Daily Tech News 24 April 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- TSMC's N3P process is now in full production and N3X is set to follow later this year. (Tom's Hardware)
N3P is a slight shrink of N3E which in turn is a small update to N3. We're only talking about 5% improvements each time, but if you design a chip for N3E you can produced in on N3P and get free performance and power improvements.
- A little further out, TSMC plans to introduce 14A - 1.4nm - production in 2028 and add backside power delivery in 2029. (Tom's Hardware)
Many people would benefit from a little backside power delivery.
- Russia is on track to introduce 28nm chips by 2030. (Tom's Hardware)
28nm is actually a very reliable node and a good choice if you're not trying to win Apple as a customer. Embedded chips are commonly still produced at 40nm.
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Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - April 23, 2025 [TRex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.
This is the Wednesday night ONT.
[Top photo: 14th century bell tower from Curon, an Italian village that was flooded in 1950 to create Lake Resia in Italy]
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A Blessed Wednesday Cafe
—Ace
The Infiltrator
Speaking of blessings: I really wanted to take a break after the election, but then I thought that I, much like my hero Rachel Maddow, should be on call for the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, Redux.
April 30, Wednesday, is Trump's 100th day. Close enough!
The kind-hearted cobloggers have agreed to take over the blog next week, Monday through Friday.
So I'll be taking the week off, and leaving you in their strong yet tender hands.
Dog invades feline spaces. Good!
Taking a dog to get his picture taken.
A week ago I linked videos of very realistic latex masks that look straight out of Mission: Impossible. Some commenters wondered if the masks were real or just CGI trickery like you see in the actual Mission: Impossible movies. Not only are they real, but they have already been used in bank robberies -- a young man wore a realistic mask of a decrepit old man, nearly as decrepit at Joe Biden, and has evaded capture to this day. Apparently people realized he was wearing a mask when they saw this ancient Bidenesque figure running away from a robbery at full tilt like a college athlete.
They're expensive -- like $2000 or $3000 -- but that's very cheap if you want to do major crimes or other deceptions.
Little brother photobombs her attempt to become Internet Famous and steals the spotlight. (It's old.)
Boxer raises his human baby brother.
The inner workings of an escalator are just as scary as I thought they were when I was 8. (I broke my foot when I was eight and had to get along with crutches and a foot in a boot-cast. I was very scared that I wouldn't be able to step on to an escalator properly -- I thought I'd slip and it would drag me under or something -- which is this faint anxiety I've had ever since.)
A tornado hits Texas as construction workers grip the roof of the building they're working on to keep from being blown away.
Rambunctious cat wants chill dog to play.
This cat has hypnotized me with his crazyeyes.
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Quick Hits
—Ace
Zelenskyy declared that he would never agree to a peace deal if it involves Russia continuing to control the territory it already controls.
Well, Flake, you've had three years to dislodge them and you've failed. Do you mean you want American troops to come in and drive the Russians out?
Actually, that's incorrect. Russia did seize Ukraine territory three years ago, but the Crimea was seized 11 years ago.
Zelenskyy doesn't just want to reclaim the recently seized territory, but the territory Ukraine gave up without a shot being fired 11 years ago.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after he rejected a US proposal that would recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of a peace deal.This comes as Washington continues its efforts to hammer out a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv. During a press conference, Zelensky said, "Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea" and that "There's nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution."
...
Zelensky said Russia should agree to a cease-fire before further talks to demonstrate "serious steps, and not childishness." He said that Ukrainian officials meeting with U.S. and European officials in London would have a mandate to discuss a partial or full cease-fire, which Ukraine agreed to last month but Moscow rejected.
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump went on a long tirade against Zelensky, arguing that Zelensky's perspective "is very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of President Barack Hussein Obama, and is not even a point of discussion."Trump continued, "Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn't they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?"
The president said, "It's inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy's that makes it so difficult to settle this War. He has nothing to boast about! The situation for Ukraine is dire -- He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country."
The FBI arrested a UMass Boston "student" for firebombing a Kansas City Tesla dealership.
A 19-year-old University of Massachusetts Boston student was busted for the crazed firebombing of a Tesla dealership in Missouri, according to federal officials.Owen McIntire, 19, was back in his hometown of Parkville, Mo., for spring break on March 17, when he drove to a Tesla dealership in nearby Kansas City and hurled two Molotov cocktails at a Cybertruck, causing a fire and thousands of dollars in damage after the blaze spread to a second Cybertruck, the Justice Department said Friday.
In the alleged arson attack, McIntire allegedly concocted two homemade incendiary devices and used them to destroy the pair of Cybertrucks, which cost $105,485 and $107,495, the Justice Department alleged.
Only one of those bottle bombs exploded, and investigators were able to recover the second completely intact, the statement said. It appeared to be an apple cider vinegar bottle, according to photos from the scene.
Two Tesla charging stations, which cost $550 each, were also damaged in the blaze, feds said.
He (?) looks as we've come to expect zems to look:
Legal Insurrection: Trump should dust off the False Claims Act to bring rogue racially-discriminatory colleges in line with the law and Constitution.
The False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. § 3730; the "FCA") was passed over 150 years ago to address a seemingly intractable problem: widespread fraud by defense contractors during the Civil War. Under the FCA, a person who knowingly submits a false claim to the government is liable for three times the government's damages plus additional penalties. For example, a hospital that knowingly obtains $10 million from the federal government on bogus Medicare invoices would be liable to the government for over $30 million.But while the government can bring such claims itself, the FCA has another important component: the ability for whistleblowers (i.e., people with inside information of the fraud) to bring FCA suits in the government's name, and receive a reward of up to 30% the funds recovered. Such private prosecutions are known as qui tam actions, and the vast majority of the billions recovered annually under the FCA arise from them.
For example, suppose you are an employee of the hospital in the foregoing hypothetical, and you discover that it is fraudulently billing Medicare for MRI's that never occurred. You find a lawyer who specializes in FCA qui tam cases, who then prepares and files the qui tam action in federal court under seal, and serves the Department of Justice a copy of the complaint and a comprehensive memorandum explaining the claim and the evidence that the whistleblower has. The Department of Justice can then choose to intervene in the case and thereafter prosecute it, or it can decline to do so and allow you to do so. Either way, if the FCA qui tam suit is successful, the whistleblower receives a reward of up to 30% of the funds recovered (typically, 15-20% where the government takes over the case).
So in the hypothetical set forth above, if the government immediately intervened and ultimately collected $30 million, the whistleblowing employee would collect a reward of $4.5 to $6 million (which typically would be split with his attorney, if the attorney handled the case on a contingency fee basis). These financial inducements -- along with provisions in the FCA (31 U.S.C. § 3730(h)) imposing draconian additional penalties on employers who retaliate against FCA whistleblowers -- make the FCA a powerful weapon against defrauding the federal government.
Nice. It's like letters of Marque for whistleblowers.
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Polls Have More Bad News for the Party of Failure and Fear
—Ace
This Yale Poll is. Stunning. And Brave.
Eric Daugherty @EricLDaughYALE POLL...
Women, aged 18-21 (middle Gen Z): 🔴 R+4
This is monumental.
This is madness for the Democrats.
Not white women. American women at-large, 18-21. All races, religions (or lack thereof), etc.
I think it might get worse.
BTW - this group was basically destroyed by the Democrats during COVID in school. Might have something to do with it.
Young voters have little confidence in congressional Democrats, a Harvard poll says.
Only 31% of young voters approve of Trump and a similarly low percentage approve of Republicans, but that's always the case. The big news is the "nosedive" in approval for Democrats.
Fewer than one in three young Americans approve of the job President Donald Trump and Congress are doing, according to a new national poll from the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.But while the approval ratings for Trump and congressional Republicans have mostly stayed consistent since the start of the president's first administration eight years ago, the 50th Harvard Youth Poll indicates that approval ratings for Democrats in Congress among Americans aged 18-29 have nosedived.
According to Harvard's annual spring survey, which was conducted March 14-25 and released on Wednesday, the approval rating for congressional Democrats stands at 23%, down from 42% in the spring of 2017 at the start of Trump's first term.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for a press conference at the Capitol on Feb. 12, 2025. A new poll suggests congressional Democrats' approval ratings have plunged. (AP/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
"In that same period, approval of Congressional Republicans has held steady, inching up slightly from 28% to 29%," the poll's release notes.
And the approval rating for Trump, who next week marks 100 days into his second tour of duty in the White House, stands at 31% in the new survey.
The release highlights that Trump's numbers are "virtually unchanged from the 32% reported in Spring 2017 and the 29% recorded in Fall 2020."
Harvard's survey is the latest to indicate troubling numbers for the Democrats.
The confidence rating for Democrat leadership in Congress stood at a record-low 25% in a Gallup poll conducted April 1-14 and released last week. That's nine points below the previous low of 34%, which was recorded in 2023.
Fueling the drop in confidence in the Democrat congressional leadership was a 41-point plunge among Democrats questioned in the Gallup survey.
National polls conducted in February by Quinnipiac University, and last month by CNN and by NBC News, indicated the favorable ratings for the Democratic Party sinking to all-time lows.
A Democrat strategist has more bad news for his fellow Democrats.
Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik didn't sugarcoat the situation during a conversation with Mark Halperin on 2WAY....First, Sosnik pointed to the seismic shift in party affiliation. "The electorate in 2024 was 6% less Democratic than compared to four years ago," Halperin noted, asking if that level of movement was historically significant. Sosnik didn't mince words: "The shift is significant, but more importantly... I can't remember the last time that people who voted on Election Day -- the majority, uh, plurality of them -- were Democrats." He continued, "It shows a real erosion for the Democratic Party," noting that many of the Democrats who backed Biden in 2020 simply didn't show up this time around.
I don't want to spread any Russian Conspiracy Theories, but is it possible that many of the "Democrats who showed up for Biden in 2020" didn't show up this time for the simple reason that they never existed? And that these fake votes were counted in 2020 only because states removed all voter integrity safeguards in the biggest, most criminal political op in American history?
I denounce myself for asking very obvious questions (which suggest very obvious answers).
That drop-off was made even more glaring when coupled with the latest favorability ratings. "Lowest net favorable rating since the '90s," Halperin remarked, prompting Sosnik to outline a trifecta of disasters driving the collapse in support: inflation, immigration, and cultural arrogance.On the economic front, Sosnik admitted, "We had the worst inflation in America since the early 1980s." He added that by the time Election Day arrived, "everything... was on average 20% higher than when Biden took office." That kind of economic pain, Sosnik argued, doesn't just dent a party; it shatters its credibility.
...Then came the cultural disconnect, the sense that Democrats had abandoned everyday Americans in favor of elite ideologies. "A lot of people in America in the middle of the country thought Democrats were looking down on them," Sosnik said bluntly. He attributed part of that disconnect to "how they talked, issues they cared about, all the DEI programs." The result? A broadening sense among voters that Democrats "weren't competent to govern."
See the article for his thoughts about Democrats' embrace of the lawlessness of an open border. American voters realized that the Democrats cared nothing for their safety and prosperity, only for foreign non-voters. (Supposedly they're non-voters, anyway.)
The Democrats' absolute commitment to championing an MS-13 wife-beater does nothing to disturb that impression.
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Supreme Court Appears Ready to Rule that the Montgomery County School System Violated Religious Rights by Making Gay Propaganda Books Available for Children In Their Libraries, and Bizarrely, Refusing a Simple Opt-Out for Children of Concerned Parents
—Ace
The opt-out would just consist of a librarian checking to see if the student is approved by parental consent to check out the book.
Also, when teachers would bring these gay storybooks into the classrooms and indoctrinate children into Gay Studies, parents wanted an opt-out for those classes as well.
But the school board refused.
But you may have noticed -- librarians are now almost all extremist radical lesbians who are determined to allow children to watch porn on library computers and fill their libraries with actual gay porn how-to books.
And teachers are 80% hard left as well.
Even Elena Kagan could not understand why the school system would allow opt-outs for lots of different sensitive topics, but is choosing to dig its heels in for full-on gay sexual grooming of children.
Wait a tick, I think I just figured it out.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared likely to rule for parents in Maryland who objected on religious grounds to books made available in a school district's elementary schools that feature stories about gay and transgender characters.Members of the 6-3 conservative majority, which often backs religious rights, seemed sympathetic during the lively 2½-hour oral argument toward the parents' claims that the Montgomery County Board of Education violated their religious rights by failing to provide an opt-out for their children.
Some justices indicated that the board's refusal to provide an opt-out might have been motivated by hostility toward religion. A ruling is due by the end of June.
At issue are books included in the English language arts curriculum in Montgomery County. The dispute arose in 2022 after the school board in the large and diverse jurisdiction just outside Washington decided it wanted more storybooks reflecting LGBTQ stories to better reflect the people who live there.
...
One book, "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," features a gay character who is getting married. Another, called "Born Ready," is about a transgender child who wants to identify as a boy.
Some parents, including Muslims and Orthodox Christians, objected on religious grounds under the Constitution's First Amendment, saying their children should be able to opt out of any exposure to the content.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch was one of several justices who raised comments made by a former member of the school board, Lynne Harris.
She had suggested in a media interview cited in court papers that a student who objected to the books was "parroting dogma" passed on by her parents and compared their complaints to those of white supremacists who opposed civil rights laws.
"Does that suggest a hostility toward religion?" Gorsuch asked, citing a 2018 ruling in which the court ruled for a Christian baker who refused to serve a gay couple on the grounds that a state civil rights commission had shown anti-religious animus.
Other conservative justices expressed disbelief that the school board found it too difficult to provide an opt-out.
"Why isn't that feasible?" Justice Samuel Alito asked.
"I'm not understanding why it's not feasible," Justice Brett Kavanaugh added.
Chief Justice John Roberts seemed skeptical of the school board's argument that the policy did not require the children to affirm or support the content of the books.
"Is that a realistic concept when you are talking about a 5-year-old?" he asked.
The DEI Justice -- I'm sorry, that's not specific enough; one of the three DEI Justices (does Amy Coney Barrett also count?) -- Ketanji Brown Jackson declared that any parent who doesn't want their kids flooded with gay porn can just put their kids in a private school.
Note that the government forcibly extracts tax money from parents to pay for school, and refuses to give them vouchers to send their kids to private school. So she's saying the state can violate your religious rights and make the schools you are forced at gunpoint to pay for completely unusable by you, but that's okay, because you can just take the double-penalty of paying for a school you don't use and spending $25,000 per year on a private school, Bigots.
Fellow liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also appeared skeptical, noting that parents have other options if they do not like what their children are taught in school.
"If the school teaches something that the parent disagrees with, you have a choice. You don't have to send your kid to that school," she said.
...
The lead plaintiffs are Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat -- a Muslim couple who have a son in elementary school. Other plaintiffs are members of the Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
They are not challenging the curriculum itself, just the lack of an opt-out.
A federal judge and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the school board.
...
The parents, represented by the religious liberties group Becket, say that under Supreme Court precedent, they have a right to opt out of any instruction that would interfere with their children's religious development.
The school board is "compelling instruction designed to indoctrinate petitioners' children against their religious beliefs," the parents' lawyers wrote.
The parents have the backing of the Trump administration.
Gorsuch wanted to know about a book made available to three-year-old pre-schoolers. There were drawings of a drag queen dressed in leather, and kids were instructed to Find the Leather-Daddy Drag-Queen in the books as if he was Waldo.
The lawyer for the school board insisted that this wasn't sexual and the all-leather get-up wasn't bondage gear.
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Linda McMahon Orders the Department of Education to Begin Collecting Payments for Overdue Student Loans, Garnishing Paychecks If That's What It Takes
—Ace
President Trump's education boss Linda McMahon has defended the administration's decision to resume student loan debt collections -- insisting that greedy colleges have "profited massively" from Biden-era forgiveness measures.The Department of Education announced Monday it would start recouping federal student repayments again from May 5 from the roughly 5.3 million borrowers who are currently in default on their loans.
Mb
"Colleges and universities call themselves nonprofits, but for years they have profited massively off the federal subsidy of loans, hiking tuition and piling up multibillion-dollar endowments while students graduate six figures in the red," McMahon wrote."A widely cited 2015 study found that for every dollar of increased federal caps on subsidized loans, colleges raised tuition by 60 cents," she continued.
"Many of the degree-granting programs that qualify for student loans are worthless on the job market, but colleges continue to accept students to these programs and encourage them to borrow to pay for them.
"Accountability is a two-way street. As we push to hold student borrowers to account, we will also push colleges to be responsible and transparent."
McMahon insisted the administration wasn't enforcing the collections to be "unkind" -- as she blasted former President Joe Biden for dangling "the carrot of loan forgiveness in front of young voters" during his successful 2020 election campaign.
..."On May 5, we will begin the process of moving roughly 1.8 million borrowers into repayment plans and restart collections of loans in default. Borrowers who don't make payments on time will see their credit scores go down, and in some cases, their wages automatically garnished.
"Why? Not because we want to be unkind to student borrowers. Borrowing money and failing to pay it back isn't a victimless offense. Debt doesn't go away; it gets transferred to others. If borrowers don't pay their debts to the government, taxpayers do," McMahon added.
I do feel bad for people who were swindled by the bill of goods that the Regime sold them.
But there's no way in hell we're paying trillions so that indifferent students, who really should just have begun working out of high school, can pursue meaningless degrees in fantasy fields.
Below, a lot of parasites are outraged and baffled at the concept that they might actually be forced to repay loans they took out. The first very gay gentlemen seems to believe it's somehow a contradiction for Trump to shut down the Department of Education, while also demanding that people who took out DoEd-guaranteed loans should have to pay them back.
This is just more proof that we are sending people to college who plainly will not benefit from college. And college has been dumbed-down in order to accommodate these Scholars.
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60 Minutes Producer Responsible for the Kamala Harris Propaganda Edit Resigns
—Ace
CBS wanted some oversight over his partisan propaganda decisions, and he demanded a free "independent" hand to propagandize for the Democrat/globalist party as he saw fit.
And CBS wanted to exercise oversight because it desperately needs to be bought out, and they have to clear the decks of all the legal liabilities they have looming over them.
Top Producer of '60 Minutes' Quits, Saying He Lost Independence
The news program has faced mounting pressure from both President Trump and its corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.
CBS News entered a new period of turmoil on Tuesday after the executive producer of "60 Minutes," Bill Owens, said that he would resign from the long-running Sunday news program because he had lost his journalistic independence.In an extraordinary declaration, Mr. Owens -- only the third person to run the program in its 57-year history -- told his staff in a memo that "over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for '60 Minutes,' right for the audience."
"So, having defended this show -- and what we stand for -- from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward," he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The New York Times.
"60 Minutes" has faced mounting pressure in recent months from both President Trump, who sued CBS for $10 billion and has accused the program of "unlawful and illegal behavior," and its own corporate ownership at Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.
Paramount's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, is eager to secure the Trump administration's approval for a multibillion-dollar sale of her company to Skydance, a company run by the son of the tech billionaire Larry Ellison. She has expressed a desire to settle Mr. Trump's case, which stems from what the president has called a deceptively edited interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris that aired on "60 Minutes."
Legal experts have dismissed that suit as baseless and far-fetched, and Mr. Owens said in February that he would not apologize as part of any prospective settlement.
Many journalists at CBS News -- the former home of Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace -- believe that a settlement would amount to a capitulation to Mr. Trump over what they consider standard-issue gripes about editorial judgment.
In his memo on Tuesday, Mr. Owens pledged that "'60 Minutes' will continue to cover the new administration, as we will report on future administrations." He added: "The show is too important to the country. It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer."
Perpetually moralizing woke scold Jake Tapper rushed to offer more sanctimonious preening.
"And it seems as if Shari Redstone is likely to bend the knee to Trump and settle this allegedly frivolous lawsuit," Tapper said, noting Paramount is currently trying to push through a merger with fellow Hollywood giant Skydance, which will need approval from Trump's government regulators to go through."And that is the context of Shari Redstone's likely bending of the knee. Hope the money's worth it, Shari," Tapper quipped in comments first highlighted by Mediaite.
He's such a dismal faggot. I can't wait until he's fired.
CBS did some more lawsuit-clearing work. A writer, you may remember, was rejected for a full-time staff position on the CBS show SEAL Team, even though he was considered a good writer who had written well-received scripts for the show as a freelancer. He was rejected because, get this, he was white, and the show decided to hire and promote less-qualified DEI "writers" with little or no writing experience.
America First Legal has achieved another significant milestone in its fight to dismantle unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies across corporate America. Paramount Global has reversed course and terminated its DEI initiatives following AFL's lawsuits challenging discriminatory employment practices at Paramount and its subsidiary, CBS.Following Paramount's change to DEI policies, AFL has also secured the amicable resolution of a discrimination claim against Paramount and CBS on behalf of its client, former "SEAL Team" script coordinator and writer Brian Beneker. AFL filed the lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS Entertainment, and CBS Studios on February 29, 2024, alleging that the companies engaged in unlawful discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying Mr. Beneker employment and career opportunities based on his race, sex, and sexual orientation.
Mr. Beneker alleged that Paramount and CBS had imposed racial quotas in their writers' rooms. In 2020, George Cheeks, then-President and CEO of CBS and now co-CEO of CBS and Paramount Global, publicly stated that he "set a goal that all writers' rooms on the network's primetime series be staffed 40 percent BIPOC in the 2021-22 season; 17 out of 21 shows hit or exceeded that target." CBS also set a target that "half of all writers will be nonwhite" by "the 2022-2023 broadcast season."
Paramount has now reversed course on these targets. Specifically, it has:
Stopped setting numerical goals related to race, ethnicity, sex, or gender. Stopped collecting data on the race, ethnicity, sex, or gender of applicants. Removed a five percent funding bonus for programs advancing DEI goals.As alleged in Mr. Beneker's complaint, he began as a script coordinator for SEAL Team during its first season in 2017. Mr. Beneker wrote a freelance script for its second season and continued to write freelance scripts with co-writers for four episodes across four separate seasons of the show. Despite this substantial writing experience, he was repeatedly denied promotions to a full-time SEAL Team staff writer. During his time as script coordinator across six seasons of SEAL Team, at least six minority writers -- black, female, or gay -- were hired, many of whom had no writing credits and limited experience. Mr. Beneker asked the showrunner, who generally has the authority to hire writers, why he wasn't hired for open writing positions, and the showrunner stated that he did not "check any diversity boxes." Through his lawsuit, Mr. Beneker sought to draw attention to the invidious DEI hiring practices he and many other white, male, heterosexual writers have encountered over the past several years.
Now that Paramount and CBS have publicly announced the termination of DEI policies, Mr. Beneker has agreed to voluntarily dismiss his claims following an amicable resolution with the companies.
Ancient Evil Reptiloid Dick Durbin, Get This, Won't Seek Reelection in 2026, Ending a Thirty-Plus Year Reign of Graft and Demoralization
—Ace
Dear Lord, what could we sinners have done to be deserving of such blessings today?
Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), the second most powerful Senate Democrat, announced Wednesday his decision not to run for another term after nearly three decades in the world's greatest deliberative body.Durbin, 80, is ending his Senate career after five terms, the longest tenure of any Senator in Illinois history. His retirement opens up a deep blue seat in 2026 and will create a leadership competition for Senate Democrats amid frustration with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and generational turnover within the party.
...
Durbin becomes the latest Senate Democrat to opt out of running for another term, joining the ranks of Senators Gary Peters (Mich.), Tina Smith (Minn.), and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.). Peters's seat is expected to be one of the most competitive in the 2026 cycle, while Smith, Shaheen, and Durbin's vacancies are likely to remain in Democratic hands.
The Democratic primary to fill Durbin's seat is expected to be hyper-competitive because Illinois is a safely blue state. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won Illinois with 54.8 percent of the vote over President Donald Trump's 43.8 percent this past November.
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Real-Life Dr. Evil, Bug Cuisine Promoter Klaus Schwab, Resigns From His Cushy Perch As Head of the World Economic Forum As He's Accused of Embezzlement
—Ace
The real, ugly face of SPECTRE
This is an unexpected gift. Enjoy it. Be grateful for this blessing.
The World Economic Forum announced on Tuesday that it has launched an investigation into its founder, Klaus Schwab, following a whistleblower letter alleging misconduct by the former chairman.The announcement came a day after the 87-year-old Schwab said he was resigning as chairman, effective immediately, without stating a reason.
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the probe, said an anonymous letter sent last week to the WEF's board raised concerns about its governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the forum's resources without proper oversight.
I can't believe that the class of well-credentialed globalist mediocrities would use their unearned sinecures to feather their own nests.
A spokesman for the Schwab family denied all the allegations in the whistleblower complaint, the Wall Street Journal reported. The spokesman also told the Journal that Klaus Schwab intends to file a lawsuit against whoever is behind the anonymous letter and "anybody who spreads these mistruths."...
The Journal previously reported that the WEF's board was working with a law firm to investigate the forum's workplace culture, after the newspaper reported allegations of harassment and discrimination at the forum.
This Reuters story seems to underplay the actual allegations. Go figure.
Here's the WSJ article it's soft-pedaling.
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab is under investigation by the organization he created after a new whistleblower letter alleged financial and ethical misconduct by the longtime leader and his wife.The anonymous letter was sent last week to the Forum's board and raised concerns about the Forum's governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the Forum's resources without proper oversight, according to the letter and people familiar with the matter.
It included allegations that Klaus Schwab asked junior employees to withdraw thousands of dollars from ATMs on his behalf and used Forum funds to pay for private, in-room massages at hotels.
Was that wrong? Because at my old job, we used to do that all the time and it was no problem.
It also alleged that his wife Hilde, a former Forum employee, scheduled "token" Forum-funded meetings in order to justify luxury holiday travel at the organization's expense.
I gotta plead ignorance on this. If anyone had told me I wasn't allowed to book fake "conferences" to justify taking luxury holidays to Hawaii...
Klaus Schwab in recent days argued against an investigation, telling board members that he denied the unsubstantiated allegations and that he would challenge them in a lawsuit, the people said.
Fuck you. Eat the bugs in prison.
The board of trustees decided to open a probe during an emergency meeting on Easter Sunday. Schwab opted to resign immediately as the chairman, instead of staying on for an extended transition period as previously planned.The Schwabs said through a spokesman that they deny every allegation in the whistleblower complaint. To protect their reputation, Klaus Schwab intends to file a lawsuit against whoever is behind the anonymous letter and "anybody who spreads these mistruths," the spokesman said.
Whenever Schwab charged massages at a hotel to the Forum while on travel, he'd always pay the Forum back, the spokesman said.
Fani Willis just emailed me to say. "It happens. I swear. Mah daddy told me to hide money in old soupcans."
Schwab and his wife denied the allegations about luxury travel and withdrawing money.
Sure.
But you know, you don't have the full Ernst Stavro Blofeld/Irma Bunt supervillain set-up without a bevy of beautiful dominated women.
...The letter also raises concerns about how Klaus Schwab treated female employees and how his leadership over decades allegedly allowed instances of sexual harassment and other discriminatory behavior to go unchecked in the workplace, allegations that were raised in a Wall Street Journal article and previously investigated by the Forum. The Forum disputed the Journal's reporting at the time, and Schwab denied the allegations against him.
...
A few weeks ago, Schwab, 87, said he'd step down as nonexecutive chairman of the Forum's board, and the Forum said the succession process would be completed by January 2027. The whistleblower letter blew up that timeline.
Behind the scenes, a high-stakes boardroom drama unfolded pitting Schwab against the global powerplayers on the Forum's board. The board includes celebrities like cellist Yo-Yo Ma and politicians like Al Gore....
One allegation raised in the letter is the Schwab family's use of Villa Mundi, a luxury property purchased before the pandemic by the Forum, next to the organization's headquarters in Geneva.
Ah yes, the mountaintop ski mansion lair.
Villa Mundi is a sprawling Modernist house built in the 1950s overlooking Lake Geneva. It was renovated over several years and opened as a meeting and conference center in 2023.The whistleblower letter maintains that Hilde Schwab maintains tight control over use of the building and that portions of the property are understood to be reserved for private family access; the Schwabs deny the claim. The letter says the Forum paid about $30 million to purchase the property and another roughly $20 million to renovate it.
They poured money into renovating this mansion and then used it for their private enjoyment.
Hilde Schwab says she did it all for The Earth.
In a statement, Hilde Schwab said, "The building is a role model for sustainable architecture, which is dear to my heart, and I was glad to show it to people who expressed interest."
What a way to begin a Wednesday. How are you all?
Update: Peer into the monstrous eyes of Schwab's darksoul successor.
If you dare.
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Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
One of the fascinating aspects of the new tariff environment is the handling of some of its immediate repercussions. Ace had an excellent post about this yesterday, and one aspect of that article is fate of the company Shein. So is this one, after a fashion.
Shein is a - perhaps the - "fast fashion" business that has thrived (and indeed depends) on the "de minimis" import exemption. Shein may not collapse because of the removal of that exemption (it has markets that are not the United States), but it may well be done here. It will be a similar story with other "fast fashion" and other small-ticket, high-volume, customer-direct China-based online retailers like Temu, wish.com and Ali Express.
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The Morning Report — 4/ 23 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. For me personally, every day was that day, as my mother of blessed memory survived almost a year in Mauthausen, the labor brigades and then a death march. Despite doing her best to shield me from the memory of her ordeal and by living an upright and joy-filled life as a proud and patriotic American. Both the resurgence of anti-Semitism abroad and most horribly here with the vilification of both Israel supporters and patriotic MAGA boosters as Nazis and racists are sickening in the extreme.
Moving on to the top stories.
It looks as if there's yet another massive wildfire, but this time on the east coast along the New Jersey shore. While much of the state had been under drought conditions, it's way too early to identify a cause. Hopefully the same kind of DEI and Red/Green Enviro-driven incompetence did not add figurative fuel to that fire as it did in Pacific Palisades. That said, Phil Murphy is every bit the insane Leftist as Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass. Not knowing the politics of Ocean County, I hope the local government is staffed by sane and competent leadership. Prayers up for residents and any of you who may be affected to remain safe.
Elsewhere, as VP Vance was on a state visit to India,
Suspected militants fired on a group of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, resulting in multiple fatalities and injuries. . .. . . “Usha and I extend our condolences to the victims of the devastating terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India.” — Vice President J.D. Vance. . .
. . . On Tuesday, a lethal attack was carried out by suspected militants targeting tourists in the Pahalgam region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Between 20 and 24 people were killed, with several others sustaining injuries, according to various reports, although an official death toll had not been released as of the time of publication. Pahalgam, known for its scenic meadows and glaciers, attracts substantial tourist numbers yearly.
Vance was in India to help pave the way for a bilateral trade agreement with India and the U.S. It's so far not clear that the attack was supposed to target him or that it was mere coincidence that he was in country. Kashmir has long-been a hotbed of Islamic terror attacks against Hindus, as it is a disputed territory. Meh, what part of the Milky Way, Andromeda and the M-79 star system isn't claimed byMuslims as part of the Islamic ummah?
A Minnesota state employee-turned-terrorist who vandalized multiple Teslas and caused more than $20,000 in damages was let off with barely a slap on the wrist by a woke District Attorney.Dylan Bryan Adams, a 33-year-old fiscal policy analyst for Tim Walz’s administration, was arrested and charged after police say he keyed about a half a dozen Teslas while walking his dog around his neighborhood. Adams was seen on the Teslas’ cameras keying the vehicles and stripping the paint, just the latest in a string of attacks against privately owned Teslas and their drivers, Tesla dealerships, and even electric charging stations from leftists irate over Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration.
Adams was caught damaging the vehicles just a few days after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Adams' boss, mocked Tesla's falling stock prices during an event.
But despite committing multiple felonies and causing an estimated $21,000 in damage to privately owned vehicles, Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty decided she won’t be seeking criminal charges to allow Adams to keep his job. Instead, the DA will seek “pre-charge diversion,” an alternative to the criminal justice system that includes things like re-education programs, community service, or mental health treatment.
And the cops aren’t happy about it.
That's how civil societies devolve into third world shit-holes replete with authoriatarian juntas and even death squads. With individuals like this Kilmar Abrego Garcia as its cadres.
Yet President Trump acting within his authority and oath to defend our nation from all threats foreign and domestic is still "Literally Hitler" for sealing the borders, rounding the Killer Kilmars up and deporting them.
“Both the Executive and the Judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.”Those thirteen words, penned by Justice Samuel Alito on Holy Saturday, represent the first admission by the judiciary that courts too can wrongly flout the law.
Justice Alito’s stark acknowledgement concluded his bullet-point evisceration of the Supreme Court’s “unprecedented” command that President Trump not remove a “putative class of detainees” under the Alien Enemies Act. The Supreme Court had entered that order shortly after midnight after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an emergency application asking alternatively for an emergency injunction, an immediate administrative injunction, a writ of mandamus, or a stay of removal, to prevent the Trump Administration from removing Venezuelans to El Salvador pursuant to the Alien Enemies Act.
The ACLU’s scattershot request for relief from the Supreme Court came a mere two days after they sued the Trump Administration in a federal court in Texas — and before that court or the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had an opportunity to rule on the request for an injunction barring the removal of any more aliens to El Salvador. . .
. . . It isn’t difficult to surmise why seven of the justices acquiesced to the demands of the ACLU: They watched the Trump Administration outrun an injunction in the earlier case pending before Judge Boasberg and they likely wanted to ensure there was no repeat.
. . . But the Supreme Court is not an almighty righter of wrongs — real or perceived — as Marbury v. Madison taught. While best known for establishing the principle of judicial review, the Supreme Court in Marbury also recognized the limits of its power. In that landmark case, the Supreme Court declared that Secretary of State James Madison had illegally refused to deliver William Marbury his judicial commission. But the Supreme Court then refused to provide Marbury a remedy because he had filed suit against Secretary Madison in the Supreme Court and under the Constitution, the Supreme Court lacked original jurisdiction to resolve the case.
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
- On Tuesday, a lethal attack was carried out by suspected militants targeting tourists in the Pahalgam region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Between 20 and 24 people were killed, with several others sustaining injuries, according to various reports, although an official death toll had not been released as of the time of publication. Pahalgam, known for its scenic meadows and glaciers, attracts substantial tourist numbers yearly. . . U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, whose in-laws are Indian, is currently in India, laying the groundwork for a trade deal between the United States and the Hindu-majority nation.
Terror Attack in India Leaves at Least 20 Dead Amid Vance Visit
- The fire was just 5% contained by 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.
Massive Fire Rages In New Jersey; Thousands Evacuated
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Daily Tech News 23 April 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Open source database for people who are allergic to even the idea of running their own servers Supabase has raised $200 million at a valuation of $2 billion on the back of the "vibe coding" craze. (Tech Crunch)
Vibe coding is the idea that you don't need to know how to program to build an app. You don't in fact need to know anything at all to build an app. You get an AI to do the work based on your cool ideas, and you throw it out there and see what sticks.
Which is great if you value your own time at infinity and your customers' time at zero. Or if you are just playing around to see if an idea is feasible before implementing it properly - except of course that nothing ever gets implemented properly and you'll soon be stuck with a nightmarish mess that routes your authentication requests via Eswatini in plaintext and is written largely in a programming language that is not only no longer supported but never actually existed in the first place.
Supabase isn't directly pushing this, only enabling the trend, so I won't express a desire for them to be hit by a comet and expire. For them to quietly go bankrupt and disappear would be sufficient.
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Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (4/22/25 Earth Day Edition)
—Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus)
Quote I"We must hold the Administration accountable for these illegal acts and demand Kilmar’s release. Today it’s him, tomorrow it could be anyone else," Rep. Maxwell (Not Smart) Frost (D-FL)
Quote II'I didn't need a visa, but hey, I've seen Donald Duck several times. So, I'm off to see other things.' Colombian President Gustavo Petro
Quote III“For the last 50 years, American children have increasingly been living in a toxic soup of synthetic chemicals,” FDA Commissioner Marty Makary
Quote IV“But we hope that she’ll still be with us for another couple decades or even centuries,” Marc Franusch, the head of the Tegel Forestry Office, Germany
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Easter Potato Roll Cafe
—Ace
The Figen @TheFigen_Storm chaser Laura Rowe captured the picture of a lifetime on with this fantastic shot of a mature supercell thunderstorm, illuminated at varying heights from the setting sun.
2021, Texas
Her best friend is her beaver. (IG) Hear that.
Never leave a branch behind. (IG)
ICYMI: Dog has perfect defense against a cat bully.
Baby bears playing. They're not out of control yet, but I see the telltale signs.
Baby lion roars.
The "Three Dogs" replace the "Three Monkeys." Don't Listen to the Left's Lies, Do Listen to Trump, and Half-Listen to Tucker Carlson, Sometimes.
There's nothing like a good scritch.
The first rule of war: Never get into a pounce-fight with a feline.
Jelly dog asserts that she's still top pet.
In a world where children's awkward drawings of animals are actually real...
He's not mad, he's just disappointed.
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Quick Hits
—Ace
Thousands of fired federal employees have their complaints tossed for lack of merit.
Roughly 2,000 fired federal probationary workers who challenged their dismissals under President Trump have had their complaints thrown out by the Office of Special Counsel, signaling a sweeping reaffirmation of the administration’s authority to overhaul the federal workforce.Key Details:
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) dismissed complaints from about 2,000 former federal workers, citing a lack of merit.
These workers are part of the larger group affected by the Trump administration's federal workforce reforms.
OSC is now led by Jamieson Greer, a Trump appointee who previously served as U.S. Trade Representative.
Jamie Raskin frequently blasts Trump for "attacking" his enemies and seeking "vengeance" against them.
So here's Jamie Rasking threatening El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele (now that I learned how to spell it, I'm going to put that learnin' to good use) that he'll be seeking vengeance against him when the Democrats claw their way back to power.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Inside with Jen Psaki," Rep. Jamie Raskin took direct aim at Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for cozying up to President Donald Trump, cautioning, "The Trump administration is not going to last forever." Raskin's remarks appear aimed at undermining Trump's efforts to build stronger ties with conservative-leaning foreign leaders, a foreign policy posture that has gained traction since Trump returned to the Oval Office in January 2025.
Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh
REP. JAMIE RASKIN: We should be talking about cutting off aid to El Salvador and @NayibBukele right now. He has the power to return Kilmar Garcia. When we come back to power, we are not going to look kindly on people who facilitated authoritarianism.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is now fighting for, get this, actual equality in employment opportunity.
They are investigating actual racial discrimination in hiring, for the first time ever.
The Trump administration is taking unprecedented steps to dismantle the influence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in elite legal circles. Using the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the administration is now scrutinizing top law firms for potentially discriminating against white candidates in pursuit of racial quotas. Critics within the federal agency and the broader legal profession are sounding alarms, but for many Americans, this marks a welcome return to merit-based principles and a rejection of ideological hiring practices that have plagued major institutions.Key Details:
The EEOC has launched investigations into the hiring practices of 20 top corporate law firms.
These probes target DEI-driven recruitment, particularly for Black and Hispanic candidates, which the administration views as discriminatory toward white applicants.
Several firms have already settled, agreeing to eliminate DEI language and shift to merit-based hiring.
Not Gay Enough: LGBTQ+ Mob Rips HBO's 'The Last of Us' After Teen Lesbian Sex Scene CutLGBTQ+ activists are ripping the second season of HBO's hit video game adapted drama The Last of Us after news broke that a lesbian sex scene between two teenaged stars was cut.
With the airing of the second season's second episode, gay fans are comparing the TV version to its video game predecessor and finding that a key gay moment from the video game was left out of the dramatized version of the zombie apocalypse story.
In the The Last of Us Part II video game, upon which season two of the TV version is based, the characters of Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Diana (Isabela Merced) are seen having sexual relations. But gay activists were chagrined this week when the appropriate time in the plot came and went in the TV broadcast and no sex scene was included.
It should be pointed out that both Ellie and Diana are teen girls in this dramatized version of the video game.
The first season did include a brief scene showing Ellie kissing her friend Riley (Storm Reid), so the series did establish the teenaged character's lesbian proclivities at least once already.
But the next LGBTQ moment seems to have passed without acknowledgement, and Pink News is worried that the lesbian romance will remain unrealized.
"Some fans therefore think it's unlikely we'll get to see the moment between Ellie and Dina elsewhere in the season," the gay news website wrote.
Despite the fears of LGBTQ activists, though, season two co-star Isabela Merced has insisted that there is a lot of LGBTQ representation in this season and promised that "the gays are going to be fed."
Wonderful. "The Last of Us II" was already a cursed woke production. The game drew the ire of right-leaning cultural critics for featuring a very butch woman, who looked a lot like a transgender, executing the first game's hero Joel in the first couple hours of play. And then the game portrayed that transgender-looking character as a tragic hero.
People wondered if the show would follow the game in this divisive plot point. Click here for the answer to that.
The did slightly adjust the plot-line: they hired an actress who looks feminine to play the brutal golf-club murderer. So that's something.
On the plus side: Less Pedro Pascal and his low-energy dadbod James Edward Olmos impression.
Kanye West makes a confession that I didn't want to hear.
Rapper and fashion mogul Kanye West took to social media on Monday morning to announce he has released a new song about childhood incest, writing, "I sucked my cousin's dick till I was 14.""This song is called COUSINS about my cousin that's locked in jail for life for killing a pregnant lady a few years after I told him we wouldn't 'look at dirty magazines together' anymore," West wrote in a Monday morning X post, sharing an apparent music video of a new song.
Watch Below:
"Perhaps in my self centered mess I felt it was my fault that I showed him those dirty magazines when he was 6 and then we acted out what we saw," the "Heartless" rapper continued in his post.
West went on to say, "My dad had Playboy magazines but the magazines I found in the top of my moms closet were different."
"My name is Ye and I sucked my cousins dick till I was 14," West concluded in his X post.
While the lyrics in the rapper's new song, "Cousins," may be difficult for some to understand due to apparent autotuning, some of the lyrics clearly include the words, "I gave my cousin head."
"Hanging with my cousin, reading dirty magazines, we seen two niggas kissing, we ain't know what that shit means. Then we start reenacting everything that we had seen. That's when I gave my cousin head," the lyrics state.
On the plus side, he has badly damaged his ability to spread anti-Jewish propaganda.
Ryan Lizza -- the guy whose fiancee cucked him with RFKJr., which he then leaked to the press -- has been fired by Politico.
Ryan Lizza, the pencil-necked leftist credibly accused of misconduct with two women, is out at the far-left Politico.
Lizza, a one-time precious in the regime media and shameless Russia Collusion Hoaxster, announced this week that after working at the New Republic, New York Magazine, CNN, the New Yorker, Esquire, and GQ, he will now go his own way via Substack, which tells me he can harass all the women he wants without getting fired.
"I recently left Politico, where I've served as the Chief Washington Correspondent since 2019," Lizza explained at his Substack--the one that can't fire him for sexual misconduct onaccounta he's the boss.
John Nolte recaps these sordid allegations at the link.
...The good news is that we can add Ryan Lizza to our ever-growing list of Regime Media elites who have committed career suicide or just plain given up due to Trump Derangement Syndrome:
Ruth Marcus -- Washington Post columnist, resigns.
538 -- Disney/ABC's wildly biased polling site shutters.
Paul Krugman -- Always wrong New York Times columnist forced out.
Jim Acosta -- CNN anchor forced out.
Norah O'Donnell -- Failed CBS anchor out.
Chuck Todd -- NBC's former Meet the Press host, DEI'd out.
Andrea Mitchell -- NBC harridan ages out of job.
Chris Wallace -- Son of Someone out at CNN.
Joy Reid -- Racist MSNBC anchor, too racist for MSNBC. Fired.
Neil Cavuto -- Fox News anchor, scurries away.
Alex Wagner -- Demoted at MSNBC.
Ayman Mohyeldin -- Lost MSNBC show.
Olivia Nuzzi -- Out at New York Mag for allegedly stalking RFK Jr.
Katie Phang -- Lost MSNBC show.
Jonathan Capehart -- Lost MSNBC show. Steps down as Washington Post editorial board.
Lester Holt -- Out as NBC Nightly News anchor.
One-third of New York Times Editorial Board -- Say, bye.
Eugene Robinson -- Washington Post columnist quits in snit.
Ryan Lizza -- Scurries to Substack over credible misconduct allegations.What a glorious, glorious time to be alive.
Lizza ripped Politico for not being anti-Trump enough.
Politico's former top reporter Ryan Lizza, whose ex-fiancée Olivia Nuzzi was embroiled in a sexting scandal with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., abruptly announced his exit from the online outlet -- wildly trashing its weak coverage while asking for money for his new venture.In his first post for his new "Telos News" Substack, Lizza said he had "recently left" the publication because he believed "their style of political coverage is not meeting the unprecedented moment of democratic peril we are facing."
"This publication is my earnest attempt to cover the crisis in Washington with a clear-eyed understanding of what is actually happening," wrote Lizza, who had been Politico's chief Washington correspondent since 2019.
He noted the new venture would be funded solely by readers -- as he called on them to pay for subscriptions to help boost it up.
"I have never written a fundraising appeal, and just typing this paragraph is deeply cringe-inducing for me. But we want to create not just a news outlet, but a news community," he said.
RFKJr. just announced that he'll be sexting with your "news community" and seducing them into dropping your substack to sign up for "RFKJr.'s Sexy Autism-Investigation Substack."
...Elsewhere in his first post, Lizza accused his former employer and other outlets of apparently kowtowing to President Trump after the commander-in-chief started publicly ripping his critics and threatening legal action.
"I saw up close how easy it was for a media conglomerate to grovel before the Trump administration when the wrong people are in charge," he wrote.
Lizza ripped the outlet for opting to send one of its reporters to be an onstage guest at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after Trump "attacked Politico for selling subscriptions to the federal government."
He described the conference as a "sewer of media bashing and cheerleading for the degradation of our democracy where some activists were publicly organizing an unconstitutional third term for Trump -- in other words, a coup."
"A friend of mine who served in Iraq once tried to explain to me how psychologically disorienting warfare can be for soldiers the first time they're in full-scale combat. It's so horrific, so unlike any human experience, that the initial instinct is to deny that what's happening is actually happening," Lizza said.
"That's the psychology that has seized many newsrooms, law firms, and other elite institutions in Washington for months. We need to wake up."
Journalists are soldiers except more courageous and self-sacrificing. But you knew that already.
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Chinese Clothing Mega-Vendor Shein Shuts Down Its Factories
—Ace
The tariffs are biting China worse than they're biting us.
We're in a tough period. Business does not like uncertainty. There are thousands of US businesses that rely on Chinese factories to make their products. These business could invest a lot of money into building US factories (or factories in Mexico or something), but they don't know when China will cave, or Trump will make a deal with them. If they invest that money in new factories -- it could be wiped out when Chinese factories are back on-line.
So for now, they're in limbo. They don't know what to do. They can't invest until they know what the future rules will be.
That doesn't mean I object to Trump's tariffs. Trump is attempting to undo 40 years of the US moving almost all of its manufacturing to a hostile foreign communist regime that every once in a while looses a pandemic on the world.
There are going to be dislocations. There is almost certainly going to be a recession. If China goes into a recession, the world will do the same soon after.
I think it's a fight that must be fought... but boy oh boy am I hoping that China comes to the bargaining table sooner rather than later.
Xi will lose his job if China is plunged into a deep recession with huge unemployment.
But... how long will that take?
Let's hope this is enough to get Xi to move.
Factories supplying Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein have ground to a halt in southern China, as President Donald Trump's new tariffs and closure of the "de minimis" loophole upend Beijing's retail export model. With the tariff policy set to take effect on May 2, dozens of garment workshops in Guangzhou's Panyu district -- dubbed "Shein Village" -- have gone idle, marking a major shift in the global fast-fashion supply chain.
The "de minimis" loophole exempted products whose individual-sale cost was under a certain level from any tariffs, even if the factory making those products was exporting billions of dollars worth of them to America.
Trump ended that exemption. That really bites into China, which exports trillions of dollars of crap into the US but a lot of it is cheap on a by-unit basis.
Key Details:President Trump's removal of the "de minimis" tax exemption will now subject all foreign shipments -- regardless of value -- to import duties.
Chinese garment factories supplying Shein and similar online retailers have shut down operations or shifted sales strategies.
Shein is urging suppliers to move operations to Vietnam, while others unable to adapt have closed entirely.
Diving Deeper:
The Trump administration's decisive end to the de minimis loophole -- which allowed online retailers to ship duty-free goods to the U.S. if orders were under $800 -- has sent shockwaves through China's fast-fashion manufacturing sector. In what many industry insiders view as a long-overdue correction to America's lopsided trade relationship with Beijing, President Trump's policy imposes a new layer of economic accountability on China's retail exporters.
...Chinese manufacturers had heavily relied on the now-defunct loophole, which provided a price edge over U.S.-based retailers by circumventing import duties. "Orders from Shein have fallen this year, and our sales are down by a lot," said one worker at a local facility. The downturn has forced some business owners to pivot to social media-based direct sales or to explore other Asian markets with lower shipping costs and fewer trade restrictions.
In some positive tariff war news: Swiss drug manufacturer Roche is investing $50 billion in US manufacturing to avoid tariffs.
Roche announced Tuesday it will pour $50 billion into the U.S. over the next five years, creating more than 12,000 jobs and expanding domestic manufacturing. The move comes as President Donald Trump moves to revoke tariff exemptions for foreign pharmaceutical products.Key Details:
The $50 billion commitment will support new research and development facilities and manufacturing expansions across Indiana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and California.
Roche said the investment will create over 12,000 jobs--including 1,000 new positions at the company--and result in more pharmaceutical exports from the U.S. than imports.
A new 900,000-square-foot facility will help produce next-generation weight loss drugs, while a Massachusetts-based R&D hub will focus on AI and chronic disease research.
From Real Clear Energy: Japan can negotiate its way out of tariffs by agreeing to buy more energy from the US, instead of China.
The global economy has been jolted by a new round of Trump tariffs. The U.S. has proposed a flat 10% import tariff, along with an additional "reciprocal tariff" pegged to bilateral trade imbalances. For Japan, this would result in an effective cumulative tariff of 34%. While implementation of the reciprocal tariff has been delayed for 90 days, the underlying tensions remain unresolved.Japan now finds itself in a critical window of negotiation. Washington may push Tokyo to increase agricultural imports or influence currency policy to strengthen the yen. But a more strategic and mutually beneficial path lies in the energy sector--a domain where U.S. and Japanese interests align naturally.
Rather than viewing these tariffs as a threat, Japan should treat them as a wake-up call to reassess its energy and industrial policy. The country's current "Green Transformation" (GX) initiative aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, heavily investing in solar and wind energy, as well as electric vehicles.
However, these sectors are overwhelmingly dominated by China. Over 90% of the world's solar panels and more than half of its wind turbines are produced there. In effect, Japan's green energy push is subsidizing Chinese industry--while reducing demand for fossil fuels, much of which could be supplied by the United States.
Redirecting energy imports toward American oil and gas would simultaneously enhance Japan's energy security and improve the U.S. trade balance--directly addressing one of the Trump administration's key concerns. Given Washington's ongoing economic decoupling from China, a Japanese pivot away from China-centered green energy technologies would be welcomed.
Not only does Trump risk a recession-- again, I think this fight must be had, but we're on the edge of a recession -- but also, that recession will disproportionately affect business owners... also known as "Republican leaners." That's politically dangerous.
So I hope that Trump can execute the Michael Scott Negotiating Gambit against Xi quickly.
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Three Defense Department Employees Fired After Investigation Into Top-Secret Leaks
—Ace
I don't know if these three people were among the leakers, but the White House is suggesting they are.
Before linking the story, I'll link Megyn Kelly's overview. She reports that back in March, some DoD personnel leaked top-secret military plans to NBC "News." The plans were to deploy additional US troops to the Panama Canal zone, as a contingency against Chinese aggression.
One would assume the leaks came from either the usual crop of anti-Trumpers... or hardcore isolationists who repudiate Trump's -- dare I call it this? -- moderate and nuanced take on the use of military power.
Yes, Trump is the moderate here, and he seems pretty much where I am: Yes, we must repudiate the neocons' lunatic claims about what the armed forces (which they've bravely resisted all actual contact with) can accomplish, their insane stated intentions to invade the world until it looks like Teaneck, NJ (or possibly better), and their juvenile, pathological imperative to feel like Men by sending actual men to fight pointless wars.
On the other hand: I do not want to embrace Ron Paul total isolationism, I do not want to do what Obama said we must do, which is to just "absorb" terror attacks without retaliation.
And that's what the hardcore isolationists want. And their attachment to MAGA is highly contingent -- they support MAGA only to the extent they can dictate Trump's foreign policy, and embrace simple bad-old-days peace-at-any-cost, Blame America First pacifism as the new "rightist" position of military force.
I didn't like this position when Noam Chomsky was pushing it, and I like it no better now that Tucker Carlson has embraced it in his new quasi-religious crusade.
Megyn Kelly sure suspects this leak was made to embarrass Trump and control him, and use NBC "News" as a co-conspirator in their plot to exercise a Bureaucrat's Veto over Trump's plans to rattle the saber a little in Panama.
The White House suggests it too.
'Unconscionable': 3 former Pentagon officials say they don't know why they were firedThe ousted advisers, in their first public comments, praised the administration but made no mention of their former boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Megyn Kelly notes that the leakers are planting quotes in the media attacking Pete Hegseth, even though Hegseth is just executing Trump's foreign policy directives here.
Let me point out that this is a typical strategy of the Neo-Isolationists and Tucker Carlson personally: They know they cannot attack Trump himself, because he's far too popular with their own audience and he may just cut them off completely if they go after him.
So instead, they attack Trump's policies by attacking other people in the government for advancing them, pretending they don't know that these are Trump's policies.
The guy ran on a judicious and skeptical but tough -- he uses that word constantly -- use of military force in the world. the Neo-Isolationists don't like the "tough" part. They want zero use of the military overseas; they are dogmatically, nigh-religiously convicted of the idea that we cannot use military force except to repel an invasion.
They know the "tough" part of Trump's foreign policy comes directly from Trump's lips and is a foundational part of his political worldview, but instead of being honest and saying "We disagree with Trump here," they pretend that Trump's foreign policy is akshually being made by Pete Hegseth or whoever.
This is just dishonest. These are cowards masquerading as heroes. If you have a beef with Trump, say so, pussies.
Three top Pentagon advisers, who were fired this week after a leak investigation, said Saturday they had no idea why they were ousted.Former senior adviser Dan Caldwell, former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, the deputy Defense secretary's former chief of staff, said in an X post that they "have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of 'leaks' to begin with."
Their public comments about an "unconscionable" and false firing add to a tumultuous week for the Pentagon. Joe Kasper, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's chief of staff and the person who signed the memo authorizing the leak probe, left his role on Friday for a different position.
POLITICO reported this week that the advisers were under investigation for a series of leaks that included reports about Elon Musk's visit to the Pentagon, military plans for the Panama Canal, a second carrier headed to the Red Sea, and a pause in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine.
The former officials contradicted the allegations.
"Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door," the former Pentagon officials said in a statement posted to Caldwell's account.
They continued to express support for the "Trump-Vance Administration's mission to make the Pentagon great again," but did not mention Hegseth, with whom they'd worked closely.
Yes, they "support" Trump and Vance, but only to the extent that Trump and Vance adopt their Neo-Isolationist absolutism.
I'm starting to suspect I know where the leaks of Pete Hegseth's Signal chats are coming from.
After a weekend of headlines, the White House faced new questions about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and at least one Republican is now calling on him to resign. Some of this is related to Hegseth’s use of the Signal messaging app to text operational details of military action. But as Lisa Desjardins reports, that is not the only issue.
Meanwhile, they're spreading the idea that Trump is looking to fire Hegseth -- which Trump himself calls "fake news."
The Pentagon is in "total chaos" and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unlikely to remain in his role, according to its former top spokesperson, who painted a scene of dysfunction, backstabbing and continuous missteps at the highest levels of the department."The building is in disarray under Hegseth's leadership," John Ullyot wrote Sunday in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece. "The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president -- who deserves better from his senior leadership."
Ullyot, who resigned from the Pentagon last week, described a department in collapse. He accused Hegseth's team of "falsehoods" about why three top officials were fired last week, saying they hadn't leaked sensitive information to the media. He chastised Pentagon officials for how they handled revelations that Hegseth shared sensitive military information in a Signal chat, and he pointed to other leaks that caused embarrassment to the administration.
The remarkable accusations by a former official -- who left only two days ago and insists he still supports the Trump administration's national security policies -- underscores the infighting and upheaval that has turned increasingly public in recent weeks.
But he also found himself in the center of several controversies that added to that chaos.
This reminds me of Andrew Sullivan's complete flip on George W. Bush. First Sullivan wrote "mash notes" to Bush -- crush notes. Then he turned on hims savagely.
Sullivan went from being absolutely confident that George W. Bush was right and perfect in all that he did to, overnight, becoming absolutely confident that George W. Bush was the devil with a drawl.
There was no "in between" period for Sullivan. He did not go into a period of doubt and reflection, where he might right "I admit that my former passions were not well-founded, and I'm in a state of doubt as I grope now to figure out what the truth is."
No, he want from being 100% sure of one position to being 100% of the exact opposite position nearly overnight.
Tucker Carlson is doing the same thing. Overnight he went from a firebreathing neocon warmonger who was attached at the sphincter to the Republican Establishment to being a firebreathing convert to the cause of Peace At Any Cost. There was never a period of doubt and questioning. He went right from one Received Truth to its exact opposite Received Truth.
My position on the use of force is a lot like Trump's 2017 position on Muslim immigration: We have to shut it down for a while until we can figure out "what the hell is going on." But I certainly have not become some kind of dogmatic leftwing shill claiming that countries have the right to attack us and our interests and we must never, ever attack them.
Or that the only real foreign policy problem we have to solve is... Israel. And the Neo-Isolationists never stop running their mouths about Israel. They've got nothing to say about the Houthis attacking American (and all other countries') ships, but damn, can they talk a blue streak about Israel's missile strikes against the Houthis.
Last week, someone in the administration leaked the news that Israel planned an attack on Iran's nukes, but Trump talked Netanyahu out of it.
Again, this is top-secret information, and it seems to be leaked by someone who is opposed to any use of force by the US or even a US ally, and someone who has very protective feelings about Iran and very antagonistic feelings towards Israel.
This a serious federal offense. The people doing the leaking are not heroes. They are criminals who think they're righteous.
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Surprise! Leftwing Minnesota Prosecutor Refuses to Prosecute Leftwing Minnesota Government Employee Caught Vandalizing Teslas
—Ace
She looks like Ellen DeGeneres and
Brian "Stone Cold" Bosworth had a Satan-baby
The Democrat Party encourages, incites, funds, and legally protects its antifa/BLM redshirt domestic terrorists. They are a perpetually-violent illegal revolutionary army in the US, and it's time for the right to begin treating them as the criminal insurrectionists that they are.
I would say this is unbelievable, but it's the Democrat-Antifa Party's SOP for the past 60 years.
A progressive district attorney has declined to charge the state employee in Tim Walz-led Minnesota who was allegedly caught causing $20,000 damage by vandalizing half a dozen Teslas -- a decision the local police chief ripped as the latest betrayal of victims.The suspected vandal, 33-year-old Minnesota government employee Dylan Bryan Adams, was allegedly spotted keying the vehicles and stripping their paint off while out walking his dog around the city.
Despite what police believe to be evidence of Adams committing felonies, Hennepin County District Attorney Mary Moriarty will seek diversion rather than criminal charges.
"This is an approach taken in many property crime cases and helps to ensure the individual keeps their job and can pay restitution, as well as reducing the likelihood of repeat offenses," the attorney's office said in a statement, CBS News reported.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said at the time of the incident that the damage in each case was the equivalent of a felony.
"The Minneapolis Police Department did its job. It identified and investigated a crime trend, identified, and arrested a suspect, and presented a case file to the Hennepin County Attorney Office for consideration of charges," he told KARE in a statement."This case impacted at least six different victims and totaled over $20,000 in damages. Any frustration related to the charging decision of the Hennepin County Attorney should be directed solely at her office.
"Our investigators are always frustrated when the cases they poured their hearts into are declined. In my experience, the victims in these cases often feel the same," O'Hara said in a statement.
Adams was arrested a month after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said watching Tesla's stock price plummet gave him "a little boost during the day" during a rally in Wisconsin.
...
Moriarty has been Hennepin County's top prosecutor since January 2023 after handedly winning the nonpartisan DA election, but the former public defender quickly came under fire for her woke policies that allowed accused rapists and killers to stay free.
It's "handily." Twitter-addicted "journalists" are increasingly estranged from the English language.
During her very first week in office, she dropped the charges against a 35-year-old man accused of raping a teen girl due to attorney misconduct, CBS News reported at the time.In another high-profile case, Moriarty was taken off the case of murdered 23-year-old Zaria McKeever after the progressive prosecutor offered slaps on the wrist for the teenage defendants.
While prosecutors initially wanted to try both boys as adults, they were offered probationary deals in exchange for testimony against McKeever's ex, who hired them.
After public outcry the case was bumped to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison -- who is backed by left-wing billionaire George Soros.
Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaughLet that sink in. No, seriously. This is dubious.
A Minnesota man, Dylan Adams, an employee of Governor Tim Walz's administration, will face *ZERO* criminal consequences, or even CHARGES, for allegedly:
- Vandalizing at least 6 Teslas
- Causing $20K in damageThanks to George Soros-funded Attorney Mary Moriarty.
So @ElonMusk
's company and its customers face weeks, even months, of terror attacks - many of which involve paid actors by left-wing groups.George Soros and other left-wing groups pay to get leftist attorneys into office.
Those attorneys then REFUSE to charge the people engaging in the Tesla attacks.
It's a self-enriching ecosystem of terror. Money is behind all of it.
Because why would a Soros lackey send a message that people in Soros Zones would be held accountable for attacking Elon Musk's brand and Tesla owners?
I would recommend, and maybe even predict, a DOJ prosecution of this man for a criminal violation of civil rights, taken under color of state government action (given that he's a government employee plainly being protected by the government after being encouraged into vandalism by the governor).
Leftwingers cannot be allowed to just amnesty and immunize all of their own Insurrectionists.
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