin, the most bitter DEI ignoramus on television, proudly proclaims she "taught Black Athena" as history to kids, when it's been thrown on the trash heap by every scholar and archeologist of the last 40 years who can tell terracotta from panna cotta
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Foreign Communist Candidate for LA Mayor Nithya Raman Wants to Ban Backyard BBQs Because the Transnational Invaders Instinctively Make Endless War on American Normies
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I'm sure you remember this same instinct in full effect during the lockdown.
But Black Lives Matter thugs are allowed to dance in the streets, of course.
LA mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman proposes backyard BBQ banLos Angeles mayoral hopeful Nithya Raman wanted to ban backyard barbecues for residents during certain high fire danger days across the city.
Raman introduced a motion Wednesday directing city officials to examine emergency restrictions on grilling during Red Flag Warning days, when high winds and dry conditions significantly increase wildfire danger across Los Angeles.
The proposal specifically asks officials to consider possible limits on backyard barbecues, fire pits and other open flames in residential neighborhoods during those high-risk weather events.
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who represents much of the San Fernando Valley, stepped in and successfully blocked the proposal by introducing a separate motion that stripped Raman's barbecue ban.
"The last thing Angelenos need is a ban on hosting a carne asada in their own backyard," Rodriguez told The California Post.
...
"We're not checking the weather for red flag conditions before planning a backyard barbecue," Rodriguez said. "This is what families do. Birthday parties. Carne asadas. Family gatherings. A lot of people barbecue."
The same motion would have also had a major impact on restaurants that cook with open flames. Rodriguez said she started hearing concerns from restaurant owners when the motion was being passed around.
"You had restaurant owners calling it out saying, 'This is going to affect our business,'" she said.
Note that her interest in public safety is strictly limited. She insists that kids will not be safer with a ban on illegal homeless encampments just 500 feet from a school:
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Congress Rejected Biden's Demand for $50 Billion in Extra Spending for Medicaid Programs.
On His Own Tyrannical Authority, Biden "Authorized" $46.5 Billion of That Spending Anyway
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This Saved Democracy, you know.
It just so happens the money he spent on his own authority is exactly the money currently being looted from the American taxpayer by Democrat parasite groups.
The Biden administration may have failed to convince Congress to double Medicaid spending on home healthcare in 2021, but the funding increase occurred anyway.
"Home healthcare" is that very (deliberately) exploitable form of "medical spending" that people sign up for. Like if you cook a dinner for your parents -- you can charge the taxpayers for "elder care."
An RCI analysis of federal data has found that spending on the program, which pays health aides and family members to act as caregivers for elderly and disabled adults, nearly doubled between 2019 and 2024, to $46.4 billion a year -- an amount nearly identical to the $50 billion per year Biden wanted. As a result, American taxpayers paid more than $217 billion for home-based care under the program during that five-year span.
Lacking congressional approval, policymakers simply moved the initiative out of Washington and down to the state Medicaid agencies.
And whoopsie! The money was immediately stolen by Democrat constituencies.
Although the expansion was promoted as a way to reduce reliance on more expensive nursing homes, federal data show that did not happen. Medicaid spending on nursing facilities rose by nearly $5 billion in the same five years, to $46.3 billion. In addition, the sprawling home care program has become the subject of a growing set of fraud probes and prosecutions involving the billing codes at the center of the new spending.The data suggest that the complex landscape of healthcare offers myriad ways for states and providers to access large amounts of federal funding.
Promises
...
The federal government put a number on the projected savings. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation projected that for every additional dollar Medicaid spent on home care, nursing-home spending would drop by about 26 cents. Those were the figures used to make the case to Congress and to the public.
Justice for Aging and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.
They couldn't get reparations through the front door, so they snuck them in through the back door.
The battle over reparations for racial minorities in the United States has grown somewhat quiet in recent years, but it's not because proponents of it have surrendered. It's because they have already won.The list of ways in which our government redistributes wealth to minorities is long, as you'll see below, but first, it's worth paying attention to something that Democratic strategist James Carville said recently.
Referring to packing the Supreme Court and making Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico states, should Democrats retake power, the cagey old Cajun said, "Don't run on it. Don't talk about it. Just do it."
I posit that this is precisely what Democrats have done in regard to reparations.
Take for example, marijuana legalization laws in states such as New York and Minnesota that offer loans, often forgivable, and training only to Black and Brown people, or other "special equity" groups,
This is millions of tax dollars being given to people solely on the basis of their race.
The excuse Democrats use is that Black and Brown people were disproportionately harmed by harsh drug laws, but obviously the vast majority have never been arrested for drug crimes.
And it's not just the weed business. In Democratic enclave after Democratic enclave, these set-aside programs exist to help these "special equity" groups get a leg up in businesses like, oh, I don't know, daycare centers and hospices. In states like Minnesota and California, we have seen how this form of reparations easily falls prey to fraud.
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Even reparations studies themselves, of which there has been an endless supply and which all seem to land on needing more money for more studies, is a form of reparations.
Democrats aren't even particularly shy about their use of reparations anymore. New York Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, as a candidate, defended his plan to heavily tax "wealthier and whiter," neighborhoods, by saying, "That is just a description of what we see right now. It's not driven by race. It's more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being under-taxed versus over-taxed."
More directly: Democrats have deliberately made it easy for their criminal constituents to just sign themselves up for millions in Medicaid money and then deliberately crippled all authorization and verification of the payouts. This is just handing out money is sacks to their criminal class voters.
Know the Op: The Entire Machinery of the Left Wing, Including Me-Again Kelly, Is All-In on Thomas Massie
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Gee what could have these hard-left communists so jazzed about a "conservative libertarian," I wonder?
The New York Times now loves Thomas Massie, SuperConservative.
Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFreeThe glowing NYT article hailing Massie as a Republican hero. lol.
I said this months ago, the left and to counterfeit right love each other.
The article was written by Massie's New Bestie, leftwing California Democrat Ro Khanna, the man Massie's been traveling the country with spreading Epstein slop-lies.
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Kamala Harris Wants to Pack the Court, End the Electoral College, and Open Up the Senate to Save Democracy Democrat Politicians
—Disinformation Expert Ace
She's losing the Crazy Race to AOC, and needs to change that.
A new poll shows the top choices for the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries in 2028.The May 12 poll, released by Atlas Intel, found U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., leading among Democrats, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was the top choice for a majority of Republicans.
The national poll showed 26% of Democrats would vote for Ocasio-Cortez for president in two years, with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at 22.4% and California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 21.2%. Former Vice President Kamala Harris came in fourth place at 12.9%.
Last week, she began demanding the DNC release its suppressed "autopsy" of her 2024 blowout loss.
I assume she wants to be released because she knows it was a whitewash which excused her for any responsibility for the loss and blamed all on Muh Racism and Muh Misogyny.
Though apparently the reason it was suppressed is that it blames...
... Joe Biden, who the Democrats have of course decided to blame all their woes on, now that he's gone.
To make matters worse, the DNC is facing continued calls to release its internal autopsy of the party's sweeping setbacks in the 2024 election, when Democrats lost the presidency and Senate majority and fell short in winning back control of the House.Among those calling on the DNC to make public their report on what went wrong for the Democrats in 2024 is former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party's presidential nominee two years ago.
Harris, who is mulling making another White House bid in 2028, recently told donors she believes the DNC should make the autopsy public. The news was first reported by NBC News and confirmed by Fox News Digital.
A source with knowledge said that Harris had not discussed the autopsy with DNC Chair Ken Martin, and that the former vice president did not know in advance about Martin's decision in December to keep the 2024 election postmortem under wraps.
Martin ordered the report soon after he was elected DNC chair early last year.
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There was controversy surrounding the report as it was being compiled, after reports last summer said the autopsy would skip analyzing whether then-President Joe Biden should have run for re-election in 2024 and would pass on judging key decisions made by Harris and her team, after she replaced Biden as the party's nominee with just over three months to go until the 2024 election.
..."They are spiking an autopsy of the election that gave us Trump 2.0. If party leaders won't take the steps required to rebuild ourselves into a winning coalition, we will take it into our own hands," former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg warned in a social media post at the time.
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A person familiar with the DNC's strategy told Fox News Digital because of all the attention on the autopsy, "they are going to be forced to release something."
Coconut Kamala grabbed clicks by proposing a slate of anticonstitutional measures to rig elections even harder for Democrats:
Pat Adams @PatAdams9610h
Kamala Harris is now calling for Democrats to hold a "No Bad Idea Brainstorm" where they discuss:
- Abolishing the Electoral College
- Packing the Supreme Court
- Making Puerto Rico and D.C. states"We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating!"
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THE MORNING RANT: Buck Shots – 5/15/2025
—Buck Throckmorton
Electric Airline Fails Before Its First Flight
A start-up venture promising to take existing airplanes, retrofit them with hydrogen-electric engines, and start a new passenger airline, has predictably gone into liquidation. This is bad news for the suckers who already invested, but as I’ve said before, the people losing their money in green investments are almost begging that someone swindle them out of their money. I might be a wealthier man if my moral compass didn’t prevent me from being that someone, because I know exactly who the marks are.
The promoter and founder, Dale Vince, is a financial supporter of Britain’s Labor party, as well as being a supporter of the eco-terrorist group “Just Stop Oil.
Despite the setback, Mr. Vince voiced confidence about the eventual success of electric flight, adding: “This is a vital frontier in the move to net zero, green living, whatever you choose to call it- and it’s absolutely doable.”
I have zero confidence in “the eventual success of electric flight,” but I have every confidence that promoters of electric flight will continue to bring new ideas to market to fleece the same “socially responsible” investors again and again.
Capital One’s SEC Filing Acknowledges the Litigation Peril from its Debanking of Conservatives
In Capitol One Bank’s latest quarterly 10-Q filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, it has acknowledged that there is material litigation risk from its actions in debanking associates of Donald Trump during the Biden administration.
Fair Access to Banking: Capital One is responding to demands and requests from various federal agencies regarding “fair access to banking,” including those resulting from Executive Order 14331 “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” which directed government agencies to review financial institutions’ policies and practices for providing, maintaining, or discontinuing financial products or services to certain clients or potential clients, and a civil lawsuit filed by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust and several affiliated corporate entities against Capital One, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
As documented in a widely distributed piece titled Capital One Flags Debanking Fight in Quarterly Filing, ”the Trump Organization sued Capital One, alleging the bank closed some 300 Trump-linked accounts because it believed ‘the political tide at the moment favored doing so.’”
I’ve no doubt that the money center banks received inappropriate pressure from the Biden administration to help crush Trump and other political adversaries of the Obama’s puppet regime. But I also doubt that the executives pushed back at all. In fact, I believe they were glad to be an enforcement arm of the government’s vendetta against Trump and his supporters. When Donald Trump publicly shamed Bank of America CEO for his complicity in debanking conservatives, Brian Moynihan could only sputter about “over-regulation,” because he could not deny the well-documented fact that BofA debanked conservatives without ever providing a reason. There really need to be consequences for what was quite literally fascist behavior between big banks and the federal government.
Gas-Powered Cars Don’t Lose 40% of their Range in 20° Weather
With the “EV transition” circling the drain, there is so much to cover that I haven’t done an EV Roundup for some time, mainly because I don’t know where to start. I have dozens of possible stories. As usual, there are exploding cars, failing EV companies, and puzzled CEOs acknowledging that they misjudged EV demand, etc.
At this point, with there being a grudging acknowledgement from even the most passionate EV-pushers that consumers have rejected electric vehicles, it’s important to remind everyone the story isn’t just about consumer taste in engine types. Consumers have rejected EVs because they are ill-suited to the job of being a multi-purpose daily-driver for the majority of Americans who cannot buy a Tesla as a boutique 2nd family car.
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The Morning Report — 5/ 15/26
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Considering what's going on in the world, and how it has a direct impact right here at home, this story seems to be fading away far too quickly.
Authorities reported a bomb at an Alabama dam that posed “an unprecedented threat” during routine repairs on Tuesday.Mobile’s water and sewer agency alerted the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office after discovering a grenade-like improvised explosive device underwater at the federally designated Converse Reservoir dam, according to local media reports. The nearby Daphne Search and Rescue Team, Mobile Police Department (MPD), Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) and FBI bomb squad also responded to the scene.(RELATED: Trump DOJ Hits DC Pipe Bomb Suspect With Terror Charges)
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was also notified of the discovery.
The Converse Reservoir is a 3,600-acre lake that “is the source of all drinking water and most raw water” for the Mobile area, according to the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System (MAWSS).
Officials have not released information on anyone potentially responsible for placing the bomb or how it happened. The Gulf Coast Regional Maritime Response and Render-Safe Team retrieved and safely detonated the device, Advance Local reported. . .
. . . “This is an unprecedented threat, and we are fortunate that this device was discovered before it could cause serious damage to our water supply or harm to individuals,” MAWSS Director Bud McCrory said, NBC 15 reported. “We are grateful for the professionalism and competency of our law enforcement partners — as well as the quick thinking of our contractors and divers — in identifying this device and safely destroying it.”
Agencies are working to boost security around the dam, multiple outlets reported.
While this is indeed an "unprecedented threat," not to minimize the disaster that could have happened had the explosive detonated and the dam was actually breached, given our pre-Donald Trump non-existent border and immigration control, and the proclivities of our global adversaries/rivals and let's face it enemies, imagine a more sophisticated device planted at the base of Hoover Dam?
I suppose, that is I pray, that the security in and around the Dam and other highly sensitive sites would be extremely tight. And yet, experience should teach us that assuming this to be the case would be most unwise. And lest we forget, there are those among us who are not foreigners, by birth anyway, who seek our destruction for various and sundry ideological reasons.
The man accused of starting the Palisades fire, one of the costliest disasters in U.S. history, was motivated by a resentment for the rich and viewed Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, as a Robin Hood-like figure, according to court documents detailing evidence gathered by federal prosecutors.In a court brief filed last week, authorities say a forensic review of his computer showed Jonathan Rinderknecht searched “Free Luigi” and “reddit lets kill all billionaires” in December 2024.
Rinderknecht, 30, is accused of starting the Lachman fire in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 1, 2025, which smoldered underground for a week before exploding into the deadly Palisades fire.
I was thinking perhaps a whacko Red/Green enviro-communist, but anything that advances, in their twisted minds the cause of anti-Americanism and freedom is fair game. By any means necessary, right?
Also, Iran is on the verge of economic collapse with the regime not far behind it and Red China's economy and society are also not necessarily in tip-top shape either, despite the propaganda to the contrary... though certainly not nearly in as critical a condition as Iran. The latter have exported terrorism around the globe since Jimmy Carter midwifed them into the world 47 years ago, while China has followed the Soviet model of infiltrating our society to bring us down from within going back even farther. Mao's cultural revolution was not limited to the confines of China, as has been plainly evident for quite some time now.
“A police station operating in New York City at the direction of the Chinese government has been exposed, its sinister purpose disrupted, and its founder held accountable for blatantly disregarding the law and our country’s sovereignty.” – U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. . . . Lu faces up to 10 years in prison for acting as an illegal foreign agent and an additional 20 years for obstruction of justice. His conviction underscores growing concerns about Chinese influence operations on U.S. soil. It also highlights the CCP’s global strategy to suppress dissent and exert its power far beyond its borders. On Tuesday, the National Pulse reported on Eileen Wang, the Democrat mayor of Arcadia, California, pleading guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government.
Lest we forget Eric Swalwell, NYC pol Grace Meng, Dianne Feinstein's chauffeur the Confucius institute's on college campuses all over America and on and on. Not to mention the massive tracts of farmland as well as real estate abutting sensitive military installations and far too many Chinese nationals employed in our defense and tech sectors as well as research facilities, stealing our secrets.
And of course, unleashing germ warfare on us...
The recent indictment of former senior NIAID official David Morens has ripped the lid off the COVID-era corruption machine. Now, against the backdrop of the United States Senate investigation on COVID origins, North Carolina taxpayers and families also deserve to know whether their flagship public university played any role in the research that may have sparked the entire disaster. Ralph Baric, a world-renowned virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, by all accounts collaborated for years with Shi Zhengli at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology on bat coronaviruses capable of infecting humans. NIH grants under Anthony Fauci helped fund that work -- including controversial gain-of-function experiments that many experts now believe helped create the conditions for the pandemic.As a state-supported institution -- with Chapel Hill as North Carolina’s flagship campus -- UNC owes its citizens full transparency. There are reports of public information requests being either ignored or stonewalled. Who was paid what, and why? Where did the money flow in from, and where did it finally land? What was the actual result of the research conducted in Chapel Hill -- a scientific breakthrough in a bottle, or harm to millions?
Leaving the investigation in the hands of the United States Senate is not enough.
And suddenly, we have an outbreak of the Hantavirus on a US-bound cruise ship, just as we may be on the verge of toppling Iran, boxing in the Red Chinese and maybe even toppling the Cuban communists and liberating that island gulag after 66 years. Our enemies abroad and especially in our midst can't have that, now can they. Not with two crucial elections in November and then 2028 in the balance...
On April 1, 2026, The MV Hondius, a Dutch-registered cruise ship, departed from Ushuaia, a city in southern Argentina. Between April 6 and April 28, a number of passengers became sick, with the first reported death on April 11. On May 2, an outbreak of hantavirus was officially reported to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hantavirus is carried by rodents and there are currently no targeted treatments or widely available vaccines. Consequently, the 18 American passengers have been put into quarantine. Sixteen of the passengers are being monitored at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, while the other two passengers are at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the passengers has been placed in biocontainment due to testing positive for the Andes virus, a hantavirus subtype. The passengers reportedly range from their late 20s to their 80s. Early symptoms typically include fatigue, fever, and muscle aches, especially in the larger muscles of the hips, thighs, and back. Hantavirus symptoms typically occur between one and eight weeks after exposure...“The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low,” said Admiral Brian Christine, Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
But the risk to Democrats, Leftists and globalists is existential, should they lose the next two elections.
Have a great weekend.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Mobile’s water and sewer agency alerted the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office after discovering a grenade-like improvised explosive device underwater at the federally designated Converse Reservoir dam, according to local media reports. The nearby Daphne Search and Rescue Team, Mobile Police Department (MPD), Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) and FBI bomb squad also responded to the scene.
Bomb Planted Near Mobile’s Water Supply And We Barely Know Anything
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Daily Tech News 15 May 2026
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- AMD has announced FSR 4 upscaling support for Radeon RX 6000 and 7000 cards. (Tom's Hardware)
A year after it was released for the 9000 series, and eight months after the source code for a version that worked on RX 6000 and 7000 cards was accidentally leaked.
This is good news for owners of older AMD graphics cards - and also for Xbox and PlayStation owners, which use custom versions of those older graphics designs. In fact Sony has announced its own release of FSR 4 technology for the PlayStation 4.
It may be the console contracts that held AMD back from announcing FSR 4 for older cards for so long. They could have released a beta driver for PCs, but for consoles it has to just work.
The update will be out for the RX 7000 range in July; RX 6000 owners will need to wait until early next year.
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Thursday Overnight Open Thread - May 14, 2026 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
From Pure Nature
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to another whelming Thursday night ONT. Content provided for those who are into that sort of thing. Open thread, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?
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Undercover Elephant Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
In Tokyo, the cyberpunk future arrived in 1981
by hiro tanaka
The power of nature -- man is catapulted through the air after the roof he is trying to hold down is ripped off by powerful winds. In fairness, Crom laughs at your four winds.
Supposedly, this is what schizophrenic hallucinations look and sound like. JackStraw, is this what you see when you "toke" the marijuana plant?
A beaver rubbing itself.
Capybaras feel at easy in every situation.
If you live with a cat, congratulations, you live with a celebrity.
You know that odd bird call you always hear in movies set in the jungle? Apparently it's been a Kookaburra all along. But it's an Australian/New Guinean bird so I don't know what it's doing in every South American, Asian, and African jungle. Thanks for ruining jungle movies for me, Facts. And jungle movies are the best movies.
Steve Inman:
Street justice. The first clip I linked a month or so back, featuring a bunch of girls in cocktail dresses pulling hair and kicking each other. One girl gets her top pulled down and another girl seems to be wearing a thong or no underwear at all. The last one is great -- some "prankster" punches random people and videotapes it to see their reaction. The reaction is a knockout punch.
Some lone idiots decide to pick a fights with entire road construction crews. It doesn't work out for them.
Classic FAFO: Giving the kangaroo molesting your dog a little chin music.
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The Fairfax County, VA Soros Prosecutor Is Grilled by Congress for Making Charging Decisions Based on a Criminal's Immigration Status -- Letting Illegals Off on Light Charges So They Don't Get Deported
—Disinformation Expert Ace
This guy is a literal menace to public safety.
Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano was aware of an illegal immigrant's violent past and still elected to set him free, new Freedom of Information Act filings show.Abdul Jalloh, who has been arrested more than 30 times, allegedly murdered 41-year-old mother Stephanie Minter on Feb. 23. Minter's body was found at a bus stop in Hybla Valley, Va. with "multiple stab wounds to the upper body" according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Jalloh entered the country illegally in 2012 and, according to records, is a violent repeat offender.
Fairfax County Police Major Jeff Mauro emailed Jenna Sands, the Fairfax County Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney and Descano's second-in-command, to protest Jalloh's release from police custody. Mauro cited Jalloh's "extensive criminal history," including stabbing several people and sexually assaulting a woman.
"Mr. Jalloh is one of the repeat (and violent) felony offenders I expressed concern about when we met," Mauro wrote in the email. "He has an extensive criminal history--he has stabbed multiple people, sexually assaulted at least one woman, and committed numerous other criminal offenses. Furthermore, his behavior appears to be escalating and becoming more violent and explosive."
Mauro explained that he was "concerned that it is not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again."
According to records posted on X, Fairfax County police encountered the man 178 times. Jalloh attacked an elderly person, stabbed an individual in the head and raped a woman after choking her.
Despite Jalloh's violent criminal history, Sands told affiliate NBC Washington, "In multiple cases, we were unable to move forward with prosecution because victims could not be located or contacted, despite considerable effort from our police department to bring them to court."
An email posted to X shows, however, that Fairfax Deputy Police Chief Brooke Wright explicitly requested "prosecuting without a victim in court" due to the circumstances of the case, which Wright says, "she was on board with."
...Deputy Assistant Secretary of DHS Lauren Bis called on Virginia Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger to not release violent criminals without notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"We are calling on Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and Virginia's sanctuary politicians to commit to not releasing this murderer and violent career criminal from their jail without notifying ICE," Bis said. "This illegal alien's murder of an innocent, beautiful American woman came less than 24 hours before Governor Spanberger's demonization of ICE law enforcement. This heinous criminal is a perfect example of why we need cooperation from sanctuary jurisdictions and the importance of third country removals for the safety of the American people."
Virginia Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger has denied this request, according to a statement from Spanberger's spokesperson, which WJLA reporter Nick Minock read in a video to X.
He was summoned to Congress because he has openly proclaimed that he discriminates against American citizens in his charging decisions, letting illegal alien criminals off with minor charges or none at all.
Commonwealth's Attorney Steve Descano and Sheriff Stacey Kincaid will be testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement, as will Cheryl Minter, whose daughter Stephanie was killed in February, at a bus stop along Route 1 in Hybla Valley.Abdul Jalloh, a 32-year-old immigrant from Sierra Leone will stand trial for Minter's murder.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice began an investigation of Descano.
In a letter to Descano, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon said the DOJ is investigating whether his office violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Safe Streets Act, which both "prohibit recipients of Federal financial assistance from discriminating based upon race, color, or national origin."
...The policy in question was adopted by Descano's office in 2020 as part of its guidelines for plea bargaining. It instructs assistant Commonwealth's attorneys to "consider immigration consequences where possible" and states that "prosecutors shall consider ... the collateral immigration consequences of the specific crime(s) the defendant is charged with."
The webpage detailing the policy is no longer publicly available on his office's website.
That's a euphemistic way to say: When Harmeet Dhillon opened a civil rights investigation into his discriminatory charging practices, he deleted the statement about it on the website, to hide the evidence.
After the launch of the Justice Department investigation, Descano said his policies reflect the community he serves, in which "three in ten residents of Fairfax County are immigrants."
Good Lord. No wonder they're flocking to his jurisdiction to do their murders and child rapes.
Cheryl Minter has said if Jalloh had been prosecuted earlier, her daughter would still be alive. She is hopeful the hearing will prompt changes and is working with groups attempting to remove Descano from office....
"Let me be absolutely clear. My office does not provide sanctuary or safe harbor to undocumented immigrants," according to Descano's written remarks. "We routinely prosecute immigrants who commit crimes and we will continue to do so."
Except he doesn't. This is perjury.
When asked about the promises he made during his campaign to let illegal aliens off with light charges or no charges at all, he claimed he was just joshin' and no one would take campaign promises seriously.
Except... that he actually honored this promise, letting one dangerous illegal alien felon off after another.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tussled with high-profile Soros-backed Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Stephen Descano over soft-on-crime policies that critics said let illegal immigrant criminals back on the street.
...Jordan began by pressing Kincaid on why she "let" illegal immigrant suspect Marvin Morales-Ortiz out of her jail: "Because the guy beside you wouldn't prosecute him, right?"
...
Jordan then turned to Descano, questioning changes to language on his website about considering immigration consequences in charging decisions.
Descano said the excerpt was part of a "campaign" statement and not an actual law enforcement policy, leading Jordan to incredulously ask whether people should believe his campaign statements will translate into policies upon election.
"That's not what I'm saying," Descano countered.
"This is almost laughable," said Jordan. "This is your policy. You said it right here. You told the voters, if you elect me, I will take into account immigration consequences when making, charging and pleading [decisions]."
Descano's exchange with next Republican to ask questions, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of South Jersey, also quickly escalated into near-shouting.
...
He called the conditions in sanctuary jurisdictions "bizarro world" and asked the prosecutor if communities are safer when illegal immigrant criminals are deported or when they are released.
"Well, sir, that's not --" Descano began before Van Drew cut him off. "Yes or no -- I'm asking the questions."
"You're a human being. You're sitting next to a woman who lost her daughter. Can you tell me if illegal criminals are removed from the country; if we're safer," Van Drew said, prompting a fiery response from Descano:
"To suggest I don't care about what happens in my community..." he began before more crosstalk ensued.
"Dammit, answer my question," Van Drew eventually fumed.
"Explain to the lady next to you (Cheryl Minter). Abdul Jalloh was charged in your county more than 40 times. Not four times. 40 times. Your office dropped the charges in almost every single case. That's fact. We have it documented. We can look at it your own. Fairfax County Police Department wrote your office [in] May 2025 saying he had shown a, quote, 'blatant disregard for human life and was a danger to the community' and that if he wasn't detained and deported, he would seriously hurt someone or kill someone," Van Drew said.
"The very man went out and then killed someone. So the question is, couldn't've we done better there?"
Another panelist also elicited occasional rifts with the lawmakers. Libertarian analyst David Bier of the Cato Institute often defended the idea of counties making their own decisions about whether to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
Part of Bier's opening statement drew some eyebrows on X, as he appeared to suggest as much as 20% of Fairfax County's population is deportable -- when trying to argue against mass deportation.
Some clips below. One clip shows Descano claiming that his key campaign promise was and is a lie. His supporters in the room gasp at this claim.
He needs to go to prison.
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Pedro Pascal Knows Exactly How to Advertise a Boy's Science Fantasy Movie: Kissing a Man on the Lips on National TV
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Chris Gore wrote that Disney changing Star Wars (and Marvel) from a boys brand to a girls brand was the costliest mistake in entertainment history.
But they didn't change it to a girls brand.
They changed it to a gay brand.
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Bizarre Democrat Congresswoman Frederica Wilson Is Missing, and Her Staff May Be Covering Up For Her Absence
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Before getting to that: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's congressional seat was eliminated by Ron DeSantis in what many are calling a mercy killing.
Just to prove how important it is to Democrats that blacks have their very own black-only districts, for Muh Representation, Schultz has decided to "appropriate" a majority black district for herself.
This is the seat currently represented by the black female Democrat who stole $5 million in taxpayer funds for covid.
Who is also running again: Because this is the Party of Looters and Shooters.
Politico, but via Ed Morrissey:
Five candidates are vying to be the Democratic nominee in the solidly blue congressional district, and more are considering jumping in -- including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the country's most recognizable Democrats whose current path to reelection has been made more uncertain after Florida Republicans' mid-decade redistricting. Her possible candidacy has generated vocal opposition from existing candidates -- all of whom are Black -- who argue that the seat was held by a Black lawmaker for more than three decades and should be represented by someone who shares their experiences.As one may imagine, voters in the new district are unhappy with both choices:
"This is a majority Black primary electorate and a working class district that needs someone to fight for them -- and they don't have stability and representation," said civil activist Elijah Manley, one of the candidates who has openly criticized Cherfilus-McCormick and Wasserman Schultz. "Now there's a war to decide who will be the voice for these people. ... The people here just want stability, and in order to have stability, they need someone who understands their community and what they need."Candidate Luther Campbell, a former 2 Live Crew member who won a landmark free-speech Supreme Court case over sexually explicit material in one of his albums, called it "ludicrous" that Cherfilus-McCormick was running again. "Focus on your case, and then if you win in your case, then this seat is always up for every two years," he said. He also criticized Wasserman Schultz as "appalling" for considering a run, arguing she would be trying to "take a Black seat."
"I am upset with Debbie Wasserman Schultz. I am upset with Sheila McCormick," he said. "I'm upset with these people because they are playing with people's lives."
On to the missing fashion plate Frederica Wilson. If you're wondering where you've heard that name: She's the Hat Clown Grifter.
She has a wildly inappropriate hat for every occasion. That's her thing. Some focus on national defense, some focus on the economy.
She focuses on novelty cowboy hats. To Save Democracy (TM).
She's missing, but her staff is covering that up.
Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) missed the last 43 House votes and hasn't been seen for a month -- that's maybe not the most disturbing part of the story.The eight-term incumbent is probably best known for her collection of hats -- usually sparkly ones -- is 83 years old, and so it's natural to fear the worst. Wilson's last recorded House vote was on April 17, and House reporter Jaime Dupree noted on BlueSky Wednesday that she "missed all 10 votes on Wednesday in the House," bringing the total to 43 consecutive missed votes over the last four weeks.
The only non-proof of life her staff has offered was a canned statement about a Supreme Court case and DNC pablum in her twitter feed.
But when the congresswoman in question goes missing in action for a month, and that somebody on Wilson's staff just keeps going as though nothing were wrong, well, that's disturbing. When they also photo from last year as though it's new, that's when the paranoia kicks in.My attempts to reach her office via phone and email received no response. Whatever happened, it looks like Wilson's staff are in lockdown mode.
See the link for more. Steven Greene's best guess is that she has had a major health event, but her staff is covering that up so that no Democrat files to challenge her before the deadline expires.
Speaking of Democrat congresswomen who might have suffered a severe neurological incident:
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Minnesota House Report Faults Walz for Engineering the Looting of Taxpayer Funds; Gavin Newsom Spent $189 Million to Give Prisoners Brand-New Free iPads So That They Can Jerk Off to Porn All Day
—Disinformation Expert Ace
So they don't have to work, are given free room and board, and they can cruise the internet all day and jack themselves off to porn twice a day.
And it costs taxpayers close to $200 million.
Oh -- and they also have sex chats with women outside of prison and use the tablets to sexually groom children.
This is "punishment"?
Chris Rufo:
Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has sought to transform its massive prison system into a Nordic-style rehabilitation program. Newsom has placed a moratorium on all executions, transferred condemned prisoners to facilities across the state, dismantled San Quentin State Prison's death row, and turned the notorious prison into a therapeutic center, with art, classrooms, a café, and podcast studios.As part of this transformation, the Newsom administration approved a $189 million contract to provide new digital tablets--generic, flat-screen devices in a plastic shell--to every inmate in the state prison system, at "no cost" to offenders. The administration heralded the effort to replace inmates' old tablets--which were piloted in 2018 and given to nearly all prisoners by 2023--as a step toward "digital equity" for "justice impacted" individuals, who could, in theory, use the devices to contact their families, consume "educational" content, and "learn new technology."
In reality, taxpayer-funded tablets have also been used for more lurid endeavors. In this exclusive City Journal investigation, we contacted dozens of death-row inmates, who told us that prisoners in the state system use such devices to watch pornography and have explicit sexual conversations. Some prisoners, according to a former high-ranking California corrections official, use their tablets to groom minors. Though the state has claimed to regulate explicit content, the inmates told us that users can easily evade detection.
When reached for comment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the tablets were "tightly controlled education tools" that provided inmates with "access to the Bible, education, and reentry resources that actually reduce crime."
LOL. Except if they get their hands on the password to turn off parental controls, which I imagine gets sold to them for $10.
But inmates told us a different story. For some, the devices have become personal sex machines. In the words of one inmate, California's death row is populated with desperately "horny" criminals who see the tablets as a way to satisfy their basest fantasies and desires--all thanks to the California taxpayer.
In the 1980s, a rapist and serial murderer named Robert Maury earned the nickname "the Tipster Killer" for calling in anonymous tips identifying the locations of the dead bodies he left behind. During this period, he killed a woman by strangling her with a nylon clothesline, strangled and killed another two women, and brutally raped a fourth before he was caught by authorities.
Now, Maury is living at a state prison facility in Stockton, California, where he has viewed pornography on his taxpayer-funded digital tablet. In an interview, Maury told us inmates can receive "nude pictures" and watch pornography through their devices. In his case, he claimed to have received a topless photo from a 22-year-old German psychology student who was "hoping that I would share my story with her for her class project." After the student sent the photo, Maury said he "flirted" with her "for a while."
Maury said another way that inmates can watch pornography is through the video chat application. In this scheme, he explained, an inmate can call someone on the outside, that person can "put porn on their TV," and the inmate can "watch with them." Maury specified that he has never explicitly asked anyone to broadcast pornography in this manner, but when it happens, he "just say[s] cool and thank you."
...
"I would bet my pension that there's a vast amount of childhood pornography on the tablets," said the former official. "There are probably several thousand [children] that are currently being groomed."
...
Meantime, despite the obvious risks, Governor Gavin Newsom is moving full-speed ahead with his initiative to "reimagine our prison system" and turn San Quentin into "the nation's most innovative rehabilitation facility." Newsom has offered no indication that he will reverse course on the free tablet program. In fact, the new vendor contract allows for four one-year extensions, which could push its total cost to $315 million. At least one Democratic legislator is demanding that the state make inmates' messages free of charge.
Eckenrod, who anticipated the dark side of "digital equity," believes California has opened the floodgates to abuse. "We created a pathway for them to reach out and groom folks," he said. "There are going to be victims that didn't need to have been victims because of these decisions."
Read the whole thing.
The Party of Looters and Shooters continues showing its ass in Minnesota.
Final Walz fraud report rips 'culture of tolerance' as Minnesota taxpayers face billions in alleged losses
84-page report follows two dozen hearings and hundreds of whistleblower tips about state government malfeasance
A comprehensive final report released Tuesday by the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee concluding its work for the current session takes aim at a "culture of tolerance" under Gov. Tim Walz that it says allowed serial fraudsters to fleece taxpayers for billions of dollars.The 84-page final report, which follows two dozen hearings and hundreds of whistleblower tips, paints a grim picture of state government malfeasance, incompetence and the active suppression of internal warnings.
The committee concluded that the scale of fraud in Minnesota is "massive and unprecedented," costing taxpayers an estimated $300 million in federal meal program fraud and up to $9 billion in Medicaid fraud. The report asserts that the total amount stolen across multiple programs, including childcare and SNAP, is significantly higher than previously believed.
The report cited several examples of what it characterizes as Walz failing to act on fraud, including a situation, reported by Fox News Digital, where he "tried to blame a court order" for failing to stop payments to the Feeding Our Future fraudsters. However, the presiding judge later issued a public statement clarifying that he never ordered the state to resume payments, asserting that the Walz administration did so voluntarily.
Investigators identified a recurring "business model" used by criminals to fleece taxpayers, which involved low barriers to entry, the use of shell companies and the payment of kickbacks to enroll recipients. The report specifically links the Feeding Our Future scandal to earlier unaddressed fraud in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), suggesting that the failure to stop one led directly to the explosion of the other.The report alleges that Governor Walz created a culture that enabled fraud by failing to hold officials accountable despite years of credible whistleblower reports and audits. It claims the administration "ignored and consciously downplayed" shocking levels of fraud across more than a dozen Medicaid waiver programs and prioritized "compassion over compliance."
While the committee uncovered numerous findings highlighting the severity of the fraud, they found themselves consistently facing opposition from Democrats, including earlier this month when Democrats on the committee blocked an effort to subpoena Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar for information on her alleged ties to the convicted fraudsters in the Somali community.
