It Was A Dark And Stormy Night. Suddenly, An ONT Rang Out! The Maid Screamed!
—WeirdDave
Howdy folks! Welcome to Friday night. Ever feel like you've been here before?
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Shaggy Ewok Cafe
—Ace
The Himalayas viewed from a satellite
Mama donkey and baby donkey.
Buying three jet-boats off of Temu. I think they say the three boats cost over $10,000 so this isn't actually cheap.
China's lack of safety standards and disregard for human life has the positive advantage of producing some terrific amusement rides.
Colorized film from 1898-1900 England, featuring a train and a horse-drawn fire brigade.
The shelter's longest resident gets adopted, and the staff throws a party for her.
Stray cocker spaniel deploys his secret weapon for getting adopted: being both cute and sad.
Emaciated stray pittie breaks into someone's home looking for food, and winds up staying.
"Grand Tetons." I'll say.
Red pandas do not seem real.
In case you missed it: Golden retriever is a real tiger mom.
The original unaired pilot of The Munsters. Related, though not Halloweeney: The original pilot of Three's Company.
House lights set to Dragula by Rob Zombie. Related, but not Halloweeny: Someone lighted his house to look like the end of The Matrix.
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The Week In Woke
—Ace
How many illegal aliens did Gavin Newsom give big-rig commercial drivers licenses (CDLs) to? How many Third World Assassins are out there driving thirty ton battering rams with no concern for the western rules of the road and little ability to even read English?
The number, as End Wokeness says, is "jaw-dropping."
Gavin Newsom alone, ignoring prior California governors and all other blue state governors, has granted CDLs to 62,000 Third World Assassins.
The same gang that illegally pulled down statutes of America's founding fathers are freaking out that Trump is remodeling a later addition to the White House.
Will no one do anything about the serious problem of white racism?
John Sexton reports on a sad story. A self-proclaimed pedophile rushed the stage at a Wikipedia conference, wearing a rainbow flag and carrying a gun. He threatened to kill himself on stage.
Sadly, some Wikipedia dweebs rushed him and stopped this pedophile from taking the Hero's Way Out.
From the NYT:
The man, draped in a multicolored flag, walked onto the stage and stood next to Maryana Iskander, the chief of the nonprofit group that runs Wikipedia, interrupting her speech. He announced that he was going to kill himself. He held a gun near his head and pointed it toward the ceiling.
The audience of well over a hundred people panicked.
Sexton:
So what prompted this? Well, the person with the gun, who has since been identified as Connor Weston, had the explanation draped around his neck as he walked on stage. Yet somehow the NY Times describes his motivation as "murky."The armed man's motivations were murky. But he was wearing a sign around his neck that said "anti-contact non-offending pedophile" and he told the audience he was going to die by suicide to protest what he called Wikipedia's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on pedophiles.The site has a rule that editors "who identify themselves as pedophiles will be blocked and banned indefinitely."
So murky. So, so murky. Muddy, actually. Our vision is obscured by ten thousand tons of heavy clay mud.
OUT: Protecting transgender felons by claiming their motives are unknown
IN: Protecting pedophile felons by claiming their motives are "murky"
Boy that Rainbow Flag sure does cover up a lot of sins, huh?
The Truman Scholarship Foundation is a taxpayer-supported scholarship fund that is supposed to be non-partisan. Students from all over the country, no matter what their politics, receive the scholarships for doing "public service" work.
But surprise! Most of the students getting these scholarships in red, Republican-heavy states are leftwing extremists who go on to work for Democrats or progressive organizations.
Winners of a prestigious, taxpayer-funded college scholarship selected from Republican-heavy states most often go on to work for progressive causes or Democratic politicians, with few taking jobs that advance pro-GOP or conservative causes, research from The College Fix finds.Each year, the federally funded Harry S. Truman Scholarship provides a $30,000 grant for grad school to about 50 students with proven leadership potential and a commitment to public service. In return, they pledge to work in a public service role for three years after graduation.
The College Fix analysis shows the left-leaning imbalance in winners cannot be chalked up to a few individual career choices -- the data paints a portrait of systemic ideological filtering within a program funded by all taxpayers but whose outcomes serve the political vision of Democrats.
The Truman Scholarship Foundation seeks regional diversity in its selections, and tries to award its scholarships to students from every state.
The College Fix looked at Truman Scholar winners from Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and Utah. These states tend to elect Republican politicians or are considered GOP strongholds. Michigan remains a swing state, voting Republican in two of the last three presidential elections.
Of the states' 125 Truman scholars from 2015 to 2024, 60 winners -- or nearly half of those surveyed at 48 percent -- went on to have at least one job working for left-wing, progressive or Democratic causes. In contrast, only three winners, 2.4 percent, could be found to have gone on to work for a conservative or Republican cause.
Top -- or formerly top -- schools are using "stealth rebranding" to whitewash their DEI discrimination programs, in defiance of the law.
A higher education watchdog group has published a series of investigative reports sounding the alarm on continuing diversity, equity and inclusion practices at some of America's top technology universities: MIT, Georgia Tech, and Caltech.The three case studies by researchers with the center-right National Association of Scholars focused on what NAS's Director of Science Programs Scott Turner called "the shapeshifting nature of the DEI regime," adding he is surprised at the extent of "the stealth rebranding."
The reports, published this month, found that the universities were "shuffling DEI employees to other administrative units where they can carry out the same program, but hidden away from scrutiny," Turner told The College Fix via email.
The case studies examined how DEI has been embedded in these institutions for decades, and can still be found, albeit in new forms, rebranded and under the radar.
Georgia Tech's case study notes that to get ahead of pending GOP-led legislation that would outlaw DEI, officials preemptively "scrubbed DEI language from its website and 'closed/moved' the LGBTQ+ Resource Center and the Women's Resource Center."
But according to the report: "Not a single DEI administrator was dismissed, however, indicating Georgia Tech's ongoing appeasement of DEI, rather than conforming to law."
A "transgender" powerlifter -- a male cheater who enters women's events -- was barred from competing by the powerlifting sanctioning body.
Tim Walz's gonzo left-wing Supreme Court just overturned that private organization's decision and declared that men are allowed to demolish women in "women's" sports.
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that a biological male transgender athlete was discriminated against by USA Powerlifting when the organization did not allow that person into a women's competition in 2018.The decision was unanimous, with five of the seven justices having been appointed by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, and the other two by former Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton.
USA Powerlifting (USAPL) is a national and international powerlifting organization that sanctions meets in the U.S. and in several other member countries.
The trans athlete, JayCee Cooper, sued USA Powerlifting in 2021, according to Fox News. Cooper alleged the organization engaged in discriminatory practices by rejecting the athlete's application to compete in the women's division in 2018, claiming it violated Minnesota's Human Rights Act.
The court's ruling said, "USA Powerlifting's policy at the time of the decision was to categorically exclude transgender women from competing in the women's division."
"We agree with Cooper that USA Powerlifting's policy is discriminatory on its face; there is therefore no genuine dispute that USA Powerlifting discriminated against Cooper because of her transgender status."
The left's jive against states barring transgenders from entering women's events is that we should leave these decisions to the private local governing bodies.
But when a private local governing bodies bans men from women's sports, they immediately get a government body to step in and overrule them.
The Dearborn City Council continues allowing mosques to break the law and blast the call to prayer as early as five thirty a.m. It has been years since the council claimed it would "check" the decibel level. It never actually checks it. And it's not just the decibel level -- the city law forbids the use of any speakers to blast messages out to the street. You can see the speakers right there on the outside of the mosques, this woman says. But Dearnborn officials will get around to "checking" on this, at some unknown future date.
Dearborn's police chief says it's no big deal and the speakers don't make much more noise than a truck when it hits a pothole. So, because a truck occasionally hits a pothole, and the city doesn't bother fixing the potholes, you should be cool with Muslims blasting their calls to prayer at 5:30 in the morning.
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Democrats Vote Against Paying the Troops Currently Defending the Country Without Pay; The Two Vulnerable Georgia Democrat Senators Peel Off From the Party, Vote In Favor of Paying Troops
—Ace
I still have trouble understanding how Georgia ended up with not one but two far-left lunatics as Senators.
I know that idiot football player cost us one seat. I forget how the other one happened.
They know they are very vulnerable to a GOP challenger so they've decided to pretend to care about the troops.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the Senate, and his home-state colleague, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), voted Thursday for a Republican bill to pay essential federal workers, including members of the military, during the government shutdown.Ossoff and Warnock joined Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) in voting for the Republican bill. The measure failed to advance on a 54-45 vote. It needed 60 votes to move forward.
Ossoff's and Warnock's votes are notable because they have voted 12 times against a House-passed bill to reopen the government and fund it through Nov. 21.
They have, however, voted repeatedly for a Democratic alternative to fund the government through Oct. 31, permanently extend enhanced health insurance premiums and restore nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
Ossoff told reporters after the vote that "military service members, TSA workers, air traffic controllers, other federal workers have no choice but to come to work, and they should be paid for that work."
Ossoff voted for the Shutdown Fairness Act, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), despite Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) calling it a "a ruse."Schumer warned it would give too much power to the Trump White House to determine which federal workers get paid and which remain furloughed.
...
Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, voted against the proposal to pay essential federal workers, even though they have voted repeatedly with Fetterman for the House GOP-drafted "clean" continuing resolution to reopen the government.
Earlier this week, the Democrat Whip Katherine Clark -- I never heard of her before either, so you're good -- went off-script and admitted the Democrat strategy is to make people "suffer" to increase the Democrats' "leverage."
A top House Republican is criticizing one of Democrats' senior leaders for saying the government shutdown and its effects are a "leverage point" to accomplish their goals on healthcare."It's appalling to see the number two House Democrat openly admit that the left is weaponizing hardworking Americans as 'leverage' for political gain, even acknowledging families will suffer in the process," Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital.
"This isn't governance -- it's calculated hostage-taking, with struggling families caught in the balance as Democrats attempt to force through their radical agenda. Families are seen only as leverage by Democrats. We always knew it, now they're saying it out loud. Absolutely shameful."
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., sat down for an interview with Fox News' Chad Pergram last week. At one point, Clark was asked about who Americans would find responsible for the ongoing shutdown.
"I mean, shutdowns are terrible and, of course, there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have," Clark responded.
Can you guess what she looks like?
Of course you can!
Surprise: Obese Transgender Generals Are Super-Pissed That Pete Hegseth Wants Them to Do Some Squats and Eat a Salad Every Once in a While
—Ace
Generals Are Whining That Hegseth Has 'Lost' Them, but the Facts Say They've Lost the Plot
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is the subject of another scurrilous article claiming, without proof or evidence, that he has lost the trust and confidence of the flag and general officer corps. A story in the Washington Times uses mostly anonymous sources to make the claim that Hegseth, "has lost the trust and respect of some top military commanders, with his public "grandstanding" widely seen as unprofessional and the personnel moves made by the former cable TV host leading to an unprecedented and dangerous exodus of talent from the Pentagon, said current senior military officers and current and former Defense Department officials." The whole article tells a different story.The core of the critique seems to be that Hegseth is incapable of thinking above the level of an infantry major, and that keeps him from focusing on real stuff like, well, we don't know.
The September 30 meeting--"It was a massive waste of time. ... If he ever had us, he lost us," one current Army general told The Washington Times.It was "embarrassing" and theatrical to a degree that "is below our institution."
"The theater of it all is below our institution," the officer said. "Several of these changes are being made already by the services. And they could be made by any secretary. ... They don't have to be announced on stage in public in this grandstanding kind of way."
Focus on the wrong things--
"Not about f------ haircuts," the current Army general told The Times, referring to Mr. Hegseth's deep focus on grooming standards, a view expressed by numerous sources.
The focus on haircuts is about making men wear their hair like men, rather than growing out their transgender locks. Sorry if this is a problem for you.
Another source described it as "the mentality of a midgrade officer" who is deeply focused on fitness, grooming standards, and other issues that typically don't reach the desk of the defense secretary."Hegseth's focus on fitness, weight and appearance reflects his experiences as a junior officer. These are perennial challenges at the small unit level; anyone who has commanded a small unit in the military understands where he's coming from,"
[Retired Marine Corps Col. Mark Cancian, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies] wrote. "However, if his military experience had been at higher levels, he would have discussed strategy, threats and warfighting at the operational level. As it was, these topics were nearly absent from his remarks.
More at the article. The jive they're pushing is that insisting that the military enforce its already-existing standards somehow stops generals from scheming their 11th-dimensional chess plans to win wars. Which -- hey, great job with the last few wars, Geniuses.
And they're complaining that this is a "junior officer" agenda. Well... check this out: Enforcing grooming and fitness standards will be the job of, get this, junior officers. Generals are not going to weigh privates or count how many sit-ups they can do. That task will fall to lietuenents.
So what they're really arguing is just that these standards shouldn't be enforced by anyone.
It's just about trying to argue in favor of DEI and transgenders-in-the-military while, as usual, dishonestly pretending it's about something more defensible, like "warfighting."
Hey fatty -- if you skip a meal every day that gives you an extra forty minutes or hour to focus on "warnighting."
streiff notes that despite the claims that Hegseth is "deeply damaging" the military, recruiting is way, way up. Almost as if part of the appeal of the military is joining an institution in which masculine traits like courage and strength are prized.
He also points out that a military that fails to enforce the basic rules will also fail at the big stuff, too. But if troops aren't lacing their boots properly, you can bet they're also performing poorly at weapons maintenance.
You've heard about Van Halen's infamous contract rider which demanded a bowl full of M & M's with all of the green M & M's removed, right? David Lee Roth explains that that was never about the M&M's -- it was about other, crucial contract terms such as venues needing to have electrical systems that could actually support Van Halen's huge speakers and lighting systems. David Lee Roth says that if he walked backstage and saw the bowl of M&Ms with all the green ones taken out, he would be a little more confident that the power system would not blow up when the roadies set up the equipment.
In more DEI/falling standards news, Susan Crabtree reports that the Secret Service is not moving quickly to repair the long rot caused by Obama's and Biden's determination that protecting VIPs was of secondary importance compared to the main goal of staffing the Service with short fat women.
The whole article is alarming. The Secret Service is simply not reforming and is clinging to its DEI priorities, despite Trump's orders to the contrary.
The Secret Service agent assigned to protect the "model" and former vice presidential step-daughter, Ella Emhoff, turns out to be a part-time plus-sized model who has repeatedly failed her physical fitness exams.
Yes, that's the exact level of agent I think Ellie Emhoff has earned, but seriously, what are we even doing here? Why is this person an agent?
Have we just decided to grant Make A Wish dreams to all the stupid, unqualified, incapable people so they can feel good about themselves?
Trick question -- of course we have.
Susan Crabtree writes about the rot at the Secret Service.
The pressing question now, seven months after [Sean Curran] took the helm [of the Secret Service], is whether he and his team are doing enough to transform the culture, jettison DEI priorities as President Trump ordered, improve morale and retention, and return the Secret Service to its elite mission-focused status....
In an interview with RealClearPolitics, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, recalled how former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who was forced to resign after her disastrous congressional testimony in the wake of the Butler assassination attempt, had aggressively promoted the "30x30" initiative under a Biden directive to make the federal government a DEI model for the nation. The DEI program promotes the arbitrary hiring of women with the goal of 30% women agents and officers by 2030.
The goal was one of Cheatle's top priorities, and she had achieved 24% women agents and officers in the agency by the time she resigned last year, according to several Secret Service sources.
"Now, if that is going to be your goal, and you're taking your eye off of your core mission, which is to protect individuals, and then you are no longer meeting your prescribed mission," Blackburn said, "this is how you end up getting ineffectiveness into agencies, and we see it in agency after agency."
"The American people are tired of this, whether it's the ESG or any of these other initiatives," she added. "They want government to do their job, and with the Secret Service, it is to protect these individuals who face constant threats."
...Shortly after Curran was sworn in in March, he sidelined many of Cheatle's top lieutenants to bring in his own team. Just a few weeks later, however, a U.S. District Court judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from firing 19 intelligence officers who had previously served on DEI programs at the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The judge's order requires the employees to remain on paid administrative leave while they seek reassignments or appeal their firings.
There was no similar attempted mass firing of DEI officials at the Secret Service.
...Over the past several years, agents also report that outside of the top details, including the team protecting the president and the vice president, some field offices around the country are allowing the honor system for self-reported physical fitness or are simply not requiring them. For years, there's also been such a manpower shortage, and agents are stretched so thin, that many offices have drastically reduced firearms practice, according to several sources in the Secret Service community.
He's keeping one of the most egregious DEI warriors on the staff:
Darnelly De Jesus, a 25-year agency veteran and proponent of DEI, became the Secret Service's agent in charge of its Office of Professional Responsibility last November, under then-acting Director Ron Rowe. Rowe was a Biden appointee and Cheatle's previous hand-picked deputy, whom then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tapped to lead the agency after Cheatle's departure.Curran has decided to keep De Jesus on his assistant director team. In that role, she oversees all agency misconduct cases and is ultimately charged with signing off on all disciplinary recommendations.
Serving as a member of the president's or the vice president's security team immediately positions a young agent for future promotions. But instead of pursuing that track, De Jesus rose through the ranks as the agency's chief ethics officer and the deputy assistant director of training, while serving as one of the agency's leading architects of and advocates for DEI recruiting and promotion policies.
In her current role overseeing misconduct cases, De Jesus is one of eight assistant directors who comprise the Secret Service's top-tier leadership team, aside from the deputy director and chief of staff.
Curran's decision to keep De Jesus in that post, and his more recent decision to promote another female agent who served as Cheatle's chief of staff, are raising questions among the rank and file about whether he's doing enough to break with the agency's recent past.
De Jesus' presence in leadership is seen as a symbol among Secret Service critics on Capitol Hill and numerous current and former agents who believe that misplaced DEI priorities during the Biden years contributed to the failures at Butler.
One agent, Rashid Ellis, has publicly blamed DEI for contributing to the near-assassination of Trump. Ellis, who opposes DEI, also argues that he was unfairly denied an agency leadership position and believes women gender quotas "played a factor."
Whatever action the Secret Service takes with regard to Ellis' complaints, De Jesus, a major DEI advocate who has the power to pull employees' clearances, suspend, or terminate them, will ultimately be the one signing off on those decisions. Some Secret Service employees fear that De Jesus could retaliate against whistleblowers, including Ellis, who have expressed concern about the agency's DEI policies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
As of Sept. 30, De Jesus' LinkedIn resume still touted her work during the Biden administration drafting an "enterprise white paper" on Cheatle's 30x30 initiative to hire more women, which she said was designed to "increase hiring, retention, and advancement with the projected goal of meeting 30% of women in the law enforcement by 2030."
After RCP inquired about her role in the 30x30 program, that bullet point disappeared from her online bio, although she still touted several other DEI accomplishments, including her cross-agency work creating "a ground-breaking first-line supervisory class for all females across 22 separate agencies." She also mentions her experience increasing staffing in two divisions from "35% to 80% in 10 months, resulting in a 128% increase in hiring, with 73% being qualified minorities and female candidates."
...
Curran has publicly said he disagrees with DEI initiatives, but many in the Secret Service community have questioned just how committed he is considering these two personnel decisions and just how deeply rooted and pervasive DEI became under Cheatle.
The whole article is worth reading. Sean Curran is not a "change agent," but another go-along-to-get-along liberal stiff.
This is amusing:
Under Cheatle's leadership, DEI had become so normalized that an overweight female agent who never passed her physical fitness tests was not only retained on staff -- she was allowed to moonlight as a model. The agent, who was featured in a magazine profile, traded on her job in federal law enforcement and hinted at her Secret Service position in a photo shoot labeled, "Undercover, But Never Underdressed."
The female agent, who bills herself as a "nationally published curve model, plus-size fashion and fitness influencer, and body-positive advocate" on social media, was assigned to protect Kamala Harris' stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, in New York. After several failed attempts to pass a physical fitness test, the agent was placed in the Special Services Division, which handles support functions for the agency, including the maintenance of the armored vehicle fleet and the screening of mail and packages for the White House complex, according to four sources in the Secret Service community.
So all of our institutions are now just branches of the Make-A-Wish foundation, handing out lifetime jobs to unqualified, incapable, stupid people.
So of course this is a disguised GAINZZZ thread.
I wanted to mention: If you're taking creatine, let your doctor know. I may not have the details of this right, but I believe when creatine is metabolized, creatinine (actually a slightly different word) is made. Creatinine isn't dangerous in itself (if I have this right), but is a marker for problems with the kidneys.
So if you're taking high doses of creatine and don't tell your doctor, he may see elevated levels of creatinine (trust me, it's a slightly different word) and order tests for your kidneys.
My own GAINZZZ: None. I've been really busy and I haven't exercised much and I've just completely gone off keto. I'm getting back into a healthier regime, starting... last night at 8pm. When I finally had a low-carb meal.
How about you? Any GAINZZZ?
Or PROJEXXX, TRIPZZZ, or PLANZZZ?
Has anyone taken creatine and if so, do you find it helps your focus? I didn't have it for a few days but started taking it again last night and I think I'm much more focused today than I was yesterday.
Below, Paul Saladino talks creatine.
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The Feminization of Society: Threat or Menace?
—Ace
Helen Andrews looks at what feminism has wrought.
Mostly dysfunction, decline, and dissension.
This might be a tough read for some women. I don't think this is about women per se, however: It's about women with a specific mindset, the mindset of woke feminism and Girlpower Marxism. The kind of woman being pushed to the fore and put in charge of corporations and academic departments is usually a highly-political feminist who puts feminism and feminist activism far, far above the needs of the corporation or institution she is supposedly serving.
Feminism was, is, and will always be predicated on the idea that Men Were, Are, and Always Will Be Wrong, and therefore any institution previously dominated by men is tainted and must be completely razed and rebuilt according to feminist Marxist principles.
It's like young blacks rejecting studying and reading as "Acting White." When you reject, wholesale, practices that have a proven track record of success, you're committing yourself to unsuccessful practices.
And so too with feminists, who see things like objectivity, professionalism, dispassion, and actual equality and most of all, capitalism itself, as antiquated notions of a diseased Patriarchy which must be rejected entirely.
They don't want to be seen as Acting Male.
And so they keep taking functioning institutions and changing them. And when you change every foundational aspect of a functioning institution, what you wind up with, most of the time, is a non-functioning institution.
And they keep calling this "victory."
2019, I read an article about Larry Summers and Harvard that changed the way I look at the world. The author, writing under the pseudonym "J. Stone," argued that the day Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard University marked a turning point in our culture. The entire "woke" era could be extrapolated from that moment, from the details of how Summers was cancelled and, most of all, who did the cancelling: women.The basic facts of the Summers case were familiar to me. On January 14, 2005, at a conference on "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce," Larry Summers gave a talk that was supposed to be off the record. In it, he said that female underrepresentation in hard sciences was partly due to "different availability of aptitude at the high end" as well as taste differences between men and women "not attributable to socialization." Some female professors in attendance were offended and sent his remarks to a reporter, in defiance of the off-the-record rule. The ensuing scandal led to a no-confidence vote by the Harvard faculty and, eventually, Summers's resignation.
The essay argued that it wasn't just that women had cancelled the president of Harvard; it was that they'd cancelled him in a very feminine way. They made emotional appeals rather than logical arguments. "When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at MIT. Summers made a public statement clarifying his remarks, and then another, and then a third, with the apology more insistent each time. Experts chimed in to declare that everything Summers had said about sex differences was within the scientific mainstream. These rational appeals had no effect on the mob hysteria.
This cancellation was feminine, the essay argued, because all cancellations are feminine. Cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field. That is the Great Feminization thesis, which the same author later elaborated upon at book length: Everything you think of as "wokeness" is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.
The explanatory power of this simple thesis was incredible. It really did unlock the secrets of the era we are living in. Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently. How did I not see it before?
Andrews notes that while we speak of feminism in terms of firsts -- first female Justice, first female astronaut, etc. -- the "tipping point" comes when women gain majority status in an institution.
And women now dominate many institutions, and nearly dominate many more.
The same trajectory can be seen in many professions: a pioneering generation of women in the 1960s and '70s; increasing female representation through the 1980s and '90s; and gender parity finally arriving, at least in the younger cohorts, in the 2010s or 2020s. In 1974, only 10 percent of New York Times reporters were female. The New York Times staff became majority female in 2018 and today the female share is 55 percent.Medical schools became majority female in 2019. Women became a majority of the college-educated workforce nationwide in 2019. Women became a majority of college instructors in 2023. Women are not yet a majority of the managers in America but they might be soon, as they are now 46 percent. So the timing fits. Wokeness arose around the same time that many important institutions tipped demographically from majority male to majority female.
The substance fits, too. Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition. Other writers who have proposed their own versions of the Great Feminization thesis, such as Noah Carl or Bo Winegard and Cory Clark, who looked at feminization's effects on academia, offer survey data showing sex differences in political values. One survey, for example, found that 71 percent of men said protecting free speech was more important than preserving a cohesive society, and 59 percent of women said the opposite.
...
Female group dynamics favor consensus and cooperation. Men order each other around, but women can only suggest and persuade. Any criticism or negative sentiment, if it absolutely must be expressed, needs to be buried in layers of compliments. The outcome of a discussion is less important than the fact that a discussion was held and everyone participated in it. The most important sex difference in group dynamics is attitude to conflict. In short, men wage conflict openly while women covertly undermine or ostracize their enemies.
My own take here is that men tend to have one-on-one conflicts whereas women tend to call up all of their friends and allies when they have a conflict and get as many people as possible on their side and against their opponent.
Men's conflicts resemble private duels. Women's conflicts resemble political campaigns.
And that's what we see everywhere in society now: we no longer have arguments. We have, instead, political campaigns and popularity contests for every single minor personal issue.
Bari Weiss, in her letter of resignation from The New York Times, described how colleagues referred to her in internal Slack messages as a racist, a Nazi, and a bigot and--this is the most feminine part--"colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers." Weiss once asked a colleague at the Times opinion desk to get coffee with her. This journalist, a biracial woman who wrote frequently about race, refused to meet. This was a failure to meet the standards of basic professionalism, obviously. It was also very feminine.Men tend to be better at compartmentalizing than women, and wokeness was in many ways a society-wide failure to compartmentalize. Traditionally, an individual doctor might have opinions on the political issues of the day but he would regard it as his professional duty to keep those opinions out of the examination room. Now that medicine has become more feminized, doctors wear pins and lanyards expressing views on controversial issues from gay rights to Gaza. They even bring the credibility of their profession to bear on political fads, as when doctors said Black Lives Matter protests could continue in violation of Covid lockdowns because racism was a public health emergency.
I have railed about this a lot: The entire concept of "professionalism" and "professional detachment" went out the window as women began dominating fields. No longer do the professions seek to detach professional expertise from mere personal feeling and opinion. Now, professional power is used to leverage personal feelings and opinions and inflict them on the public.
We keep seeing this in corporate decisions. Look at Star Wars: The smart, obvious play was to keep making Star Wars movies as they'd always been, power fantasies and light war dramas mostly aimed to appeal to male sensibility. (Women just don't have as many fantasies about physically dominating their opponents.)
But Kathleen Kennedy decided to take a brand bought for $4.05 billion and use it to further her personal political ends.
And we just keep seeing this again and again with Bud Light, Cracker Barrel, Amazon's disastrous series under Jennifer Salke, etc. We keep seeing a complete failure -- or an intransigent refusal -- by women in power to consider that maybe a brand that has historically appealed to men or traditionalists should remain that way. They feel that the brands are icky as they are, and must be reshaped into something they'd personally enjoy.
I keep saying the same thing: If someone told me to write a Hallmark holiday romance movie, I'd watch 20 of them, make notes about what the basic fantasy being offered to viewers was, and attempt to duplicate that. I would not make the male character the protagonist and make the drama about whether or not he'd land the unobtainably beautiful female lead. I would not add guns and Brazillian jiu-jitsu. (I would add a lot of dogs, but that's fine, because women like dogs. Who doesn't.)
But every time I turn around that's exactly what female "professionals" are doing, charging into fields they know little of with the Mighty Confidence of a Fourteen Year Old and remaking it all per their personal whims and fancies. They just seem incapable of ever removing themselves from the equation and, well, doing a detached, professional job. It never seems to move beyond Personal Growth and Validation with them.
...
The field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and, to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tug at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic.A feminized legal system might resemble the Title IX courts for sexual assault on college campuses established in 2011 under President Obama. These proceedings were governed by written rules and so technically could be said to operate under the rule of law. But they lacked many of the safeguards that our legal system holds sacred, such as the right to confront your accuser, the right to know what crime you are accused of, and the fundamental concept that guilt should depend on objective circumstances knowable by both parties, not in how one party feels about an act in retrospect. These protections were abolished because the people who made these rules sympathized with the accusers, who were mostly women, and not with the accused, who were mostly men.
These two approaches to the law clashed vividly in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. The masculine position was that, if Christine Blasey Ford can't provide any concrete evidence that she and Kavanaugh were ever in the same room together, her accusations of rape cannot be allowed to ruin his life. The feminine position was that her self-evident emotional response was itself a kind of credibility that the Senate committee must respect.
If the legal profession becomes majority female, I expect to see the ethos of Title IX tribunals and the Kavanaugh hearings spread. Judges will bend the rules for favored groups and enforce them rigorously on disfavored groups, as already occurs to a worrying extent. It was possible to believe back in 1970 that introducing women into the legal profession in large numbers would have only a minor effect. That belief is no longer sustainable. The changes will be massive.
She points out that both men and women agree that law will be transformed by women and how it will be transformed. The only difference is whether or not Girlboss Fiat becoming the only rule in law is a good thing or a bad thing.
The problem is not that women are less talented than men or even that female modes of interaction are inferior in any objective sense. The problem is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions.
I don't doubt that many women could do a professionally-detached, "masculine" kind of job in many professions -- if they wanted to.
The problem is, feminism teaches women to despise a professionally-detached, masculine kind of approach to any job. They see it as the Devil's Work. They want to tear down everything and rebuild on feminist, matriarchal, and frankly Marxist first principles.
Andrews turns, finally, to the idea that women just naturally out-competed men to take over the institutions so they should enjoy the fruits of their victory.
That's nonsense, she points out. Women won because they passed laws to guarantee women's victory.
The most obvious thumb on the scale is anti-discrimination law. It is illegal to employ too few women at your company. If women are underrepresented, especially in your higher management, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. As a result, employers give women jobs and promotions they would not otherwise have gotten simply in order to keep their numbers up....
Anti-discrimination law requires that every workplace be feminized....
Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house, but men can't sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten. Naturally employers err on the side of making the office softer. So if women are thriving more in the modern workplace, is that really because they are outcompeting men? Or is it because the rules have been changed to favor them?
Read the whole thing. I've cut a lot of good stuff.
Left-Wing Psychopaths Melt Down Over, Get This, Trump
—Ace
Trump, along with some donors, is funding a free-to-the-taxpayer renovation to the White House. Specifically, he's building a long-planned but never built ballroom.
Here's the terrorist-aligned AP:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Construction started this week on the $250 million ballroom that President Donald Trump is adding to the White House as construction crews began tearing down the facade of the East Wing, where the new space is being built.The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the main White House itself, at nearly double the size, and Trump says it will accommodate 999 people.
Trump said on social media that the ballroom won't cost taxpayers a dime because it is being privately funded by "many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly."
Here are some things to know about the newest White House construction project:
Why is Trump building a ballroom?
Trump says the White House needs a large entertaining space and has complained that the East Room, the current largest space in the White House, is too small, holding about 200 people. He has frowned on the past practice of presidents hosting state dinners and other large events in tents on the South Lawn.
Hm, why would Trump, who has been the target of multiple assassination attempts, both of which were permitted by Secret Service incompetence bordering on accomplicehood, want to stop doing outside events and instead keep inside the safety of walls?
And gee, why would the left object to that, and demand that Donald Trump remain out in the wide-open where snipers can shoot him?
Who is paying the $250 million construction tab?Trump says the project will be paid for with private donations and that no public money will be spent on the ballroom. The White House promised to release information on which individuals and corporations have pledged or donated money and invited some of the donors to an East Room dinner last week, but has not released a comprehensive list and breakdown of funds.
Some $22 million for the project came from YouTube, a Google subsidiary, as part of a recent settlement for a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought against the company.The White House also has not said how much of his own money Trump is contributing.
Publius says the White House is trolling the left by giving the renovation its own website. Publius says to scroll down to "Major Events Timeline."
The timeline is freakin gold.1998
Bill Clinton Scandal2012
Muslim Brotherhood Visit2023
Cocaine Discovered2023-2024
Trans Day of VisibilityLMAO
Posted by: kerncon
The absolute clownfuckery of one of Bill Kristol's more garish grifters from the Bulwark:
Gavin Newsom, who never saw a construction project he didn't want to kill with infinite red tape -- ask the victims of the Palisades fire -- is beside himself.
Continue reading
Academic Fraudster and Congressional Grifter Mikie Sherrill Also Made Unsubstantiated Conspiracy-Theory Accusations Against Fellow Congressmen, Alleging, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, That They Were Ringleaders of the J6 Nonsensurrection
—Ace
This daffy, ditzy conspiracy theorist who cheats on tests and uses insider information to trade defense stocks while serving on the House Armed Services Committee -- and who may be elected NJ governor in two weeks -- accused Republican Rep. Loudermilk of being a Secret Mastermind behind The Great Unruliness of 6 January 2021, because he led a couple of tours in the Capitol Building before January 6th.
Mikie Sherrill, the Democrat nominee for New Jersey governor who is battling allegations over a military academy cheating scandal, also faced a congressional ethics complaint in 2021 for tarring a fellow lawmaker with allegations later disproven by Capitol Police.The ethics complaint was submitted against Sherrill and a number of her Democratic colleagues after they referred for investigation Republican members of Congress to the U.S. Capitol Police and both the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms for giving private tours on Jan. 5, 2021.
The members billed the tours suspicious because they were in advance of the Jan. 6 riot.
One of the Republican members accused was Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., whose office conducted a tour of House office buildings the day before Jan. 6.
Sherrill's letter sparked a probe by the Democrat-led Jan. 6 Committee into whether Loudermilk was giving a reconnaissance tour to Jan. 6 rioters.
He told them exactly where Nancy Pelosi kept her prized coat-rack! He was in on the plot from the start!
However, the U.S. Capitol Police reviewed security footage from that day and concluded neither Loudermilk, nor his staff, nor his guests were acting suspicious at all and that the lawmaker had simply given a routine tour to constituents."Rep. Sherrill made false accusations, without evidence of any wrongdoing, with apparently no thought of the threats to the safety of myself, my family, and others. The truth prevailed, which it always does, and the real damage at the end of the day was to her own credibility," Loudermilk told Just the News in a statement Thursday.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, a Special Prosecutor was just appointed to investigate child-murder-fantasist Jay Jones.
The investigation isn't about him calling for the murder of state representatives, the children of state representatives, and police.
No, the investigation is about the curious case of Jay Jones speeding, doing 116 mph in fact, on a road with a posted speed limit of 70.
In Virginia, speeding by more than 40mph over the limit gets you an automatic "recklessness" upgrade to your fine, which always results in loss of license and even jail time.
But not for Jay Jones! Oh dear, not for a Democrat politician!
Jay Jones got zero jail time and also zero days of a license suspension.
Instead, he got 1000 hours of community service.
Now, that may sound like a lot of community service -- that's more than 40 full 24-hour days, according to my quick use of a desk calculator.
But Jay Jones supposedly did all 1000 hours of community service in just one year, while working full-time at his law firm and also working for his own political action committee.
Even if he spent 24 hours almost every weekend -- two 12 hour shifts in a row, Saturday then Sunday -- doing "community service," he would only just complete these hours in a year.
So how did he do it?
Simple -- they let him claim that the hours he spent working on his own self-serving political action committee counted as "community service."
And so a special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate the judge who gave him such a light non-sentence and whichever court officer approved this obviously-sham "community service."
John Sexton points out that people who drive more than 40 miles per hour over the speed limit usually have their licenses suspended or revoked, and often do jail time:
If you were caught driving 46 miles per hour over the speed limit in Virginia, would you expect to serve jail time or at least have your license suspended or driving privileges restricted? Those are the kinds of consequences many Virginia drivers have had to face but Jay Jones did not.7News reviewed more than a dozen reckless driving cases in New Kent County, Virginia, where Jones was convicted of reckless driving in 2022, for driving 116 miles an hour.
SEE ALSO | Virginia leaders condemn Democrat AG candidate's violent text messages sent in 2022
Court records show, one man was found guilty of driving 115 mph in a 70 in New Kent County. He got 10 days in jail, his license was suspended for six months, he was fined $2,000, and once he got his license back, he could only drive to and from work.
On the same day Jones received his sentence, a Woodbridge man was sentenced to 30 days in jail for driving 115 mph in a 70-mph zone. The Prince William County man's sentence was suspended as long as he didn't speed again. The Woodbridge man's license was suspended for six months, then restricted, and he was fined $1,500.
Another man was found guilty of reckless driving for driving 104 mph in a 70-mph zone in New Kent County. That earned him 20 days in jail, a six-month license suspension, and a $1,250 fine.
Jones, a former Virginia lawmaker, got no jail time for driving 116 mph in a 70 on I-64. He paid a $1,500 fine, his driving privileges were not impacted and he got 1,000 hours of community service.
The Richmond Times Dispatch reported that Jones completed those 1,000 hours -- equal to 25 weeks of full-time work -- in just one year.
Well, easy! They credited him working at his actual jobs as doing "community service." That's the Special Justice that First-Tier connected people get.
From National Review:
The certificates signed by representatives of the NAACP and MOM PAC attest that Jones completed more than 500 hours of community service for each organization within the 2023 calendar year. In order to complete that number of hours within one year, Jones would have had to dedicate ten hours of every week to MOM PAC and ten hours to the NAACP, all while working at the law firm Hogan Lovells full time. Social media posts show Jones also traveled the state campaigning for fellow Democrats throughout that year.
Current AG, and Jones' opponent, Jason Miyares says that Jones must drop out as he is seeking the office that will decide whether or not he should go to prison or not. As clear a conflict of interest as one could imagine.
Continue reading
Kash Patel Announces 31 Suspects In Huge NBA/Mafia Sports-Betting Operation
—Ace
I didn't cover this yesterday because I thought it was a Pete Rose situation. IIRC, Rose was accused of betting on baseball, but not the games he played in. So this was a violation of the rule but not evidence he was throwing games for money.
But apparently, NBA players did throw games for money, and told their mafia partners which games they'd be throwing. Specifically, some players left the games early or claimed an injury to not play, and tipped off the mafia that they'd be doing so, thus either throwing the game or cutting down on points scored (which is a big area of sports betting).
So, belatedly, I'll mention the story now.
With my apologies -- I thought it was some bullshit about players betting on online poker against league rules or something.
FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday morning announced a sweeping federal investigation alleging at least 31 defendants -- including an NBA player and an NBA coach -- were involved in illegal gambling schemes."You hear a lot about our work of defending the homeland and crushing violent crime. Well, this work is also representative of a colossal portion of the FBI's mandate to keep America safe and to keep our entertainment industry fair and secure," Patel said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., announcing the probe.
He and other federal prosecutors said the probe is, in fact, two cases: one related to the NBA and the other to illegal, rigged poker games.
Patel and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella, Jr., said the overall probe was "years-long," across 11 states and involved tens of millions of dollars.
"Your winning streak has ended," Nocella said.
He and Patel also confirmed reports from earlier in the morning that Miami Heat player Terry Rozier and Portland Trailblazer coach Chauncey Billups were arrested earlier in the day in connection with the probe.
Prosecutors also said Mafia crime families were involved in the rigged poker games, which included X-ray machines to see face-down cards. They said members helped collect debts for a cut of the winnings.
Regarding the NBA games, he alleged Rozier was involved in a scene in which players didn't play or left games early, in an attempt to influence scores and betting.
LeBron James is tangentially involved (but not implicated -- not yet, anyway).
Knowing the extent of players' injuries -- if they can play, if they can't play, or if they can play but with a diminished capacity -- is important information when you're betting. Teams generally keep this stuff as secret as possible and only disclose what they absolutely have to, by league rules.
Knowing in advance if a big play-maker will or won't play, or can play but will be impaired, is valuable information in betting.
One NBA player passed information about LeBron James' injuries to his mafia partners.
Details of LeBron James' injury status were sold by his pal and former Los Angeles Lakers coach Damon Jones as part of a massive prop betting scheme, according to court docs and law enforcement sources.
Prop bets -- "proposition bets" -- are bets made about a proposition other than who will win or lose. Like, "Will LeBron James score at least 30 points in tonight's game?"
Normies mostly bet on the outcomes of games. More serious gamblers put a lot of money on these proposition bets.
Jones, an ex Cleveland Cavs player and "unofficial assistant coach" for the Lakers during the 2022-2023 season, sent a message to one of the betting ring members on Feb. 9, 2023 urging him to place a large bet on the Lakers' opponent the Milwaukee Bucks, because James would be out with an injury that night, the sources told The Post.
"Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!," Jones texted, according to the indictment.The player, whom sources identified as James, did not play after reporting a lower body injury, and the Lakers lost.
Jones is a longtime friend of James who played with him on the Cavs earlier in James' career.Jones also separately received $2,500 for hawking a supposed injury tip -- which turned out to be bogus -- about another Lakers star player before a Jan. 15, 2024 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
$2,500?
Shaq was asked about this and made the obvious point: "You're making nine million a year -- how much more do you need?"
And committing a serious crime that can get you banned from a lifetime of lucrative work for twenty-five hundred bucks?
Risk-reward, fellas. Risk-reward.
I can't really think of any political angles here. The media is talking up the perils of allowing sports betting out of Las Vegas and into everyone's laptops and phones. As a billion dollar business turns into a trillion dollar business, the opportunities for graft skyrocket.
I guess that's a decent take, though I don't know if the answer should be betting prohibition.
I don't like seeing sports betting commercials every other minute and I guess I think it's pretty sad that this vice is now so popular, but I'm not sure I really care enough to care.
I'm certainly happy to see another woke sports league take another fat shiner to the eyes.
How are you doing? I don't know if you've checked the calendar, but it's all Friday up in this piece.
Alberta Independence is Inching Forward; Glenn Beck Says the Trump Administration is Ready to Recognize Alberta as an Independent Country
—Buck Throckmorton
The Alberta Independence Movement is proceeding toward secession from Canada. Toward that end, there will be a peaceful rally at the provincial capital in Edmonton tomorrow.
“Independence rally at Alberta Legislature could see tens of thousands” [Juno News – 10/21/2025]
Tens of thousands of Albertans are expected to descend upon the Alberta Legislature this Saturday for the “I Am Alberta” rally, organized by the Alberta Prosperity Project, which is also coordinating bus transport across the province.
This is a topic I keep returning to because I want to do my little part to help move the needle. Although I have stated my support for statehood for Alberta and Saskatchewan, the important thing is that the conservative prairie provinces break free from Ottawa’s suppression, irrespective of statehood, and that they know they have the support of the United States. A conservative, new nation north of the 49th parallel, with a petroleum and ranching based economy, would be a welcome neighbor.
In an August piece titled “Canada Has Recognized the Nation of Palestine, Trump Should Recognize the Independence of Alberta & Quebec” I wrote that the U.S. should offer ”whatever US security and aid is necessary for those provinces to liberate themselves from the Canadian federation, if requested.”
The Trump administration is apparently ready to do just that. Glenn Beck reports that, ”My understanding from the meetings that have occurred is that the Trump admin officials have indicated that the US would recognize a vote by the people of Alberta to become independent.”
The Trump admin is OPEN to recoginizing Alberta as an independent nation if it votes to secede from Canada in 2026, the lawyer leading the Alberta separatist referendum @ikwilson tells me:
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) October 2, 2025
"My understanding from the meetings that have occured is that the Trump admin officials… pic.twitter.com/3P4opCnbfS
Whatever Canada might have once been in the 20th century, that country is gone. The population of the Toronto metro area is now less than 50% Canadian-born, and Vancouver is little different. There is no expectation that immigrants assimilate or become culturally Canadian, because Canada’s own political leadership rejects the legitimacy of the country. As I have written before, “Canada’s strange political experiment is showing signs of collapse. The ruling class in Ottawa derides the very existence of their country — obsessed with ‘stolen land’ narratives and hostile to their own national culture. Their last remaining shred of civic unity is anti-Americanism.”
The prairie provinces have nominal political influence in the national government and they’re not anti-American. They’re treated like colonies or territories at best, and they deserve independence. I am glad to hear that recognition from the Trump administration is ready and waiting as soon as Alberta declares itself independent.
Alberta has every hallmark of an exploited colony.
— Rise Of Alberta (@RiseOfAlberta) October 21, 2025
Our wealth flows to a distant capital that bleeds us dry, offers nothing in return, and holds us back from achieving our true potential.
Alberta builds. Ottawa takes.
Independence is how Alberta moves forward. pic.twitter.com/2Awv9vbWsT
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
The Morning Report — 10/24/25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Here are just a couple of headlines and ledes that sadly paint a picture of who and what is in our midst and that one way or another we are going to have to deal with. Because unless a radical course change happens now, in the coming Soviet/Islamic "republic" of America, it is we who are going to be dealt with.
It certainly is welcome news that Eric Adams has decided to withdraw from the NYC mayor's race to try and stop what is likely the inevitable election of this Zohran Mamdani cancer. Not that I think it will since despite Sliwa having no shot at all, his presence will only split the anti-Mamdani vote. Not that I'm fond of Cuomo at all, the COVID mass murderer, but Mamdani is beyond a nightmare.
That famous curmudgeon H.L. Mencken said it well: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
While even I as a not altogether disinterested NYC expat nod regretably in agreement, what happens in NYC, or California and many other blue states and cities rarely stays isolated and tends to metastasize to other relatively healthy areas of the American body politic and republic, such as it is.
Texas Democrat Jolanda Jones Says She’s Going To ‘Wipe Out’ Every Republican And Slash Their Necks . . . Democrats are losing black supporters because they need to fight harder, which included slashing her political opponent’s neck and wiping out Republicans. Her rhetoric followed two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump and the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Media Outlet Affiliated With Radical Dearborn Preacher Calls on Muslims to Celebrate and Repeat Charlie Kirk's Assassination . . . Ahmad Musa Jabril, who served six and a half years in prison for conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and possession of firearms and ammunition, is a popular figure among ISIS terrorists
Well, terrorism is as terrorism does. And Mamdani aside, remember the Maine! That is the state of Maine that in theory should be light years from NYC culturally and politically.
And yet as CBD and I discussed on the latest episode of the podcast linked here and in the sidebar, as well as available on all the popular outlets, We have this Graham Platner Bernie Sanders endorsed candidate for Senator who beyond an SS "Totenkopf" tattoo on his chest
And is it coincidence that Bernie Sanders was enthusiastically supported by one James Hopkinson, who eight years go shot up a GOP congressional softball practice grievously wounding Steve Scalise. Sanders and also Dick Durbin have yet to answer for the extent of their relationship with Hodgkinson.
Maine Dem Graham Platner Belonged To Socialist Group Linked To ICE Attack, Tesla Bombings. . . The Senate candidate has come under fire for radical statements and a Nazi tattoo.
Meh, to the braindead masses who are only following orders, Trump, ICE, the National Guard and Charlie Kirk are an existential threat to their lives, "Our precious democracy" the planet and the universe.
Before Carlitos Ricardos Parias, an illegal alien TikTok influencer, was arrested in an alleged car ramming assault on federal agents in Los Angeles, he had received a ‘Certificate of Appreciation’ from Councilmember Curren D. Price Jr for his “tireless efforts to safeguard our neighborhoods from illegal raids”.Such close cooperation between illegal alien rioters and local Democrat officials first attracted national attention during what some have called ‘Newsom’s Riots’ when leftist groups funded by the governor and other top Dems set off violent confrontations in L.A.. While the riots died down once the National Guard took decisive action, the violence has continued on a smaller scale as the Parias arrest shows with local confrontations by activists backed by California Democrats.
The situation is much more blatant in Portland, Oregon, where the city council unanimously endorsed the ‘Protect Portland Initiative’. Mayor Keith Wilson declared that the move reaffirms that the city is a “proud sanctuary city in a sanctuary state” for illegal aliens. Criminals.
Amazing how the Democrat/Left media/propaganda complex yammers on and on about Insurrection. It's because they are experts in it, insofar as the latest round of political violence that has been ongoing really for close to 200 years is their continued effort to overthrow America as founded and seize absolute power for themselves.
Until my dying day and unto my last breath, the greatest threat to this nation was is and always will be Leftist/progressivism/socialism and its epicenter in the Democrat Party. So long as it exists and their acolytes in the legal system, the bureaucracy and most especially in Academia from whence our misery originated, we cannot survive for very much longer even if we elect MAGA candidates, or that is are permitted to do so, in every election for the next 50 years.
Have a great weekend!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
- The Senate candidate has come under fire for radical statements and a Nazi tattoo.
Maine Dem Graham Platner Belonged To Socialist Group Linked To ICE Attack, Tesla Bombings
- This is what an insurrection looks like.
Dem Officials are Incentivizing Anti-ICE Violence
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Daily Tech News 24 October 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Apple has lost a lawsuit in the UK alleging it overcharged commissions payable by developers, who passed half the excess cost on to their customers, which, this being Apple, was charged by Apple who then took their cut on it. (9to5Mac)
Penalties could amount to $2 billion.
- In other "that used to be a lot" news Anthropic has signed a deal with Google for cloud services said to be in the tens of billions of dollars. (CNBC)
Amazon, which has invested $8 billion in Anthropic, might be asking some questions at this point.
Continue reading
Thursday Overnight Open Thread - October 23, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Thursday ONT time has arrived. Thanks for stopping by. Content awaits for the one or two of you who pay attention to that stuff. Also - open thread, as always. Step on in!
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Lambada: The Forbidden Dog Dance Cafe
—Ace
Wolf and her pups
More horrors from Down Under. And I don't mean Kamala Harris's stank.
Another Australian adventure.
This elephant heard some humans saying "Akshually the hippo is the most dangerous animal in Africa" and got really steamed.
Owls are making a play to become America's third-favorite pet.
Cranky senior turtles having a spat.
Racing an emu.
Can you spot the party-crasher? (He's near the horizon, in about the middle of the screen for most shots.)
Continue reading
Quick Hits
—Ace
Senator John Kennedy: Putin invaded Ukraine because he saw Joe Biden was a demented, weak, mentally-incompetent fool who would never have the energy or force of personality to lead a resistance against him.
Former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline was so pronounced that it imperiled US foreign policy by providing an "invitation" to dictators like Russia's Vladimir Putin, Sen. John Kennedy told "Pod Force One.""I remember when Putin was lined up on the Ukrainian border, thinking of going in, weighing his option, watching President Biden have a short press conference and say, 'Well, if it's a small incursion, it might be OK,'" Kennedy (R-La.) told The Post's Miranda Devine on the latest episode, out Wednesday.
"I'm thinking, Holy Moses, that's an invitation," added the Louisiana Republican, reflecting on the January 2022 press conference, during which Biden went off the rails while responding to criticisms of his agenda raised by the White House press corps.
Every week, Post columnist Miranda Devine sits down for exclusive and candid conversations with the most influential disruptors in Washington. Subscribe here!"It depends on what [Russia] does," Biden said at the time when asked about Putin's plans. "It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do."
Kennedy recalled thinking at the time that the president's rhetoric "was dangerous."
"I think he just started rambling," the senator said, before rattling off other foreign policy flubs. "Afghanistan. [Biden] removed the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He removed the sanctions on Iran from selling their oil. Now, President Xi in China is working with Putin and Russia and the Ayatollah in Iran, they see all this.
"They're working together, and they saw the president, who was not clearly in grasp -- didn't have a clean grasp on all of his faculties. They saw the weakness, and they made their move. And that's how Ukraine started," he added.
Kennedy also claimed that he could see the Democrat's "neurodegenerative disease ... got worse" over time.
"I figured his staff was getting maybe four hours, five hours of work out in the day. He couldn't help it," The Republican claimed. "His staff cleverly hid it until they couldn't anymore. He had the debate in front of God and the country and the American people -- and the American people saw it, and they said, 'Look, this man is just, he's like my grandpa, you know, who I just took the car keys from.'"
Trump is now laying sanctions on China and India to get them to stop buying (and reselling) Russian oil. Biden never took this step. Trump is also authorizing Ukraine to use missiles against targets in Russia. Again, Biden never took this step.
But Trump's a foreign agent under the control of Putin, huh?
The unemployed madwoman Rosie O'Donnell demands a "blackout embargo" of the entire US economy.
The former co-host of The View posted on Instagram Wednesday, promising to launch "the largest economic blackout protest in U.S. history."...
In the post, O'Donnell calls for workers to refuse to go to work and stay home instead. She also asks for them not to attend any events and to stay away from restaurants. The message scrawled on the meme reads, "We're not asking. We're shutting it down."
...
Hundreds of Instagram users told O'Donnell exactly what they thought of her radical left-wing call to action. And it wasn't pretty.
One user said, "That's so nice of you to pay my rent and car note since my check will be short a week."Another user, fuming over her assault on restaurants, replied, "What did restaurants do to you? You wrote it 2x. Lots of mom and pop places will go under. Service staff survives on the tips. Many of those workers live pay check to pay check."
"This is great for people that are privileged enough to be able to do this," one commenter noted. "A lot of small biz will suffer with a week of no sales, myself included. Maybe not even be able to pay rent or employees with that much revenue loss."
I've come around to crediting Trump for his many wins. But I cannot forgive the broken promise he made to me in 2006, when he vowed he would send one of his attractive female friends to steal Rosie O'Donnell's lesbian girlfriend away from her.
"I'll send one of my friends to pick up her girlfriend and I think it would be very easy."
Still waiting, Donald. Still waiting.
Glenn Reynolds: "No Kings" isn't a pro-democracy movement. It's an overtly anti-democratic movement, made up of fading, aging former elites who are angry that the public no longer allows them to manage the American decline.
Watching the "No Kings" protests, a friend commented: "Democracy dies when the other side wins. Another rule they wouldn't want to have turned back on them."
That does seem to be the animating spirit not only of the various marches around the country, but of the entire anti-Trump resistance.
President Trump's crime isn't anything he's said, or done, or even believed (which, all too often, anti-Trump protesters can't cogently describe anyway).
It's that he won, and he represents the other team.
As Batya Ungar-Sargon put it: "The 'No Kings' rally isn't protesting Trump but rather the agenda the majority of America voted for. The Left isn't protesting a king but their fellow Americans. They aren't standing up for democracy -- they are protesting against it."
This is entirely correct. Trump isn't a king; he's a popularly elected president who won in something of a landslide, delivering exactly the policies that he promised the electorate.
His actions generally involve invoking various statutes passed into law by Congress over the past several decades.
His enforcement of immigration laws and deportation of criminal aliens is very popular.
His ending of DEI policies is also very popular. So is his slashing of federal payrolls, and his cuts to foreign aid.
Then there are his cuts to federal regulations. And his support for law enforcement.
In fact, Trump is a "king" -- or "dictator," as we're often told -- whose actual program seems to involve shrinking the government he heads. That's not the usual thing for autocrats.
I don't know why Trump insists on allowing the Chicom propaganda operation TikTok persist:
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Democrat Rep. Garcia and Senator Blumenthal to Launch "Master ICE Tracker" to Doxx Agents and Tee Them Up for Antifa Assassination Attempts
—Ace
Attacks on ICE are up 1000% and we just had an antifa-connected lunatic open fire on ICE agents in Texas, and before that, we had an antifa ambush of ICE agents.
And the violent communist revolutionaries of the Democrat-Antifa-Media Party want to increase those attacks. They want dead bodies.
Oversight Committee @GOPoversightOct 22
"Oversight" Democrats are UNHINGED.
They SHUT DOWN the government, leaving federal workers UNPAID, to give FREE healthcare to ILLEGALS.
Now they're making a "master" ICE tracker TARGETING enforcement actions.
This puts agents and public safety AT RISK.
This is weaponization.
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Maine Kampf: Bernie Sanders Doubles Down on Nazi Endorsement as Nazi's Former Campaign Manger Spills the Beans: Of Course He Knew It Was an SS Symbol
—Ace
"Maine Kampf," the fake Blue Collar candidate who has given guerilla shooting training to an antifa-related socialist revolutionary group and who has freely called himself a "communist" and bragged that he was an "Antifa Supersoldier," claims that he just randomly chose the Waffen Totenkopf (Death's Head) tattoo out of a book of designs at a tattoo parlor and never had any suspicion it might be a symbol worn by SS guards at concentration camps.
That's a lie, says a former acquaintance. He literally referred to it as "Mein Totenkopf."
according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the "death's head" symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II."He said, 'Oh, this is my Totenkopf,'" the former acquaintance told Jewish Insider recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. "He said it in a cutesy little way."
The exchange occurred in 2012 at Tune Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill where Platner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended The George Washington University on the G.I. bill, according to the former acquaintance. He would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, the former acquaintance recalled.
Platner gave varying accounts of the image during this time, saying at one point he was aware it was a Totenkopf when he had first gotten the tattoo several years prior and at another time claiming he had not known, according to the former acquaintance.
The mixed accounts indicate that Platner has at least long been aware of the symbols's connection to Nazism, even as he said in the podcast interview he was not familiar with any such association when he chose to get the tattoo.
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John Fetterman: Democrats' Constant Resort to Smearing Their Enemies as "Fascists" Shows That They've "Lost the Plot"
—Ace
John Fetterman's lump, "Lumpy Jack," makes a lot of sense.
Outspoken US Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said his party "lost the plot" -- and the White House -- when their then-leader Kamala Harris started calling President Trump a fascist."When Vice President Harris referred to President Trump as a 'fascist' ... I knew absolutely we lost the plot at that point," Fetterman told Fox News' "Hannity" on Wednesday night.
"If you call the president or someone like a fascist, you are effectively calling the people who are going to vote for him ... then they must be fascist too ... or they support fascism and those things. And that is just not true."
Senator John Fetterman on Fox News. 3
Sen. John Fetterman says he knew Democrats "lost the plot" after "Kamala Harris referred to President Trump as a 'fascist.'" Fox NewsFetterman laid into Harris after being asked why other Democrats have been echoing her by disturbingly comparing Trump to the likes of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
"I don't know why -- and I have always refused to say that," Fetterman said.
He also noted that spewing such hatred encourages violence -- such as Charlie Kirk's assassination."I refuse to do those kinds of things because that kind of extreme kinds of rhetoric makes it easier for those kinds of extreme kinds of actions -- even like what happened to poor Charlie Kirk," he said.
Communists have been smearing anyone standing in the way of Sovietization as "fascists" since, literally, the era of the actual Fascists. All the communists do -- and I include, obviously, the Democrats and Democrat Media -- is smear people to make them too afraid to stand up for themselves.
This has worked for far too long, but it's no longer working. If you smear selected people, many (dumb) people will figure, "Gee, if someone's calling that guy a fascist and a Nazi, maybe there's something to it."
But when you start smearing literally everyone as a fascist or Nazi, usually to vindicate some very petty and entirely personal cause, like getting out of a common traffic citation, people start to realize that this is just a dishonest tactic used to cow people into submission. Once you've smeared literally everyone as a fascist Nazi, then literally everyone knows that this is a stupid, brutish tactic used by communists to knuckle people under.
And that's where we are. This just doesn't work any longer.
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Federal Grand Jury Indicts Decarlos Brown Jr. for His Demonic Butchery of Iryna Zarutska, on Death-Penalty Eligible Charges
—Ace
Kill him. Straight to the gallows.
As Bizarro-World Obama might say: At some point, you've made enough people's lives worse.
A federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., the career criminal accused of brutally stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death aboard a Charlotte light-rail train in August. Brown faces federal charges of violence against a railroad carrier and a mass transportation system resulting in death -- offenses that make him eligible for the death penalty.
...
Brown, who has a criminal history stretching back nearly two decades, was arrested immediately after the attack and has remained in custody. Records show at least 14 prior arrests in North Carolina for assault, firearm possession, robbery, and larceny since 2007.
The killing of Zarutska -- who fled war-torn Ukraine in 2022 seeking safety in the United States -- sparked national outrage and bipartisan calls for justice. President Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, writing: "The ANIMAL who so violently killed the beautiful young lady from Ukraine, who came to America searching for peace and safety, should be given a 'Quick' (there is no doubt!) Trial, and only awarded THE DEATH PENALTY."
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Zarutska's murder has become a rallying cry in North Carolina for victims' rights advocates and those demanding tougher penalties on repeat offenders. Brown now faces both state and federal murder charges as prosecutors prepare a case that could bring the ultimate punishment for what authorities describe as one of Charlotte's most horrific and senseless crimes in years.
In the UK, 10,000 people have signed a petition to create women-only subway cars. Apparently women feel threatened by some men. Maryland Men, I'm assuming.
Here's how the Daily Mirror chose to illustrate the problem of men threatening women on public transit:
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