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A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
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Last September, Pastor Jason Howard of the Sanctuary Church in Pittsburgh saw a surge of young people flocking to his Christian congregation, the week after Charlie Kirk was murdered.
Howard knew that something had shifted. Yes, their congregation had always been predominantly youth-driven, but this was different. Lines began to form for their services. Public transportation was dropping off children by the busload from campuses across the city, and he knew that he had an obligation to expand. Howard teamed up with local college students at the University of Pittsburgh, and a revival called Pitt Purposes was held on campus, attracting about 600 students and led by members of the university's football team.
But the youth movement didn't pause. In fact, it grew, leading to last week's revival at the University of Pittsburgh's Peterson Center that attracted thousands and included hundreds of baptisms, most in pickup trucks.
Howard said that after Pitt for Jesus happened in the fall, they really wanted to do a follow-up. "Our hope was that we could do something big like at the Petersen Event Center," he said.
Jake Overman, the captain of the Pitt football team, reached out to Unite Us, a ministry that has partnered with university students to organize big arena events at college campuses. Overman, who might get drafted or picked up as a free agent in next month's draft in Pittsburgh, led the Pitt for Jesus movement last fall.
There is one catch: Unite Us almost exclusively does events below the Mason-Dixon line. Nonetheless, they secured the Petersen Event Center, located in the middle of the Oakland Campus, and Overman and an army of students began canvassing the local campuses here for turnout.
There are several universities and colleges in the Pittsburgh area: Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, Robert Morris, LaRoche, Point Park, Carlow, Chatham, and Allegheny Community College.
By the time the event happened last week, over 5,000 young people were in attendance, with several hundred of them choosing to be baptized that evening.
They are not alone. For the first time in decades, faith in this country is growing, not retreating -- particularly among our young people, something that I've been reporting for the past year. In my rural parish, a Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Greensburg, our attendance has nearly doubled since last fall. Unless you get to Mass at least 15 minutes before services begin, you are left standing for the entire service -- and that is with added folding chairs in the back, along the side, and with the choir pews above us filled.
...
On Sunday, the Mother of Sorrows parish, which is also part of the Diocese of Greensburg, also had standing-room-only services on Palm Sunday. This has become the norm every Sunday. All three parking lots were packed, with cars straddling the grass leading down to the highway. Nearby Dick's Diner was also filled with parishioners.
The surge in Roman Catholic Church converts is being felt across the United States. Dioceses in the Rust Belt, Midwest, and Bible Belt are seeing record numbers of people received into the Catholic Church. Last fall, the New York Times reported that the Archdioceses of Detroit, Galveston-Houston, and Des Moines are also seeing significant increases.
...
"What we're witnessing right now is an answer to many years of prayers," he said. "Seeing this many college students turn to Jesus, and not just in a casual way but in a passionate way; willing to follow him wholeheartedly."
...
"I think overall young people are really looking for something real, and I think that this generation has really gotten to the point where the world seems out of control, and the world seems to be so subjective," Howard said.
He added that people are desperately looking for something absolute to anchor their lives in. "And, of course, God is the absolute that can anchor our lives."
Haz
@Michael_Haz
The TLM order that has been entrusted with my parish cannot ordain new priests fast enough to keep up with the requests from bishops to take over closed churches for parishoners who have asked for a Latin Mass. Wherever they are sent, the once-closed churches have filled pews several times, every Sunday. It's a beautiful thing to see and hear, especially all the newly initiated young singles, couples and families.
Obama-Biden Have Implemented Stealth Communism Plus: Hobbit/LOTR Reading Progress Thread
—Disinformation Expert Ace
You probably remember that Obama partially "solved" his unemployment crisis by simply changing the standards about who was eligible to collect Medicaid and disibility insurance. By the stroke of a pen, he changed administrative standards so that the chronically unemployed -- his voters, I mean -- would get paid by the government. They would of course be loyal to the man giving them free money, and putting them on these programs took them out of the unemployed pool and made the numbers look better.
Say anyone else remember "Jobs Saved and Created"? Remember, it's Trump who's the liar who makes up his own fake facts, not the demon Obama.
Nic Carter wrote a post discussing Biden greatly expanding upon the Obama plan to impose socialist guaranteed income (or UBI, "Universal Basic Income," long the dream of AOC and her communist allies) -- at least for his voters. The people controlling the Biden Autopen simply ended all authentication/auditing for the billions of dollars they robbed from hardworking taxpayers to give to their cronies. Anyone who spent an hour filling out paperwork could have $500 million, with no chance of ever being caught for fraud, because Biden's Autopen turned off all fraud detection, deliberately.
We blame Somali pirates for plundering us but the Democrat-Communist Party did this too us, deliberately. They could not pass a reparations bill, so they allowed all of their voters to just requisition their own personal reparations funds from taxpayers by simply opening a "hospice business" or even a "learing center."
Read it all:
nic carter
@nic_carter
it hasn't sunk in for most people. we already live in a post-scarcity society. UBI [Universal Basic Income] is already here.
bonus package: literally getting paid for staying at home and hanging out with your relatives
extra bonus: if you are willing to commit fraud, pretend your kids are autistic and get paid for that. get paid for watching your neighbor's kid. pretend you are taking care of your grandma. fake hospice clinic. fake rehab clinic. fake therapy clinic.
giga bonus: during a time of crisis take advantage of PPP or CARES and open a fake business and get paid for existing
people are shocked when they learn that defense is the FIFTH largest line item in the budget. ahead of defense: social security ($1.6T), interest on debt ($1.1T) medicare ($1T), medicaid + ACA ($1T), AND THEN defense ($0.9T)
complain about defense all you like, but healthcare fraud is a way bigger factor. hundreds of billions per year.
this is only going to get worse, because the fraud is a structural part of the system -- payouts to client groups in exchange for votes (normally D).
in the US, only 47% of the population actually works (fully 14% of the population is working age and does not work). retirees are 18% and children 22%.
the system I described above subsidizes 50m non-working people absolute minimum, but really it's far more because people that are paid to stay home and take care of their relatives are considered "workers"
of that 47% of "actual workers" maybe one third does real work, the rest are shuffling papers around or doing fake email jobs. so you have, rough math, 50 million actual workers supporting 300 million dependents. that's the nature of the economy today. it will only accelerate. eventually you will have 10 million using AI tools to do all the work and 340 million dependents.
the reason no one roots out the fraud is because it's the system that keeps our extremely fragile polity intact. the fraud is the UBI. the purpose of the system is what it does.
of course, it's a deeply unfair system, because you are allowed to commit fraud if you are a politically protected client group of the democrats. DOGE was killed faster than any government program ever, because it attempted to root out the fraud. if you are honest and unwilling to commit fraud, you are a huge loser in this system. your neighbor will have their mortgage subsidized by some government program. they will get favorable SBA loans due to DEI. they will open a fake hospice or autism clinic. they will get paid for taking care of their neighbor's kid and vice versa. the primary skill in the labor market is learning how to extract money from state and federal government programs, not gaining skills or making yourself employable. if you are just trying to work an ordinary wagie job you are a huge sucker. you are paying 40-50% effective all in taxes to everyone else who is a net taker.
the sad part is because AI is such a substantial productivity boost, it will actually keep this system going for a while longer, and maybe in perpetuity. AI boosts the 15% of the population that is actually productive so much that the remaining 85% can coast by. no one in charge will change this because they can't think of anything else. the political costs of a real UBI program are too great and we don't have the money for it anyway. so we will keep this covert fraud-based UBI program running indefinitely. unfortunately, if you are an honest wagie, you lose.
Related: Video of the FBI arresting eight fraudsters, in an operation they call Operation Never Say Die.
That's a joke -- the people in "Hospice care" never actually die because they're not sick at all and their information has been obtained and used fraudulently.
I mean, the FBI gave the operation that jokey name. It's the operation's real name, but it's a humorous one.
Related: Part of the plan is also to replace the native population, of course.
And how's that going?
🚨 BREAKING: It was just revealed that the Chinese suspects who tried detonating an IED at a US Air Force Base were BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENS of ILLEGAL ALIENS
Omg. This is EXACTLY what Justice Sam Alito tried telling everyone at the Supreme Court!
Leading Democrat Calls for Reparations for Illegal Immigrants
As Chicago and other blue cities move toward reparations for African Americans, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D, Wa.) wants reparations for illegal immigrants for the trauma caused by immigration enforcement. At the same time, various Democrats are making clear that they want to entirely defund and eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So, after the Biden Administration allowed in millions over an open border, Democrats would eliminate ICE and some like Jayapal would pay illegal immigrants reparations.
Rep. Jayapal declared on Friday:
"They need to be brought before us, and they need to be held account [sic] for the trauma that they have created, and we are going to have to have some form of reparation for the kids and the families that have been traumatized through all of this."
While not calling for reparations, other democrats have picked up the theme that someone has to pay for the trauma caused by immigration enforcement.
Unrelated: For those joining me on a trip to Middle Earth, how is it going?
I did barely any reading the last three nights. Tuesday night I ran out for a 10 pm showing of Project Hail Mary and Wednesday and Thursday nights I worked late to write a bunch of (mostly open thread) posts for today and Monday.
Today I'm going to jump back in and finish The Hobbit so I can start Fellowship by Saturday.
If you haven't read the Hobbit yet, let me recommend it vigorously. It is a fast, exciting, fun, and very funny read. You may not think of Tolkien as funny because the Lord of the Rings is serious and weighty, but the Hobbit has jokes on almost every page. If you like cheeky British humor, you'll smile a lot.
I think in Lord of the Rings, it took about 180 pages to get to Rivendell, and then we spent, IIRC, two (or even three) 50-70 chapters at that place.
In the Hobbit, we arrive in Rivendell around page 60, and we spend six pages there. Just six. Tolkien directly addresses the reader and says that while grim, scary, and unpleasant stories may be interesting and take many pages to tell, stories of places that are lovely and welcoming and relaxing do not make for good stories, and thus are told much more quickly. He's always making these kind of playful asides to the reader. (And in LOTR, he retcons the Hobbit to divulge that it was actually written by Bilbo Baggins himself, writing in the third person but usually from the POV of Bilbo. So we learn that the amusing narrator of the book is none other than the main character himself).
The book is about 320 pages and they are fast pages. If you've ever been put off by the hulking Lord of the Rings, and thought "I just can't commit to a 1,200 page book," give The Hobbit a try. To be honest, I think it's better than LOTR. I've read it about 10 times and I've only read through LOTR completely twice. (And the first time I did a lot of skimming.)
Oh -- and don't compare it to the bloated movies, which padded the hell out of everything to make it move at the slower pace of LOTR.
Anyway, that's where I am, just leaving Rivendell and heading for the Misty Mountains.
Some biologists have discovered this strange tree in New Zealand. According to experts, it is heading to Isengard to destroy Saruman. pic.twitter.com/fqTRGXlkmp
Iran shot down what appears to be a fighter plane on Friday, Iranian state media reported, in what would be the first time that Tehran downed an American jet since the war broke out five weeks ago.
The search and rescue is underway for two service members.
The Hill has reached out to the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military's actions in the region, for comment.
Iranian state media released photos purportedly showing parts of the plane, indicating it was a U.S. F-15 fighter jet.
Tasnim News Agency, the semiofficial news outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that the U.S. sent out a C-130 Hercules plane and Black Hawk helicopters to look for the crew.
Axios claims "a source familiar with the incident" -- no statement whether the "source" is American or enemy comms from Iran -- confirms the shoot-down.
Their new headline claims the US (or, perhaps, Israel) has successfully "rescued" one of the two pilots and continue searching for the other:
U.S. fighter jet shot down in Iran: One crew member rescued, search for other ongoing
If it's true that we have spec ops in the area and they found one pilot, the chances are good that they will also locate the other, who probably isn't more than a few miles from his partner.
But I don't know if any of this is true. I guess the US is refusing to confirm the reports, but you'd expect the US to refuse comment until the situation is resolved.
This is one of the two disaster scenarios I've been fearing (if true). The other is that an Iranian missile gets very, very lucky and manages to badly damage a $13 billion aircraft carrier, which would immediately reduce US air power and also be a huge propaganda victory encouraging the left-wing (and pseudo-rightwing) anti-American agitators to demand we leave the mullahs to slaughter their citizens and bomb our allies in peace. Because America's enemies are justified in using force to advance their political position, whereas America (and Israel!) of course are never so justified, ever, never ever ever.
On X, a picture of an ejector seat allegedly found by Iran was posted. But people claimed it was a fake and did not look like a bona-fide Air Force ejector seat.
Grok says that "OSINTDefender" is often wrong. "OSINT" means, I presume, "Open Source Intelligence," so, in other words, they're just getting this from the internet, and we know Iran is claiming a shoot-down on the internet.
We're all Open Source Intelligence Officers now, aren't we?
If this is true -- and I don't know that it is -- one thing that may help the missing pilot(s) is the warm regard many, but not all, Iranians have for the US/Israeli action against the Islamic Occupational Army of Iran.
THE MORNING RANT: My Gripe Against Hollywood – the Unintelligible, Artistic Mumble
—Buck Throckmorton
Hollywood is not my normal beat. I once wrote a piece about David Zaslav’s looting of Warner Bros Discovery after he ran the company into the ground while extracting generational wealth for himself. But in general, I am happy to keep up with the business of Hollywood by following Christian Toto (Hollywood in Toto), George MF Washington’s Hollywood-insider substack (The Continental Congress) and by reading Ace’s accounts of Disney’s self-immolation.
So, with Ace and them fighting the political fight involving Hollywood, I’d like to weigh in on another subject related to the industry - I can’t understand half the dialogue in the shows I stream.
Dear Hollywood: Enough with the artistic mumble.
Watching streaming series is a relatively new thing for my wife and me. Both of us fell out of the habit of watching TV series several decades ago, and it was only in the past five years or so that we’ve picked up the habit again here in the streaming era. On weekend nights when we’re not out, we enjoy watching a couple episodes of whatever show we’re following, but I sometimes feel like giving up on it since half of the dialogue nowadays is barely intelligible.
The problem is not a hearing issue. At my office, I’m sometimes involved in whispered conversations about semi-confidential matters. There are also women who talk in vocal fry. In office meeting there is overlapping chatter. In all these circumstances, everyone is still understandable. The problem is not my ears.
I’m not sure if Hollywood is full of actors who no longer know how to articulate, or if it’s sound engineers who make the actors’ speech inaudible, or some combination of the two.
The speaking affectation in modern shows seems to be equal parts mumble, whisper, and vocal fry. I cannot turn my TV up loud enough for some conversations to be greater than a whisper, or understandable. I might think it was my TV, but we replaced a TV recently, and nothing changed. Even more telling, the speech in news and sports broadcasts is still loud, crisp, and easily understood, as are old sitcoms and TV series.
At times I wonder if there is a “mumble filter” through which Hollywood sound engineers are now subjecting audio. My wife and I were very late to the series “Justified.” We watched the original series just about the time the 2023 reboot, “City Primeval,” came along. We never had any problem understanding what was being said in the original Justified, but the reboot was almost completely unintelligible. Almost all speaking was a barely audible mumble, and even Timothy Oliphant now sounded like he was whispering through a mouth full of marbles, unlike in the original series. Was a conscious decision made to have spoken words be mostly inaudible?
People do not talk like this in real life. This Hollywood speaking affectation is just as fake as the Mid-Atlantic accent of Hollywood’s golden era – but at least we could understand what was being said in those old movies.
It’s also noteworthy that despite the prevalence of the “artistic mumble,” there are still actors who will not be mumbled. Billy Bob Thornton speaks slowly and clearly, and I never have any trouble understanding him. Jamie Lee Curtis has been in several shows we’ve watched recently. She still projects her voice and speaks with authority. There is far more art in their performances than from those actors who are mumbling lines without breathing or moving their lips.
Please, Hollywood, I’m willing to consume your product. Can you have your actors and sound engineers retire the artistic mumble before I give up on Hollywood again?
*****
Throckmorton’s First Law of Live Music: “If There’s an Upright Bass in the Band, It’s Probably Going to be Good”
Something sweet and heartwarming happened on Twitter/X this past weekend – a mutual-admiration love affair broke out between conservative Americans who respect Japan and its culture, and conservative Japanese who admire our culture, all of whom seek to preserve their own cultures against hostile immigration.
There was a lot of good-natured ribbing and affectionate cultural appropriation flying around between Japan and the U.S., including Japanese cowgirls, celebrations of beef and sushi, and some cross-pollinated music.
In that spirit, here is a Japanese band performing the bluegrass classic “Fox on the Run.”
She probably wasn’t as bad as her detractors think she was (her job is harder than most realize), but she wrongfooted herself so badly there was no recovery. . . I must admit that I had a problem with Bondi from the get-go because of her involvement in the 2012 George Zimmerman case. Zimmerman was acquitted because he acted in self-defense, something that was always obvious if one paid attention to the facts without being blinded by racial politics. Bondi was the Florida AG at the time, and she supported Angela Corey, the special prosecutor who indicted Zimmerman. . . Since Bondi took over, there have been two complaints: First, she’s failed to bring any indictments against the Democrats who have played fast and loose with the law since Trump’s first day in office. Second, she’s failed to bring any indictments in connection with the Epstein matter or even to name names. . . Whether a victim of circumstances, misspeaking, or genuine boneheadedness, Bondi wasn’t working, so today, Trump made a very kind announcement that she’s out:
Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900. We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General. . .
Given the vicissitudes of politics, it is reasonable to ask did Bondi screw the pooch or was she handed a pre-screwed pooch to begin with when she got pinned with the badge as America's top cop? And depending upon what happens in Iran as well as the midterms, when It comes time for this President to depart the Oval Office come late January of 2029, we may very well be asking the very same question. As the saying goes "Personnel is Policy," and especially in his first term, President Trump made some horrible choices for his cabinet and other key advisors. To his credit, Hegseth, Rubio and Zeldin have been outstanding, and I envision the first two as potential if not likely presidential candidates, if not in 2028 then certainly 2030 and beyond.
we were talking about the complete bastardization of the 14th amendment vis a vis birthright citizenship for the spawn of illegal aliens and other non-citizens who intentionally or otherwise give birth on our territory and then voila, instant American!
There isn’t really. We mostly choose not to pursue denaturalization. Yes, past Supreme Court decisions have made denaturalization more difficult than it was ever meant to be, but mostly we don’t even try.
Here’s what happens when we do try.
. . . “Gaining citizenship after committing serious crimes against the American people is an unacceptable abuse of our immigration system,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “These latest denaturalizations illustrate this Department of Justice’s focus on ensuring that citizenship remains a privilege to obtain, not a right to abuse.”
That’s the important precedent being set here.
The actions of the two spies were not even extraordinary. Sadly a huge chunk of Chinese Communist ‘students’ and ‘researchers’ operating in the United States are doing the exact same things.
For decades, the Chi-Coms in particular have been actively promoting so-called "birth tourism" sending pregnant Chinese women to America for the specific purpose of giving birth here so that their little bastards can become automatic citizens and then ultimately Red Chinese agents, actively working to undermine us from within via espionage/sabotage as and when directed or merely to vote en masse as a bloc to influence our elections by putting in office leftist traitors.
And so with the above, it perhaps puts the tenure of Pam Bondi as AG in a bit more flattering light. And if we are willing to denaturalize those who abrogated their oath of citizenship by betraying us then perhaps we can do this en masse to however many thousands of Somalis, Afghanis, and other third-world turncoats who never had any intention of assimilating but of at a minimum being leeches and at worst, fifth columnists.
So, fare thee well Pam Bondi and thank you for this and laying the groundwork for more of this. Hopefully your successor will do exactly this.
California's top Democratic gubernatorial candidate has plenty of problems with his residency, his primary residence mortgage issues, and his lovelorn involvement with a Chinese spy who helped him pick his congressional staff.
His lack of fitness for office, though, is all the worse because of his financial problems, including some bizarre and outrageous campaign expenses and failure to file his taxes on time, along with an unverified social media report claiming that he sexually harassed interns and then paid them off by forcing them to sign non-disclosure agreements. . .
. . . According to JustTheNews:
California governor candidate Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell's finances show that he delayed paying his federal taxes, and spends the most on child care in the House with campaign funds.
Swalwell and his wife, Brittany, made an average income of more than $444,000 from 2021 to 2024, which included cash-raising moves such as drawing down retirement accounts, delaying federal tax payments, and spending on child care with campaign funds, according to tax returns and campaign finance filings, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The Swalwells' income puts them in the top 5% of households in Washington, D.C., where the couple owns a $1.2 million home, in addition to the congressman renting a room in Livermore, Calif., owned by another family.
Lest we forget his consorting and cavorting with a known Red Chinese Spy Fang-Fang which earned him the nickname Yum Yum during a Congressional hearing last year but considering who she is and works for, makes it not a matter for levity.
Denaturalizing immigrant fraudsters like the aforementioned and please God BRO-FO OMAR and her ilk is one thing.
Treason trials for Swalwell and everyone like him should also be a priority, if not a pipedream.
Lastly, here's wishing all of you a Blessed Easter!
Have a great weekend!
And a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will lead the Department of Justice (DOJ) in the interim, President Donald Trump announced. . . Bondi faced consistent backlash over her handling of the Epstein files. She claimed in February 2025 to have Epstein’s client list on her desk and delivered binders containing little new information days later to conservative influencers at the White House. Pam Bondi’s Tenure As Trump’s Overpromising AG Comes To Abrupt End
Fred Fleitz: Trump’s Iran strategy aims for swift, decisive victory—crushing nuclear ambitions and ending the war in weeks, not years, without risking American boots on the ground. President Trump Lays Out His Iran War Endgame
Douglas Murray: Across the Middle East and Europe there has been a long-standing awareness that this action was going to have to happen someday. It’s just that few countries were willing to do anything about it. One of the only people who admitted this publicly was the Chancellor of Germany, who said last summer when American and Israeli pilots first headed towards Iran’s reactors that they were doing the world’s “dirty work” on behalf of everyone else. That is absolutely true. World leaders should be grateful the US is doing what’s necessary in Iran
Kharazi’s Tehran residence was hit early Thursday, killing his wife and leaving the 81-year-old former foreign minister hospitalized with severe injuries, according to Iranian newspapers Shargh, Etemad and Ham Mihan, as reported by The Telegraph. Kharazi had been working with Pakistani intermediaries to set up a potential sit-down between Iranian officials and Vance, the outlet reported. Key Iranian Official Involved In Peace Talks Reportedly Severely Wounded In Strike
. . . the second front of the Iran war will inevitably recommence the day after the military phase of the operation concludes — and may prove the more deadly for the Islamic Republic. Ideally, the reality of looming economic catastrophe will incentivize the Iranian negotiators to accept Trump’s demands: no nuclear program, no missile program, no navy, and no military-industrial base. Absent this, economic collapse will be very difficult to avoid. Iran war has a ‘second front’ — and Tehran has already lost it
Joe Kent is attempting the tried-and-true career-advancement strategy of so-called Republicans: betray the Trump administration and reap the rewards of newfound fame. Joe Kent's Smart Career Move
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
Is President Donald Trump some sort of modern king, as claimed by the marching malcontents? ‘No Kings’ (Except Ours)
From the O. J. Simpson trial to Britain’s “swift courts,” justice now bends to identity—proof that without shared culture, the scales no longer balance. The Demise of Trial by Jury
The nine Supreme Court justices carried on completely unfazed by the president’s first-time presence in their courtroom for oral arguments on birthright citizenship. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan still exchanged a few laughs. Justice Samuel Alito periodically shut his eyes and reclined as far back as his chair would allow as attorneys spoke. Chief Justice John Roberts held to the strictest decorum. What I Saw Inside The Supreme Court During Trump’s Historic Visit
In a strictly legal sense, there's no evidence I'm aware of tying California Gov. Gavin Newsom to his state's multi-multi-billion-dollar fraud problem. But if you'll let me walk you through today's shocking numbers, maybe you'll agree that some sort of investigation is warranted. The $196 Billion Question: Where Did California’s Medi-Cal Money Go?
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, THE COURTS, WASTE/FRAUD/ABUSE
She probably wasn’t as bad as her detractors think she was (her job is harder than most realize), but she wrongfooted herself so badly there was no recovery. Pam Bondi is out!
WE-ALL-SLAM-FOR-I-SLAM
On the one hand, America enshrines religious freedom and equal treatment for all religions. On the other, supremacist indoctrination is central to Islam. What to do? Should Texas fund Muslim education?
Glover's answer is a quiet rebuke to all of it. He's not dismissing representation. He's doing something harder. He's asking us to be above obsessing over identity, for us to get to a point where the history being made is just human history. A Reporter Asked Artemis II Astronaut About Race. His Response Was Perfect.
* * * * *
While innovations in robotic automation may create new and exciting economic opportunities, a world without work is something none of us should desire. Big Tech’s Plan To Make Work ‘Optional’ Is Evil
In theory, labor unions are supposed to focus on improving the compensation and working conditions of American workers. But graduate student unions at leading universities don’t seem to care much about those things and instead are consumed by hatred of Israel and repeating the talking points of America’s enemies. Graduate Student Unions Push Anti-American, Antisemitic Agendas
Hegseth noted, “The Second Amendment of our Constitution enshrines the right of all citizens to carry weapons to protect themselves, their families, and their countrymen.” He pointed out that “warfighters” are “no less entitled to keep and bear arms than any other American.” Secretary of War Signs Memorandum to End Military Bases as Gun-Free Zones
AMERICA AND THE WORLD IMPRISONED: CHINESE+Fauci-created CORONAVIRUS FICTIONS AND FACTS
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY, INSANITY
The agents, some wielding guns, arrived at the residences of Democrat City Councilwoman Farah Louis and Hochul administration Assistant Secretary of Intergovernmental Affairs Debbie Louis on March 23, four days after they were named in a warrant, Politico reported Thursday, citing the sisters’ mother. The reported raid and warrant came amid an investigation into whether the Louis sisters and Edu Hermelyn, whose wife is a state assemblywoman and chairs the Brooklyn Democratic Party, received bribes in exchange for supporting migrant shelter provider BHRAGS Home Care Inc. Gun-Wielding Feds Reportedly Raid Homes Of Democrat Sisters In Migrant Shelter Fraud Probe
Virginia Senate candidate Mark Moran announced Thursday that he is leaving the Democrat Party and continuing his run as an independent, the Daily Caller News Foundation has exclusively confirmed. EXCLUSIVE: Democrat Senate Candidate Leaves Party To Put ‘Our Country First’ (Does this make him a Fetter-man or a faker? - jjs)
ISRAEL vs IRAN & GAZA/HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH . . . AND LEFTISTS
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s ongoing disruption of oil tanker and other shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has wreaked havoc on fuel and energy prices across Asia, with many nations imposing strict rationing measures. The Iran War is Forcing China to Hike Fuel Surcharges for Domestic Flights.
The new Rubin Observatory, a ground-based telescope in Chile, has discovered over 11,000 new asteroids in its first preliminary observations, with most in the main asteroid belt but a large number in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune and 33 previously unknown near-Earth asteroids. The new Rubin telescope discovers over 11,000 new asteroids in first observations
Stock experts have predicted this stock sale could garner SpaceX as much as $75 billion in cash, which would give it the resources to not only build its proposed million-satellite data center constellation in orbit but also develop the Starship/Superheavy infrastructure to build its own data center on the Moon. ... If SpaceX does raise that much, it will truly become America’s space program, doing far more that NASA and much faster — financed voluntarily by the American people. SpaceX files initial paperwork for going public
Working in thick sediment and almost zero visibility 15 meters (49 feet) beneath the waves, divers are in a race against time to unearth the 19th-century wreck of the Dannebroge before it becomes a construction site in a new housing district being built off the Danish coast. Warship Sunk by Admiral Nelson in 1801 Rediscovered by Archaeologists
And the story both books tell of this 19th century war is remarkably pertinent to modern 21st century events, which is another reason to read both. In the prologue of Kilmeade/Yaeger book the authors describe the first meeting of Jefferson and John Adams with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain in London, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman. Both tried their best to convince the envoy that his government’s best policy would be to stop the piracy and instead allow open trade with America. Both were horrified however by his response. America’s first foreign war on “the shores of Tripoli” has apparently never ended
“McKinsey is a quintessential institution of the post-World War II era... Being an English major is pretty good preparation for a career in consulting... McKinsey often sits on both sides of the table... Burnham foresaw all of this.” The McKinsey Century
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
The crew of the Artemis II mission - basically retreading the path of Apollo 10, 97 years ago - ran into an issue that didn't happen last time: The spacecraft's computer has two instances of Microsoft Outlook running, and neither one works.
At least that's better than unidentified floating poop (though we may yet come to that) or a Main B Bus Undervolt.
These displays are designed to automatically lower the refresh rate to as little as 1Hz (from a maximum of 120Hz) when the user is looking at a static screen, since the constant refresh cycle is a major power draw.
Tested in Dell's latest XPS 14 model (which I think is the first laptop shipping with these panels) a battery life test simulating simple web browsing with the screen brightness set to 150 nits saw the laptop lasting 43 hours. That's three times longer than Apple's M5 MacBook Air running with the same settings.
Apple's CPUs are more power-efficient than Intel's so heaver workloads handed the win to the Air, but the new display panel certainly proved itself.
At question here was Delve's software offering Pathways which looked remarkably like open-source solution SimStudio with the numbers filed off. Delve disputed the allegations... And then scrubbed all mention of Pathways from its website.
Apple is reportedly buying all the RAM available at inflated prices to force its competitors out of the market.
Samsung's mobile division tried to sign a long-term supply contract with Samsung's memory division last year - and was rebuffed in favour of putting the screws to Apple. A move that reportedly succeeded splendidly... For Samsung's memory division, which is now getting paid twice as much per gigabyte. Not for the rest of us.
Intel's Arc Pro B60 is a professional-level graphics card using the same chip as the company's B580 consumer card, but with twice the memory - 24GB rather than 12GB.
Maxsun's iteration of this puts two B60s on a single card, and it acts... Exactly like two B60s. Exactly like two B60s, because the B60 only uses 8 lanes of PCIe 5.0 (not really a constraint given its healthy allotment of RAM), and this card requires your motherboard to set that slot in x8/x8 bifurcation mode so that the two units on the card are addressed independently.
(If you have something else sharing bandwidth on that slot so that it's already in x8 mode, only half of this card will work.)
Not sure exactly how it performs - the reviewer ran multiple benchmarks but doesn't provide direct comparisons to anything else. But for gaming, it performs exactly like a B580, because games only see one of the two GPUs on the card.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: No, Houston, the poop is not floating. It's worse than that.
On July 14 of last year, Angela Lipps was at her Tennessee home babysitting four children when armed police officers came and took her away at gunpoint. She was later booked as a fugitive in relation to a bank fraud investigation in North Dakota, over 1,000 miles away. The only problem was that Lipps had never been to North Dakota.
The grandmother of five told investigators that she had lived most of her life in north-central Tennessee and had never even been on a plane. Unfortunately, police in Fargo, North Dakota, had obtained a signed warrant for her arrest on multiple charges, including felony theft and felony unauthorised use of personal identifying information.
Angela Lipps later learned that she had been identified as a suspect in an organised bank fraud case. Investigators reviewing cases in April and May 2025, in which a woman used a fake US Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars from banks, used facial recognition software on surveillance camera footage and identified the Tennessee grandmother as the main suspect.
***
After spending over three months in a Tennessee jail, at the end of October 2025, Angela Lipps was put on a plane and flown to North Dakota, where she was once again jailed simply because an AI recognition software decided her facial features, body type and hairstyle matched those of a crime suspect.
Video segment at the link.
Putting more automated stuff to use by government entities sure is a great idea, huh?
In its early days, Twitter alternative Bluesky tried to paint itself as a safe haven from the onslaught of AI, promising in November 2024 that it had “no intention” of scraping user-generated posts to train AI models.
It was a shot across the bow, clearly aimed at its rival X-formerly-Twitter, which had recently changed its terms of service to allow just that. And since then, backlash to AI slop and relentless AI integrations has grown to new heights.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bluesky’s abrupt foray into AI isn’t sitting well with its notoriously anti-AI user base.
***
“You control it, you shape it, without having to write code or know how to set up these feeds,” Schneider enthused.
The CEO seemed well aware of the headwinds against launching consumer-facing AI products in 2026.
***
Graber appeared to be aware of the inflood of hatred for the idea. When a user told her that “we don’t want it,” she replied with a curt: “then don’t use it — it’s a separate app.”
Graber also reshared a post by a different user who claimed people “on the left” were being “shortsighted” by being willfully blind about AI, and that the argument “‘hope it goes away’ doesn’t have a great track record as a strategy for contesting control of new political domains and technologies.” The implication: Bluesky users are wrong about their resentment over AI and should instead embrace it.
Left on left drama and fighting is always a good thing!
A slab of limestone excavated in 1984 from the ancient Coriovallum settlement in the Netherlands presented a puzzle for researchers of Roman history. Because of its distinct grooves and marks, the stone piece was believed to be some kind of board game – but obviously no rulebook was dug up to confirm this. Now, more than 40 years on, new technology appears to have solved the mystery.
An international team of researchers led by Maastricht University in the Netherlands, along with Leiden University, Australia's Flinders University, the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and The Roman Museum and restoration studio Restaura in Heerlen, have used 3D scans and AI to unravel the rules of this mysterious game that no human has been able to figure out.
The oval-shaped stone, roughly 8.3 x 5.7 inches (21 x 14.5 cm) in diameter and marked on one side with distinct intersecting lines, had all the hallmarks of a game played in ancient times. As the researchers note in their paper, people around the world have played games since at least the Bronze Age (around 3000 BCE). A lot haven't survived due to materials used, but the Coriovallum limestone had withstood the test of time.
***
They programmed two AI bots to play a digital version of the limestone-etched board, with more than 100 different sets of rules from other games throughout history we know of. The AI players had 1,000 goes at each of these other games, and then a pattern emerged. Nine "rules" the other games had were consistent with this mysterious one.
Using AI to come up with new rules to a game might actually be fun. Got any ideas??
***
Easter is a few days away. This sure takes me back to my days as a wee Doof. How about you?
***
One week from today - "A Tradition Unlike Any Other"
When I was young, I wondered why my Easter egg decorating kit said it was for "Paques." That's just the French for the old Latin term "Pascha" which just means Pesach or Passover. Most Romance language countries call Easter something like "Paques:" -- Spanish Pascua, Italian Pasqua. Easter is specifically an Old English word and probably means "dawn."
The English word "Easter" originates from Old English Eastre or Eostre, likely derived from a Proto-Germanic root for "dawn" (austron-) or a springtime goddess associated with the east. This name is traditionally linked to the rising sun, symbolizing the resurrection, and was adopted to replace earlier Pascha celebrations.
Last week I posted a short video of a bear waking up from hibernation with Stage IV bedhead. There's more to the story. That was an elderly circus bear callously discarded by the people he used to make money for. He's now been rescued and given his own paddock to walk around in.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticizes people getting news from social media because it's "misinformation," and not "consistent" like legacy news outlets.
Who here trusts the "consistent" legacy media?
"There's just no way to determine an athlete's sex other than reaching under her skirt and fondling her genitals!"
A Democrat representative, "Shomari Figures" -- I'm not sure if that's a human name or a new He-Man character (like maybe he has numbers for eyes or something) -- wanted to prove that black people are too dumb to get ID to vote. So he asked the members of a black church how many of them had failed to obtain this exotic, elusive object called "personal identification." Literally no one said they did not have identification so he quickly pivoted to a different point.
Oh well, Easter's not a big Christian holy day or anything I guess.
This post contains a bunch of claims about Charles' alleged conversion to Islam, which I have never heard and certainly cannot verify, but fuck this cuck.
I didn't even consider the Flat Earthers during yesterday's launch. How could I not think of the Flat Earthers? Apparently they're having a bad time, given that their whole stupid "the earth is totally flat you guys and NASA just fakes photos of a round earth" Identity.
I would say this account is a spoof, but... they really do believe and claim these things. So even if it is a goof, it's still just repeating actual conspiracy theory claims.
As you may have observed, the Nazi-curious podcast bros can no longer book any non-Nazi guests so they form an endless daisy chain of appearing on each other's little shows for "interviews" that consist of them going over the same exact ground as during the last "interview."
"Comic" Dave Smith is next again in Tucker Carlson's 9 Nazi Batting order.
And the place he goes to -- which even Tucker Carlson seems to have trouble believing he went to -- is just absolutely amazing. Thrilling, I would say. Sometimes a lie is just so brazen and absurd you're not even mad. You're appreciative. You just involuntarily stand and slow-clap and say "Bravo, Sir, Bravissimo!"
BREAKING: In his interview with foreign agent Tucker Carlson, Comic Dave Smith has finally said something funny.
“I think you are one of the leading fighters against antisemitism in the country.” pic.twitter.com/Uo0MTDP2KX
I think Tucker Carlson was closer to the truth when he started this clip by saying, "It's hardly my job to defend Jewish Americans." Yes, I think we are all agreed that this is not your job.
That show was perfectly timed -- April Fool's Day.
Ah! That explains it.
By the way, the only reason Tucker Carlson agrees that antisemitism is on the rise is because he wants to suggest that Israelis -- Jews -- are increasing antisemitism and it's within their power to arrest this rise in antisemitism if they just stop being dirty treacherous Jews all the time.
Trump was also frustrated with Bondi because he believes she may have alerted California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell to an effort by the administration to release files from an investigation into his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy, one of the sources told Semafor.
Regarding the claim that Bondi was fired because it was suspected she tipped off her friend Eric Swallwell about Patel's interest in releasing the Fang-Fang files:
Reagan Reese
@reaganreese_
27m
A source familiar with Bondi's firing tells me this is "BULLSHIT."
That doesn't mean much but it's only fair that I post the denial.
According to the Guardian, Trump polled his other Cabinet Sectaries about whether she was worth keeping or not:
Donald Trump has privately asked cabinet officials in recent weeks whether he should replace his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, venting frustration that she shielded a former deputy who undercut his rationale for war with Iran, according to two people briefed on the discussions.
It is not clear that Trump will actually fire Gabbard over the episode. Currently, there is no standout candidate to take the job, and advisers have cautioned that creating a high-profile vacancy before a successor is ready could cause unhelpful political distractions.
But Trump's discussions mark an ominous development for Gabbard, given the president tends to poll his advisers when he starts to seriously consider whether a personnel change is necessary. The two people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Trump's doubts about Gabbard followed her testimony at the worldwide threats hearing on Capitol Hill last month where she declined to condemn Joe Kent, who had resigned days earlier after arguing that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States, the people said.
The nature of Kent's departure and his criticism of the war had already angered Trump, but he expressed particular frustration about Gabbard seemingly defending Kent and appearing reluctant to defend the administration's position to attack Iran, the people said.
Trump seems to have formerly been employing the strategy of keeping his critics and saboteurs inside the tent, so that they were pissing out of it instead of into it. But now he seems to be dropping that strategy and giving them all the boot.
Bobby "The Brain" DeNiro Is So Pro-Democracy He Wants a Council of Elders To Ban People He Doesn't Like From Running for President
—Disinformation Expert Ace
nurse ratched asked for a "fun thread." I don't know if this counts, but maybe it does.
Batya Ungar-Sargon
@bungarsargon
This is such a perfect example of how Trump broke the brains of so many on the Left. In the name of opposing "totalitarianism" and "defending democracy," DeNiro thinks there should be a body of elites who bar people from running for office, including someone who went on to win the popular vote.
What's sad is that DeNiro is obviously experiencing immense, totalizing pain, genuine psychic distress at the outcome of an election.
So much of their hatred of Trump is just an attempt to evade recognizing that democracy--their neighbors getting what they want when they vote in greater numbers--causes them searing psychic pain.
I recently managed to ferret my way into a green room where Robert De Niro was waiting to speak at an anti-Trump rally. I found a man confused, angry and bewildered at what America had become. He just could not understand who or what Donald Trump really was. He thinks someone… pic.twitter.com/hirsqo7JYZ
This is such a perfect example of how Trump broke the brains of so many on the Left. In the name of opposing "totalitarianism" and "defending democracy," DeNiro thinks there should be a body of elites who bar people from running for office, including someone who went on to win… https://t.co/H2eKWF5rv1
"everything amazing is actually very bad." these writers are like if suicidal ideation were sentient, but also had a massive superiority complex. pic.twitter.com/SdtLbDrwQT
Eagle-eyed NASA fans were left stunned after spotting an Artemis II commander entering his tablet PIN in plain sight on the launch livestream.
Viewers wasted no time trying to guess astronaut Reid Wiseman's code after he unlocked his device 19 minutes before Wednesday night's launch.
Wiseman, 50, grabbed his stylus and entered the four-digit code in plain sight, making it impossible for viewers to miss.
"I appreciate you wanting to get people interested in rocket science, but maybe don't broadcast that the PIN to unlock the tablet on the rocket is either 9393 or 3939," one viewer wrote on X.
I smell an overpowering whiff of Aksually.
Here's a little rule that idiots don't know: The more determined you are to broadcast that you are Superior on a free social media platform generally acknowledged to be a sewer for the unemployable, the most certain the rest of us are that the only things you're superior to are jack and squat and Jack left town and Squat died five years ago "with" covid.
As Part of JD Vance's Anti-Fraud Task Force, Feds Raid Fake Hospice Fraudsters In California
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The Patriot Oasis
@ThePatriotOasis
🚨BREAKING: Vice President JD Vance says his Fraud Task Force is NOT wasting time after the California raid this morning.
VANCE: "Our task force isn't wasting any time cracking down on fraud."
"This morning in the LA area, federal law enforcement is taking down fraudsters who stole $50M+ from Americans by defrauding our healthcare and hospice systems."
Remember earlier stories about, what, 89 "hospice care" "businesses" operating in a ten square block area of LA?
Hospice care is care for the terminally ill. It can be expensive, but the care is brief: Most people who enter hospice care die within two or three weeks.
That's not the case in the Hospice Care Businesses being raided. Astonishingly, after eight months of care for the terminally ill, these Modern Miracle Factories have achieved a ninety-seven plus percent survival rate. And I'm not making that number up, that's from the Fox video report below the fold.
Even though these Resurrection Mills are bringing the dead back to life, the anti-science thug JD Vance wants to arrest them instead of giving them all Congressional Medals of Super-Science!
The home of a husband and wife who own a Southern California hospice accused of committing $7 million in fraud was raided by FBI agents in conjunction with Health and Human Services early Thursday morning.
The raid is one of several that took place as part of a massive federal effort to address widespread fraud in the state in coordination with Vice President JD Vance's Fraud Taskforce -- and the California Post was there.
In dramatic fashion, the couple, Amelou Gill and Gladwin Gill, who operate St. Francis Palliative Care in Anaheim, were arrested at their home by an FBI SWAT team as authorities sawed through the metal front gates of their property and called with loudspeakers for them to come out.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was on the scene as well and said the couple created a hospice in their daughter's name and bilked millions of dollars from taxpayers.
"Since 2022, there have been allegations, but for four years, what seems to be typical in California, nothing was done," he said.
Their hospice had a mortality rate of just 2.3% over the last five years, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Dr. Oz told the California Post that CMS has suspended "hundreds" of hospice licenses in California.
"In 10 weeks we're getting close to what Governor Newsom did in four years," he said.
...
Dr. Fariba Javaherian is a registered dermatologist, but according to CMS billing data obtained by The Post, she is associated with 63 hospice facilities across California either as a medical director, attending physician or in some other capacity.
Apparently there are millions of terminally ill patients dying of Problem Acne.
The National Provider Identifier (NPI) registered with Dr. Javaherian, a unique 10-digit number given to individual health care providers, was used for 1,662 unique patients across the 63 hospice agencies and appeared on more than 6,000 claims that billed $35,816,331.
Following The Post's investigation, CMS revoked Javaherian's license to bill Medicare and suspended the license of at least 16 hospice agencies associated with the dermatologist.
"Dr. Javaherian's white coat was a costume," CMS Administrator Dr. Oz said. Javaherian is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Remember, the very very smart Smarties of the Left insisted that JD Vance's posting as anti-fraud task force commissioner was some kind of political setback, because it's a big waste of time because Fraud Is Fake. The Science (TM) says so.
While the reality is 100% the opposite. I'm not a JD Vance booster any longer, but conservative voters are keen to finally have fraud investigated and punished after seventy years of politicians promising that to us, and they will reward Vance for doing the job that until now American politicians just wouldn't do.
And there is billions more in fraud to be discovered in Gruesome Newsom's California shithole alone:
EXCLUSIVE: Multiple senior HHS officials estimate that, under Gavin Newsom, California's state Medicaid program has lost 25 percent of its budget to fraud. This would mean it is currently losing $50 billion a year to scammers, fraudsters, and organized crime rings. pic.twitter.com/i442jU4XkE
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) April 1, 2026
WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT: Dasha last night confirmed those buzzy NYT and CNN scoops that Pam Bondi will likely soon be OUT as attorney general.
Bondi beached: A person close to the White House tells Dasha that when Trump met EPA boss Lee Zeldin on Tuesday to discuss last year's California wildfires, Trump also discussed the potential of tapping him for the AG role. (CNN and the NYT last night both named Zeldin as the most likely successor.) A second person familiar with the situation tells Dasha that Bondi will be out imminently.
Epstein strikes again: Rumors of Bondi's departure are hardly new, but it seems the mood has shifted against her in recent days. The AG has been under pressure since last summer over her ill-fated handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files inquiry, with even close ally Susie Wiles admitting Bondi "completely whiffed" her response. Trump has also long been frustrated over the DOJ's failure to successfully prosecute his enemies, and readers will no doubt recall the infamous "Pam" message that Trump accidentally posted onto social media last year.
Zeld-IN? By contrast, Trump has repeatedly showered praise on Zeldin for his work at the EPA. Zeldin worked as a New York attorney in his 20s, and as a House representative during the first Trump administration became known for his hawkish support of Trump's various legal battles and pursuits.
Non-denial denial: A statement issued to CNN and the NYT shows Trump voicing personal support for Bondi. "Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job," the president said, which is hardly a guarantee of her future status. Bondi accompanied Trump to the Supreme Court yesterday morning and was in the audience for his address to the nation last night. Zeldin was also there.
President Trump told Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday that she would be out as head of the Department of Justice, a source with knowledge of the conversation told The Post on Thursday.
Bondi was at the White House to attend Trump's address to the nation on the Iran war, and earlier had accompanied the president to the Supreme Court to watch oral arguments in a major birthright citizenship case.
Fox News said Trump will replace Bondi with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the interim attorney general.
Trump is expected to soon make a formal announcement.
The White House did not directly address the report, but pointed The Post to a quote from the president praising Bondi.
So Fox is confirming it.
Unexpected, at least to me.
Update: Sorry to push unvetted info, but a commenter posted this and I'm going to repeat it even while declaring "I don't know if this is anywhere close to true."
Trump's reasoning for the sudden dismissal comes in part because the President believes Bondi tipped off Eric Swalwell about the FBI's efforts to release investigative documents related to his relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.
I'm still trying to figure out where this comes from.
A person familiar with the situation tells me that Pam Bondi will be out as AG imminently, confirming scoops from @CNN and @nytimes.
When Trump met EPA boss Lee Zeldin on Tuesday to discuss last year’s California wildfires, Trump also discussed the potential of tapping him for… pic.twitter.com/zXj6MInr6B
Update to last post: At an Easter event, Trump told Erika Kirk that she should "sue their asses," speaking about her professional defamers like low-IQ schizophrenic DEI podcaster Candace Owens.
Owens says that the only reason Erika Kirk would have to sue her would be that she is "making fun" of her "best friend's" grieving widow, and then says this proves that the "Israelis are in charge" and that Trump is now fully Jewish.
This retard is going to get destroyed in the Macron lawsuit and she’ll get destroyed in an Erika lawsuit.
If you think she’s like some kind of genius, you’re wrong. She’s a malicious halfwit. Everything she says is wrong, and if you believe her, you are a sucker. https://t.co/wCLKL0Qih6
This is the woman the site's current Nazi Troll tells me I have to align with Because Reasons.
The Nazis defend her because she routinely says things like "the Israelis are totally in charge now" and "Trump is now fully Jewish." But when you object to Candace Owens telling lie after defamatory lie about a grieving widow who appears to be a nice normie mom, they always say the same thing: You're only against her defaming a grieving widow in the most evil and demonic way possible because you're obsessed with Israel.
No, Nazis. I condemn someone for telling countless vicious lies about a grieving widow -- and suggesting that her wheelchair-bound dying mother is faking for money and sympathy -- because these are inherently, on-their-face evil actions that any right-thinking moral person should condemn uniquivocally.
You, on the other hand, refuse to condemn these lies, because YOU are obsessed with Israel. You have too few prominent Nazi agitators to cut one loose just because she's been on a deranged campaign for almost a year to put Erika Kirk through her own conspiracy-theory Calvary. We don't condemn Candace Owens' breathtakingly evil defamations "because of Jews" -- but you sure as shit embrace this evil because of Jews.
So fuck you and also Kill Yourselves, please and thank you.
Trump Promotes Douglas Murray Article Blasting Tucker Carlson as a Sharia-Law-Promoting Holocaust-Denying Backstabber
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Ryan Saavedra
@RyanSaavedra
President Trump posts an article by Douglas Murray that highlights Tucker Carlson's extremism, embrace of Islamists, and America Last:
The article is titled: "Deranged Tucker Carlson backstabs Trump"
Several of the top lines in the piece include:
-"While the president has advocated a strong defense of America's regional allies, Carlson has spent 100% of his time trying to turn the MAGA base against Israel and in favor of Islamist regimes."
-"His podcast has become a remorseless roll call of Holocaust deniers, antisemites, Islamic extremists and World War II revisionists."
-"While attacking Trump, Carlson eagerly softball-interviews people who love both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin."
-"While accusing everyone else of being obsessed with Israel, Carlson has obsessed about nothing else. While saying 'We're not allowed to talk about Jews,' he has talked about nothing but Jews."
-"This culminated in Carlson calling Trump's actions 'evil.' ... From being Trump cheerleaders, Carlson & co. are trying to do everything they can to destroy the president."
In politics, it is often the people who you think have your back who end up stabbing you there.
Nobody knows that better than Donald Trump, who has been stabbed in the back more times than Julius Caesar -- yet has still survived.
This week, part of the noisy right-wing online podcast-sphere again turned on the president.
Leading the virtual charge, again, was Trump's one-time cheerleader, Tucker Carlson.
There was a time when Carlson was fully Team Trump.
I don't think so. Fox had to release Tucker Carlson's texts and emails during the Dominion lawsuit and Carlson stated he "truly hated" Trump and couldn't wait for Comey and Jack Smith to take him out so that he'd never have to hear from Trump again.
A lot of craven opportunists jumped on the MAGA bandwagon not because they supported Trump or MAGA, but because Trump represented a disruptive force that could break the ice of conservabot doctrine and reshape the right into something new. These opportunists -- these grifters, often actually white supremacists and Nazis and not just in the left-wing "this person disagrees with me so he must be a Nazi" way -- saw Trump's power to shatter old smug conservabot certainties and reform the pieces of the Republican coalition into a shape he preferred. These grifters did not support Trump's vision of what the re-made party should look like. They had a dark, extremist, and yes frankly Nazi/White Supremacist agenda. They just temporarily supported Trump because their goals equally relied upon shattering the old conservabot/neocon alliance. And they hoped that by sucking up to Trump, they could convince him that their totally-new ideas about white supremacy and anti-Jewish hatred should finally be given a try. (Like communism, Real Naziism has never been tried.) And even if Trump refused to bend to their will, why, as long as they were seen as close to Trump, they could emerge as his successors after Trump was term-limited and retired.
Carlson often appeared at Trump rallies as part of the warmup act.
But in the past year, he has tried to lead the MAGA base away from Trump and down a very dark path.
Fortunately, the Trump base hasn't followed him there.
The president's strong Middle East policy seems to have particularly deranged his one-time supporter.
While the president has advocated a strong defense of America's regional allies, Carlson has spent 100% of his time trying to turn the MAGA base against Israel and in favor of Islamist regimes.
His podcast has become a remorseless roll call of Holocaust deniers, antisemites, Islamic extremists and World War II revisionists.
While attacking Trump, Carlson eagerly softball-interviews people who love both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Quite an achievement.
Undermining
While accusing everyone else of being obsessed with Israel, Carlson has obsessed about nothing else.
While saying "We're not allowed to talk about Jews," he has talked about nothing but Jews.
This obsession has culminated in a total derangement over the president's Iran policy.
Carlson and other people in the right-wing podcast-sphere pretend to be confused by the president acting to stop the mullahs from getting an atomic bomb.
At one and the same time, they say Iran was never seeking nuclear weapons. And that Iran has the right to nuclear weapons.
They pretend the Iranians were nowhere near having a nuclear weapon. But that it would be understandable if they were.
This culminated in Carlson calling Trump's actions "evil."
And suggesting he has once again been manipulated by, well -- guess who?
From being Trump cheerleaders, Carlson & co. are trying to do everything they can to destroy the president.
It is true.
Meanwhile, Candace Owens has made it explicit and commanded her deranged, retarded followers to acquit the gay furry leftist murderer of her "best friend" Charlie Kirk.
Candace Owens is now shamelessly declaring Tyler Robinson innocent.
She’s already cashed in big on this tragedy, building her entire brand and stacking profits on the back of a dead man, and she has zero plans to stop. No one has milked, exploited, and grifted off this situation… pic.twitter.com/ffXKA0d87t
In just the last few days, Owens has added these gems to the list:
- Trump might be hiding the Epstein files as a favor to his Jewish daughter and son-in-law, who might be more loyal to Israel. - The socialist anti-Israel NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a secret zionist… https://t.co/jbUqjsmtIl
She's a literal madwoman. Oh, she's also evil and demonic, but she is a schizophrenic lunatic. There is literally not one bizarre conspiracy theory she does not believe in passionately.
Ghosts tell her secret conspiracy theories about bees in dreams and she feels "vibes" and there is no higher standard of evidence than that.
Definitive proof Candace Owens is the greatest investigative reporter of our time. pic.twitter.com/FlwZYMKOY6
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) April 1, 2026
This was Candace Owens in February, pushing the claim that Tyler Robinson’s defence team were part of a conspiracy - because they hadn’t reached out to her. Candace realised that Robinson was likely to be found guilty.
— Nathan Livingstone (MilkBarTV) (@TheMilkBarTV) April 2, 2026
So does Tucker, for that matter:
Tucker Carlson believes Pearl Harbor was a false flag orchestrated by Roosevelt to drag America into WWII. His evidence is a Senate inquiry that actually concluded the exact opposite - that there was zero evidence of foreknowledge of the attack.
One of the reasons why we conservatives find it difficult to comprehend the magnitude and reach of the organizations funding, organizing, and promoting the comprehensive leftist response to pretty much everything the Trump administration does, is that we are far too invested in our own individualism, and chafe at the thought of being a cog in some great right-wing machine. We simply can't imagine why anyone would be such a mindless drone, sent hither and yon at the behest of a cabal of wealthy progressive manipulators, who are themselves simply tools of our enemies abroad.
But the left has no problem with being part of the collective, because that is exactly who they are! There is no recognition of the uniqueness of the human condition. It sees everyone as part of a greater whole that inevitably moves toward their goal, which is the destruction of the individual, and the rejection of the divine spark that gives meaning to the world, gives meaning to life, and creates the conditions necessary to recognize the intrinsic worth of each of us.
Religion, traditional culture, the nuclear family, free markets, respect for life...all are targets in the great war that the left is waging against Western culture. And while those are all powerful weapons in that battle, the left's ability to organize and to sublimate the God-given attributes of humanity is a tremendous advantage.
If you were in New York City on Saturday during the third edition of the No Kings movement, you would have seen a smorgasbord of far-left groups aiming to sow the seeds of revolution in America.
You would have seen numerous flags adorned with the hammer and sickle. You would have been surrounded by collectivist swag and literature for sale, including copies of The Communist Manifesto. You would have seen banners with socialist slogans celebrating depraved monsters like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. Worst of all, you would have been inundated with chants like, “there is only one solution — communist revolution.”
The No Kings movement is a sham. Far from a grassroots movement, it is a highly coordinated, well-funded network of far-left groups that seek to replace America’s founding principles.
And the left's useful idiots -- the blue-haired cat ladies, the septuagenarian hipsters with gray ponytails reliving their counter-culture youth, the ignorant 20-somethings who believe everything they hear, as long as it is in a reel shorter than 30 seconds -- they obediently rush out onto the street carrying preprinted signs, chant slogans from 3x5 cards, get their protest checks from the organizers, and rush home to tell their friends how powerful they are!
It is a fight that conservatives find difficult to enter, precisely because we are not worker bees being directed by others. But enter it we must! Luckily we have the truth and 2,500 years of evidence on our side.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!
President Donald Trump praised the United States military Wednesday night during a speech updating the American people on the conflict with Iran, but he offered no new details on the operations.
Operation Epic Fury, a military campaign by the United States and Israel, commenced on Feb. 28 after attempts to negotiate a cessation of Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons failed. During the speech, Trump said that the “core strategic objectives” of the military operations were almost achieved\(RELATED: Trump Halts All Strikes On Iran Power Plants Amid Negotiations)
“As I stated in my announcement of Operation Epic Fury, our objectives are very simple and clear. We are systematically dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders,” Trump said. “That means eliminating Iran’s navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before, and annihilating their defense industrial base. We’ve done all of it. Their navy is gone, their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten.” “Taken together, these actions will… crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb,” Trump said. “Our armed forces have been extraordinary. There’s never been anything like it militarily. Everyone is talking about it. And tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”
Trump also paid tribute to the 13 Americans killed during the military operation. As of Wednesday evening, seven American military personnel had died from hostile action in Operation Epic Fury, with six others perishing in the crash of an Air Force KC-135R tanker. Trump also blamed Iranian attacks on shipping in the region for high gas prices, saying their actions proved the necessity of the military operation.
“Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home. This short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict,” Trump said. “This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them, and they will use them quickly. It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain, and instability worse than we can ever imagine.”
Trump also warned Iran’s current leadership to accept the terms he laid out, saying that if they did not, the United States would target Iran’s energy infrastructure.
“If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously,” Trump said. “We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding, but we could hit it and it would be gone, and there’s not a thing they could do about it.”
The progressives’ threat that “millions” of people could lose citizenship amid legal chaos seems intended to give swing-voting judges an excuse to kill Trump’s order that bars citizenship to illegal migrants.
The prospect of chaos was raised by a swing-voting judge. “It could be messy,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who has voted with progressives.
Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning, writing, “Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump said, however, that the U.S. will consider a ceasefire after the Hormuz Strait is “open, free, and clear.” President Trump: Iran Has Asked for a Ceasefire
The Chinese government has struggled to maintain relevance in the context of the conflict, which began on February 28 with President Donald Trump announcing Operation Epic Fury and the elimination of Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei. A close ally of Iran’s, which prompted China to facilitate its membership into the anti-American BRICS coalition, Beijing has vacillated between condemning the United States for engaging Iran militarily and gently suggesting that Iran’s disruptions of commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which disproportionately hurt China, should cease. . . China Debuts Iran Peace Plan: ‘Cease Hostilities,’ Begin Peace Talks (that Are Already Happening), Respect the U.N.
NATO endures on American backing while many allies demand U.S. action abroad but withhold it when asked, exposing a widening gap between rhetoric and responsibility. A Foolish NATO Was a Big Loser in the Iran War
Graham, long viewed as a holdover from the warmongering faction of Republicans, is now calling for President Donald Trump to begin winding down Operation Epic Fury. Fey fraud Lindsey Graham Playing For Both Sides
CIVIL WAR 2.0, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV), who describes herself as “America’s #1 Most Bipartisan Member of Congress,” posted and later deleted a profanity-laced response on X to an Associated Press (AP) story about President Donald Trump’s planned attendance at Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship. Dem Rep. Susie Lee Deletes ‘I’ll Pray They F*** Him to His Face’ Post About Trump
The hilarious aspect of this. . . was to hear the liberal justices, who rarely allow the language of the Constitution to stand in the way of a preferred interpretation, but they seemed to be channeling Scalia today, talking about we really have to go back to that original intent, and it’s pretty clear this is the English rule. And that obviously played to the conservative justices.” FNC’s Turley: ‘Hilarious’ to Watch Lefty Justices Sound Like Scalia on Birthright Citizenship
The progressives’ threat that “millions” of people could lose citizenship amid legal chaos seems intended to give swing-voting judges an excuse to kill Trump’s order that bars citizenship to illegal migrants. The prospect of chaos was raised by a swing-voting judge. “It could be messy,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who has voted with progressives. Migration Advocates Threaten ‘Millions’ May Lose Status if Supreme Court Allows Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Order to Stand (Please God!!!- jjs)
. . .if the justices harbor any consideration of keeping the 14th Amendment migration train running by upholding the current bastardization of the amendment, it will signal to the American people the illegitimacy of even the highest legal authority in the land, ostensibly with a 6-3 conservative majority. A SCOTUS decision to uphold birthright citizenship as currently applied
would communicate that it means to follow in the footsteps of successive presidential administrations and Congresses, selling Americans’ jobs, land, and promises of freedom to the highest bidder, or simply giving them away to foreigners who cross the border illegally. If SCOTUS Upholds ‘Birthright Citizenship,’ It Will Do So At Its Own Peril
True compassion doesn’t stop at borders; it strengthens nations by rewarding legal immigration, enforcing the law, and exporting the ideas that made America prosper. Is Deportation Compassionate?
The fight over illegal immigration misses the point: the real debate is whether America should limit immigration at all—legal or otherwise—to protect its own workers and sovereignty. Legal Immigration Is Bad: We Can Stop It
THE GREAT SOMALIAN SIMOLEON SWINDLE
The case highlights the largest pandemic-era fraud in Minnesota, undermining public trust in government programs and sparking outrage over the perceived leniency of the sentence. Somali Fraudster Handed Soft Sentence in Minnesota. (A jury of his peers, no doubt IYKWIM - jjs)
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
“President Trump has made it clear that America should fully develop its abundant energy resources in a way that strengthens our economy and benefits American families,” Burgum said in a statement. Trump Oversaw Record Levels of Domestic Energy Production in 2025
John Stossel: You're killing the planet! Evil Meat
THE 2020 and SUBSEQUENT ELECTION HEISTS , SHENANIGANS/FRAUD and AFTERMATH
Letlow publicly claims to oppose “woke ideology,” and has been endorsed by President Donald Trump in her primary Senate race against incumbent Bill Cassidy. However, a 2020 video shows Letlow participating in a panel interview as a semifinalist for the University of Louisiana, Monroe’s presidential search, where she detailed plans to lead diversity measures and ensure more women, especially ‘women of color,’ would be hired for senior leadership roles. Trump-Backed Senate Hopeful Was In Love With DEI — Until She Entered Politics
“Ultimately, there will have to be a transition phase,” Rubio told host Sean Hannity. “There will have to be free and fair elections in Venezuela, and that point has to come.” He said the initial stabilization stage is “largely achieved” and that the country has entered a recovery period, with Venezuelan crude now shipping to American refineries and oil revenue flowing into U.S. Treasury-controlled accounts. Marco Rubio Calls For Fair Elections After Meeting With Venezuelan Opposition Leader
General Mills, which bought Annie’s in 2014, announced in September 2025 a “delightful upgrade” to the famous mac and cheese that is “even more ooey gooey real cheese.” In typical corporate fashion, General Mills didn’t highlight the real shifts to the recipe in its press releases. The fourth and fifth key Annie’s ingredients, good ol’ butter and nonfat milk, were reportedly replaced with cornstarch, which acts as a thickener but has no protein or nutritional value. Big Companies Seem To Be Ignoring MAHA Way, Change Two Everyday Food Items
“The Match achieved its monopolistic power over the residency market by instituting an ‘All In’ policy that requires Match-participating residency programs to register and fill all positions through the Match or another national matching plan, and then merging with its largest competitor.” House Judiciary Report Exposes Medical Residency Hiring Monopoly
ACTUAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
The crew will remain in Earth orbit until (later today), checking out the capsule and its systems. Once they have confirmed these are working as expected, they will then fire their engines to head to the Moon. SLS successfully puts Orion into orbit
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
“WPATH and USPATH conferences are a black box to outsiders... Presenters often refashioned assessment to affirm identity... ‘If you want breasts at a later point in your life,’ she quipped, ‘you can go and get them... Now they were wary about publishing...The conference videos offer further evidence of WPATH’s shifting narrative... Some bristled at the suggestion of hard age limits.” How Gender Medicine Set Itself Up for Disaster
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
The days of La La Land may be numbered with the pressures of how people consume entertainment continuing to undergo massive shifts. And the legacy studio system is struggling to respond and reinvent itself accordingly, especially in the U.S. as productions of movies and TV shows flee California in droves and even increasingly head to other countries looking for far cheaper costs. WSJ: ‘Hollywood Will Soon Resemble Detroit’ After Auto Industry’s Decline, ‘Nightmare Scenario Is Playing out’
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
Open source software is protected by copyright law, and that depends on the exact expression of the code. It's easy for an AI to make sufficient changes to dodge copyright law while keeping functionality intact.
Or mostly intact. In my experience even performing straightforward changes like that you still end up with some breakage.
And of course this was possible before AI as well; it just took a little more effort.
Panic buying before the worst of the price increases hit looks like it was a good move. I have enough memory and storage to keep going for years.
On the other hand, if you're in the market for a new mid-range graphics card, look out for discounted 16GB XFX Radeon 9060 XTs. I bought one early this year as part of my panic attack, and they have very much bucked the trend by cutting the price by 20% since then.
That's in Australia but the price here would be equivalent to $310, against an MSRP of $350.
Not a high-end card but fast and capable and not overly power-hungry.
I was thinking of buying one - actually the Pi 500+, which is the model built in to a mechanical keyboard - but passed on it because at the time only the keyboard itself was available and not the bundled desktop kit with a matching mouse and cables and power supply.
That model is the worst affected, but even the 4GB Pi 5 has increased in price by 75%.
That's only a minor change, though. Existing Intel laptop chips have up to 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores. Nova Lake HX adds four low-power cores to that.
Also, as with the current Panther Lake family, there will models with the advanced integrated graphics (branded as B390), but then you get half as many CPU cores. You can't have both.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!
In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.
In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."
He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.
What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet. Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*
Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.
A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV. Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.
A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR? Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR. Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too. LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.
The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring. I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do. But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.
Finish the job, Mr. President! Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]
Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!
Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."
Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time. The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine
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