Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
Doof: doof2112 at proton.me
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
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
Report: Emails Suggest Jack Smith Lied to Congress When He Claimed He Didn't View His Targets' Privileged Conversations with Lawyers Plus: Last Ditch More Like Past Bitch Amirite
Then-Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigators improperly saw potential attorney-client privileged materials on multiple occasions during its probes of President Donald Trump, calling into question the controversial prosecutor's recent Senate testimony that his team had always followed so-called filter team protocols to protect such information.
Emails obtained under federal open records laws by The Oversight Project, a nonprofit investigative watchdog, show that Smith's team internally acknowledged on at least six occasions between December 2022 and August 2023 when it had accidentally or improperly let suspected attorney-client privileged materials or other sensitive communications slide through filter team reviews. The documents were sent to frontline investigators, like FBI agents.
I believe "filter teams" are supposedly "outside" teams that scan messages and keep privileged information from being passed to the investigators. A fake "firewall" against prosecutors seeing these communications.
But they passed privileged documents to the FBI and Jack Smith's team and, let's face it, hiring people to look at documents who you claim "aren't really part of the team so they don't count" is bullshit from Jump Street.
Such access potentially breached the constitutional protections for defendants and witnesses whose communications were gathered under subpoena or search warrant.
Newly disclosed: What Smith actually did contrasts with testimony
"The Smith Special Counsel Office requests the FBI search its Outlook server and/or eVault for the following potentially privileged document which may have been inadvertently sent to members of the investigative team," an Aug. 3, 2023 email from the prosecutor's records officer stated in one such example. "Please search the attached list of individuals' UNET and FBINET Outlook accounts for a document titled SM_MAL-0021793.
"If found, please notify us of the locations and take steps to purge the document from those locations," the email added. "The SCO is working to resolve the issue with this sensitive document quickly and we appreciate your help in this matter."
The multiple instances of failing to protect attorney-client communications created awkward situations for frontline staff, who even considered deleting the email trail of evidence.
"I do not intend to read Brett's notes, which I have not previously seen. I would delete the email, but for FOIA purposes perhaps I shouldn't," one official wrote in an Aug. 8, 2023 email that followed recalls of improperly forwarded evidence of attorney communications.
The emails stand in stark contrast to Smith's testimony just weeks ago to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he expressed confidence his team had followed the proper rules to keep attorney client privileged testimony out of the hands of agents and investigators who legally weren't entitled to have it.
"Mr. Smith, it's your testimony to this committee that you observed the proper investigative protocols at all times, including the filter team?" Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., asked at one point during the hearing.
The ex-prosecutor answered: "Yes, we sought to do things consistent with the law and department policy."
When prosecutors seize material that is likely to include privileged communications, the DOJ manual requires a "filter team" made up of "agents and lawyers not involved in the underlying investigation" to pull out any protected communications before investigators see them.
Marshall Yates, a former chief of the FBI's congressional affairs office who now works as a strategic counsel for The Oversight Project, told Just the News he believes the emails his group obtained show "a violation of somebody's constitutional rights" and conflict with Smith's Senate testimony.
"Jack Smith's abuse of power knew no limits, and what he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee was that they followed filter team protocols," Yates told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday. "He was very clear in that testimony. And what we found is a pattern ... where prosecutors and investigators are seeing filtered information, non-filtered information that they're reviewing before it goes to a filter team. And that is a violation of the protocols that Jack Smith testified that they followed.
Bonus: That lesbian bar whose brokeass clientele freaked out when they moved to a one-night-per-week Mask Optional policy?
A Western Massachusetts bar at the center of a Covid masking controversy last month is moving toward closing down, according to a message it posted Monday on social media.
The bar, the Last Ditch, said on its website that it was founded for lesbians, as well as "transexuals, gender freaks, workers and their friends," an oasis for safe and happy drinking in the tiny city of Greenfield. It became internationally known for the backlash to its owners' decision to relax a mandatory face mask policy. The hope was that making masks optional on Saturdays would increase business. But opponents of the change argued the bar was abandoning its goals to be welcoming to everyone.
People posting online accused the owners of being ableist and risking the lives of immunocompromised customers. A backlash to the backlash quickly emerged, with people mocking customers and their Covid concerns.
A Boston Globe story in September on the masking dispute went viral, and the travails of the Last Ditch were published by media around the country and overseas.
The publicity appeared to draw dozens of potential customers to the first mask-optional Saturday night after the local controversy became widely known. But the burst of attention was apparently not enough to save the bar in downtown Greenfield, a city of about 17,000 people.
A message on the Last Ditch Instagram page said that the bar needed "new owners ASAP."
"We are SOFT CLOSING effective immediately, all BOOKED events will CONTINUE, otherwise we are CLOSED," the message read. "Love and solidarity to all."
"We have put our lives on hold to foster networks of care, resources, and a home base for organizing," the posting said. "It's time we pass it on."
The bar's social media listed several scheduled events this week, including an open mic night and karaoke.
Three housemates, Asa Rosario, Jackie Matellian and Sage Territo, opened the bar in 2025, hoping to fill a need after two queer bars in the region had closed in recent years.
A message to the bar's email account on Monday returned an automated response saying, "We are community run for the community, so we are slow to reply."
This video was released yesterday, serendipitously enough. It's about the fact that the lesbian community merged with the "disability" rights people long ago, and that doesn't just include people with actual disabilities, but a lot of women who claim to have "diseases" without ever being diagnosed as sick, complaining of vague symptoms that generally just boil down to being low-energy.
She talks about unwellness -- and let's face it, mental unwellness -- becoming a dominant feature of lesbian cult ideology, with many claiming to have never-proven "chemical sensitivities" that would give them headaches or vertigo if they smelled perfume or deodorant.
This group sounds like a real hoot! A real FunBunch!
UK families are suddenly being told to stock up on emergency supplies -- and to prepare for war.
Wes Streeting, the UK's defense secretary, went on a media blitz to push a new "Be Ready" campaign to boost Brits' preparedness for crises -- which he said could range from floods and wildfires to terrorism and cyber attacks and ultimately even war.
"There's no sugarcoating the fact that we do live in a more dangerous and turbulent world," Streeting told BBC's "Newsnight."
"It's about saying to households across the country to be ready by just having some everyday essentials indoors should there be disruption from these sorts of events."
The senior cabinet member listed emergency essentials like canned food, diapers, pet supplies, torches, batteries, backup cellphone charging packs and having "enough cash indoors if the local payment systems were down."
While Streeting said the "Be Ready" campaign was for any emergency, including natural disasters, it came at the same time as he gave ominous warnings about the European nation having to prepare for war, suggesting it could be likely within a few years.
"Our adversaries' willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity," he wrote in the Telegraph.
Peltola was driving to the Alaska Federation of Natives' annual banquet Saturday when a vehicle transporting her and her family struck another driver.
Good on this judge for scolding observers who were laughing at victim impact statements over someone killed by their own family member. The killer driver herself gets 93 days just for contempt for her own laughing and interrupting of the victims.
If I confront you in the afternoon,
By evening, I will teach you a lesson.
Yes, you will suffer and cry in seething,
You will scream like a demon.
After all, you are not Arabs,
Let the enemies die of seething.
We are the ones who rule this land,
We do not wait for anyone else.
We gather in whichever part we want,
We will dance Dhaanto and Saar.
Let me make clear who I am.
We impose taxes on our enemies.
We punish them and fill them with resentment.
We subjugate and humiliate them.
It's a Somali fight song, and one that is associated with the gang violence and aggression that is plaguing the Twin Cities. It's not just associated with them; it celebrates the clan clashes and serves as an explicit warning about the dangers of crossing someone.
I would guess that she means the song as an appeal to tribal/clan solidarity. David Strom thinks there's a different motive: That she wants to intimidate her fellow Somalis so that they don't turn on her.
That's not even a coded message: the song itself is about clan conflicts and violence, and is filled with violent imagery and threats to do harm and torture people. And it drops in the midst of a gang war that is literally leaving dead bodies in its wake. On its own, it isn't a threat to anyone's life, but it certainly implies a threat to anyone who might cross her.
The Somali community is split by clans, and those clans align with different political factions. My wife and others have dealt with Somali whistleblowers who want to bring Omar down, and they are likely salivating at the prospect.
I wonder how much taxpayer money went in to the Somali Museum & Learing Center.
An American tourist just visited the Somali National Museum.
The entire place is completely empty… except for a single, hand-drawn painting of Ilhan Omar 😭 https://t.co/JAHpksMZEK
A woman accused of carrying out two attacks targeting Jewish men in Manhattan's Diamond District was arraigned Sunday on multiple hate crime charges, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Anna Mochalova followed and harassed a man wearing Hasidic clothing on West 47th Street at about 5:50 p.m. on Oct. 21. Court records state the victim felt a stabbing sensation and later realized he was bleeding.
About five minutes later, authorities said Mochalova attacked a second man, allegedly stabbing him with a needle and threatening him.
"Go away from here. I have a gun. I'm going to kill you," she allegedly told the victim, according to court documents.
Police said Mochalova then approached a third man and asked whether he was Jewish. When he replied that he was Muslim, she apologized and walked away, according to police.
I wonder what's causing members of the Islamocommunist coalition to believe that pogroms against Jews are now blessed by the establishment.
🇲🇫 SCANDAL IN FRANCE: The public channel France2, the CGT demands the resignation of the star newscast presenter and his team, for having broadcast a report where the violence of the protests in Paris on October 17th is shown in detail. In solidarity, journalists share the report. This is how left-wing progressivism silences those who report the truth.
🇲🇫 ESCÁNDALO EN FRANCIA: El canal público France2, la CGT exige la renuncia del presentador del noticiero estrella y su equipo, por haber difundido un informe donde se ve detalladamente la violencia de las protestas en París del pasado 17 de octubre. En solidaridad, periodistas lo comparten el informe. Así es como el progresismo de izquierda calla a los que informan la verdad. https://t.co/MjxUk7VTo4
David Maximivich Karpov (TikToker DancingMoto, then 19) fled a traffic stop on a motorcycle in rain near Rabun County, GA, on Oct 5 2025. Speeds hit 119 mph; he entered oncoming traffic. Deputies boxed him in at Tallulah Falls; he crashed and slid. RCSO Deputy Shedd unintentionally drove over him (reports confirm accidental, no visibility). Hospitalized with serious injuries (ICU), then charged with felony eluding, suspended license, reckless driving, unregistered vehicle, no insurance and plate violations. Released on bond. Recovered. No public records of any lawsuit against police.
Apparently he's an influencer with 8 million followers.
It's worth the watch.
The crash is good. The police van driving over him when he's already smashed up on the ground -- that's special.
If we're deporting so many criminals, how can crime still be dropping?
A report from the Department of Justice released Monday highlighted a significant drop in violent crime and other offenses from 2024 to 2025, which comes in the wake of the Trump administration's enforcement surge.
...
Preliminary results from the National Crime Victimization Survey showed a 25% drop nationwide in non-fatal violent crime. Aggravated assault dropped 31%, while motor vehicle theft went down 30%.
Property victimization dropped 19%, burglary or trespassing went down 25%, and other household theft dropped 19%.
"This is what happens when you have an administration who prioritizes the safety and security of Americans and our communities," Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
This much is undeniable: Trump's deportations and focus on border security have run alongside a remarkable national drop in crime. To dismiss this as a mere coincidence is as absurd as when we were told there was no crime surge following the George Floyd riots and police defunding in 2020 and the explosion of border crossings during the Joe Biden presidency.
The media--always quick to reinforce whatever narrative Democrats and the Left choose to peddle--have mostly tried to wave away the connection between crime and immigration law enforcement. They've run misleading headlines saying that Trump's deportations are not targeting criminals--let's leave aside the fact that all illegal aliens have broken U.S. laws--and that if they are, then the numbers of criminal aliens is negligible, they say.
But that's not true.
...
The Trump administration is taking people off the streets who have not only committed crimes but are more likely to commit further ones in the future.
And that work continues even years after Trump was elected.
For instance, Immigration and Customs Enforcement nabbed over 2,000 illegal aliens in New York in July and August as part of Operation Rotten Apple--with no help from local authorities like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, of course. Among those arrested were "murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, and violent assailants," according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
The arrests included, according to DHS:
"- Bogdan Detrovich Gren, an illegal alien from Ukraine, whose criminal history includes convictions for kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, criminal possession of a weapon, and murder.
-- Andreas Bernal Chiquito, an illegal alien from Colombia, whose criminal history includes arrests for course of sexual conduct against a child and act in manner to injure child less than 17.
-- Noel Celestino Lopez Martinez, an illegal alien from Mexico, whose criminal history includes an arrest for first-degree rape: forcible compulsion.
-Palvinder Singh, an illegal alien from India, whose criminal history includes a conviction for rape in Germany.
-- Chhun Kim Pril, an illegal alien from Cambodia, whose criminal history includes a conviction for drug trafficking."
And the list went on and on.
I would not have guessed that so many doctors and engineers were rapists, child molesters, and killers.
He quotes Carrie Lukas, who estimates that the mass deportation of violent criminals is responsible for 5,000 Americans being alive -- not being murdered, not being obliterated by drunk third-world drivers.
Islamocommunism Is Choking On Its Own Internal Contradictions
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Leftwing white women have a problem.
They have embraced a theology that casts straight white men as the enemy to be defeated, humiliated, exploited, and expropriated. They have defined straight white men as outside the circle of allyship. They have made allies with other groups to give them the numerical advantage over straight white men that they need for their dark agenda.
The problem is that the groups they have allied with consider white women to be outside of their circle of allyship. They are tactical allies only. They exist to be used for their political power (white women are a very large group, and leftwing white women are the largest group of leftists) for the purposes of joining to denigrate and disinherit straight white men -- but white women are next on the chopping block once white men have been subjugated.
The entire ideology leftwing white woman ranks races and genders in a hierarchy of privilege, and they are very close to the bottom, above only straight white men.
Leftwing white women are always trying to argue that they should be considered equals with, say, immigrant men and black men in the Privilege Pyramid, but black men and immigrant men continue to disagree about that.
The looters not only don't care about what the leftwing white women say, but they completely disagree with them. Looting their stores is their cause. Leftwing white women say "no, only loot from the straight white men," and their allies say, "According to our rules, rules you signed up for by the way, you are oppressors, nearly as evil as straight white men, and your stores should be looted alongside those of straight white men."
I mention this because you can see this dynamic in play in the following video.
I gather from this video that previously, a Latino man cut off this white woman while driving. The white woman has somehow forced the Latino man to stop in traffic (I'm not sure how) so that she can confront him and force him to "accept responsibility" and "apologize" for cutting her off in traffic.
She's AWFUL, obviously, in all senses of the word, including some future senses that haven't even been invented yet.
But the Latino man's response is also AWFUL: He plays his Uno Race Reverse Card on her and condemns her for running her white colonizer mouth at him.
He repeatedly tells her that she, as a "white lady" and "colonizer," has no moral or racial right to criticize him at all and that she's the one that needs to #DoBetter.
It is, as people comment, so perfectly illustrative that you'd think it must be scripted in a Far Right Wing Russian Disinformation Macedonian Content Farm.
In one video we have the implicit racial paternalism that makes her performative woke empathy possible, the consequent counter-racism & entitlement she enables, and the total breakdown of social trust & order that everyone has to endure as a result of it.
It's like a work of art.
@erichhartmann No way this is real https://t.co/qmJk0PjEBw
As the dethroned corporate fake "conservative" political class used to say to actual conservatives: We demand your votes to pass our agenda, but you are beneath us so you will have no voice at all in determining what our agenda is.
Just shut the fuck up, peon, and support your Betters.
A since-deleted tweet in 2013 on Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar's social media account appeared to refer to her father by a different name.
"Happy Father's Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father ...," Omar stated in the June 2013 post, which was deleted in 2019, Fox News reported.
A memorial post in 2020, as well as several other records, refer to Omar's father as "Nur Omar Mohamed."
That's the fake one, the one she's claiming is her father.
The deleted post on what was then called Twitter -- now called X -- refers to Omar's father as "Nur Said," which also appears similar to the name of her former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
An archived version of the post, first reported on by the Daily Caller in 2019, has received new attention as a federal investigation has been launched into allegations Omar made false statements on immigration and naturalization documents.
Somali names usually contain a person's given name, their father's given name and their paternal grandfather's given name. The similarity between names by itself does not confirm a familial relationship.
Yeah well, calling him "father" does confirm that, despite Ilhan Nur Said Elmi later claiming it's just a Somali custom to imply your actual father is a cuckold by calling other men "father."
Oh, and in her own autobiography, she says she was born in 1981 making her 19 at the time she "derived" her citizenship from the man who is not her father and might not have ever actually been a citizen:
Jim Geraghty
@jimgeraghty
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar writes in her memoir, "I was eight years old when civil war broke out in Somalia. One day everything was okay, and the next, there were bullets piercing not only buildings but also people." While Somalia has suffered several civil wars, the chapter is entitled, "War: 1989-1991, Mogadishu, Somalia." Mogadishu experienced severe riots in July 1989, including a mass execution that became known as the "Jazeera beach massacre."
If, in her own words in her own autobiography, Omar was eight when this occurred in 1989, then she was born in 1981, and was 19 years old in the year 2000, when her father purportedly obtained his citizenship, not 1982 as she currently claims.
No big deal, she'll claim that Somalis always say "when I was eight" when they really mean "when I was seven." It's just a custom, Racist. I wouldn't expect you to understand Somali culture because you have no culture of your own.
Or, perhaps:
QRP DX
@QrppFan
This discrepancy is easily explained when you use Learing Center math.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar writes in her memoir, “I was eight years old when civil war broke out in Somalia. One day everything was okay, and the next, there were bullets piercing not only buildings but also people.” While Somalia has suffered several civil wars, the chapter is entitled, “War: 1989-1991, Mogadishu, Somalia.” Mogadishu experienced severe riots in July 1989, including a mass execution that became known as the “Jazeera beach massacre.”
If, in her own words in her own autobiography, Omar was eight when this occurred in 1989, then she was born in 1981, and was 19 years old in the year 2000, when her father purportedly obtained his citizenship, not 1982 as she currently claims.
I think some people claim this man is not her father, while others believe it might be her actual father, but with an assumed fake name to hide the fact that he was a war criminal credibly accused of genocide.
Friday's Jolt briefly mentioned the representative's father, Nur Omar Mohamed, and his leading a regiment in the Somali army during the Somalian invasion of Ethiopia in 1977. What we know of Nur Omar Mohamed's military career makes it very doubtful that he met the U.S. legal definition of a "refugee." Read on.
The Nur Omar Mohamed Mystery
In Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar's memoir, This Is What America Looks Like, she mentions her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, frequently, but her only description of her father's profession in Somalia was that he was "an educator." She more specifically described her late mother's profession ("a secretary for a government minister") and her grandfather's profession ("a government job, helping run the country's network of lighthouses.")
A reader might be surprised, a few pages later, when Omar mentions, "Our family of civil servants and teachers was well off enough to have a guarded compound and driver. But I didn't like the attention I received from the other kids for the in-your-face privilege of our white Toyota Corolla and our driver, Fatah."
At the time Somalia was one of the poorest countries in the world; a reader might well wonder what kind of a family of teachers and lighthouse managers could afford a guarded compound and driver. Later in the book, describing how the country's conflicts spurred her family to flee, Omar describes someone attempting to break into the compound. "After about an hour of quiet, we heard a massive volley of gunfire at the gate. Bullets -- loud, loud, bullets -- banged over and over at our gate."
The sequence of events makes more sense when you learn that Omar's father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a colonel in the Somali army. After his death from complications from Covid-19 in 2020, Sahan Journal, a Minnesota news site, wrote an obituary that noted, "Nur's prestigious career in the military ended in 1991 after the Barre regime was ousted, and the country sank into civil war. The family escaped to Utange refugee camp in Kenya."
From the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale . . . and their Genocide Studies Program:
Between 1960 and 1991, the government of Somalia killed hundreds of thousands of people in the region known as Somaliland in northeast Somalia. Most belonged to the Isaaq ethnic group, the predominant identity group in the area. The perpetrators deployed sophisticated, deliberate and systematically planned and executed campaign of genocide. A campaign designed to depopulate Somaliland of its majority Isaaq people.
The Genocide policy was allegedly documented in Somalia's official genocide document: 'The Final Solution to the Isaaq Problem'. Somalia used its air force, army and navy to flatten Somaliland's largest cities, poisoned its wells, aerially bombard cities and critical infrastructure, strafed fleeing civilians, use rape as a weapon of war, use man-made famine as a weapon of war, impose a naval and economic blockade, impose a 15 year state of emergency and curfew, and lay more than a million mines in civilian areas.
A report commissioned by the United States State Department in 1989 concluded that during the Somali Army's campaign against the Somali National Movement (a anti-government insurgency based in the northeast with a large Isaaq component), "the appearance that victims were selected for . . . killings principally because of their ethnic identity is unmistakable."
Leftwing Brazilian Strongman Lula Puts His Personal Lawyer on the Supreme Court, Who Then Orders the Polls to Remain Open in Lula Strongholds
—Disinformation Expert Ace
AG
@AGHamilton29
14h
Lula put his own former lawyer on the Supreme Court.
He asked the courts for voting to be extended by 2 hours. Skipped the court that should decide it and had that same former lawyer unilaterally decide to order it 2 minutes before polls close.
BUT only for places that still had voting open, which were mainly Lula strongholds that were aware of the request and waited for it to be granted.
This isn't just optics. They knew exactly what they were doing. It's open corruption.
To recap: Brazilian polling stations are supposed to close at 5 p.m. sharp. A last-minute extension from a Supreme Court justice - who once happened to be the president's personal attorney - extended voting for two additional hours. This word arrived too late for many areas considered Bolsonaro strongholds. Their election officials were caught by surprise, had closed the polls and shut down the machines as prescribed, and sealed the boxes holding the ballots.
There were no do-overs or restarts possible.
Strangely enough, as Lula-friendly districts seemed to be lagging in closing up shop to begin with, they weren't bothered by the short notice on the extended hours and kept the doors open for all comers. Unsurprisingly, Lula votes soared.
By 9 our time last night, mainstream media were crowing about 'Lula's amazing come-from-behind win!'
Throughout election day, prediction markets were confidant that Lula's right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsanaro would win -- but the moment Lula's personal mob lawyer intervened so that his supporters could stuff ballot boxes, they reversed to predict a Lula "win."
Brazil's markets and currency plunged Monday in the aftermath of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's reelection victory, prompting a temporary halt in trading in the South American country.
Futures on the Brazilian stock index, Bovespa, fell nearly 15%, and the country's currency, the real, fell nearly 12% Monday morning, according to the Financial Times.
Sunday's election victory for Lula marked a comeback after he narrowly lost to hard-right candidate Flavio Bolsonaro in the first round of voting earlier this month. Polls had shown the son of imprisoned Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro on track for a big win in runoff voting.
In the aftermath of the first round, Brazilian markets had one of their best days in years, according to Bloomberg. Stocks had their biggest gains since 2020 and the real went up by 5%. Investors including the world's top meat producer competed for meetings with the candidate, seeing Bolsonaro as more market-friendly than Lula.
Bolsonaro's loss has sent ripples beyond Brazil, which has been dealing with a debt crisis.
Shares in the US arm of Brazilian investment firm XP were down 50% premarket. A Brazilian beer company that's part of Anheuser-Busch lost more than 10% in early trading, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Lula, 80, first took office back in 2003 and was the first leftist leader elected since the fall of the country's dictatorship. He scored 51% of the vote on Sunday to secure his fourth non-consecutive term.
So is that it, then? Do the communist thugs win again by cheating?
Maybe not:
Collin Rugg
@CollinRugg
16h
BREAKING: Brazil's election could be annulled, according to the New York Times.
Electoral lawyers say Brazil's current situation is "extremely serious" and a "critical situation."
The NYT reports that confusion over a last-minute voting extension by Justice Cristiano Zanin, who was appointed by Lula, could lead to the election being annulled.
"This is an extremely serious, critical situation," said electoral lawyer Priscilla Sodré Pereira to the New York Times.
When Zanin made the last-minute decision to extend voting hours, some polling stations had already closed and shut down their voting machines. They could not reopen.
"Fernando Neisser, an electoral law professor at Fundaçao Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian research institute, said the election could be annulled if the margin is very narrow and it is shown that polling stations stayed open longer in areas that strongly favor one candidate," the NYT reported.
Bolsanaro is now saying he will request an annulment of the elections.
I don't expect this to work. In this sort of crisis, where the communists have demonstrated they are playing for keeps and will do literally everything to cling to power, people tend to side with the party that appears to be winning, because the "winners" will probably arrest and kill the "losers."
So the establishment defaults to supporting the fake "winners" just out of self-preservation.
This is modern liberalism. After winning an election by having his own lawyer, now a judge, keep polls in favorable districts open, Lula immediately seeks to crack down on free speech to keep the Right from having a chance again. We saw such crackdowns in Hungary, and will see them in the U.S.
For anyone thinking about sitting the election out: At some point, leftist entrenchment in power becomes so strong that you can't even shoot your way out.
President @LulaOficial is linked to a drug cartel the U.S. has designated a "Foreign Terrorist Organization," and yet Brazil's election court has prevented his presidential rival, @FlavioBolsonaro from saying so. Censorship of the Lula-PCC link began under Alexandre de Moraes. https://t.co/P7bD43GU7V
THE MORNING RANT: A Reminder that the Purpose of Election Prediction Markets Isn’t to Gauge Voter Sentiment but to Influence It
—Buck Throckmorton
Early voting is under way for the mid-term elections, and Election Day itself is just eight days away. So today is a good day to remind everyone that as biased and unscientific as modern polling is, prediction markets are just as flawed in assessing political races. The reason is that they are not “prediction” markets at all. While they are sort of a gambling forum, they are also a mechanism for partisans to use their own money to influence election reporting in favor of their candidates, and Democrats are much more passionate about spending money this way than Republicans are.
In a piece back in May, I documented two Georgia Supreme Court races in which Polymarket showed the leftists’ odds of winning both exceeded 80%. Both candidates lost by crushing margins to the conservative candidates.
There is currently a flood of stories out now touting “predictions” from Polymarket or Kalshi that are favorable to Democrats and the left, including James Talarico in Texas. Kalshi is stating as a fact that Talarico has a 65% chance to win, approaching a “new all time high.”
BREAKING: James Talarico odds to win Texas Senate approach new all-time high 65% chance he wins. https://t.co/Y5eo9duhoz
Talarico does NOT have a 65% chance of winning, and for Kalshi to state that as a fact indicates that Kalshi does not even know what its product is. While I can state with a high degree of confidence that Talarico will lose to Republican Ken Paxton by a significant margin, the reason money is flowing to Kalshi in favor of Talarico is to get favorable headlines and to create a false aura of invincibility.
People putting money on Talarico are neither gamblers nor investors – they are engaging in a modern form of campaign contributions. It’s a rational decision, actually. TVs in Texas are already blanketed with Talarico ads, and mailboxes are full of his flyers. Giving money to his campaign would just buy more unread mailers. Putting that same money in a prediction market is a different way of contributing.
Of course, with the left willing to steer their campaign contributions to distort prediction markets, that creates a profitable opportunity for those willing to gamble in the opposite direction. Perhaps that opportunity will eventually neutralize the current distortion of prediction markets.
Comparing political polls to political prediction markets is an interesting exercise, and John Solomon of “Just the News” has announced a partnership with Kalshi to do just that. I’m a big fan of Mr. Solomon and “Just the News” and I will be following this initiative, but as I’ve just discussed, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Solomon that those putting money on political races in Kalshi are “investors.” They are contributing to a political campaign, not investing.
@jsolomonReports Interesting, but I’d argue that with political races, prediction markets aren’t fueled by investors, but by partisans who see their stake as a campaign contribution to fuel a desired outcome. They’re not predicting the outcome, they’re trying to influence it, like push polls do.
Good morning kids. In a free-wheeling and wide-ranging discussion, that is our signature style of ranting, raving and yammering about the news of the day on the latest edition of the podcast linked here as well as in the sidebar and at the popular outlets listed at the bottom of the post, of course the massive rioting in France now spreading to other parts of Europe might and could very well erupt over here in America, especially with the absolutely crucial midterm elections now a scant week away and with the totally secure, safe and sane early voting well under way across the nation. what a pathetic and sick joke that is, but it's yet another signpost that America as founded and the civil society as it had been intended is fading fast.
And yet, despite Western Europe and Civilization as it had been advancing for several thousand years is in flames courtesy of suicidal Leftism and Homicidal Islam, somehow in spite of it all America is still clinging on to a life raft as the waves do their best to swamp and drown us. Well despite the fake polling
The Scamsters Unveiled: In August and this month, four different polling outfits were exposed for fabricating data.
Dems Hit Panic Button As El-Sayed’s Black Voter Problems Remain Problematic. . . “…everybody you talk to on the ground there says there is a very worrying problem with the black vote in Detroit. And I have not seen many Democrats win a state like Michigan where the black vote does not turn out.”
Because while the violence across Europe has been described as “student protests,” it is anything but that. In fact, it’s a calculated effort by highly organized and well-financed extreme left groups to sow anarchy across Western civilization.
Here in the U.S., the hard-left Democrat Party has all but declared it’s no longer a party of working-class people and middle-class taxpayers. It’s dominated by the Democratic Socialists of America and closely allied and networked with the global movement to destroy capitalism and impose socialism.
An exaggeration? Nope.
According to “DataRepublican,” a well-known data-crunching online influencer who previously worked as an analyst for the Pentagon, the Democratic Socialists of America have plans for all of us. She cites literally “thousands of new transcripts and hundreds of recordings” showing what those plans are.
Where is William of Occam when you need him? The celebrated author of “Occam’s Razor”—Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem—would be a useful chap to have around when trying to understand The Case of Ilhan. The hijab-clad, Trump-and-America-hating, Somali-born woman who has been representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district since January 3, 2019, is everywhere in the news. The proximate cause of this new interest was the October 12 pre-dawn search of Ilhan’s Washington, D.C., home by Homeland Security Investigations. The search took about five hours and yielded a number of potentially interesting items, including cell phones, personal computers, notebooks, and her passport.
That DHSI raid was an eyebrow-raising event. But really, at this point, the news was almost superfluous. Indeed, we have had Ilhan’s number at least since 2016, back when she was running for a seat in Minnesota’s state government. It was then that Powerline’s Scott Johnson first polished his magnifying glass and began, terrier-like, to follow the trail of this incestuous fraudster. Johnson recently released a compilation of research, originally put together by David Steinberg and published on X, about Ilhan. Their work was supplemented in 2020 with an excellent book by Benjamin Weingarten called American Ingrate.
The FBI arrested a CIA contractor Friday for allegedly leaking highly classified national defense information to a romantic partner who operated an online publication known for publishing sensitive government intelligence.
Ian A. Brinksman, 42, of Washington, D.C., faces federal charges of unlawfully transmitting national defense information following a search of his residence.
According to a criminal complaint, Brinksman allegedly accessed sensitive intelligence outside his official responsibilities and provided it to an individual who published classified material on Substack.
Attorney General Todd Blanche condemned the alleged breach, emphasizing the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting America’s national security secrets.
Oh thank goodness we have committed professionals who have our backs But of course after the President himself enemy of the people #2 is Pete Hegseth! Before I develop an aneurysm let me nevertheless wish you all to
have a good day.
And please do your best to VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN!!!
If America labored under the tyranny of an absolute monarch, they wouldn’t be allowed to protest him in the first place! What the Latest No Kings No Show Told Me
Temporarily higher prices at the gas pump must not deter America from defeating Iran and rebuilding its own robust energy and manufacturing sectors. Swallow The Medicine. Rebuild The Nation.
ISRAEL vs IRAN & GAZA/HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH . . . AND LEFTISTS. . . The U.N... AND HISTORY
For Justice Kagan, as for other leftists on the Supreme Court, the Court is not about justice but about politics and assisting Democrats when the voters won’t. Kagan sits on the wrong branch
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
A leopard clearly never changes his spots. Ruddy’s renewed efforts to constrain competing media organizations raises burning questions about what his and Newsmax’s version of conservatism actually delivers. Newsmax’s Chris Ruddy Has Surrendered to the Left.
Heather MacDonald: In claiming a campus rape crisis, the university’s students are egged on by radical professors who betray the cause of reason for an ideology of victimhood. Cornell’s Real Crisis Is Irrationalism, Not Rape
Classical education is notably more rigorous than public education (fourth-grade reading lists in classical schools might include titles such as Beowulf, Little Women, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), but rigor is not the primary distinction. Rather, the true difference is scope. Public Schools vs. Classical Instruction: Here’s the Biggest Difference
Roger Kimball: We have had Ilhan’s number at least since 2016, back when she was running for a seat in Minnesota’s state government. Thoughts About BRO-FO What’s-Her-Name
Surprisingly, they can—but even if they don’t, the Democrats will not fare very well, setting the table for a successful 2028 Republican election. Can Republicans Defy Midterm History?
According to Rome’s Il Messaggero newspaper, the ultra-left anarchist groups previously expected to stage insurrectionist riots were largely prevented from demonstrating. However, a loose-knit group of various left-wing student movements, described as “but only peripherally, to the insurrectionist movement” managed to stage a protest of around 2,500 people. Rioters Storm Colosseum in Rome, Clash With Police Across Italy
Cuba paints itself as a people’s revolution… a true democracy, but the language is different from the reality. (Just like the Democrat Party - jjs) Cuba's Socialist Con
“It turns out that 80 new propaganda cells across 30 universities had popped up using different names and different charters, but with the same mission: to steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students” Pete Hegseth Designates Confucius Institutes as National Security Threat
Ian A. Brinksman, 42, of Washington, D.C., faces federal charges of unlawfully transmitting national defense information following a search of his residence. According to a criminal complaint, Brinksman allegedly accessed sensitive intelligence outside his official responsibilities and provided it to an individual who published classified material on Substack. FBI Arrests CIA Contractor Accused of Leaking Classified Defense Secrets to Romantic Partner
REVIEW: 'The Visionaries: Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, and the Making of the Post-World War II Order' by James Holland When America Reordered the World
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
How did the PHP foundation - the organisation responsible for maintaining PHP, a language powering an estimated 37.7 million websites - let things get so bad? They have one full-time staff member. (Reuters)
There are reasons I'm doubting this story, including the inclusion of this:
In West Virginia, a grove of critically endangered Chestnut trees is under threat of being bulldozed to make way for a new Anthropic hyperscale facility.
That claim has already been debunked; the construction is miles away from the grove of trees.
Which leftist writers profess to hate even as they latch onto it.
Leading to the usual rounds of autophagy and the media - CNN here - pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining.
Speaking of which, it's raining again. And worse. I brought my seedlings in under cover given the threat of a storm, and it arrived on schedule with some middling-sized hail.
Went to the garden center on the edge of town on the weekend looking for some more of the green bottlebrushes, only to find the shelf empty. So I went online and found what I wanted. And pink and purple as well. Delivered they cost nearly three times as much, but this way I can get what I want and not just what is in stock this week in my small country town.
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday ONT. Appreciate you stopping by. Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?
It's that time of the week - when we turn the ONT over to our good friend Piper for a bit. Here's this week's fashion pr0n.
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Can You Name These Women’s Shoe Styles? A Fun Fashion Quiz
By request, this quiz tests how well you know the classics and the everyday icons. For each shoe below, read the description, look at the picture and pick the correct name from the list. Answers are at the end—no peeking!
1. A classic closed-toe shoe with a low-to-mid or high heel, smooth upper, and no straps or buckles across the instep. It slips on easily and defines polished elegance.
What is it?
2. Extremely thin, tall heel (usually 3–4+ inches) that creates a dramatic, leg-lengthening line. Often with a pointed or almond toe.
What is it?
3. Short, curved, slender heel typically 1–2 inches high. Softer and more wearable than a full stiletto while still giving a feminine lift.
What is it?
4. Open-back shoe with a strap that wraps around the back of the heel. The defining feature is that rear strap.
What is it?
5. Canvas (or fabric) upper attached to a thick, braided rope sole. Often flat or lightly wedged with a summery vibe.
What is it?
6. Continuous solid heel that slopes from the front of the sole to the back—no separate heel piece. Known for comfort and stability.
What is it?
7. Open-back shoe with no strap or covering around the heel. You simply slide your foot in.
What is it?
8. Closed-toe style with a single strap across the instep (often with a buckle). The strap is the signature detail.
What is it?
9. Thick platform sole under the ball of the foot combined with a high heel for extra height and a bold silhouette.
What is it?
10. Soft, low-profile flat with a rounded or slightly pointed toe and a flexible sole.
What is it?
11. Ankle-height boot that covers the ankle bone, often with a zipper, elastic, or buckle.
What is it?
12. Slip-on shoe with a low heel or flat sole, often casual yet polished.
What is it?
13. A style (usually a pump or heel) with an open front that reveals the toes. The “peek-a-boo” cutout is the defining feature.
What is it?
14. A elegant pump or heel where the sides are cut away low, creating an open, curved silhouette along the arch. Named after a 19th-century French countess.
Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!
Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the TXMoMe Withdrawal Edition? Yep, the weeks of planning and execution are over, and the calendar resets anew. Approximately 51 weeks until the 2027 TXMoMe! The countdown begins!
With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?
FUNdamentals
Anyone pick up anything new shooting fundamentals-wise in Texas?
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Enforcer M1 Carbine
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S&W Disassembly
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B-52 Loading - Internal Stores
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Left Lane Campers
No, not camping in a tent, but rather the *&$#@^*%$ people who cruise merrily in the left passing lane on a highway. In my 1,400 mile odyssey to and from Texas I encountered way too many of these retards.
Cop: "Any guns in the car?"
Retard: "No"
Cop: "Why not?"
Honestly, I'd have preferred to see the driver pulled from the car and beaten rather than merely being given a warning.
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Our Pal The Sine Bar
Featuring professor Prabhakarna Sripalvardana Atapattusanatungajayasuriya.
OK Hordemates, lets first look at what the producers say about it: "The Perdomo Reserve 10th Anniversary Box-Pressed Maduro" is a medium to full-bodied Nicaraguan "puro" blended with a dark, oily 6-year old Cuban-seed Nicaraguan wrapper that has been bourbon barrel-aged for an additional 14 months and is paired with 6-year old Cuban-seed Nicaraguan binder and filler tobaccos to create naturally sweet flavors with hints of dark cocoa and espresso on the finish.
A hell of a long sentence, and yes, it's all true.
Now, what I discovered with mine (that I enjoyed on my patio on a beautiful Pacific NW sunny afternoon along with the last of my Monkey Shoulder scotch) was a cigar that looked and felt nice, but in the first inch, offered a really bitter, dark chocolate taste. I did not enjoy that. Patoooey!
But...
Starting the second inch, the cigar became perfectly normal, offering a mellowing flavor of tobacco and cedar plus a hint, just a hint, of the bourbon barrel aging mentioned above. Actually I really didn't catch much of that, and that is fine. Thinking back, I can remember it. As it turned out, my cigar didn't need it. A fair and even smoke, smooth ash, and a pleasant finish. I would smoke this again, but I think I'd pair it with a bourbon or even beer instead of scotch. This is a working man's cigar, and I'm OK with that.
Not overly expensive, give it a try!
Excellent, Diogenes! Thank you!
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Here are some different online cigar vendors. You will find they not only carry different brands and different lines from those brands, but also varying selections of vitolas (sizes/shapes) of given lines. It's good to have options, especially if you're looking for a specific cigar.
A note about sources. The brick & mortar/online divide exists with cigars, as with guns, and most consumer products, with respect to price. As with guns - since both are "persecuted industries", basically - I make a conscious effort to source at least some of my cigars from my local store(s). It's a small thing, but the brick & mortar segment for both guns and tobacco are precious, and worth supporting where you can. And if you're lucky enough to have a good cigar store/lounge available, they're often a good social event with many dangerous people of the sort who own scary gunz, or read smart military blogs like this one. -rhomboid
Anyone have others to include? Perhaps a small local roller who makes a cigar you like? Send me your recommendation and a link to the site!
Please note the new and improved protonmail account gunthread at protonmail dot com. An informal Gun Thread archive can be found HERE. Future expansion plans are in the works for the site Weasel Gun Thread. If you have a question you would like to ask Gun Thread Staff offline, just send us a note and we'll do our best to answer. If you care to share the story of your favorite firearm, send a picture with your nic and tell us what you sadly lost in the tragic canoe accident. If you would like to remain completely anonymous, just say so. Lurkers are always welcome!
That's it for this week - have you been to the range?
Okay...to be precise...I am not a fan of specialized kitchen tools that I have bought and then discover that they are not nearly as useful as I thought, throw them into the specialized-kitchen-tool drawer where they sit for four years until I reach into the back of the drawer and cut my finger on them.
But this one might be an exception to the rule! It's called a "lame," and it is used to score bread dough before baking so that the loaf can rise as much as possible. It's secondary use is as a decorating knife...putting small slices into the dough so that after baking they are revealed as some sort of weird design that always irritates because I can't do it worth a damn.
Anyway, my old and very cheap one gave up the ghost, because even soft dough will eventually dull an edge! Who knew.
This one is better than the last because the top of the razor blade is exposed, and can be used to cut, and it is a bit longer as well. So I have a very sharp, single-use tool that I actually like!
I am trying more and more to avoid all foreign-produced food, for the obvious sanitary reasons, but also to support American agriculture and food industries.
It's easy to criticize American food manufacturing, with its commodity products and its fanatical attention to the bottom line. But it is, by and large, quite safe, and there are only a few countries that rival American food safety.
No, we aren't perfect, but I'll take our food any day over Afghanistan's!
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Commenter "frammish" is showing off. That's pancetta, which is salt-cured but not smoked. It is used in lots of Italian cookery, including one of the great culinary achievements of Man: Spaghetti Carbonara!
Anyway, "frammish" got bored with making bacon so he moved on to pancetta.
Of course I didn't get any, so I am suspicious of this "frammish" fellow. He's probably a crypto-communist.
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Coblogger "Weasel," of two-minute meals fame, waxes rhapsodic about Virginia peanuts, specifically boiled peanuts, "or "Goober Peas."
And these are even simpler! But damn...they were tasty. There is very little in the snack world that can compare to a well-roasted peanut that has been perfectly salted.
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Buc-ee's is an interesting place. They charge full retail for everything, but people flock there anyway, because there is something about a well-run store that has pretty much everything that appeals to the American consumer.
I really like their beef jerky, and their breakfast sandwiches are reasonably good too. But this was a surprise! It is actually a very impressive chocolate candy...really a peanut butter cup on steroids. Good chocolate, just enough peanut butter, and a substantial size that is bucking the trend of offensive shrinkage in that industry.
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That's a chicken drummette, Texas style.
Actually, that is one of the legs of the pig that Ben Had procured for the Texas MoMe. The rest of the pig was smoked to perfection by a friend of Ben Had's, Rancher Bob's, and Cowhorse Queen. It was delicious, and a good enough reason to fly 1,200 miles to Texas!
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The great garlic experiment of 2025-2026 was a resounding...meh. Send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.
About the Bourbon Bubble...I think it has burst, but the category is also suffering from the inflation that affected everything else (Thanks Biden!). I think the sweet spot is still $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.
The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!
Why can't Big Glue design packaging that allows more than a few uses of their products before the top cracks from tightening, or the glue hardens inside the nozzle, or the tube itself ruptures from trying to squeeze some glue past the solidified glue in the top?
Modern Immigration Is A Far Cry From That Of Our Ancestors
—CBD
The lives that many of our ancestors lived before they made the sometimes arduous trek to America were difficult for many reasons. Poverty of course, but religious persecution figured prominently, and the simple almost world-wide limitation on upward mobility was a huge driver of immigration. No matter our great-great-grandfather's intelligence and drive and desire to better himself, he was stuck as a serf or a blacksmith or a tenant farmer, and it was very difficult to change those circumstances.
Thus the allure of America! But to get there was difficult and expensive, and there was no guarantee that when he arrived he wouldn't be put right back on the ship and sent back to Russia or Germany or Sweden or Italy or...
And that was just the beginning! He had to work...hard, and learn English, and fit into the culture that was American Exceptionalism. There was no welfare or immigration assistance or government payments for new arrivals or public medical care or public housing or any of the myriad services that current immigrants are given.
So who came to America?
The smart ones. The tough ones. The ones who truly valued freedom and chafed under the Czar or the Kaiser or the King or the Emperor. The great mass of people who were miserable, but unwilling to challenge themselves with the great unknown of leaving what they had, no matter how pitiful, stayed, and were gobbled up by the cataclysms that shook Europe.
That selection turbocharged America, which was already the destination of the best and the brightest from its beginning.
But all of that changed with modern transportation, the burgeoning welfare state, and the radical change in our immigration policies that began in the 1960s. No longer did America want immigration to be a reflection of the country. No...the progressives wanted a flood of new voters who would support their cradle-to-grave welfare dreams.
And where to find those people? In countries without a foundation of personal freedom, the rule of law, and at least some sense of entrepreneurship and personal responsibility.
And that's what we got! People who came here to be cared for by government, not to expand their lives and enjoy the fruits of liberty.
It's as simple as that, and the progressive cant that claims the new immigrants (both legal and illegal) are functionally identical to the great immigrations of the 19th and into the early 20th century is arrant nonsense.
A peasant from central America or China without education or any political conviction other than a desire to be cared for is a radically different person than the 19th century immigrant from Germany or Russia who came to America with nothing, built a small business, sent his children to college, and created vast wealth for America.
And that filter of expense and difficulty and fear of the unknown has largely been removed, so there is no impediment to armies of societal leeches invading our country. Hell, there are American charities that teach illegals how to navigate the welfare systems for maximum payout, even before they get here!
How to fix it? President Trump has tightened restrictions on legal immigration, and has simply enforced the law on illegal immigration. It is an excellent start, but the societal modifications necessary to return America to the concept of the melting pot are still very much in flux.
Love of country, respect for individual responsibility, freedom as a powerful driver of political behavior...all need to return to the fore. And that begins with education, which has been completely hijacked by the rabid progressives of the educational establishment.
Yes, it is a tall order, but the indications are modestly positive!
Good morning, ‘rons and ‘ronettes. It’s time once again for the monthly MP4-hosted Sunday Book Thread. Dress for men, as always, is country club casual. Women, it’s time to break out the latest fall fashions:
So ask the barman for a cocktail, covfefe or tea and let’s get started!
The Moon Under Water
In 1946, George Orwell wrote an essay, “The Moon Under Water,” in which he described his favorite London pub. It was quiet, with friendly middle-aged barmaids who knew their customers’ names, had good yet inexpensive lunches and, of course, the perfect pint of stout. The sad reveal, however, was that the ‘Moon’ didn’t exist; it was only Orwell’s vision of what would be the perfect pub.
Why do I bring this up? A few weeks ago, I traveled out to western Massachusetts to visit a used bookstore that was highly recommended on Facebook (yes, I know – more fool me). It was OK, but certainly not worth the four-hour round trip. The selection was eclectic, which I like, though it was a sobering experience to look through the ‘English history’ section and see that I already own most of the titles! But the place was infested with leftist slop – ‘No Kings’ flyers, ICE denunciations, pride flags, &c – and both the staff and customers ran the gamut from A to B in that they were snotty, pot-aroma’d college students, Karens in peasant dresses and jangling bracelets or man-bunned hipsters in locally-sourced clothes and carefully trimmed artisanal beards.
While I came away with a couple of good books, I was ultimately disappointed and angry at myself for wasting time visiting out west when there is a very good Used Book Superstore only half an hour away.
So what makes a good used bookstore? For me, the perfect one was the late Avenue Victor Hugo Books in Lee, New Hampshire. A converted barn with narrow aisles, tomes in every conceivable category tightly-shelved and overflowing, bundles of old sheet music and magazines, classical music at just the right volume, chairs to settle into while leafing through a possible purchase and an owner who loves books and has a story about every one you bring to the counter. And no posters, flyers or handwritten screeds damning everyone to the right of Pol Pot!
The language Tech Crunch is referring to is PHP, which is literally as old as the web - it first appeared in 1993, the same year as HTML itself, the language that every single web page is written.
Tech Crunch runs on WordPress.
WordPress is written in PHP.
Around 70% of all websites run on software written in PHP, 40% of them on WordPress alone.
Having watched Android manufacturers struggle with and slowly improve folding displays in recent years, how do Apple's new (and extremely expensive) folding iPhone models hold up to the same tests? They don't. (Notebook Check)
Saturday Night Club ONT - October 24, 2026 [Disco & Dino]
—Open Blogger
Welcome to Club ONT - a whelming collaboration of The Disco and The Dino.
Open thread - bar is open, too. Come in in, grab a drink or 2. Or 3. Keep it light and friendly. Be careful though. The Moose out front may be jacked up on pumpkin spice.
[Top photo: Evidence of organic brass farming at the Place for the Thing]
Three couples marry and stay at the same hotel for their honeymoons, where they are taken care of by Dave the bellboy.
The first man married a nurse. Dave thinks to himself, "Nurses are known to be hot to trot."
The second man married a telephone operator. Dave thinks to himself, "Telephone operators have sexy voices."
The third man married a school teacher. Dave thinks to himself, "Poor guy, teachers are frigid."
The next morning, Dave reports to work and gets a room service call from the nurse's husband. He sourly says, "Don't ever marry a nurse. All I heard last night was 'You're not sanitary! You're not sanitary!'"
Then, the telephone operator's husband calls and sourly says, "Don't ever marry a telephone operator. All I heard last night was 'Your three minutes are up, Your three minutes are up.'"
Later that afternoon, the teacher's husband calls and happily says, "When you marry, be sure to marry a school teacher. All I heard last night was 'We are going to do this over and over until we get right.'"
Amateur sculptors descended on a Philadelphia market to create works of art from scrapple - a breakfast mush of pork scraps and organ meat - in an annual contest.
The Reading Terminal Market hosted its third annual Scrapple Sculpting Contest on Thursday, with sculptors competing to see who could form the most appealing masterpiece out of 6 pounds of meat mush in the 90-minute time limit.
The market itself was this year's theme, and the judge's vote went to Toni Lee, who created a scrapple sculpture of market mascot Philbert the pig.
A discovery in tiny algae led to a Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough that allows scientists to switch brain cells on and off using light. The revolutionary technique has already helped researchers activate memories and is opening new possibilities for restoring vision and treating brain disorders.
See also: Men in Black Neuralyzer
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Club ONT Department of Truth
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Club ONT Jukebox
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Top 10ish Comments of the Week
Honorable mention:
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Club ONT is brought to you by dating sites
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With the cooler temps of fall upon us, the Club ONT heating system has been turned on. Pardon that "new heat" smell.
Saturday Substitute Music Thread - October 24, 2026 [TRex]
—Open Blogger
Looks like we need a music thread for the Hobby Thread afterparty and Club ONT pre-party. As a dinosaur with a small brain and short arms, I can't carry a tune or keep a beat, but I'm impressed but others that can.
Shall we talk tunes?
How about a baseball theme since we're in the midst of the World Series?
"Willie, Mickey, and the Duke" from Terry Cashman:
"Centerfield" by John Fogerty:
"Take me out to the Ballgame" led by Harry Caray at a Cubs game:
"The Cheap Seats" from Alabama:
"Enter Sandman" by Metallica for Mariano Rivera for the last time:
What songs am I missing? Glory Days by Springsteen is a candidate but my fingers somehow won't include a link. Weird.
Usual rules apply. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors. If you're a troll, go away. Remember, there's no crying in blogging.
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. For this week, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) is feeling adventurous and decided on a geocaching theme for this Hobby Thread.
Geocaching? What is that? Read on, fellow hobbyists...
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game that uses GPS. Players hide small waterproof containers (called caches) in public places and post the coordinates online.
Other players use a smartphone app or GPS device to find them. Each cache usually holds a logbook and sometimes small trinkets. When you find one, you sign the log, trade an item if you want for equal or greater value, and record the find online. You can also hide your own caches for others to discover.
The hobby combines hiking, problem-solving, and exploration. Caches range from easy urban spots to challenging mountain trails. Some are tiny and hard to spot. Others are larger and easier to find. It takes participants to places they ordinarily wouldn't go and incorporates the challenge of figuring out where the treasure would be stored.
As far as I know, there are no costs involved other than access to a phone or GPS, access to the internet, and the ability to travel outdoors. The global nature of the hobby means you can do it almost anywhere. Like any other hobby, I presume there are casual participants and more enthusiastic and dedicated participants.
The locations are one thing but the containers themselves are another. Some containers are basic weather tight plastic containers or ammo box type containers. They are easy to identify. Others are more difficult to spot, are disguised or are hidden inside fences or trees.
Are any among the Horde geocachers? If not now, have you done it or tried it in the past? If so, please share. Interested in hearing about your adventures, interesting places you found a cache and unexpected hiding places.
What kind of items have you found or traded? Was geocaching a great hobby with friends or kids? Does anyone host a cache on their property or hide/place caches?
Anyone have recommendations about online websites or apps that are good for geocachers?
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The content may not be your favorite but give it a chance before you judge and bail out. More importantly, what are you hobbying? Jump in with your hobbying, interests, stories and questions.
Anything (legal) you are hobbying is welcome. If nothing resonates, offer something else relating to hobbying or just check in and say hello.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. Leave politics and religion to threads elsewhere (unless your hobby is building or restoring churches). Pants? Nope. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
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Disclaimer - I had a difficult time finding YouTube videos that don't feel overdramatic. There is a natural inclination/temptation to highlight videos like "you won't believe this crazy hiding place!" or "we went to the most amazing hiding location." There are also people that have strong feelings about how it should be done or not done. The videos in the content below are illustrative but there might be better ones out there. Ace of Spades also does not endorse trespassing or otherwise breaking the laws in pursuit of hidden bounty. Caveat emptor.
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The beginning seems like a good place to start:
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Seems like good advice for more advanced participants:
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Some geocaching items are trackables or travel bugs - they are moved around the world by geocachers and logged in as they go. For example, someone might set up a trinket with a goal of traveling to certain countries or cities. A geocacher finds the trinket, identifies the instruction and carries it with them if they are headed in a direction that can help accomplish the goal. Think of it like a flat stanley type group project.
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As if regular caches weren't challenging enough, some caches require solving a puzzle to access the logbook - here's a good example:
You may not know Tom Daniel's name, but you're likely familiar with his work.
Tom's art and model designs affected and entire generation, and many of us have carried it with us throughout our lives as artists and model builders.
Tom was an industrial artist. He did many designs for industry and the automotive world. He also did console designs for NASA back in the 60's.
In the late 60's and early 70's he began designing model vehicles for Monogram Models and later Revell Corporation. Having designed over 70 goofy and wild model kits. He was also a fine art painter, He painted mostly landscapes and railroad art.
Although uncredited he designed the "Munster Coach" and "Dragula" cars for the hit show "The Munsters." George Barris built these cars but they were originally Tom's design.
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Not a hobby, but skill that hobbyists would respect:
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You had me at "4.5 meter dragon head." Interesting creation process video:
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In light of the comments last week about spinning wheels, thought the Horde might be interested in a little cotton content. We snapped these photos in Mississippi en route to the Place for the Thing last week. The cotton harvest was underway!
How does a cotton harvester and baler work? Glad you asked!
Farming terminology nugget: a cotton harvester is not called a combine. The term "combine" is reserved for machines that "combines" reaping, threshing, and cleaning into one machine. It is used mainly for grain crops such as wheat, corn, soybeans, barley, rice, and similar crops. A cotton harvester just strips the cotton off the stalk.
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The stores are full of large scale outdoor Christmas decorations. Anyone shopping?
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Horde Hobbying: sea glass work by IrishEi -
I finally started doing something with all the sea glass that I've collected over the years. It's relaxing and fun, and believe it or not, people are paying ridiculous amounts of money for the stuff. I don't have the time to go to craft shows or set up an online business, but a neighbor who makes great goat milk soap takes some of my stuff to local shows and has successfully sold quite a bit for me.
Outstanding! Thank you!
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a hobby scrapple (MoMe edition) theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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Reminder: if you put links in the comments, use a URL shortener and describe what you're linking to. Failing to do either or both makes you barrel-eligible. Don't make people click to find out what you're linking.
Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Or just email to say hello. Do mighty things.
We call on France to exercise restraint when dispersing the freedom fighters on the streets of Paris. These brave warriors for justice must receive immediate humanitarian aid, and their safety must be guaranteed in accordance with international law. Failure to comply will leave us no choice but to bring a case before the ICJ, in close cooperation with that renowned champion of human rights, Afghanistan.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Garrett's Sus iPod Edition Everybody wants you
Everybody wants your love
I'd just like to make you mine, all mine Just imagine he's singing that to a dude. BTW I thought this was a completely different band from Garrett's Sus iPod, the Bay City Rollers.
Podcast: The Nobel Peace Prize farce, Ilhan Omar in hot water, Talarico's disappearance, Guilfoyle is a crook, Should Nidal's execution be streamed, Bugs Bunny, and more!
Our very own "Weasel" has won the Nobel Prize For Physics:
A Rigorous Investigation into the Quasi-Static Equilibration of Shoulder-Fired Ballistic Platforms: Rear-Bag-Mediated Suppression of Angular Perturbations and Its Implications for Sub-MOA Precision.
[CBD]
Podcast: A sea change in Israel? France might fall before the UK! Trump's Iran rhetoric is manipulated by the commie media (film at 11!), Brazil looks good, and Rubio looks even better (maybe)!
Christian Toto Roasts Digger: "We have an A-list star (Tom Cruise) stretching his talents in ways we haven't seen in some time. The story has something to say about the world (Climate Change) and human nature in all its complexities." Sounds...boring! [CBD]
Nearly one thousand Roman silver denari found in woods near Cologne, Germany, probably deliberately buried in 125 AD It's about seven pounds of ancient silver. Alas, it's not an artifact of the massacre of the XIXth Legion at Teutonburg Forest, which is about a hundred and fifthy miles away.
Podcast: Vote Early...Vote Often! Oil exports are returning to normal, Trump relaxes CAFE standards, ChiComs fund AI backlash, the descendants of our business titans are anti-American, Boston is nuts, and more!
