Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - August 20, 2025 [Comic Rex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.
Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.
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Wiener Knight Cafe
—Ace
Cat frustrated by the anti-cat feature of this table.
Baby negotiates with turkeys. (Non-Jive.)
You let them "win" the first couple rounds of Three Card Monty before you clip them.
Tico the Parrot rocks out to the Clash.
The luxury and silly exercise equipment of a 1960s cruise ship.
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Trump Demands the Resignation of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook After Revelation of Her Alleged Mortgage Fraud
—Ace
I don't think that top federal banking officials should be allowed to commit mortgage fraud. I know that's a controversial opinion (on the left, at least).
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte has referred possible criminal activity involving Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook to Attorney General Pam Bondi for investigation and action as appropriate. Pulte's letter states, "According to mortgage documents obtained by U. S. Federal Housing, it appears an individual, Ms. Lisa DeNell Cook, has falsified bank documents and property records to acquired more favorable loan terms, potentially committing mortgage fraud under the criminal statute." AdvertisementSince at least May 2022, Cook has been required to live in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Her exact date of moving to D.C. is unclear, but she was part of Joe Biden's transition agency review team as of November 2020 and was nominated for the Federal Reserve job in January 2021. The shenanigans started in the summer of 2021.
On June 18, 2021, Cook took a fifteen-year mortgage for $203,000 for a house in Ann Arbor, MI, which she said was to be her "primary residence," and she promised to live there full-time for at least one year." A mere fourteen days later, she took out another mortgage for a condo in Atlanta's "Above the Four Seasons" building for $540,000. Again, she stated this would be her primary residence and she would live there for at least one year. By September 2022, her Atlanta condo was listed for rent but "a review of Ms. Cook's federal government financial disclosures for calendar years 2022 and 2023 indicate that she has not disclosed any rental income tied to this address." Hmmm... I wonder if the IRS is taking notes.
CNN doesn't understand what the big deal is.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called on a top policymaker at the Federal Reserve to resign, after one of his allies alleged that she committed mortgage fraud.
In a letter dated August 15, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte urged the Justice Department to investigate a pair of mortgages taken out in recent years by Fed Governor Lisa Cook.
On Wednesday, Trump referenced those allegations on his social media platform, writing that "Cook must resign, now!!!"
Pulte, a vocal Trump ally, has frequently criticized the Fed and its leader, Chair Jerome Powell, for not lowering rates. He also called for closer scrutiny of the central bank's costly refurbishment of its Washington, DC, headquarters.
"She needs to explain herself, but it's all there in black and white," Pulte said in a phone interview with CNBC on Wednesday. "I think she needs to resign quickly."
The new focus on Cook is an expansion of the Trump administration's intense pressure campaign against the Fed, specifically central bankers who aren't perceived as allies of the president.
CNN thinks the political story is that Trump wants criminals turned out of office, rather than the real political story, that high-ranking government officials Protected by the Democrat Party routinely commit serious crimes without any fear of punishment.
It's absolutely astounding how the Protected feel they are absolutely above the law. It's time to start putting them in prison, to encourage the others.
The Democrats Are Losing Voters All Over the Country as the GOP Steals Them Away
—Ace
A new Insider Advantage poll finds Trump's approval surging -- except with the oldest voters.
Voters Not So Much Posted on August 18, 2025Survey conducted August 15-17; MOE 3.09%
What is your opinion of President Trump's Job Performance?
Approve: 54%
Disapprove: 44%
Undecided/ No Opinion: 2%
Analysis by InsiderAdvantage Pollster Matt Towery:
Donald Trump now has an advantage among every age group other than the most senior of voters. He has improved his numbers among African-Americans and Hispanic-Latinos. White voters are at a near record 64%. Voters under 65 years of age now approve of his job performance by wide margins. Only the nation's oldest voters disapprove of his job performance, which is consistent with our prior surveys. Overall, his approval numbers are surging upwards post-summit.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are losing voters by the millions:
Many blue states, like massive California, register voters by party while many red states, including Texas, do not, so the number of nationwide registered voters by party does not tell the full story. But in those 30 states with partisan voter registration, Democrats' eleven-point edge over Republicans on Election Day 2020 plummeted to just over six points in 2024, an alarming trend for Democrats."I don't want to say, 'The death cycle of the Democratic Party,' but there seems to be no end to this," Michael Pruser, director of data science for Decision Desk HQ, told the Times. "There is no silver lining or cavalry coming across the hill. This is month after month, year after year."
More trends paint a similarly dire picture for Democrats.
By 2024, the Republican party's share of new registered voters nationwide "had overtaken Democrats'," rising by nine points compared to 2018, the report details, while Democrats' fell by almost eight percent.
The shift from 2020 to 2024 was prevalent in the four swing states with partisan data available as well -- North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada.
Identifying the problem is likely to be far easier than fixing it.
Due to the makeup of Trump's new Republican Party coalition, achieved through gains across multiple demographics, Democrats are unable to go back to the well of recruitment of racial minorities to reverse their downward trajectory. The Times report reads:
For years, the left has relied on a sprawling network of nonprofits -- which solicit donations from people whose identities they need not disclose -- to register Black, Latino and younger voters. Though the groups are technically nonpartisan, the underlying assumption has been that most new voters registering would vote Democratic.Mr. Trump upended that calculation with the inroads he made with working-class nonwhite voters.
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Adam Schiff Starts a Legal Defense Fundraise As He Senses the (Say It With Me) Walls Are Closing In
Plus: Fauci Suppressed Intel That China Created Covid-19
—Ace
This is illegal fundraising, isn't it?
Adam Schiff has always loved the spotlight, but not like this. The California senator, best known as the face of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax and the architect of the first impeachment circus, is now launching something very different: the "Senator Schiff Legal Defense Fund."Schiff filed the paperwork with the IRS last week. This move doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his future. You don't create a legal defense fund unless you expect things to get messy. And he knows he's in serious trouble over his alleged mortgage fraud.
According to his camp, this isn't about a real scandal but revenge. A Schiff spokesperson immediately blamed Donald Trump and his supporters for supposedly weaponizing the justice system.
"It's clear that Donald Trump and his MAGA allies will continue weaponizing the justice process to attack Senator Schiff for holding this corrupt administration accountable," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "This fund will ensure he can fight back against these baseless smears while continuing to do his job." Translation: Schiff knows the walls are closing in, but he wants his donors to pay the bill.
The problem is that the allegations against Schiff don't look like political fiction. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) referred him to the Justice Department last month. Investigators say Schiff falsified bank documents and property records related to a Potomac, Md., home, securing sweetheart loan terms between 2003 and 2019.
And: Prosecute Fauci.
Senior American intelligence officials concealed classified intelligence that COVID-19 came from a lab from the president and the public, granting Anthony Fauci's inner circle extraordinary influence while silencing their own spy scientists, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.Evidence pointing to a lab leak included signals intelligence collected from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders in 2019 between Beijing and Wuhan revealing a major emergency, one former official told the DCNF. An increasingly political deep state concealed it from President Donald Trump during the first two months of the pandemic, deflecting blame from China as political rival Joe Biden sought to lay responsibility for the pandemic squarely at Trump's feet.
Higher-ups continued to dismiss evidence for a lab leak as the fodder for a conspiracy theory and Trump's hardline stance against China, deceiving millions of Americans about a disease that upended their lives and felled loved ones. Spy scientists at four intelligence agencies and four other government officials spoke to the DCNF on condition of anonymity to reveal previously unreported details about censored intelligence under two presidential administrations.
Spy scientists also decoded engineering in the COVID-19 genome -- clues Chinese authorities were powerless to hide, two spy scientists said. But this evidence was conspicuously omitted from public reports released by the intelligence community under then-President Biden, as senior officials instead elevated the analyses of Fauci's inner circle, who argued the virus was assuredly natural. The omission prompted a formal complaint from one agency, one spy scientist said.
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard told the DCNF she would hold the intelligence community accountable by working with whistleblowers, reviewing classified material, and investigating where taxpayer funds may have helped create the COVID-19 virus."It is clear that dissenting views were likely silenced to support the Biden Administration's preferred narrative. Under President Trump's maximum transparency agenda, we're committed to exposing the truth so that we can build back trust in the intelligence community," Gabbard said.
Some officials responsible remain in government service, including at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a government official told the DCNF.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, a longtime critic of the politicization of intelligence about the origins of COVID he witnessed as DNI during Trump's first term, will hold individuals accountable, CIA spokesperson Liz Lyons told the DCNF.
...
Fauci was granted a full pardon by President Biden on his last day in office, Jan. 20, 2025.
Jon Myers, a former director of regional intelligence in the Pentagon for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the DCNF that he could say with "100% certainty" that in the fall of 2019 he had seen intelligence about an incident at a lab in Wuhan when reviewing traffic on the Pentagon's secret compartmentalized intelligence machine and had included this information in his "read boards" for commanders.
But that information never reached Trump's Presidential Daily Brief in January or February 2020, a former senior White House national security official told the DCNF.
"Customer #1 was getting nothing related to the origins," he said.
You won't be surprised to learn that the New York Times joined in the effort to smear the scientists trying to find the real origin of covid-19.
In early February 2020, Redfield, a virologist, and Pottinger, a former journalist who had reported on the SARS epidemic in China, were poring over binders of evidence that clearly contradicted the narrative that the lab origin theory was a conspiracy theory, Redfield said. Pottinger tasked the IC with digging into both the natural and lab origin theories.By late April, New York Times reporters on the intelligence beat prepared a story smearing Pottinger's request as pressure to arrive at a predetermined conclusion, emails show.
Communications officials at the DIA, State Department and ODNI prepared a response to refute the Times' claims, documents show. Then-DNI Ric Grenell said in an April 29, 2020 email that the "IC wide statement" would say "we are down to two options for covid."
But the next day, ODNI released an inaccurate and oddly premature statement that there was "wide scientific consensus" the virus could not have been "manmade or genetically modified."
There was no input from Pottinger's group at the NSC, rattling some in the White House, one official said.
...
The same day ODNI released its false statement, the Times published its story about Pottinger. It cast him as "conclusion shopping" akin to the runup to the Iraq War. The Times also cited Fauci's "Proximal Origin" paper as evidence of a natural origin. The Times had reported earlier that month that the CIA's experts had not found any evidence of a lab accident.
ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (created by Bush's stupid post-9/11 reorganization) was of course headed by James "that's our story and we're sticking to it"/"There is no 'I' in 'Intelligence'" Clapper at this time.
Clapper must have filled ODNI with Obamaite traitors, because Tulsi Gabbard just announced she is clearing house:
Nick Sortor @nicksortor🚨 BREAKING: Tulsi Gabbard is set to announce she is striking nearly **50%** of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, saving taxpayers almost $700 MILLION per year
Tulsi is taking a HACKSAW to the deep state!
@TulsiGabbard says "ODNI 2.0" will AGGRESSIVELY refocus on its national security mission, call this "the start of a new era focused on serving our country, fulfilling our core national security mission with excellence, always grounded in the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring the safety, security, and freedom of the American people."
Fox says she'll cut 40% of ODNI.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced plans Wednesday to cut her agency's workforce by up to 40% in the coming weeks -- and eliminate several offices that "politicized" the flow of critical information.The Office of the Director of National Intelligence had been staffed by more than 1,800 employees when Gabbard was sworn in but is expected to retain just 1,300, while at least three offices deemed redundant will be shut down, according to senior officials.
Not all of that reduction in force will come from firings, with many employees shifted to other executive branch agencies.
The "core functions" of those offices -- Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center and the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center -- will be taken up either by ODNI's Mission Integration office or the National Intelligence Council.
The latter comprises the most senior intelligence analysts, who help oversee more than a dozen agencies.
ODNI officials claimed in a briefing with reporters that the FMIC had eroded civil liberties and damaged Americans' trust, particularly during the Biden administration -- and even aided big tech platforms in moving to censor speech like The Post's bombshell story on former first son Hunter Biden in October 2020.One official compared the office to the State Department's Global Engagement Center, which Secretary Marco Rubio closed down in April following similar accusations of suppressing free speech.
The other two offices focused on monitoring threats involving weapons of mass destruction and cyberattacks -- both of which are handled by other existing executive branch agencies.
And about those pardons: Biden's own DOJ raised flags about "his" pardons, noting that they were overbroad, non-specific, and may not hold up in court.
An internal email that Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer sent on Jan. 18, 2025, expressed alarm over the scope and vagueness of the mass pardons. He warned that the language in one of the warrants was "highly problematic" because it lacked clarity and may have unintentionally allowed dangerous criminals to walk free. He also stated flatly that the DOJ, the very agency tasked with reviewing clemency applications, had been cut out of the loop entirely.That's not how the system is supposed to work.
Presidents have the constitutional power to issue pardons, but history shows there's usually a vetting process to prevent abuses and to protect public safety. Biden's team threw that out the window.
Weinsheimer specifically cautioned that the blanket wording could make some of the commutations ineffective, or worse, extend clemency to violent crimes that weren't supposed to fall under Biden's stated standards. The White House, meanwhile, ignored victims' families who pleaded against releasing certain offenders. Instead, they shoved through three massive autopen-signed warrants covering thousands of cases without so much as a second thought.
And they didn't even discuss the fact that they weren't even signed or authorized by the "president."
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Citing California's Anti-Business Lunacy, Bed Bath and Beyond Announces It Will Open No Stores In the Garbage-Fire State; Gavin Newsom Is Now Drunk-Tweeting 24/7
—Ace
Before getting to that, let's review how Gavin Newsom is proving he's "the left-wing Trump who can beat the actual Trump."
He's got some monkeys running his press account, and these jokers are doing an imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery Trump impression to show how Tough and Authentic and Manly Newsom is.
This is real. Gavin Newsom ordered these communications. This one is signed with his initials, indicating that he himself wrote it.
He's ragging on... Greg Gutfeld.
Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOffice
I SELDOM WATCH LOW-RATED "GARBAGEMAN" GREG GUTFELD BUT, WHEN I DO, I MARVEL AT THE FAKE LAUGHTER ON THE SHOW. IT SOUNDS LIKE A BAD "LAUGH MACHINE," IT'S SO OBNOXIOUS AND DISGUSTING, JUST LIKE HIM, ALWAYS LAUGHING NO MATTER WHAT IS SAID. REAL PATRIOTS HATE IT WHEN FOX ("EDITS THE TAPES") PUTS GARBAGEMAN GREG ON. FOX OUGHT TO "GET SMART", AND NOT USE LOSERS LIKE THIS. ALSO, THEY SHOULDN'T ALLOW NEGATIVE ADS ABOUT ME. THANK YOU! -- GCN
And Dana Perino:
Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOfficeDANA "DING DONG" PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM! FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA'S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR ("RATINGS KING") SAVING AMERICA -- WHILE TRUMP CAN'T EVEN CONQUER THE "BIG" STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE!!! TRUMP HAS "LOST HIS STEP" AND FOX IS LOSING IT BECAUSE WHEN I TYPE, AMERICA NOW WINS!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. -- GCN
I repeat, this is real. I'm not doing a bit.
The whole account is nothing but ALL-CAPS BRAGGING ABOUT NEWSOM'S "RATINGS" and stupid memes.
Like this:
Here's a Sick Own of Trump:
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Trump Launches Investigation Into DC's Faking of Crime Statistics
—Ace
This is fraud. This might even be a "conspiracy to defraud the American people," a charge used to jail J6 protesters for "parading."
Lock. Them. Up.
And make them rat on the higher-level Democrats who told them to fake the stats.
Just weeks before President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. police, the Metropolitan Police Department quietly settled a retaliation lawsuit from a whistleblower who alleged the crime statistics were manipulated.The lawsuit, which has been part of public court records for years, has garnered renewed attention as part of a growing body of evidence that the city of Washington, D.C. may have a more widespread crime problem than official statistics would suggest.
The president's political opponents and city leadership cited those official numbers, which show an approximately 30% decline in violent crime since 2023, as evidence that the federal takeover was unnecessary. However, both the whistleblower lawsuit and the ongoing disciplinary proceedings of a suspended captain accused of manipulating statistics have called those numbers into question.
President Trump accused the city of providing false crime statistics to improve its image and to give a "false illusion of safety." He also seemed to confirm that the Metropolitan Police Department and city government will be investigated over the allegations.
"D.C. gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday.
Whistleblower filed suit...
Sergeant Charlotte Djossou, a 20-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department, filed a lawsuit against the department and the city in 2020, alleging she was subject to retaliation from leadership after blowing the whistle on several department policies.
According to her official complaint, the army veteran and police sergeant filed reports for years about practices at the department from 2014 to the time of her lawsuit, including allegations of improper--and possibly unconstitutional--searches, racial targeting, and improper reclassification of crimes to improve performance metrics.
Djossou asserted that senior officers often manipulated crime statistics in their own districts because improving performance on the metrics is directly linked to promotion potential and suggested the issue was widespread in the department.
"MPD has a long history of trying to distort crime statistics in Washington, D.C., including downgrading felonies to misdemeanors," Sergeant Djossou, claimed in her October 2020 complaint.
Responding to directives from senior leadership "to show the largest reduction in crime statistics," Djossou says "MPD improperly reduced crime statistics by downgrading a number of felonies to misdemeanors, so that there will be "fewer" felonies in the statistics."
This happened for one reason, the sergeant claimed. "The promotions of MPD captains and commanders are tied to the size of the reduction in crime statistics in their districts."
In mid-2019, Sergeant Djossou first observed MPD officers classifying felony thefts as misdemeanors. Despite express directives from higher authorities earlier that year that any theft involving stolen goods valued more than $25 should be classified as felonies, Djossou said captains and officers downgraded felony thefts that could not be solved as misdemeanors.
"The result is that felony thefts were now being recorded as misdemeanors, solely because the theft could not be solved, regardless of the dollar value of what was stolen," Djossou's lawsuit reads.
Djossou brought her observations to a commander, which resulted in the reversal of over 100 misclassifications back to felonies. The sergeant alleges that she faced retaliation for her disclosures soon after by means of a poor performance evaluation, the court documents show.
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"Operation Raise the Colours:" British Citizens Protest the Colonization of Their Country by Hostile Aliens by Raising the English Flag
—Ace
Rebels, subversives, and traitors fly (checks notes)
their own country's flag in defiance of the government
In the UK, which is already lost, the subjugated population is attempting one last act of defiance before they are put under Sharia law.
Actually-English citizens are flying the English flag -- the St. George's flag, white with a red cross, officially disfavored by the UK government because they don't like Englanders thinking of themselves as English -- while the UK police take the flags down.
They're flying St. George's cross as part of "Operation Raise the Colours."
In recent days, from Birmingham to Tower Hamlets, ordinary British and English people have, seemingly spontaneously, started to raise Union Jack and St George's flags on lampposts and buildings. Some have even painted flags on roundabouts.The campaign started last week when it was revealed flags of St George and the Union had started to spring up in neighbourhoods in Birmingham, in what the local people taking part described as "a patriotic outpouring". Local residents even set up a GoFundMe website to help purchase more flags and support the displays.
Shortly afterwards, however, local council workers quickly began taking down the flags, arguing the "unauthorised items" were "dangerous", on the basis they might distract and even kill passing motorists and pedestrians.
Yet many, understandably, see glaring hypocrisy.
While the Labour-run council in highly-diverse Birmingham is now rushing to take down English and Union flags, it has left Palestinian flags flying for months (for its part, in what is another depressing insight into the dire state of modern Britain, the council says it needs police protection to remove Palestine flags in Muslim areas).
At the same time, Birmingham council is pulling down Union Jack and St George's flags while seemingly having no issue lighting the taxpayer-funded library building in green and white to celebrate the independence of ... Pakistan.
All of which helps to explain why, unsurprisingly, some locals have started to rebel by joining the "raise the colours" campaign. And nor are they alone.
In similarly diverse Tower Hamlets, in east London, residents have also been spotted raising flags on lampposts, while the local council, run by the pro-Gaza Aspire Party which has also left Palestine flags flying for months, just vowed to remove any English and British flags "as soon as possible".
Yet things seem to be spiralling.
Social media is currently filled with viral pictures and videos of seemingly ordinary people --builders, workers, citizens--going to great lengths to "raise the colours", suggesting this campaign may yet gain momentum and, perhaps, go national.
What is going on?
On one level, this is very clearly a spontaneous and organic act of resistance against what we have often talked about in this newsletter --the ongoing and very extreme policies of mass uncontrolled immigration, broken borders, and housing illegal migrants in the heart of Britain's communities while forcing the British people to pay billions for the privilege and then using their own money to rig the housing market so that it favours illegal migrants and asylum-seekers over the British people.
As one local resident of Birmingham remarked, people in the area have simply "had enough". "This isn't racism", they went on, "it's frustration at being pushed into a corner and silenced".
But this is also clearly about something else, something deeper. And to make sense of it it's worth returning to conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton.
"The English", Scruton once said, "are reluctant to display their identity -- reluctant to sing their national anthem, to wave their flag, or to affirm their nationhood".
What he meant is that the English have long had a very uneasy relationship with national symbols, even feeling embarrassed about the kind of displays of national pride that would appear entirely ordinary in, say, America.
A combination of post-imperial guilt, mass immigration, a model of multiculturalism that prioritises minorities over the majority, and the rise of a so-called 'progressive' elite have all established a taboo around flags, discouraging people from raising them.
But Scruton, rightly, saw this as a bad thing for British society and the future.
He warned that the taboo around national symbols and flying the flag deprived the British and the English of something that could be incredibly powerful and precious.
Such displays, he argued, were not merely symbols of exclusion, as elites argue, but could become a powerful, unifying emblem of a shared identity, a shared sense of history and collective memory, and a shared way of life.
A flag, in other words, is not just a symbol; it is where the individual connects with their collective cultural inheritance. It is where the individual can locate themselves in something greater which they also, in turn, recognise as their home.
Without this, warned Scruton, nations will soon run into major problems.
The reluctance to fly the flag in England, he suggested, brought with it huge costs, including what he described as "the steady erosion of something precious --a shared first-person plural", or, in other words, a shared sense of "we".
With no sense of shared identity or culture, and few symbols to give expression to this, Scruton warned that the British and the English would soon be left vulnerable to endless, ongoing cultural fragmentation and rootlessness, no longer sure who they are, where they belong, or what is 'home'.
Which is how, I would suggest, millions of people on these islands are starting to feel, if they do not feel this way already.
Bombarded by mass immigration. Appalled by open borders. Angered and frustrated by a ruling class and a 'two-tier' society that puts minorities ahead of the majority.
And utterly demoralised by a political system that is mainstreaming Lebanon-style sectarianism, from pandering to Islamism to Labour MPs showing more interest in Pakistan than Britain, many people can now feel that sense of "we" evaporating.
Furthermore, as reflected in the response of Birmingham and Tower Hamlets councils, or the school in Rugby that turned away a schoolgirl who wore a Union Jack dress to a 'Culture Day', many British and English people are now also starting to grasp the extent to which their leaders are invested in rejecting, repudiating, or suppressing their identity, history, and culture --what Scruton called "Oikophobia".
Alex Jones noted that if it's illegal to raise your own country's flag, that means you're now living in an occupied country.
Keir Starmer is pretending he supports "patriotism." (Note that it's local Labour councils, not the national government, taking down the flags.)
He doesn't actually support people's flying of the English colors. But he knows the peasants are in a touchy mood, and is pretending he's on their side.
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The State Department Has Revoked Another 6,000 "Student" Visas for Crime and Supporting Terrorism
—Ace
The State Department has yanked more than 6,000 student visas in 2025 for overstays and law violations -- including support for terrorism, Fox News Digital has learned.The Trump administration has launched multiple initiatives aimed at cracking down on immigration and revoking visas of those attending academic institutions in the U.S.
Those who've participated in pro-Palestinian protests have faced heightened scrutiny, as one example, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the administration was reviewing the visa status of those students.
The roughly 6,000 visas that were pulled were primarily due to visa overstays or encounters with the law, including assault, DUIs, burglary and support for terrorism, the State Department told Fox News Digital.
"Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States," a senior State Department official said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "About 4,000 visas alone have been revoked because these visitors broke the law while visiting our country, including records of assault and DUIs."
Those who had their student visas yanked due to assault -- roughly 800 students -- either faced arrest or charges stemming from assault, according to the State Department official.Those whose visas were pulled due to support for terrorism -- between 200 people to 300 people -- engaged in behavior such as raising funds for the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a terrorist organization, the official said.
Altogether, the State Department told Fox News Digital that approximately 40,000 visas have been pulled in 2025, in comparison to the 16,000 that were revoked during the same time frame under the Biden administration.
"Even if the previous administration was doing less, they were still revoking visas," the State Department official said. "It's not something that just started on January 20 ... So this has happened for years."Rubio told lawmakers in May that he estimated "thousands" of student visas had been rescinded since January.
"I don't know the latest count, but we probably have more to do," Rubio told lawmakers on the Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign affairs May 20. "We're going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities."
The Democrat Party, the Party of Foreign Terrorists, objects, claiming that foreigners have some kind of right to come to America to raise money for Hamas and that taking away their visa is a denial of due process.
Communists are objecting to the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Service) now looking at applicants' social media history to determine if they're anti-American, pro-terrorist, or criminally-inclined.
They seriously believe that criminals and terrorists have a right to come to America just because they're f***ing foreign and therefore superior to American citizens.
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Wednesday Morning Rant
—Joe Mannix
The UK is in a drought and the government is worried about water availability and is therefore pushing conservation. It's mostly stuff you would expect. Turn off the tap and don't let it leak. Be parsimonious with irrigation. Don't water your lawn. Take less time in the shower. Delete your data.
What's that, you say? Well, from the UK's National Drought Group:
Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.Hilariously, this insane recommendation is in the section titled, "How To Save Water At Home." Last time I checked, I don't live in a datacenter. But even setting that aside, this is one of the most laughable recommendations I have ever seen. Even if it was enough water to make a difference in a drought, this would save not one drop.
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The Morning Report — 8/20/25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. So it certainly seems as if the Russo/Ukraine conflict might at long last be on the road or at the very least will have taken the first steps along the road to ending. And that is due in no small part to the efforts of President Trump. That said it is encouraging that he has loudly proclaimed that there will be no American boots on the ground in Ukraine.
American support would particularly take the form of air support. Whether that means combat air patrols and air policing or the deployment of intelligence assets to feed information to European forces on the ground is presently unclear. Nevertheless, President Trump said: “When it comes to security [the Europeans are] willing to put people on the ground, we’re willing to help them with things, especially… by air because nobody has the kind of stuff we have.”
No war, however it ended, either by a clear military defeat and official surrender of one side or by an armistice or some other political accord ever stopped the mutual animosity and distrust of the victor and the vanquished for each other. I can't imagine Zelensky provoking Putin but I do think Putin will likely probe the resolve of the EU and President Trump, and that means air to air combat and at that point things can and likely could get out of hand.
Aside from facilitating an end to the bloodshed, it is up to each side to behave in a civilized manner once the ink dries on the Neville Chamberlain stationery and it's up to the EU to secure their own damned borders and security if they really think Vladimir Putin has the manpower and ability to roll all the way to and even cross the English Channel.
From my perspective, and I could be dead wrong, it seems to be in in Russia's best interest, geopolitically, domestically and economically to end the fighting. The greatest threats to global security come from Communist China and the global Islamic cause. Regardless of Putin's behavior vis a vis invading Ukraine, down the road it would be in our interest to have him in our corner as an ally with a common cause against bth of the aforementioned threats. But the Chi-Coms are now linked closely with Putin and putting a wedge between those two would be a challenge for sure. That's another reason why getting America involved in keeping the peace is not in our best interest.
Speaking of the Communist threat, over here in the US of A, whether or not he can actually do it, the President got a giant cheer from me and every sane American for announcing his intention to do away with mail-in balloting for future elections.
Of course there was an equal and opposite reaction from the clinically insane crowd:
Democrat Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), a man who identifies as a woman, claimed President Trump is waging an “all-out assault” against “American democracy” because he wants to get rid of mail-in ballots and voting machines.“This president is taking notes from his favorite dictator. Let’s be clear: a president with popular policies wouldn’t need to illegally gerrymander districts, ban voting machines, or abolish vote-by-mail,” the transgender-identifying lawmaker said in a post to X on Monday evening.
American democracy is a myth, up there with Palestine and the Loch Ness Monster. Or at best a euphemism for Democrat-Party Dictatorship. At the very least kudos to the President for at the very least bringing this issue to the forefront of public discourse where the longer it remains in the spotlight, the more the Prsident's point of the threat to voting an election security is made.
Look at the reaction to calling out the National Guard in DC to combatting crime. And now look at the figures, that is the ones that the DC PD did not fake (see below) since he called out the Guard show how doing so has immediately made a difference.
The investigation raises broader questions about the reliability of crime statistics in Democrat-run jurisdictions.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Have a great day!
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Mental health diagnoses will spread like wildfire through schools, not because kids are sicker, but because being “special” has become a badge of belonging. (and a means to persecute non-leftist parents-jjs)
JB Pritzker's mandated 'mental health screenings' for school children is a data grab, not compassion
- Daniel Greenfield: The book that the Communists wanted to kill is more relevant than ever.
Animal Farm Turns 80
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Daily Tech News 20 August 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- A three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed a win to Tesla in its fight over prosecution by the NLRB when it ruled that the entire bureau was probably unconstitutional. (Tech Crunch)
Oof.
- Meta is shaking up its AI group again. (Tech Crunch)
At some point it plans to launch AI products.
Maybe.
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Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - August 19, 2025 [scampydog]
—Open Blogger
Would you look at that. It's Tuesday ONT time. Let's see what fun we can get into this evening.
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Unruly Elephants Cafe
—Ace
That baby elephant grew up to be a criminal.
Baby elephants don't understand that they are massively heavy and try to be lap-cats.
Fox evades a persistent hawk.
This Golden Eagle caught the fox, and is able to carry it away even in a high wind.
Waterfall in Iceland.
Inside a kangaroo's pouch. I guess I should have known this, but didn't -- a kangaroo's teats are inside the pouch.
Pandas are devoted to disproving the entire concept of Darwinian survival of the fittest.
Horse takes a quick dip in a creek.
Man and his best friend surf.
A father and daughter debate the curfew and proper dress policies.
Florida Man is just different.
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Bank Executives Admit: Obama and Biden Pressured Us to "Debank" the Democrat Party's Political Enemies
—Ace
They're speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal.
The banks faced reprisals under Obama and Biden: Do what we demand, punish our enemies for us, or we'll sic bank regulators on you and make your life a nightmare.
Obama and Biden are gone but the Democrat Party is now communist and Maoist and they will get their vengeance if they're given the chance.
Bank executives blow the whistle on how Obama, Biden admins pressured them to debank conservatives
In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order outlawing debanking, major bank executives told Fox News Digital that they were under pressure by the Obama and Biden administrations to deny services to individuals and businesses for political reasons."Those pressures were very, very real. When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it's not a suggestion, it's an order. The political stuff is very real, those pressures are real," a senior banking executive told Fox News Digital.
...
The executives said that ambiguity in federal laws was exploited by regulators under the Obama and Biden administrations in order to pursue political objectives. According to one executive, banks were pressured to deny services to certain industries as part of Operation Choke Point and Operation Choke Point 2.0.
"When there's ambiguity in the law, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for a long time the beholder was the Obama and Biden administration," the official said.
A House Oversight Committee report found that "Operation Choke Point," a DOJ task force whose aim was to "choke out" legal companies disfavored by the Obama administration, worked with bank regulators to label certain industries, including firearms sales, as "high risk."
Trump ended "Operation Choke Point" in 2017 during his first term. However, a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week heard accusations that former President Joe Biden had rebooted the initiative and targeted crypto firms for debanking as part of "Operation Choke Point 2.0."
Trump claimed to be a victim of debanking, and accused JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and others of refusing more than $1 billion in his deposits. First lady Melania Trump wrote in her memoir that she and her son Barron were debanked, as well.
"I was shocked and dismayed to learn that my long‑time bank decided to terminate my account and deny my son the opportunity to open a new one.... This decision appeared to be rooted in political discrimination, raising serious concerns about civil rights violations," Melania wrote.
...
Former Republican Sen. Sam Brownback accused JPMorgan Chase of having debanked his nonprofit, the National Committee for Religious Freedom, in 2022. JPMorgan maintains that they never engaged in political debanking, but updated their code of conduct to state that they do not discriminate based on political views or religious beliefs in 2025 -- which the bank stated was merely the codification of existing policy.
...
According to Inspire Investing's Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA, whose firm has been deeply involved with combating debanking, banks would use the criteria of "reputational risk" to deny services to politically disfavored groups and individuals.
...
Another senior banking executive said that negative news coverage was considered criteria for "reputational risk." During the period between the 2020 presidential election and Trump's return to the Oval Office in 2024, he was subject to a flurry of lawsuits and negative press. Banks, according to the official, responding to the wishes of regulators, would use the negative press directed at conservatives as a pretext to debank them.
"It's all kind of set up, it's like somebody set the table, and it all ends up focusing on Republicans and conservatives," the executive said.
The executive added that banks were under constant regulatory pressure to file more "suspicious activity reports," reports submitted to the Treasury about unusual banking activity, and to debank more customers. He said the regulators didn't need to explicitly tell banks to deny services to any particular individual or business. The administration's preferences were well known, and the banks were expected to comply.
...
"It's better for us to just not take on certain business if we suspect an examiner can come in and say six months ago you shouldn't have taken this client," the bank official told Fox News Digital.
And speaking of weaponization of government: Tulsi Gabbard revoked the security clearances of 37 officials involved in the RussiaGate Coup Attempt.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard @DNIGabbardBeing entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold. In doing so, they undermine our national security, the safety and security of the American people and the foundational principles of our democratic republic.
This is why, at @POTUS
' direction, @ODNIgov
directed the revocation of the security clearances of 37 current and former intelligence professionals who have abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and/or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.Our Intelligence Community must be committed to upholding the values and principles enshrined in the US Constitution and maintain a laser-like focus on our mission of ensuring the safety, security and freedom of the American people.
I guess that's why this Deep State scumbag is salty.
A former FBI agent and friend of Peter Strzok who recently resigned from the bureau after he says his relationship with the disgraced ex-FBI official was scrutinized by Dan Bongino is now defending Crossfire Hurricane, suggesting Donald Trump was in contact with Russian intelligence, comparing the FBI under Kash Patel to the KGB and Chinese spy services, throwing around Nazi comparisons, and more.Michael Feinberg, who was recently the assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Norfolk field office in Virginia, left the FBI at the end of May after he claims his direct superior told him that FBI deputy director Dan Bongino was scrutinizing his longtime friendship with Strzok, the disgraced FBI special agent who played a key role in the Trump-Russia investigation and was fired following the emergence of biased anti-Trump texts he had exchanged with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.
Rather than take a polygraph test about his relationship with Strzok, Feinberg says he quit the FBI instead of risking the possible demotion he says he was facing in place of the big promotion to FBI headquarters which he had been expecting.
The FBI's website says that "although we have used polygraphs to screen new employees for many years, since the 2001 Robert Hanssen spy case, we have also been requiring regular polygraph examinations of FBI employees with access to sensitive compartmented information."
Anti-Trump operatives' new heroSince leaving the bureau, Feinberg has been hailed this summer by some as a possible "Resistance 2.0"-style hero by multiple anti-Trump foes. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC, talked with Daily Show host and Trump critic Jon Stewart, got a job at the Brookings Institute-affiliated anti-Trump outlet Lawfare, and more, all while lashing out at the FBI under FBI Director Kash Patel.
Feinberg has hinted at a nefarious connection between Trump and Russia, has compared the current bureau to Communist-style spy agencies, and has suggested that the Trump administration had commonalities with the Nazi regime, all while promoting the views of his friend Peter Strzok and seeking to downplay the FBI's wrongdoing during its politically-motivated Crossfire Hurricane inquiry into now debunked claims of Trump-Russia collusion.
Feds Charge Thirty Tren de Aragua Gang Members with Drug Dealing, Murder-for-Hire, and Illegally Owning Guns That Americans Should Own
—Ace
Are you listening to yourself, Martha?
Thirty alleged members and leaders of Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist group, were indicted in Colorado on charges including murder-for-hire, drug trafficking, and firearms offenses.The gang has been tied to murder, extortion, kidnapping, and drug and human trafficking.
Several TdA members are accused of unlawfully entering the U.S. and introducing its gang violence to communities across America, including those in Colorado.
"These defendants include Tren de Aragua leaders, members, and associates," U.S. Attorney for Colorado Peter McNeilly said during a press conference on Monday. "The charges include firearms trafficking, drug trafficking, and a barbaric murder for hire plot in which several of the defendants agreed to kill two people for $15,000 and return their severed heads as proof of the murders for just an extra $5,000."
A nine-month investigation tied to crime at a Denver-area apartment complex led a grand jury to charge 28 people in a 39-count indictment.
Charges include firearms trafficking, using guns in drug crimes, illegal possession of firearms and drug trafficking.
Five defendants also face conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire.
"The charges tell a story of people selling guns and drugs -- lots of them," McNeilly said. "The affidavits which have been filed in this case also tell a story of a murder-for-hire plot and other crimes that the defendants were willing to commit, such as sex trafficking.
"One of the people who offered to commit murders in this case bragged to the undercover officers that the people he would use to commit those murders were the very same people that we had seen committing crimes on the news in these apartment complexes in Aurora," he continued.
During the investigation, officers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recovered 69 firearms, including machine guns. Authorities claim that several of the firearms have been linked to shootings, carjackings, robberies and drive-by shootings in Denver and Aurora.
...
ATF Special Agent in Charge Brent Beavers said during the press conference that some of the firearms recovered were privately made, adding that at least one was equipped with a machine gun conversion device.
Also, a chainsaw bayonet.
The left claims it's bothered by guns. It's not. It's bothered by law-abiding American citizens (aka Republicans) owning guns.
...In a separate indictment, Luis Fernando Uribe-Torrealba and Luis Henriquez-Charaima, both 29, face six counts including murder-for-hire, carjacking, and trafficking drugs and firearms.
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No Surprise: 88% of Students Confess They Pretend to be Left-Wing Just to be Left Alone
—Ace
It's not a surprise, but I'm glad there's confirmation. We can only roll back this evil once it is acknowledged.
On today's college campuses, students are not maturing -- they're managing. Beneath a facade of progressive slogans and institutional virtue-signaling lies a quiet psychological crisis, driven by the demands of ideological conformity.Between 2023 and 2025, we conducted 1,452 confidential interviews with undergraduates at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. We were not studying politics -- we were studying development. Our question was clinical, not political: "What happens to identity formation when belief is replaced by adherence to orthodoxy?"
We asked: Have you ever pretended to hold more progressive views than you truly endorse to succeed socially or academically? An astounding 88 percent said yes.
These students were not cynical, but adaptive. In a campus environment where grades, leadership, and peer belonging often hinge on fluency in performative morality, young adults quickly learn to rehearse what is safe.
The result is not conviction but compliance. And beneath that compliance, something vital is lost.
Late adolescence and early adulthood represent a narrow and non-replicable developmental window. It is during this stage that individuals begin the lifelong work of integrating personal experience with inherited values, forming the foundations of moral reasoning, internal coherence, and emotional resilience.
Of course, this is the whole point: You can only mold impressionable minds, not older, more mature minds whose beliefs and political leanings are already set.
Get 'em while they're young, says the Groomer Cult.
But when belief is prescriptive, and ideological divergence is treated as social risk, the integrative process stalls. Rather than forging a durable sense of self through trial, error, and reflection, students learn to compartmentalize. Publicly, they conform; privately, they question -- often in isolation. This split between outer presentation and inner conviction not only fragments identity but arrests its development.This dissonance shows up everywhere. Seventy-eight percent of students told us they self-censor on their beliefs surrounding gender identity; 72 percent on politics; 68 percent on family values. More than 80 percent said they had submitted classwork that misrepresented their views in order to align with professors. For many, this has become second nature -- an instinct for academic and professional self-preservation.
To test the gap between expression and belief, we used gender discourse -- a contentious topic both highly visible and ideologically loaded. In public, students echoed expected progressive narratives. In private, however, their views were more complex. Eighty-seven percent identified as exclusively heterosexual and supported a binary model of gender. Nine percent expressed partial openness to gender fluidity. Just seven percent embraced the idea of gender as a broad spectrum, and most of these belonged to activist circles.
Perhaps most telling: 77 percent said they disagreed with the idea that gender identity should override biological sex in such domains as sports, healthcare, or public data -- but would never voice that disagreement aloud. Thirty-eight percent described themselves as "morally confused," uncertain whether honesty was still ethical if it meant exclusion.
Authenticity, once considered a psychological good, has become a social liability. And this fragmentation doesn't end at the classroom door. Seventy-three percent of students reported mistrust in conversations about these values with close friends. Nearly half said they routinely conceal beliefs in intimate relationships for fear of ideological fallout. This is not simply peer pressure -- it is identity regulation at scale, and it is being institutionalized.
Tucker Carlson Is Just Asking Questions, and Those Questions Keep Turning Out to Be "Shouldn't MAGA Support Hamas?" and "Shouldn't the US Join Hamas to Destroy the Zionist Entity?"
—Ace
When Ted Cruz told Tucker Carlson he was "obsessed" with Israel, the jowly nepo baby Tucker Carlson elegantly responded "No, you're obsessed."
He has always been as superficial as the sheen on a glossy magazine. He should do Firing Line again, this time with Bill Kristol, and they can both pose as intellectuals together.
Let's check the tape to see who's obsessed:
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DC Crime Plummets In Just One Week; White Out-of-Towner AWLFs are Angry
—Ace
The D.C. Police Union released new crime statistics on Monday, showing an 8% drop in overall crime in the nation's capital following President Donald Trump's announcement of a federal takeover of the Washington, D.C., police force last week.According to the union, which represents the Metropolitan Police Department's 3,000 personnel, carjackings are down 83% since federal control was enacted, while robberies dropped 46%.
Violent crime fell 22% in the seven days since federal law enforcement began patrolling D.C.'s streets, and car theft came down 21%. Assault with a deadly weapon and property crime are also each down 6%.
"While federal assistance gives us a boost, we must repeal the misguided Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Act in order to make these changes permanent," the union wrote on X, Monday morning.
The D.C. city council passed the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022 in December of that year. According to USA Today, the measure was voted down by both the House and the Senate after it was submitted for congressional review in January 2023. Then-President Joe Biden vetoed Congress' decision, however, and the law took effect in April 2023.
The legislation established restrictions on the use of force, set parameters for the hiring and firing of officers and increased access to disciplinary police records.
Huh -- more cops, less crime. Who would have imagined it?
Scott Jennings points out that at the end of a New York Times article, it admits that judges are empowered and encouraged to treat anyone under 25 as a juvenile for sentencing purposes. In other words -- don't sentence anyone 25 or under for serious crime.
He points out that most street criminals in DC -- indeed, most criminals throughout history -- are young men, either older teenagers or younger twenty-somethings.
When the left embraced "decarceration" and defunding the police, they did not have the strength to do so frontally. The public wouldn't have it.
So they got sneaky. They couldn't actually legalize crime, so they passed thousands of "reforms" post George Floyd's heart becoming a Hero for the first time in its life. And the purpose of these reforms was to (I keep saying this, but it's true) legalize crime for black people, but in the guise of "small commonsense reforms."
The left complains that black criminals are punished -- they call this the "school to prison pipeline," but they always forget the middle step in that pipeline, "committing a serious, likely violent felony."
And they responded by passing "reforms" making it almost impossible to send a young black career street criminal to jail.
And of course it's this group that is responsible for 75% of all street crime.
This wasn't an accident -- this was the whole point. We are living in the crime-wracked world the left wanted.
If you haven't been to DC in a while, you might not know that every bit of grass in the city, from parks to green medians between roads, is now taken over by the homeless in big tent shanty towns.
Under Trump's direction, the tent shantytowns have been pulled down and put where they belong, in garbage trucks. There's a video below showing one DC resident marveling that he can finally walk down the street and not see a homeless encampment on the grassy strip beside the street.
Caution on this video, because she drops an n-bomb, but here's what one (black, female) DC resident says: "'Finally able to chill at a red light with my windows down, not worried about if one of them young n***as is coming. Riding through the city -- feeling more safe than I've ever felt."
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