Hollywood: Shit or Garbage?

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The Odyssey is every bit as woke and gay as we were fearing.

First of all, it's based on a revisionist translation of Homer's text, by a radical feminist who used the tale to critique masculinity, "the patriarchy," and to center female voices.

You know, like the 3,000 year old war and adventure tale The Odyssey was always meant to be.

Jon Root @JonnyRoot_

3h

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey movie was doomed from the start...

It's rumored that the screenplay is based on a woke, feminist retelling of the story by Emily Wilson*

1. The language is dumbed down (modernized)
2. It downplays masculinity & male hierarchy.
3. It shames violence/war
4. Odysseus is emasculated & less of an inspirational hero. He's more "complicated" (vulnerable, arrogant, manipulative)
5. Woman are made more prominent & impactful at the expense of male characters.

This retelling infuses modern, liberal ideology into the story, turning the epic into political propaganda.

This movie will no doubt have elements of identity politics throughout.

*Nolan has mentioned Wilson's version in interviews.

This is why Odysseus' son says "My dad is coming home," too. She translates ancient Greek for (say it with me) The Modern Audience.

Nolan is not using the standard cinematic music for epics, the orchestral score, saying that the orchestra did not exist in ancient Greece and so the movie shouldn't have an orchestral score.

DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm

May 12

Christopher Nolan instructed Ludwig Göransson not to use an orchestra for 'THE ODYSSEY' score.

"It's not like the orchestra existed back then. It was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique."

So, you may think: Oh he's using period-accurate music for the film.* He just wants to make the most period-accurate epic of ancient mythic Greece ever made.

But then... Why this?

Christopher Nolan says he cast rapper Travis Scott in #TheOdyssey as a “nod“ to the tradition of oral poetry:

“I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.” (via Time)… pic.twitter.com/gvgwo20YHC

— Variety (@Variety) May 12, 2026

He plays "a bard." You know, those famous African bards of ancient Greece.

Did they have rap in ancient mythic Greece?

Two of his beancounting casting choices -- complying with the Academy's demand for precise levels of overrepresentation of actors from Marginalized Groups in any movie in order to be eligible for an Oscar -- are now confirmed.

Variety:

The all-star cast is rounded out by Tom Holland as Telemachus, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon.

Note that Nolan is selling his race-swap-crazy feminist take on The Odyssey as hyper-accurate.

Anyone who's been following Nolan's career knows the British filmmaker is painstaking when it comes to accuracy. On "Interstellar," he hired a team of scientists to get the physics to be as accurate as possible. He took a similar approach to "The Odyssey."

"For 'Interstellar,' you're looking at, 'What is the best speculation of the future?' When you're looking at the ancient past, it's actually the same thing," Nolan said. "'What is the best speculation and how can I use that to create a world?'"

He added, "Hopefully they'll enjoy the film, even if they don't agree with everything. We had a lot of scientists complain about 'Interstellar.' But you just don't want people to think that you took it on frivolously."

I care less about the race-swap of Athena. She's a "goddess" and I guess can take whatever form she likes. I don't see much wisdom in Zendaya's blank eyes, though.

But Lupito Nyong'o as Helen of Troy?

Helen of Troy was born in... Sparta.

Does Lupito Nyong'o have that classic Spartan look?

Is this the most accurate speculation about what the ancient Greek world looked like?

Lupita Nyong’o will play both Helen of Troy and her sister, Clytemnestra, in Christopher Nolan’s ‘THE ODYSSEY.’

(https://t.co/wG33R7UAQs) pic.twitter.com/Mn8e5sG1RA

— Pop Base (@PopBase) May 12, 2026

So he ostentatiously avoids orchestral score for the sake of "accuracy" and "realism and immersion," and then relocates Sparta to sub-Saharan Africa?

Why?

And of course it's now essentially confirmed that Achilles, greatest warrior in Greek legend, the ideal of hypermasculinity, will be played by Ellen "Elliot" Page because of course, this is a realistic and immersive retelling of the Odyssey which gets all the details right.

The claim he'll make is that she (and she is a she, even if she did lop off her tits) is playing the shade of Achilles, bedraggled and enfeebled in Hell, but... come on, Hell does not change your sex in any myth or religiion. Give me a break, this is casting to fulfill the Academy's race/gay/trans beancounting.

Industry-shill captured paper Variety is shocked and horrified that Elon Musk said two accurate things about the casting in this woke piece of shit:

Elon Musk is bashing Christopher Nolan for #TheOdyssey casting, alleging the director cast Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy because he “wants the awards.”

In additional X posts, Musk re-tweeted posts that mocked Elliot Page’s masculinity and claimed that Nolan was stomping all… pic.twitter.com/rhMoaZNCXM

— Variety (@Variety) May 13, 2026

Which one of those statements by Musk is a lie, Variety? Do you certify, with all of your "journalistic" authority, that Lupito Nyong'o is an accurate depiction of a Spartan woman so beautiful that she launched a thousand ships to re-take her, or that Ellen "Elliot" Page is a good representation of idealized Greek Heroic masculinity?

Or that Nolan is doing this to comport with Academy racial and sexual bean-counting?

FUUUUUUUCK this guy and FUUUUUUUCK this movie.

I'll watch Troy again. Sean Bean is my Odysseus.

* The first time I heard "well they didn't have orchestral music back then either" was from the writer/director of A Knight's Tale, explaining why it's no big deal that his 14th-century jousting movie contained music by David Bowie and Queen. It's no more anachronistic, he argued, that a medieval-set film should feature "Low Rider" and "We Will Rock You" than it would to feature an orchestral score.

I mean... okay whatever that was a good movie and those music inclusions were fun so I'll let it stand.

Close it up

CIA Whistleblower: Fauci Ordered the Cover-Up About the America-Funded Wuhan Lab's Creation of the Covid Virus

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_

NEW: Active CIA employee James Erdman testifies in the Senate that in August 2021, the intelligence community was prepared to determine that the COVID-19 pandemic likely began as a leak from a Chinese lab, but days later, that changed after Dr. Anthony Fauci "injected himself" into conversations and "significantly influenced" them.

Fox News @FoxNews

BREAKING: "Dr. Fauci's role in the cover-up was intentional."

CIA whistleblower James Erdman III lays out the "cover-up" of the COVID pandemic, claiming scientists and analysts were skewed from the start, all stemming from Dr. Anthony Fauci.

"Public health policy would have been very different had the American public been made aware that a virus from a lab in China was going to serve as the foundation for an emergency use authorization M-RNA products."

He testifies that once it became apparent that covid probably leaked from the Wuhan lab, Fauci "injected himself" into the process, gathering a carefully "curated" list of "experts" -- his personal cronies and people dependent on his grants to live -- to claim it was a naturally-evolved virus.

He also goes back to 2015, testifying that Fauci and his cronies rewrote the definition of "gain of function" to evade the ban on federal taxpayer funding for gain-of-function frankenvirus creation.

He also says that CIA scientists found that covid was likely manufactured in the lab -- but were "retaliated" against by "CIA managers" for not going along with the Fauci lie.

And they did so at the behest of Anthony Fauci.

Senator Rand Paul @SenRandPaul

4h

🚨 CIA Whistleblower reveals that despite a majority of CIA scientists concluding COVID leaked from a lab in Wuhan, Anthony Fauci was able to convince high-ranking intel officials to change the assessment from a lab leak to neutral.

Gunther Eagleman™ @GuntherEagleman

4h

🚨 BOOM. Career CIA Operations Officer just testified under oath: The COVID lab leak was a deliberate COVER-UP, and Dr. Fauci was in the middle of it.

"I am a career CIA Operations officer... The Intelligence Community's actions resulted in a cover-up."

- IC leaders downplayed the lab leak on purpose.

- Fauci intentionally rigged the process by stacking the deck with his conflicted buddies, the same "Proximal Origin" clowns who pushed the natural origin lie.

- They knew it came from Wuhan. They hid it.

- That lie was used to ram through emergency use mandates on experimental shots while crushing anyone who told the truth.

Millions of lives destroyed. Trillions wasted. Small businesses gutted. Kids masked and isolated. All because the "experts" and deep state didn't want to admit China cooked this thing up and Fauci helped cover their rear end.

I think Fauci was more concerned the public would find out that he rigged the fake "gain of function" definition so that he could send taxpayer money to his buddy Peter Daszack with the understanding that Daszack would then immediately sub-grant that money to Wuhan.

He was protecting his own role in the engineered mass-murder, not China's. I mean, yes, he was protecting China too, but China was a collateral beneficiary.

Erdman worked for the D.I.G., the Director's Initiatives Group.

The CIA spied on this group, bugging their phones and computers, because they were exposing the truth of Fauci's, and the CIA's, cover up of their active and central role in global mass murder.

Catherine Herridge @C__Herridge

58m

As early as February, I began receiving credible reporting that @DNIGabbard
's investigative team was being track and communications collected because their work was revealing "uncomfortable facts."

Today, James Erdman alleged to Congress the CIA illegally spied on the computer and phones belonging to the Director's Initiatives Group, along with their investigations and contact with whistleblowers.

@CIASpox said, "The Committee acted in bad faith by subpoenaing an Agency officer for testimony today without notifying CIA, despite having already obtained closed-door testimony from the individual previously. The witness testifying today is not appearing as a whistleblower in pursuit of the truth, but instead in response to the subpoena issued by Chairman Paul. This proceeding amounts to nothing more than dishonest political theater masquerading as a congressional hearing. As the CIA has already assessed, COVID-19 most likely originated from a lab leak, and efforts to undermine that conclusion are disingenuous."

They're still covering up. People are wondering how it is that a CIA under Trump's control is still pumping out this self-serving cover-up garbage.

Schmoll: Credibly-Accused Sexual Deviant Thomas Massie Trails His Trump-Backed Primary Opponent

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The vote -- the reckoning -- is this coming Tuesday.

If these poll results are accurate, Thomas Massie will be spending more time with his weird sex fetishes like the Mexican Wheelbarrow, the Saigon Starfish, and the spectacular but dangerous Triple Lindy.

BTW, Elric the Blade said he didn't like pushing this kind of unevidenced accusation. But I'd point out that Thomas Massie has been doing nothing but accusing Trump, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, of participating in the Epstein sex scandals and covering them up.

You play the dirty game, then you play by the rules of the dirty game. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

But that said: This poll was conducted before those allegations were "re-surfaced" on the internet.

Quantus Insights @QuantusInsights

NEW QUANTUS INSIGHTS POLL | May 11--12, 2026

Kentucky's CD4 Republican primary has become one of the most closely watched House primaries in the country, and our latest survey finds Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein leading Rep. Thomas Massie.

📊 Kentucky CD4 GOP Primary
🔴 Ed Gallrein: 48.3%
🔴 Thomas Massie: 43.1%
⚪️ Undecided: 7.6%
----------------------------------------------------
With leaners included, Gallrein expands his advantage.

📊 Firm + Leaners
🔴 Ed Gallrein: 52.8%
🔴 Thomas Massie: 45.1%
⚪️ Still undecided: 2.1%
----------------------------------------------------
📈 Leaner Movement
Among voters who were not completely sure yet:
🔴 Lean toward Ed Gallrein: 52.4%
🔴 Lean toward Thomas Massie: 23.4%
⚪️ Still completely undecided: 24.1%

Gallrein is winning the leaner pool by more than two-to-one, moving him above 50% when firm support and leaners are combined.
----------------------------------------------------
📊 Key Takeaway
Massie retains a durable base of support, but Gallrein leads on the initial ballot and strengthens his position once leaners are allocated.
In a nationalized Republican primary shaped by Trump's endorsement, outside spending, and Massie's independent brand, Gallrein enters the final stretch with the advantage.

In more schmolling news: Spencer Pratt is performing pretty well in the LA mayoral race. He's just a scotch behind the communist catastrophe Mayor Karen.

Political Polls @PpollingNumbers

New - Mayor poll - Los Angeles

🔵 Bass 30%
🔴 Pratt 22%
🔵 Raman 19%

Emerson #A - LV - 5/10

I'll bet I know whose supporters are most energized.

As you probably saw, a leftwing union released an "anti" Pratt ad accusing him, if you can believe this, of wanting the homeless to either clean up their acts or get out, of wanting to hire more police than social workers (!!!), and of saying that maybe government workers unions shouldn't have all the power in LA.

The ad was so accidentally pro-Pratt that many suspected it was a false flag or parody, but it was real.

Pratt's supporters are pumping out parodies of that real ad (which itself seemed like a parody), accusing Pratt of not wanting LA to burn to the ground, and showing Mayor Karen celebrating her "accomplishments."

Appeals Court Rules That Trump Doesn't Have to Pay Lunatic Fantasist E. Jean Carroll for the "Defamation" of Continuing to Deny This Vicious Fruitloop's Sex Fantasy About Him

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Not only was the original allegation of "rape" insane and ripped off straight from an episode of Law & Order: SVU -- with this lunatic attention-whore unable to even say when the "rape" occurred more specifically than "in the nineties" -- but a subsequent New York jury also decided it was "defamation" when Trump later insisted upon his innocence.

Note that this rule has never been applied to anyone except Donald Trump. Any time a man proclaims his innocence following an adverse court ruling, someone can sue that man for "defamation" for denying his or her story.

And note that every instance of a false claim is a fresh defamation case -- so you can just keep suing an innocent man forever, for saying he's innocent.

This is government-compelled speech of the worst kind: When a partisan jury wrongly finds you culpable, not only do you have to pay the exorbitant penalty they impose on you for partisan bullshit reasons, but you are then compelled by government action to admit the lie of your guilt, forever, anytime someone asks you about it.

An Appeals Court has agreed with Trump that he should not have to pay the insane jackpot $83 million judgment until the Supreme Court rules on this preposterous new Trump-Only Law.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals this week temporarily blocked an $83 million dollar payment that President Donald Trump owed to E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case while the Supreme Court mulls intervening.

The court order granted Trump's request for a stay, provided he increase his bond by nearly $7.5 million.

Carroll, in 2019, accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman's dressing room some time in the 1990s. She brought separate legal claims for defamation over his denials while in office and after leaving.

Separate -- every time he denies this floridly insane woman's preposterous story, it's a fresh defamation claim.

Tennessee Strips Democrat Racial Insurrectionists of Their Committee Seats

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Sean Davis @seanmdav

BREAKING: Notice has just been given to Democrats in the Tennessee House that all members of the Democrat Caucus are being removed from all standing committees and subcommittees as a result of their behavior in the statehouse during the redistricting debates last week, which included setting fires inside the Capitol and attacking law enforcement.

In the state of Tennessee, political terrorism will not be tolerated. National Republicans take note that this is how you exercise power.

They want a civil war.

The Republican speaker of Tennessee's House of Representatives on Tuesday stripped Democratic lawmakers of all committee assignments as punishment for their role in boisterous ‌protests during last week's special session on redistricting.

The leftwing media -- which told us that some people milling through Congress was an insurrection that threatened the republic -- calls Democrat legislators' attempt to shut down the legislature by letting their activist goons menace the Republican majority "boisterous."

Boisterous.

Not a threat, not an insurrection.

Just Democrats will be Democrats. No big deal.

...

The House floor vote in Nashville was met with raucous protests ‌by activists yelling from the balcony ⁠of the visitors' gallery and from Black lawmakers who stood at the front of the chamber linking arms in prayer as protesters sounded air horns and chanted ⁠slogans against the new map.

Not threatening. Not "racially charged."

"Raucous."

...

In a letter to Tennessee's House ​Democratic ​leader Karen Camper, the speaker, Cameron Sexton, said House ​Democrats were being removed from all standing ‌committees and subcommittees as discipline for "instigating and encouraging" disruptions and "disorder on the House floor" during last Thursday's vote.

As examples, he cited lawmakers for "interlocking arms in the well of the House", for "blocking aisles on the House floor" and for using "prohibited props and noisemakers."

Of the 99 seats in the Tennessee House, Republicans hold 75 and Democrats 24.

At least one House Democrat, Representative Justin Jones, posted online a copy of the individual ‌letter he received serving notice of his committee and subcommittee ​removals, referring any questions to Camper.

"This is the same pattern ​of racial discrimination and authoritarian abuse we ​have come to expect," Jones, who is Black and represents Nashville, said on ‌social media.

Goodbye, Malcolm Gay Sex.

Wednesday Morning Rant

—Joe Mannix

One of the reasons for Trump's continued support among many is - as it has been for more than decade now - the fact that he is not like the Western norm. The same thing that strikes rage and terror into the establishment political class (and especially its hangers-on) is the same reason why Trump continues to do well. The "norm" is not desirable anymore, and hasn't been for some time now. The existence of Trump and his agenda also serves, day in and day out, as a larger-than-life foil. As the wider West zigs, he and his team zags.

It is, perhaps, immigration where this is most obvious. Seeing his approach as compared with the rest of the hateful and suicidal West is very much a "same planet, different worlds" - or maybe "same universe, different realities" scenario. It is hard to find a more comprehensive and total example of "Trump's way vs. everyone else's." It is not that everyone else is right, but that Trump alone has been willing to use the all-powerful word: "no." That is shameful for the rest of the world.

Any perusal of global headlines will make the opposite approaches obvious.

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Rainmaking among the Mandan
George Catlin

The Morning Report — 5/ 13/26

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. As we discussed with disgust yesterday, after getting their naked power grab of a gerrymander scheme shot down by the Virginia State Supreme Court, the reaction was surprisingly mellow for the Leftists - move to sack the entire bench, as opposed to the typical Democrat reaction which would be to lynch the Jurists who dared oppose them. All seriousness aside, among the most execrable Leftists around who has done more in service of Anti-Americanism over the course of his miserable existence is one Marc Elias:

As most others of his ilk continue to rub garlic on their bullets, here Elias is with his response:

The party considered all kinds of responses — including a scheme to force the retirement of every sitting justice on the Virginia Supreme Court. That's a perfectly normal reaction from a political party that claims they respect democratic norms, right?

But they weren’t done.

Marc Elias, the left's go-to power lawyer for all things election-related, took the rhetoric to a genuinely alarming place. Elias responded to the ruling by invoking language from the Virginia Constitution itself. Not to make a legal argument, but to suggest that the current Virginia government has lost its legitimacy and therefore can and should be abolished.

I assure you that I am not joking.

And no they are NOT joking either, as the past 70-200 years have shown!!!

Have a good day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Marc Elias, the left's go-to power lawyer for all things election-related, took the rhetoric to a genuinely alarming place. Elias responded to the ruling by invoking language from the Virginia Constitution itself. Not to make a legal argument, but to suggest that the current Virginia government has lost its legitimacy and therefore can and should be abolished. I assure you that I am not joking.
  Democrats Now Want to ABOLISH the Virginia Government

Daily Tech News 13 May 2026

—Pixy Misa

• Google's Googlebook is the company's answer to Google's Chromebook. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's a laptop running Android.
  
  Which raises the question: Why didn't the Chromebook run Android in the first place?
  
  There are no specs or indeed any hardware information at all; that will be left to Google's partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo.
  
  It might potentially be a good time to be launching a laptop that doesn't need 32GB of RAM to get out of bed - as indicated by the runaway success of Apple's MacBook Neo. And there's a slim chance that at least one of the partner companies won't screw things up.

Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - May 12, 2026 [Doof]

—Open Blogger

From Amazing Nature

Greetings Hordelings! The Tuesday ONT is here, and so are you. Open thread, as always. Come on in!

***

Tuesday night humor

While golfing, a guy accidentally overturns his golf cart in a tremendous crash.

A very attractive female golfer, who lives in a townhome overlooking the golf course, hears the crash and calls out, "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, thanks," says the guy, as he pulls himself from the twisted golf cart wreck.

She says, "Come up to my home, you can recover for a bit, and I'll help you with the golf cart up later."

Even being a bit dizzy, the guy couldn’t help but notice that her bathrobe was partially open, revealing what appeared to be an amazing figure.

"That's mighty nice of you," he answers, "but I really don't think my wife would approve"

"Oh, come on now." she insists.

She was so pretty, so very persuasive, and the guy was so relatively dazed!

"Well okay, but I'm quite sure my wife won't be happy with me"

After a couple of gin and tonics, he thanks her and says, "I feel a lot better, and know that my wife is going to be really upset, so I'd best leave now."

"Don't be silly!" she said with a coquettish smile, letting her robe fall even slightly more open. "Stay for a while. She won't know a thing, we can have another drink” then she asks, by the way, “where is she, anyway?"

The guy replies, "Probably still under the cart, if I were to bet"

-----

Accuracy level is high

The mental illness of Democrats explained pic.twitter.com/vwyi9odR6M

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) May 8, 2026

-----

Definitely not a sandwich

How to cook dozens of hotdogs at once without a grill.

Follow me for more life hacks. pic.twitter.com/vJnxzO0tdU

— Planet Of Memes (@PlanetOfMemes) May 12, 2026

-----

***

DJ Doof - SDL (Stuff Doof Likes) Edition

***

Weekly commenter stats for week of 05-10-2026

AoSHQ Commenter Statistics:
Number of posts: 84
Number of comments: 20454
Number of unique hashes: 1605

Top 10 commenters:
1 [490 comments] 'Sponge - F*ck Cancer' [69.62 posts/day]
2 [477 comments] 'TheJamesMadison, discovering British horror with Hammer Films'
3 [344 comments] 'ShainS '
4 [297 comments] '...'
5 [275 comments] 'Bulg'
6 [274 comments] 'whig'
7 [261 comments] 'FenelonSpoke'
8 [242 comments] 'rickb223 '
9 [239 comments] '18-1'
10 [238 comments] 'Smell the Glove'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [132 names] 'Quarter Twenty ' [18.75 unique names/day]
2 [116 names] 'Some off the cuff death metal lyrics'
3 [113 names] 'Homely Troll'
4 [43 names] 'pookysgirl, wrestling Lil Pooky for the keyboard'
5 [41 names] 'Count de Monet'
6 [38 names] 'mikeski'
7 [35 names] 'Duncanthrax'
8 [33 names] 'mindful webworker - mountaining'
9 [29 names] 'mindful webworker - gosh darn'
10 [28 names] 'fd'

***

Tonight's ONT brought to you by the Macho Man

***

An effort ONT from Doof Enterprises, LLC, all rights reserved. As if you'd want the rights anyway!

Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me.

Close it up

Walking on Air Cafe

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Naples
by qs.street

"The highest-jumping golden retriever in Ontario!"

Dealing with spam callers, brutally.

I don't remember "The Pink Project" at all.

Baby carriage bicycle side-car.

A fool and his vehicle are soon parted.

The kittens haven't been fed in hours so they are starving and also maniacs.

Emotional support dog in "Aggressive Support" mode.

Puppy coming in for a landing.

A One Moment Mystery. Can you solve it in one moment?

Obama's Oxygen Thief HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, Is Currently the Leading Democrat for California Governor and Cannot Answer Questions About His Record Without Begging for Mercy

—Disinformation Expert Ace

First, he wasn't able to answer questions about the 85,000 migrant children he lost while supposedly safeguarding them in the Biden Open Borders Regime.

He claims they weren't "lost" at all. Merely, that when their "sponsors" were contacted to check up on the health and safety of the children, the sponsors didn't respond.

So not lost, exactly! We just placed them with extremely unreliable drifters with no fixed abode. They were not lost, the people we trusted them with just won't tell us where they are.

He also claims that it's not his fault that no one can find these children because they went missing -- or merely incommunicado, as he insists -- after the period of "sponsorship" by shiftless drifters.

See, they were trafficked later.

When the reporter points out that children as young as 14 wound up, get this, working as near-slave labor in slaughterhouses and with heavy machinery, he just sulks. It's not fair to demand accountability from a Democrat.

South Carolina Dixiecrats Tank Effort to Gain a Congressional Seat, Voting With the Declared Democrats to Kill It

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Indiana redux.

VoteHub @VoteHub

12m

The South Carolina Senate has rejected extending the legislative session for redistricting.

Unless Gov. McMaster calls a special session, the current congressional map, including Rep. Clyburn’s Democratic-leaning district, will remain in place.

Many South Carolina "Republicans" remain old south Democrats.

And they just showed that once again.

A group of South Carolina Republican state senators broke with their party to thwart a redistricting effort that would eliminate the Palmetto State's sole Democratic district.

Though the measure received 29 votes in favor and a mere 17 against, it did not clear the threshold for passage. State Sens. Sean Bennett, Chip Campsen, Tom Davis, Greg Hembree, and Shane Massey joined Democrats in opposing the measure.

The failure of the Tuesday vote significantly narrows the pathway for state lawmakers to redistrict in time for the midterms, though the governor could call a special session of the legislature.

One of the RINOs admitted he just didn't like Republicans having so much power and claims the "number one" ambition of the "founders" was to "diffuse" power.

Matt Rice @matt____rice

1h

As of now, three Republican South Carolina state senators are opposed to redistricting. It takes 4 to block the resolution allowing lawmakers to proceed with redistricting.

- Massey
- Rankin
- Campsen

Campsen says the founders' "number one" principle was to "diffuse" political power among the states.

Look at the RINOs spam out completely-insincere excuses for why they remain loyal Democrats:

Adam Morgan @RepAdamMorgan

🚨Senator Massey claims redistricting is a threat to state sovereignty.

Claims @realDonaldTrump is abusing his power and overreaching into SC!

Insane that a Republican would say this. And a blatant lie.

The President only recently weighed into the debate and by Massey's own admissions didn't unduly pressure.

The movement to redistrict originated from grassroots South Carolina conservatives!
Legislators in the @SCFreedomCaucus filed to bill to redistrict in January! Grassroots leaders like @ImFiredUp2 and myself, conservative media like @CharlieOnAir and @TaraServatius, and statewide figures like @RalphNorman have been relentless in pushing to fix this unconstitutional district for months especially since the SCOTUS ruling.

Make no mistake--South Carolinians are the ones demanding to follow the constitution and right this wrong.

And "Republican" senators spouting Clyburn's talking points and attacking their constituents and President Trump need to be thrown out of office.

Redistrict NOW!

Trump wanted you to do this so this is a threat to "state sovereignty" ? How about your own voters demanding it? Are they a threat to "state sovereignty" too?

This guy also lied and claimed he was blocking it to help Republicans win seats. He claimed, based on nothing, that if you changed the districts Democrats would still win one and could even win an extra seat.

But a tweet I linked earlier showed that the new districts would all have commanding advantages in GOP voters, ranging from +11 to +26.

In other words, he's lying, and he can't give his real reason, which is that he is, was, and always will be a dirty Dixiecrat loyal to the Democrat Party. It just became too hard to win in SC as an open Democrat.

Kristan Hawkins @KristanHawkins

Unacceptable.

South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey (@shanemassey) is once again standing in the way of conservative priorities by trying to block redistricting legislation, just like he's spent this year blocking @SFLAction backed pro-life legislation from even being brought up for a vote.

@POTUS has made it clear that Republicans must fight back from the Left's power grab and redistricting efforts.

It's time for Sen. Massey to stop obstructing, listen to the people of South Carolina, protect Congress from a Leftist takeover that wants to stack the Supreme Court and legalize taxpayer-funded abortions up until birth, and stand with the pro-life movement instead of against it.

Now I think they needed a supermajority to extend the legislative session, but if the governor calls a special session, a majority will suffice. I think.

New Foreign Pirate Pillaging Operation Uncovered: 10,000 Foreign Students "Working" at Fraudulent Jobs Created by Fraudulent "Employers"

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Why the hell would we be paying foreign students to work, anyway? Why on earth would we be subsidizing foreigners to come here?

Pay full freight or go home. Better yet, go home whether you're paying full freight or not.

Correction: I assumed the taxpayers were paying the salaries of these fake "workers." But I haven't seen anyone say that and now believe this is simply a scheme to remain in the country beyond the limits of one's student visa.

I'll try to find out if government money is being used to pay these "workers," but for now, I'm rewriting the post to remove my claims about that.

The fraud concerns a program called Optional Practical Training, which involves foreign students "working" in "jobs" allegedly related to the fields they're training for.

Google's AI digest:

Optional Practical Training (OPT) is temporary work authorization for F-1 visa students in the U.S. to gain hands-on experience directly related to their major field of study.

It typically offers 12 months of employment, either pre- or post-completion of studies, with a 24-month extension available for STEM majors.

So if there's a fraudulent student "worker," he gets 12 months of extra time in the US or possibly 36 months if he's learning how to build bombs for terrorist organizations, or how to smuggle Chinese bioweapon specimens into the US. I assume that's what STEM means in this situation.

Key Aspects of Optional Practical TrainingTypes of OPT: Pre-completion (before graduation, part-time or full-time) and Post-completion (after graduation, full-time at least 20 hours per week).

Eligibility: Must be a full-time student for at least one academic year in an SEVP-certified institution, not studying English as a Second Language (ESL), and the job must directly relate to the major.

Authorization: Students must apply to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD).

Application Timing: Generally 90 days prior to the program end date and up to 60 days after.

STEM Extension: Eligible STEM students can extend their post-completion OPT by 24 months, for a total of 36 months.

Employment Requirements: Employment must be in the field of study; for post-completion OPT, unemployment is limited.

The entire scheme seems built to defraud the American voter and reportedly that's exactly what it's being used for.

Jennie Taer @JennieSTaer

3h

ICE just dropped a major fraud bombshell involving 10,000 foreign students "who claim to be working for highly suspect employers" as part of the federal government's Operational Practical Training program.

Here's what they found...

-Empty buildings and locked doors where hundreds of foreign students are supposed to be working

-Multiple employers claiming the same address, where none of them actually have a lease

-Small homes listed as worksites for hundreds of foreign students, where no employees are present. And when someone answers the door, they claim to have no knowledge of the business.

-Some of the employers claim to have offshore HR personnel

-Employers having tax liens, civil law suit collections and breaches of contract

And get this: Even where the taxpayers are paying for foreign students to do real work, guess who's getting the benefit of that taxpayer-paid work?

Tech monoplists, of course!

hernando arce @hernandoarce

New: Over the last 20 years, we're looking at roughly 2.5 million OPT and STEM OPT authorizations combined.

OPT stands for Optional Practical Training. It's a temporary work permission that lets international students in the U.S. work off-campus in jobs related to their major -- up to 12 months normally, and an extra 24 months for STEM degrees, so up to three years total. This is another fraudulent abused program running rampant in America.

Amazon tops the list with over 10,000 students, followed by University of California, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. Tech giants and universities dominate the top spots. Our government has sold us out to big tech for decades.

ICE has just announced a jaw-dropping fraud bust, saying 10,000 FOREIGN students are involved in the federal government's Optional Practical Training.

Barefoot Student @BarefootStudent

2h

ICE Director Todd Lyons describes the fraud related to the 24-month Optional Practical Training extension for F-1 students

"We've encountered cases involving espionage, biological threats, intellectual property theft, visa, and employment fraud, and even scams targeting elderly Americans, all perpetrated by individuals abusing their status as students."

"The scope and severity of these crimes cannot be overstated."

@EricLDaugh (Eric Daugherty):

...

There are EMPTY BUILDINGS where HUNDREDS of students should be "working" as part of their ability to be in America -- run by foreign-linked groups that send money out of the country!

Locked doors, hundreds of students sharing the SAME ADDRESS, and "employers" sharing the same unleased addresses

There is a widespread "phantom employee" fraud going on. This is insane.

Many of the so-called "employers" have major red flags, such as facing lawsuits, no employment records, offshore payroll claims, and suspicious INTERNATIONAL MONEY flows

"HSI agents have visited problematic OPT employer work sites in Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida."

"Foreign students themselves are entering false addresses and employer names into the student and exchange visitor information system."

"But we are uncovering evidence of organized fraud that spans national and international borders. This is not accidental. It is deliberate, coordinated, and criminal."

"To give you an example, one employer we visited claimed to employ only three foreign students through OPT, while our records show over 500 foreign students claiming to work there."

"The company's representatives were unable to answer basic questions about the business and deferred HR managers in India."

"OPT employers are required to directly train foreign students, but we've seen multiple examples of alleged employers claiming that all management is overseas in India."

"We've also discovered multiple state networks which are large networks of alleged employers claiming to train thousands of foreign students in OPT, then farming them out to unreported third party employers, making oversight nearly impossible and raising serious national security issues."

Shock: Cuck of the Century Thomas Massie Claimed to be Sexual Deviant by Ex-GF, She Claims He Offered $5000 to Keep Quiet About His Proclivities

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Maybe Massie orchestrated this leak himself. As you might have heard, the humiliation is the kink.

Allegedly he DM'd her two months after his wife died and began a sexual relationship shortly after that.

Is this true? Who knows.

What are the deviant sex acts Massie allegedly demanded that made her feel "uncomfortable"? No idea, she doesn't say.

Spoiler alert, it's usually about poop.

J @JayTC53

NEW 🚨 THOMAS MASSIE FILES

Cynthia West EX GIRLFRIEND of Thomas Massie exposes him as a sexual deviant & bribed her with $5,000 cash to stay silent.

Massie DM'd her on X in August of 2024 not even 2 months after his wife of 31 years passed away in June 2024.

Massie ended up getting her a congressional staffer job in D.C. Massie pressured her to be involved in deviant sexual behavior with him. Cynthia rejected feeling extremely pressured and uncomfortable.

When she rejected, Thomas Massie had her fired, bribed her & threatened her not to file a complaint.

A complaint was filed in fall of 2025. The same time period when Thomas Massie remarried to a different staffer 20 years younger than Massie.

The man who claimed screamed the loudest about "Transparency for Epstein" turned out to be a scumbag himself.

PatriotDadEV2.0 @Patriotdadev77

Please listen to every word of this woman's testimony. She alledges she was in a romantic relationship with Thomas Massie within 2 months of his wife's passing. According to her story:

Thomas Massie aggressively pursued her, pressured her to leave her job to follow him to Washington DC.

She alledges Massie secured a job for her with one of his collegues, Rep Victoria Sparks (R-IN), to bring her to DC with him.

She alledges Massie attempted to pursuade her to participate in behavior she was uncomfortable with and became very angry when she refused.

After breaking off the relationship and pursuing ethics complaints against him, are was retaliated against and fired.

She claims Massie became very angry when he learned of her ethics comparing, and attempted to buy her silence with a $5000 bribe with his untraceable proceeds from the sale of his livestock kept in cash.

She claims there is a pending workplace retaliation claim with a settlement of $60k from Congress she is refusing due to the requirement that an NDA would need to be signed.

Thomas Massie, Victoria Sparks, and House Leadership must be forced to respond to these allegations.

Trump Plans to Suspend Federal Gas Tax During Iran Squeeze

—Disinformation Expert Ace

The disgraceful Washington Post:

President Donald Trump has proposed pausing the federal gas tax as a form of relief for American consumers as energy prices soar as a result of the war in Iran.

The move -- which requires congressional approval to pass -- would mark the latest in a string of government interventions to address fallout from the war, which is weighing on Trump's popularity.

Since the war began in late February, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, an international benchmark, has skyrocketed from about $70 to more than $107. U.S. gas prices -- now an average of $4.50 a gallon -- have reached levels not seen since 2022 and contributed to Trump's falling approval ratings ahead of the November midterms.

Oh gas prices have risen to Biden levels? Weird because you insisted at the time that gas prices weren't that bad and might even be a good thing because high gas prices discourages driving and reduces the emission of CO2, The Invisible Killer.

But now gas prices are bad. I wonder what might have flipped this particular switch.

Congress is warming to the proposal.

With the average price for regular gasoline topping $4.50 per gallon -- up by more than $1 compared to a year ago -- officials and lawmakers are turning bullish on an idea many have been cool on.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced plans to introduce a bill on social media Monday. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) followed up with her own message soon after.

"American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American people," Luna wrote on X.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) has opposed suspending the 18 cent gasoline tax, which helps fund highways. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who has jurisdiction over the issue, said recently he wasn't considering it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has been similarly skeptical. "I don't know that the federal gas tax is going to lower [gas prices] by a lot," Thune said earlier this year.

Of course Thune's against it.

But momentum appears to be shifting in favor of the idea. The question is whether pressure from the White House will be enough to convince lawmakers to join the push.

They should consider the example Trump made of the Indiana RINOs.

Trump has other plans to rein in oil prices -- the DOE will begin "loaning out" barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which will be repaid later with more barrels.

This should result in a short-term amelioration of the price of oil, plus a slight rebuilding of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve later.

And note this isn't a Biden Election Year Lie where no oil will actually be returned to the SPR, because the loaned oil must be repaid in oil, plus "interest rate" oil on top of that.

The Trump administration announced Monday it would loan out 53.3 million barrels of oil from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to energy companies -- an attempt to bring down skyrocketing oil prices as a result of the U.S. war with Iran.

In March, the U.S. agreed to release 172 million barrels from the SPR as part of an internationally coordinated release of 400 million barrels in a similar attempt to lower the high oil prices that have been passed along to consumers in the forms of high gas prices and home heating costs.

Nine companies, including Exxon and Marathon Petroleum Company borrowed 58% of the 92.5 million barrels of the 92.5 million barrels the Department of Energy had offered to loan out of the nation's stockpiles, Reuters reported.

Oil exchanges, as they are called, allow the DOE to loan out oil to companies who later pay back to the oil with extra barrels, which functions like interest on a loan.

Of the 172 million barrels of oil slated for release from the SPR, the DOE had previously loaned out 80 million barrels. The U.S. petroleum stockpiles are stored in 62 salt caverns located at four sites on the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. These caverns are 200 feet wide and over 2,500 feet deep in the ground. The caverns are known within the industry as "Kamala Harris's Rotten Vagina."

Democrat Whistleblower Claims that Adam Schiff Ordered His Staff to Illegally Leak Classified Information In Order to Rig an Indictment Against Trump

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Adam Schiff, I assume, has been quizzed about this before.

And I assume he lied to federal investigators when he was asked.

That's obstruction of justice.

Tony Seruga @TonySeruga

3h

🚨 ADAM SCHIFF'S FELONY CONFESSED BY HIS OWN DEMOCRATIC STAFF: Leaked Classified Secrets to Frame Trump -- 10+ Years in Prison or Just Another Swamp Pass?

Declassified FBI 302s -- released by Director Kash Patel -- expose a Democratic whistleblower (a 10+ year House Intelligence Committee veteran) who warned agents in 2017 and 2023: then-Rep. Schiff convened staff and explicitly authorized leaks of classified intelligence derogatory to President Trump. The explicit aim? To manufacture material "to indict" a sitting President during the now-discredited Russiagate probe.

This was no rogue staffer. It was the ranking member -- later chairman -- of the very committee entrusted with our nation's most sensitive secrets, plotting in open conference to weaponize them against the Executive Branch. A fellow Democrat called it "illegal, unethical, and treasonous."

Professor Jonathan Turley captured the constitutional horror: "a truly chilling account... perfectly moronic to commit such a felony with a planning conference meeting with staff." Under 18 U.S.C. § 798, unauthorized disclosure of classified information carries up to 10 years or more per count. "Someone," Turley rightly declared, "is a felon."

The Framers designed the Intelligence Committee to defend the Republic from foreign threats and domestic overreach -- not to serve as a partisan Star Chamber. Schiff's alleged scheme was not oversight; it was subversion, the precise factional cancer the Constitution was written to excise. While he sermonized about "threats to democracy," he allegedly orchestrated one from within its most sensitive chamber.

President Trump has torn back the curtain. The rule of law is not optional. Equal justice is not partisan. The same statutes that bind the rest of us must now bind the self-anointed high priest of the Russia hoax.

America is watching. History is recording. Accountability cannot wait.

This researcher says that Eric Swalwell was part of the illegal leaking conspiracy as well:

South Carolina's Legislature Will Delete C***s***er Jim Clyburn's Seat Tomorrow; Alabama Now Free to Eliminate One of Its Two Democrat Districts

—Disinformation Expert Ace

Alabama has two majority-minority districts due to unconstitutional racist and Democrat Protection Racket mandates.

The Supreme Court just vacated a lower court ruling mandating the racially rigged districts, and Alabama will swiftly move to eliminate one of them.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to implement a new race-neutral congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms on Monday.

In a 6-3 order, the high court vacated a series of lower court rulings that effectively resulted in the state's use of a congressional map that includes two majority-minority districts. As The Federalist reported, such affirmative action districts were historically carved out under past interpretations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to Democrats' benefit.

...

Responding to Monday's decision, Allen said in a statement that Alabama's May 19 primary election "will proceed as scheduled," and that his office "will remain in close contact with the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office as this situation continues developing."

...

Writing for the dissent, Sotomayor argued that "[t]here is no reason" for the Supreme Court to vacate the district court's order and remand the matter "for reconsideration in light of the Court's new interpretation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act" in Callais. She contended that the lower court's "finding of intentional discrimination" in the battle over Alabama's 2023 proposed map "is independent of, and unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in Callais."

With that lawless lower court ruling vacated, the maps Alabama actually drew in 2023 should now back in effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday set the stage for Alabama to eliminate one of two largely Black congressional districts before this year's midterm elections, creating an opening for Republicans to gain an additional U.S. House seat in a partisan battle for control of the closely divided chamber.

...

Alabama officials had pointed to the Louisiana case as reason for the Supreme Court to end a judicial order to use a court-imposed House map until after the 2030 census. The high court on Monday overturned that order and directed a lower court to reconsider the case in light of the Louisiana decision. That could free the state to instead use a map approved in 2023 by the Republican-led legislature that includes only one district where Black residents comprise a majority.

Anticipating a court reversal, Alabama officials recently enacted a law allowing it to void the results of a May 19 primary for some congressional districts and instead hold a new primary under the revised district boundaries. Alabama had asked for an expedited decision ahead of the primary.

I don't know how long the lower court will take to issue a ruling, though. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded -- the latter word meaning "sent back to the lower court for reconsideration of its decision, now informed by the Supreme Court's new ruling and instruction." I guess the lower court could once again attempt to impose the old map, making new claims.

Shipwreckedcrew, a former federal prosecutor, thinks it's unlikely the lower court can attempt to re-impose the court-mandated map without the unconstitutional command to gerrymander as many majority-minority districts as possible:

Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew

14h

Alabama didn't make the same argument that the petitioners did in Louisiana. It did not argue that the race-consicous remedy was a 14th Amendment violation that was only available in very narrow circumstances.

The plaintiffs in the Alabama case can challenge the old map again, but they aren't entitled to "majority-minority" districts ordered by a court as the remedy. Alabama may be forced to draw new maps that explicitly rely on partisanship and not race, but the end result is going to be the same.

But this could take time. I don't know which maps will be in effect if the lower Hawaiian judge drags this out.

Meanwhile, South Carolina will eliminate race hustler Jim Clyburn's seat tomorrow.

The Morning Rant: AI-Driven Redistricting?

—CBD

Gee, has anyone noticed that federal legislative districts are in the news? Well, we have been screwing with them for the last 184 years, when The Apportionment Act of 1842 was passed. Some states were still electing at-large representatives, some states had multiple member districts, and it was a bit of a mess. Some states continued their wayward ways and there were other apportionment acts passed.

Oh...wait! Elbridge Gerry (of Gerrymander fame!) was screwing with them in 1812, and I am sure there were manipulations before then. The real issue is that there are no laws governing the creation of legislative districts that can rein in the base instincts of politicians. Partisan manipulation of districts has been found by the courts to be permissible, and that has overwhelmed the demands of "compactness," and maintaining political subdivisions like counties, cities, and neighborhoods within rational districts.

"Compactness?" That's a joke. Look at dozens of districts across America and the contortions the mapmakers went through to create, preserve, or destroy particular districts for partisan gain. Hell, the entirety of New England has zero members of the House of Representatives. That is insulting to our republican form of government, and even to our nonexistent but sound-bite-creating "democracy!"

So how can it be fixed, and what would it look like if it were?

Enter AI, which makes the creation of legislative maps a relatively easy process. It is by no means perfect, because the various systems are nowhere near intelligent enough to do what is requested. For instance, it took several iterations to explain to ChatGPT that Wyoming has only one legislative district, it is Republican, and Colorado doesn't get to snake one of theirs into Wyoming! It's actually an excellent way to see the many shortcomings of AI, and how far it needs to go. To be fair, my version of ChatGPT does not have access to the some of the data, like census blocks, and some of the more sophisticated GIS.

Here is a map that has some interesting restrictions. I began with rules that districts must emanate from the center of major cities, must respect "compactness," and city and county borders. I continued to tweak it, reminding the AI over and over that it must obey the specified rules. Some of the mistakes were marvelous! Pittsburgh was solidly Republican for a few iterations, and the Florida panhandle was Democrat. Yeah...AI is not smart.

This was based on 2024 voting patterns, and is probably a bit optimistic, but it shows a solid Republican majority, even with what seems to be under-representation in the major cities. The breakdown by state is illuminating, in part because smaller states are difficult to balance politically, but the larger states are also hamstrung by their large Democrat majorities in the cities.

This is an intellectual exercise, and will never be enacted by any state legislature. There is simply too much at stake. But it does expose the difficulties of creating reasonable legislative districts that represent the people, rather than the entrenched interests in the various statehouses.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

The Davicos (Portrait of the Davico Sisters)
Donald M. Mattison