Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
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.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
*****
Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to take care of. (Rulz for those of you in Iola)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Being Pretti good isn't good enough.
3) Running with sharp objects? Sure you can. We just won't pray for you.
4) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
11/15 – Sponge posted an update on the “First lady”. She is doing OK from the surgery pain-wise, however it appears her compromised immune system from chemo is susceptible to viruses. She has been spiking a fever all weekend.
12/13 Update – The First lady is doing well. She is still on restrictions but things are progressing nicely. The last mammogram showed clean. They are grateful to all who have been praying for her.
1/7 Update – They send thanks for the thoughts and prayers over the past year. The latest visit with her urologist revealed blood in her urine. The Doc didn’t seem concerned, but there will be more scans of her bladder and kidneys to see if they find anything more serious.
1/14 Update – Sponge sent an update on the First Lady’s father – he passed away on 1/11. They have been busy making arrangements for the arrangements, writing the obituary, eulogy, notifying people, etc. Thank you all for the thoughts an prayers that you have been providing for a long time.
12/20 – Morgan, longtime lurker, takes tango lessons from Sebastian, whose son, Matias, is recovering from brain surgery. The MRI was read on 12/19, and the surgeons did not remove the entire tumor. Even though the biopsy indicated the tumor was benign, the boy is probably facing several rounds of chemo. Please pray for the boy’s continued recovery in El Salvador.
1/10 Update – Matias will have surgery in 2 weeks to try and remove the rest of the tumor, and then he will receive radiation therapy.
12/27 – buzzion asked for prayers for a friend named Christina. Christina has struggled with a lot, including addiction and relapse. Buzzion has not heard from Christina in a while and hopes she is okay. Please pray that Christina finds her way and knows that people love and care for her and believe in her.
1/3 Update – Christina was arrested on 1/3. Please pray for this to be a final wake-up call for her.
1/22 Update – Christina was released from jail and is staying with Buzzion. She is working through the legal troubles and she is continuing her recovery. She really appreciates the prayers, as does Buzzion.
12/27 – BlackOrchid requested prayers for a Navy Veteran uncle who has been struggling with his health the last few weeks. The root cause is undetermined, but recurrent infection/sepsis keeps sending him back to the hospital. It seems to be worsening his dementia, which makes it harder for BlackOrchid’s aunt to handle him.
1/3 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle (her “stand-in dad”) is still not doing well. He will probably need to be put in a LTC facility although they are doing everything possible to avoid this. He is 86, and at the stage where his immune system can’t fight back well.
1/24 Update – BlackOrchid’s uncle is doing much better. He is carting around an O2 canister to help him, but otherwise is doing well.
1/3 – Legally Sufficient asked for prayers for the repose of the soul of a boss, who passed away suddenly early Sunday morning. Prayers are appreciated for strength, faith, and understanding for the boss’ wife and all who loved him.
1/6 – Diogenes requested prayers for his best friend since college, who was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours or hearing this, the friend’s son, a man that Diogenes has known since he was a baby, collapsed from what appears to be a brain tumor. The prognosis isn’t hopeful. Please pray for both of these fine men.
1/23 Update – Diogenes’ best friend’s son Sean had emergency brain surgery. The labs are back and it’s not good news. He has stage 4 brain cancer. They were scheduled to meet with an oncologist on 1/26 to determine the best pathway ahead for the time he has remaining. This is just crushing news. Thanks to all the Horde for their prayers and support for this fine young man.
1/6 – Commissar of plenty and festive little hats sent prayers of thanks that it was not cancer, and asked for prayers for courage to even set a date to reverse the colostomy surgery. It was a lot to get over the first time!
1/7 - D sent an update on his wife Susan, and her battle with pancreatic cancer, as well as her recent infection. He sent his thanks to everyone for the prayers. They are helping and much appreciated. Susan’s infection finally has been healed, so she was able to resume chemo. It’s been really rough.
1/8 - Doof asked for prayers for his mother. She was hit hard by the flu. She couldn’t get out of bed the morning of 11/8 and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. She is alert and communicating but prayers are appreciated for her recovery. Prayers are also appreciated for Doof, as he absolutely despises hospitals.
1/23 Update – Mom was in the hospital for 5 nights and has been in a rehabilitation center since 1/13. Her recovery is slow but steady. Her breathing and mobility are still not back to normal. She is good spirits but wants to be home. They very much appreciate the continued prayers.
1/10 – LA Sue asked for prayers for her brother, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September. They just learned it moved from stage 2 to stage 4. The chemo treatments and side infections from surgery have so debilitated him that he is considering stopping. Please pray for strength and that he opens his heart to God.
1/18 Update – LA Sue is taking her brother to hospice. He is fading.
1/23 Update – LA Sue’s brother passed away.
1/15 – Sharkman posted on behalf of Niederemeyer’s Dead Horse that NDH was given a prognosis of 6 months to live due to heart failure. The plan is for NDH to move into the Mayo Clinic to receive treatment and wait for a transplant.
1/17 – Emmie asked for prayers. She and her husband are on the verge of foreclosure. Their side hustle of delivery driving ended when a young driver crashed into their car and totaled it. They aren’t able to make the mortgage payments without that extra income. Their church is helping, but it’s a small church.
1/23 Update – They have a loaner/rental car that they can use until they can devise a long term solution, and have found an insurer who will cover delivery driving work. Another friend is supplying a financial cushion during the mortgage reset probationary agreement. But the underlying financial problems persist. They ask for prayers that they would conduct themselves with wisdom, discipline, diligence, prudence, and joy in God’s provision. Emmie specifically asked for prayers in her struggle with resentment and despair.
1/18 – Teresa in Fort Worth sent an update. She had surgery on 12/11, and a pump was installed that will direct medication into the hepatic artery. This will allow a much larger concentration of medication to be applied directly into her liver. This should give fewer side effects and (hopefully) shrink the tumors. It will take several months before they know if this new medication is working, but if it does, they are hoping for an extra 2-3 years before the disease progresses again.
1/19 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
1/20 – Inogame asked for prayers. His wife and baby girl (due in February) are healthy, but some bad luck has come to their family. The business they purchased a year ago has taken an abrupt turn and they are trying to understand what is happening. They may not be able to keep their home if they cannot discover and correct the problem. This stress and what it might mean postpartum is worrying them. Thank you all for your prayers in the past.
1/20 – MkY sent an update on his wife Judy, who was diagnosed with Stage IV renal cancer last January. Despite being unable to receive her cancer drugs for 3 months while her port infection healed up, the tumors did not grow and she is feeling strong. Thanks so much for all the prayers! Last week, MkY was diagnosed with fluid on the brain. They operated the same day. They drilled two holes in his skull, inserted tubes, and had him lay flat on his back for 2 days. MkY thanks God for the modern miracles of medicine. He needs to heal quickly since he operates a small business. So far, no complications.
1/24 – NR Pax requested prayers for his father, who had a stroke on 1/16. He went back to the hospital on 1/19 and was in the ICU until 1/23 due to influenza. He is in the hospital and they do not know when he will come home.
1/24 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd posted some updates and requests. In the blessings department: blood glucose has continued to fall, well within normal range. BP is good. The hole where his molar used to be is coming along nicely. The youngest has jaw surgery coming up in February. This is many years in the making and should correct her bite and ease the pain in her jaw and ears. She’s not looking forward to the liquid diet, but is looking forward to the pain relief. Prayers are always appreciated, and based on what they have been through, he knows they are efficacious.
1/25 – Pawn at AoS asked for prayers after his dear friend Julia passed away. He asked for strength for himself and his family to fill a very large void in this world. He only has a couple of friends left so asks for protection for them.
1/27 – K asked for prayers for K’s neighbor Mike, whose doctor found a lump near Mike’s esophagus. Many thanks.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
And I would also like to add:
Romans 8:39
39) neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (New International Version)
I'm a little surprised it's not higher, but the article points out that layoffs have hit major - so called "AAA" - Triple A - studios twice as hard as indies, so it is higher for the companies I'd focus on with news stories.
The survey also found that 82% of US-based respondents support the unionization of game industry workers, with 5% opposed and 13% unsure.
And I was just about to feel some sympathy for these people.
Produced by Wildlight Entertainment, which is a private company so we don't have details of the financials, but they've had over a hundred experienced developers working on this game for four years in California. So somewhere north of $100 million.
It's free-to-play. It reached nearly 100,000 players on its first day... Then lost 90% of them on its second day.
Not because it is particularly buggy. Players have shown problems with being disconnected from the servers, but for the most part it seems technically competent. The problem is that it is completely uninspired.
It got the top billing during the recent Game Awards (which had more viewers than the Super Bowl), with shameless promotion from the presenter. Everyone watching saw it as derivative slop and predicted it would fail, hard, and it was, and has.
Highguard was in for a bloodbath, and I cannot believe that the devs didn't know that. With so much experience at AAA powerhouses like EA, I genuinely think they fully understood the implications of that TGA shenanigan, and cannot fathom why they never reacted.
The plan, unveiled in September, was for Nvidia to invest $100 billion in OpenAI so that OpenAI could purchase $100 billion of Nvidia hardware.
Now... Not so much.
Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang has privately emphasized to industry associates in recent months that the original $100 billion agreement was nonbinding and not finalized, people familiar with the matter said. He has also privately criticized what he has described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI's business approach and expressed concern about the competition it faces from the likes of Google and Anthropic, some of the people said.
OpenAI has name recognition - it's the company behind ChatGPT - but its CEO is a snake oil salesman.
It has twelve cores and 48MB of L3 cache vs. 8 cores and 32MB of cache for Zen 2 (and 3, 4, and 5), but the move to the latest 2nm process means that it's about the same size as it always has been. Zen 2 on 7nm was 77mm2, and Zen 6 is 76mm2.
If the promises for TSMC's N2P process node are borne out, this should be a major upgrade - not just 50% more cores, but cores running 30% faster at the same power requirements.
Reportedly - Nvidia hasn't announced this officially but it matches my own and everyone else's market observations - 75% of GPU supply from Nvidia will go to three models: The 5060, the 5060 Ti 8GB model, and the 5070.
The high-end models and the 16GB 5060 Ti will have limited availability going forward, with the entry level 5050 not even rating a mention. And the 5090 already isn't available anywhere for less than 50% over MSRP.
I bought an AMD 9060 XT 16GB fearing shortages and price increases, which haven't happened to that model, though the 9070 which was briefly available below MSRP no longer is.
Musical Interlude
I looked up Van Morrison just now fearing I'd missed an obituary at some point, and not only is he still around, he was recording anti-lockdown songs with Eric Clapton during the WuFlu.
The Volonaut airbike, which the company claims is real, and not just a prop being moved around by a rope dangling from a crane which is digitally removed with CGI. The cost of the airbike, if it's real, will be $880,000, when it's ready for sale, if ever.
Bargatze is interesting because he avoids all profanity and sexual stuff. I think he's popular, though, because he gets into truly edgy material: passive-aggressively fighting with his wifeabout nothing from the stage.
This is real courage in comedy. Speaking Truth to Wife.
Last weekend, without assistance or ropes or any other equipment*, star climber Alex Honnold climbed the 1667 foot 101 Tapei building. It was streamed live on Netflix, so I guess he got legal permission to do it?
Minnesota's first openly homosexual governor, Tim Walz, makes the Stunning and Brave Announcement that he will never run for political office again. As if it's xis choice! This is as bad as Kristen Stewart saying she can't "freely work" in the US so she'll be filming her zero-budget middle aged woman student film in Latvia. That's not a choice, that's just reality.
But note he only says he won't run for office -- he may still serve.
Reportedly, Minnesota's first openly homosexual governor and corrupt Democrat Senator and perpetual presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar have worked out a corrupt deal. He drops out of the governor's race, she enters it, she wins, and then she appoints him as senator to take over for her.
Amazing.
Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is now an inconvenient embarrassment. It was published 20 years ago, and made plenty of predictions prophecies, but none of those Dooms have yet come to pass.
Gore shared dramatic graphs.
Polar ice? Gone, any day now.
Sea levels? Twenty feet in the "near future," which, in political time, means "before the checks clear."
Arctic summers ice-free by, oh, pick a year, any year; 2013, 2014, five to seven years from whenever he was speaking.
Snows of Kilimanjaro? Vanished within a decade.
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Coastal cities? Should be holding snorkel conventions by now.
Reality, being the stubborn jerk that it is, refused to cooperate with Tipper's husband.
Arctic ice dips and bobs like it's on a budget seesaw--it never quite disappears.
Sea levels creep up a modest few millimeters each year, and at this rate, your great-great-grandkids might need taller beach chairs.
Snow still falls on Kilimanjaro, while cities keep building condos on the water like it's prime real estate.
No mass evacuations, no sirens, just... life.
Deadlines came and went quieter than a mime convention. There wasn't a press conference with Gore saying, "Oops! My bad; turns out the models were a little more enthusiastic than I thought." Just new deadlines, fresh urgency, yet using the same PowerPoint.
Now if only Star Trek makes the same realization:
Paul Embery
@PaulEmbery
10h
Some of us have been arguing for a long time that the BBC's obsession with promoting hyper-diversity in its drama productions -- even in period dramas -- was preachy and inauthentic and was alienating viewers. Needless to say, the usual accusations were thrown at us. Now an independent review, commissioned by the BBC itself, has found that the over-representation of ethnic minority characters, especially in period dramas, can feel "clunky", "inauthentic" and "preachy" to the viewer. It concludes: "The BBC should aim for an organic and authentic approach to diversity rather than it looking forced or tick box." Interestingly, the authors state: "We found our interviewees of colour as emphatic on this point as those who were white."
BREAKING: The Department of Education ruled that San Jose State violated Title IX by allowing trans-identifying male volleyball player Blaire Fleming to compete on the women's team.
@OutKick was the first outlet to report a team forfeiting against SJSU, which later led to several more forfeits in protest
🚨🚨 If you haven’t seen his male advantage, you need to watch this.
The grown man who yelled at a girl and called her a “c*nt” for supporting ICE has reportedly been identified as the treasurer for the District 12 Arizona Democratic Party https://t.co/xfYAmtz2DDpic.twitter.com/iSamtpdK23
The first openly gay lesbian Mexican judge in Texas, named "Speedlin Gonzales," and no, that's not a racist joke, that's her name, has been arrested for handcuffing an attorney in the jury box. She has refused to take down the gay flags she hangs in her court (illegal political messaging from what is supposed to be a dispassionate objective judge) and routinely congratulates attorneys whose politics she supports on their victories -- victories she handed them.
Texas Judge Rosie Speedlin-Gonzalez who was just arrested for handcuffing an attorney, was in a battle over her pride flags. She claims she was “targeted” for being asked to remove all her lgbtq merch from around the courtroom.
Lgbtq Judge Rosie who was just arrested was involved in multiple scandals and was even ordered to take an additional course on judicial ethics.
- reportedly congratulated attorneys on winning cases in her court on her official FB page
- was found with a loaded gun at the airport and received a fine
- was ordered to remove pride flags and entered a years-long battle
- now facing a felony charge for unlawfully handcuffing an attorney over a dispute on courtroom procedure
Here she is standing next to the sodomy flag while wearing a Mexican tricolor sash.
Would you feel as if this judge was ruling without fear or favor if you had the misfortune to be hailed into her court?
Black Conservative Perspective has two good clips below. The first you may have already seen, of overrated femmy communist DEI actor
The clip starting at 3:25 might be new to you. In it, the "actress" and "comedian" Amanda Seales -- I never heard of her either, but apparently she has a comedy special called, I josh thee not, I Be Knowin' -- says "the quiet part aloud," as Foreman says. She explains that the movement is made up of two kinds of people, those who fight in the streets and sometimes get justifiably shot by police -- the "outside people," she calls them -- and the pampered rich communist leaders who sit on their fat asses and incite the "outside people" to risk their lives while they risk nothing. She calls these people -- people like herself -- "inside people," and says the "inside people" are smart people who are too valuable to work "outside" because their skills at incitement -- or "bullhorning," she calls it -- are too precious.
The dumb people, on the other hand, are really good at being cannon fodder and useful corpses.
At the end of her explanation that their are Dumb Doers who get shot and Smart Leaders who get paid, she says that unknown enemy forces may someday come knocking on her door so when you think about it, aren't we all risking our lives for the cause?
It's pretty great.
According to new polling, a comfortable majority of Americans (as much as 64%) want all illegals immigrants deported. A majority also want legal migration reduced.
It just so happens that the biggest deportation drive since Eisenhower's poorly-named "Operation Wetback" coincides with the first fall in LA rental costs since, well, forever.
There's "increased housing supply," they say. No word about decreased housing demand.
"Finally, a renter's market": L.A. rent prices drop to four-year low
L.A. metro area rent prices dropped to a four-year low in December, with the median rent falling to $2,167.
Increased housing supply -- 15,095 apartments completed in 2025 -- combined with decreased demand is shifting power back toward renters for the first time in years.
Sandra Gomez braced for impact as she opened the lease renewal offer for her East L.A. apartment in September. She paid $2,000 for the last 12 months, but since the unit wasn't covered by L.A.'s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, her landlord could jack up the price for the next lease.
The new price? $1,950.
"I thought it was a mistake," Gomez said. "Since when does rent get cheaper in L.A.?"
For years, L.A. has been one of the costliest cities in the country for renters. Annual price hikes seemed inevitable, and finding the perfect apartment felt more like a competitive sport.
But data suggest that the market could be ever so slightly shifting.
The median rent in the L.A. metro area dropped to $2,167 in December -- the lowest price in four years, according to data from Apartment List that analyze new leases for one- and two-bedroom apartments in a given month. The median rent for L.A. County also dropped to a four-year low of $2,035.
The last time L.A. rents were that low was January 2022, in the wake of a furious pandemic home-buying market that saw a wave of renters buy homes for the first time, leaving apartments empty and bringing prices down.
I wonder if this drop-off mirrors a national trend.
The drop-off mirrors a national trend, as the U.S. median rent dropped to a similar four-year low in December. But within Southern California, the downturn is unique to L.A. Over the same stretch, rents rose or remained steady in Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino counties and in California as a whole.
I guess national rents are also affected by LA's supposed "increase in housing supply."
Opinions also vary on the cause, but the clearest explanation seems to be a simple case of supply and demand.
Tell me more about the demand, LA Times.
No? Don't want to talk about that?
Although L.A. has generally lagged in housing construction compared with cities such as San Diego, 2025 was a big year for new apartments hitting the market, despite several hundred multifamily buildings burning in the Palisades and Eaton fires.
...
Renters are starting to notice that the landlord-tenant balance of power is shifting, ever so slightly, toward tenants. On a Reddit post discussing the drop in rental prices, one user wrote that they pay $3,200 for a two-bedroom apartment in Koreatown, but now, the building has six vacant units listed for about $2,800.
Another user wrote that they secured a lease for $1,000 less than the previous tenant paid after noticing the unit had sat on the market with multiple price cuts.
Anthony Moore has lived in his North Hollywood apartment complex for two years, paying $2,700 for a two-bedroom unit. In the fall, he noticed similar units in the same complex listed for $2,500.
"I pay month to month, so I wasn't tied to my lease," he said. "I called my landlord and told him I wanted to pay what the other units were listing for or I would move out."
He now pays $2,500.
The article literally never mentions the country's first year of net-outwards migration in history.
It's amazing -- the media screams incessantly that deporting illegal workers will cause a labor crisis, but they absolutely refuse to mention the fact that a net-negative immigration rate will naturally cause housing prices (and all other prices) to fall.
🇺🇸Dr. Oz exposes $3.5 Billion Hospice Fraud Ring in Los Angeles Tied to Russian-Armenian Mafia
On the ground in Van Nuys, Los Angeles: in a single four-block radius, there are 42 hospices, many with Cyrillic signage, boarded up windows, and no visible patients or staff… pic.twitter.com/G6gEHX0XXm
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in just a few weeks ago, but the tornado of bad policy is already swirling around her state.
Spanberger's very first order of business was reversing Gov. Glenn Youngkin's Executive Order 47, which had allowed for coordination between the Virginia State Police and the Department of Corrections and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That coordination was important because it allowed the federal and state governments to cooperate to remove people in the country illegally who had committed additional crimes. That it was necessary for Spanberger to make it harder to deport criminals is a tell that her moderate campaign commercials will instead translate into a much further left administration.
Spanberger isn't alone in moving Virginia sharply leftward. Both branches of the state legislature are now also controlled by Democrats, and they're introducing policies that no one campaigned on. House Bill 863 would reduce minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter and child pornography. If Spanberger ran on "let's let rapists off easy," the Virginia electorate somehow missed it. In fact, Spanberger's campaign ads highlighted her law enforcement experience and that she's a moderate who works with both sides of the political aisle.
...
Then there's House Bill 1442, which would prevent any enforcement of immigration law near polling locations. We're told it's very rare for illegal immigrants to vote in our elections and yet the Virginia legislature thinks a law like this is a high priority for the state. Why would immigration operations interfere with polling locations unless there are illegal immigrants voting at those polling locations?
...
Democrats are going to spend the next four years moving Virginia as far left as they can get away with -- unless Virginians stop them. Virginians who want to save their state have to keep pointing out that Spanberger the candidate is not Spanberger the governor, and that the state government being fully controlled by the Democratic Party is turning lawlessness and social engineering into policy. Virginia can be saved from this, before it becomes another failed blue state with residents running for the door, but they need to act quickly.
Obviously they want to tax everything. To increase affordability, they say.
Virginia Democrats are proposing a slew of new hikes, pushing to have consumers to pay up for their gym memberships, Amazon orders, leaf blowers, and over a dozen other tax hikes. All of this comes after the Democrats and Governor Abigail Spanberger ran on "affordability," a message that flies in the face of the new proposals.
The new tax bills are pushing for a tax on all of the following areas:
Higher sales taxes on all Virginia counties and cities
Personal property tax on electric leaf blowers as well as electric landscaping equipment
Large employer tax
Ammunition and firearms tax
New income tax brackets
A delivery tax, set to hit Amazon orders, FedEx and UPS orders, as well as Uber Eats in Northern Virginia
Gym membership tax
Counseling tax
New car tax and highway usage fees
Storage facility tax
Investment income tax
Event tax
Vehicle repair tax
Dry cleaning tax
Fantasy sports tax
Rideshare tax
Dog walking tax
Digital personal property tax
Increase in taxes in the Arlington area for hotels
Statewide speed camera (not a tax, but additional fines)
They have big plans for all that new money "liberated" from taxpayers: They're going to buy themselves fucking houses.
Virginia Democrat politicians propose "unlimited" grants for home purchases for the most deserving constituency of all -- Virginia Democrat bureaucrats.
While the entire country focuses on Minneapolis for the next 48 hours, Democrats in Virginia have passed a bill out of committee that allows government bureaucrats to receive unlimited taxpayer funding to buy a house.
Top Official Of USAID-Linked Foreign Aid Agency To Plead Guilty To Taking Bribes
African Development Foundation CFO admits he routed money to friend's African 'pass-through' in exchange for kickbacks
By Luke Rosiak
Jan 30, 2026 DailyWire.com
Top Official Of USAID-Linked Foreign Aid Agency To Plead Guilty To Taking Bribes
Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation / ADF
The chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, a federal agency affiliated with USAID, will plead guilty to steering grants and contracts in exchange for bribes.
The previously-obscure African Development Foundation became a darling of the Left when its CFO, Mathieu Zahui, locked its doors to prevent Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from entering. Democrat politicians framed it as an act of moral courage, and left-wing media called the group "the little agency that could."
But on Friday, the Department of Justice said Zahui admitted that he was doing exactly what conservatives have suspected is common in foreign aid: Laundering money through poor nations and then back to D.C. insiders, who used it to enrich themselves.
According to court papers filed Friday, the African Development Foundation sent $800,000 to a Kenya-based company run by Zahui's friend. The friend paid Zahui a kickback of $12,000, and the company kept $134,886 for doing no work.
The rest of the money was simply a "pass-through" where the Kenyan company paid bills that the agency owed to other people. That made it appear that more money was going to African aid as opposed to bureaucratic overhead, and added a layer that concealed where the agency's money was actually going.
Zahui has agreed to plead guilty to accepting gratuities and making a false statement to a federal law enforcement officer, after he lied to the USAID Office of Inspector General about having received the kickbacks. He could face up to seven years in prison.
Today started out as a slow news day but now there are a lot of stories being leaked out for a Friday burial.
'OH MY GOD!!!!! I am dying': Jeffrey Epstein Showered Obama White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler With Gifts, Including $9,400 Hermes Handbag and Four Seasons Spa Treatment, Emails Show
Ruemmler, who told CNN Epstein never 'compensated' her, accepted the gifts years after Epstein's sex crimes were public knowledge
Chuck Ross and Collin Anderson
January 30, 2026
Former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler has attempted to downplay a steady drip of revelations about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein by claiming he never "compensated" her. Newly released emails, however, show the convicted sex criminal showered Ruemmler with luxury gifts, including a $9,400 Hermes handbag, an Hermes-branded Apple watch, and a spa treatment package at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C., emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
The gifts, revealed in documents released Friday by the Department of Justice, came years after allegations of Epstein's sex crimes against children became public knowledge and undercut Ruemmler's attempts to distance herself from Epstein.
Ruemmler, now the top lawyer for Goldman Sachs, has faced intense criticism as troves of Epstein records shed light on her relationship with the sex pest. When CNN reported last month that Ruemmler advised Epstein on media strategies, she told the outlet she "did not represent him and was not compensated by him."
The documents released Friday show otherwise. In emails ranging from 2014 to 2019, Ruemmler routinely corresponded with Epstein's associates to accept gifts or express her gratitude to Epstein. In some cases, she asked for specific items.
The priciest gift likely came in August 2016, when Epstein purchased Ruemmler a $9,400 handbag from the French luxury brand Hermes. Epstein took a particular interest in ensuring Ruemmler received the bag, directing one of his associates, Lesley Groff, to "confirm receipt with Kathy" and "follow up to make sure it happens." When Ruemmler received the bag, she wrote to Groff, "OH MY GOD!!!!! He is in so much trouble!!!! I am dying. It is so beautiful," as Groff relayed to Epstein. Used versions of the same bag--a Jypsiere 31--now sell for around $5,000.
Some two years later, in November 2018, Epstein bought Ruemmler an Hermes edition of the Apple Watch, which retails for $1,300. Emails show that Ruemmler asked for a specific model and watch band and said the gift was "so sweet of Jeffrey!"
"If truly okay with him to do the Hermes, I would love the 40 mm, stainless Hermes with bleu indigo swift leather double tour," Ruemmler wrote at the time. "I'll wear that one every day, whereas the sportier ones I would likely only wear on weekends or when exercising, etc." When Epstein's associate, Groff, relayed the gift to Epstein's accountant, Richard Kahn, Groff wrote, "I knew Kathy would want Hermes." Epstein bought another Apple Watch for Steve Bannon around the same time, according to the emails.
Epstein also appeared to be attuned to Ruemmler's schedule and professional achievements. He booked a "full half day" spa appointment at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown for Ruemmler in August 2016, writing to an associate, "she won her case and needs some pampering." The associate responded with a credit card authorization form and said, "Kathy will go either today or tomorrow she says..." A massage and facial at the luxury hotel can cost upwards of $1,000.
Epstein appeared to provide other gifts of unknown value to Ruemmler. In December 2014, an Epstein associate emailed Ruemmler to inform her that Epstein planned to send his housekeeper to "deliver your ring to you!!" In February 2019, an Epstein associate sent a reminder email to an unidentified individual reading, "Reminder: Bottle of wine and note card to be delivered to Ruemmler today. Let me know once it has been delivered so I can tell Jeffrey."
Wow. In the Epstein emails DOJ dropped, Jeffrey sent himself emails memorializing a fight he had with Bill Gates. In it he says that Bill Gates got STD’s from Russian hookers, and then asked Jeffrey for antibiotics that Bill could secretly give to Melinda without her noticing. 😳 pic.twitter.com/XNA0vNWTcI
A federal judge has taken the death penalty off the table for Luigi Mangione, sharply narrowing the government's options in the high-profile case tied to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street in December 2024.
U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett ruled Friday that prosecutors cannot pursue capital punishment, dismissing two federal counts that would have put the death penalty in play -- murder through the use of a firearm and using a firearm with a silencer to commit a crime of violence.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to both state and federal charges stemming from the fatal shooting, which authorities say occurred as Thompson was walking into a conference in Midtown Manhattan. While the death penalty is now off the table, Mangione still faces two federal stalking counts that carry a potential sentence of life in prison without parole if he is convicted.
Man allegedly posed as FBI agent in apparent attempt to spring Luigi Mangione from prison
The Minnesota man was charged with impersonating an FBI agent after he showed up at a federal prison in New York City claiming to have a court order to release Mangione
Minnesota Man, huh?
A Minnesota man was charged Thursday with impersonating an FBI agent after he showed up at a federal prison in New York City claiming to have a court order to release an inmate, identified by a law enforcement source as accused killer Luigi Mangione.
Mark Anderson, 35, was arrested at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn late Wednesday after prison workers asked to see his credentials and he produced a Minnesota driver's license and "claimed to be in possession of weapons," according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for thr Eastern District of New York.
Anderson also claimed "that he was an FBI Agent in possession of paperwork 'signed by a judge' authorizing the release of a specific inmate," the complaint states.
The inmate is not named in the court document.
"Anderson also displayed and threw at [Bureau of Prisons] officers numerous documents," the complaint states. "They appear to be related to filing claims against the United States Department of Justice."
In his backpack, BOP workers found a barbecue fork and a "round steel blade" that resembled a pizza cutter.
Anderson had traveled to New York from Minnesota for a job opportunity that didn't work out, and had been working at a pizzeria, the law enforcement source said.
If you visit the StopICE license plate tracker, you will note all their plates have been overwritten with the following image: pic.twitter.com/mApcV2Gsdg
Court Rules that Carnegie Mellon University Can Be Held Accountable for Taking Qatar Money to Permit Antisemitic Hatred on Campus
—Ace
From the Wall Street Journal: a student is suing Carnegie Mellon University. She says that she was harassed by antisemitic Muslims, but was discouraged from filing a complaint.
She is suing on the theory that Carnegie Mellon discriminated against her because they were paid $1 billion by Qatar to permit antisemitic attacks on campus.
A judge refused to dismiss this complaint and says that a "reasonable jury" may well find that Carnegie Mellon allowed the brutalization of its Jewish students due to the Qatar bribe. So the case goes forward.
Eitan Fischberger
@EFischberger
Newly unsealed federal court orders point to massive Qatari funding shaping Carnegie Mellon's behavior and enabling antisemitism on campus:
🔸 A federal judge said a reasonable juror could conclude that CMU's reliance on over $1 billion from Qatar motivated the university to accommodate donor expectations
🔸 Qatari entities helped fund the salary of CMU's DEI and Title IX coordinator, and the university was required to consult with the Qatar Foundation before hiring her
🔸 Multiple DEI officials involved in handling antisemitism complaints had work ties to Qatar, including trips, funding, or employment connected to the Doha campus
🔸 The court explicitly warned that Qatar and its affiliates could be a source of antisemitic influence on university policy and complaint handling
🔸 Similar contracts at CMU and Northwestern University require faculty and students to respect Qatari law, which criminalizes criticism of the Qatari government
🔸 Department of Education data shows Qatar is the single largest foreign funder of US universities by far, outpacing China and Saudi Arabia
Academic freedom and student civil rights should not be contingent on appeasing foreign autocracies. Congress needs to take this problem seriously, fast.
Steve McGuire
@sfmcguire79
To summarize: Carnegie Mellon took over $1 billion from Qatar and gave the Qatar Foundation a say in the hiring of their VP of DEI, and now the school is being sued by a Jewish student who says the VP of DEI discouraged her from filing a formal antisemitism complaint...yikes.
White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Thursday that Minnesota county jails will begin sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they are scheduled to release illegal immigrants who have criminal backgrounds.
During a press conference, Homan explained that Attorney General Keith Ellison "has clarified for me that county jails may notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks so I can take custody upon the release from the jail."
This announcement marks a significant shift in the state's approach to working with federal immigration authorities. Previously, they refused to allow local law enforcement to collaborate with ICE and Border Patrol to apprehend and remove illegal immigrants -- even those who committed violent crimes.
Homan said the Minnesota Department of Corrections has consistently honored ICE detainers and stressed that any reduction in the number of federal agents in Minnesota would be contingent on continued cooperation from state and local officials.
"As we see cooperation happen, then the redeployment will happen," he said.
🚨 BREAKING: Tom Homan confirms Minnesota county jails will now NOTIFY ICE when public safety threat illegal aliens are being released, so they can be transferred to ICE agents
THE MORNING RANT: Periodic Roundup of the EV Follies – 01/30/2026
—Buck Throckmorton
The Climate Punishments Are Visited Upon the Children
Among the most ludicrous sacraments of climate cultists is the abolition of gas and diesel powered school buses in favor of electric buses. It’s children who pay the price, because EV school buses have limited range, an inability to function properly in dangerously cold weather, and a proclivity to burst into flames at any moment.
Along the shores of Lake Erie in upstate New York, school kids have been denied heat on their school bus rides. The buses’ electric batteries don’t have enough of a charge to cover their routes while also providing heat in sub-freezing weather.
On the heels of a statewide mandate requiring all school bus purchases in New York State be electric by 2027, parents in the Lake Shore Central School District are speaking out, claiming some bus drivers are turning the heat down, or off completely, in an attempt to conserve battery life on their electric school buses.
The kids are coming home saying their bus is freezing cold and the parents are giving them hand warmers. “The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself,” said Scott Ziobro, a former school board candidate and parent who has children who go to school in the district. “They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself.”
The header picture is the electric Blue Bird school bus that spontaneously combusted into a runaway thermal fire. Fortunately, no children were on the bus. Unfortunately, the driver of the bus had to be hospitalized. A short video of the fire is below. The high priests of the Climate Church are more than willing to sacrifice your children in such a conflagration to appease their angry climate God.
I have previously written about how Blue Bird has abandoned traditional market capitalism for a form of corporate communism, in which the government taxes citizens and redistributes the confiscated wealth to favored enterprises. Specifically, Blue Bird received an $80 million grant from the federal government during the Biden administration to manufacture electric buses. This was not for the purchase of buses - it was just an $80 million handout. On top of that, the government also granted billions of dollars to school districts to buy electric school buses. At $375k per bus, that was about three times the price of normal school buses. Blue Bird received hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, which was all redistributed from taxpayers and passed through school districts to Blue Bird by the federal government. And like any communist command-and-control manufacturer, Blue Bird’s school buses are about as functional as Soviet-era Trabants and Ladas.
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Park Your Electric Volvo Car BombEX30 Safely Away from Structures
Do electric car buyers find it prestigious to receive a notification that their EV is such an unstable bomb that it must be parked outside and far away from structures? I hope they do, because that seems to be part of the ownership experience for EVs manufactured by legacy auto companies.
Volvo is the latest legacy auto manufacturer to warn its EV customers that their product is so dangerous that it cannot be parked in a garage. Even worse, the range of a fully charged EX30 is stated at about 250 miles, but Volvo is now warning that it is dangerous to charge the battery more than 70%, reducing the range to about 175 miles, at best, in ideal weather conditions.
If you own a 2025 Volvo EX30, the Swedish automaker wants you to park your subcompact crossover outside due to a fire risk. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently announced a recall for the EV after it was determined that some examples of the EX30 have high-voltage batteries potentially susceptible to short-circuiting and overheating. Thus, owners are advised to “park outside and away from structures and limit their charge to a maximum of 70% until the recall repair is complete.”
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Volkswagen’s Cascading EV Woes
As I wrote about recently, the Tennessee-built Volkswagen ID.4 is the slowest selling car in the United States, and production has been suspended. Though unwanted and unnecessary, the electric ID.4 was at least capable of fulfilling its basic role as a commuter car.
But VW has also been marketing another EV in the U.S. that is another massive flop – an electric camper van called the ID.Buzz that is an homage to the VW Microbus of decades past. But unlike the inexpensive Microbus, the modern electric camper van has such limited range between charges that wilderness camping is off limits. If you want to go camping in an ID.Buzz, the best place to do so is in your own driveway, since even in perfect weather conditions, the range is barely 200 miles.
A Volkswagen spokesperson confirmed the situation to Carscoops, stating, “Following a careful assessment of current EV market conditions, we have made the strategic decision not to move forward with [model year 2026] ID. Buzz production for the U.S. market.”
Volkswagen produced a $60k EV camper van that does not have the range to go into the wilderness for camping. Who’d have guessed it would fail?
This is definitely going in my next “Roundup of the EV Follies” at Ace’s place. https://t.co/jtG3npxGdX
Stellantis Pulls the Plug on Jeep’s Electric Plug-In Hybrids
Of correspondence I’ve received from readers who know of someone with an EV that spontaneously burst into flames, Jeep plug-in hybrids have been the most common subject. While there is no EV I would allow in my garage, the Jeep plug-in has been so notorious for its runaway thermal fires that I wouldn’t even allow one of them in my driveway.
Stellantis (the owner of Dodge / Chrysler / Jeep) is finally “pulling the plug” on this troubled product line.
They were some of the best-selling PHEVs in the U.S., but the Jeeps in particular had quality issues and faced numerous recalls. In November, Jeep recalled its PHEVs over a battery issue and warned owners not to park inside or charge their vehicles until a fix became available.
Jeep has a great reputation that it has harmed with its failed EV efforts. It is an embarrassment that it is telling its customers who paid a premium for plug-in capability that they cannot now use that plug-in feature because it might burn their houses down. Refocusing on building great gasoline-powered SUVs would go a long way toward rehabilitating the damage done to the iconic brand.
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Chinese EVs
There is a lot of hype about Chinese EVs, but I doubt they’d get traction in this country, even if they could somehow conform to US vehicle homologation requirements. As I wrote recently at The American Spectator, the Chinese market grab in Mexico has been with government-subsidized gas powered vehicles, not EVs.
Europe, on the other hand, has coerced its citizens to buy EVs, and China has gobbled up much of the mandated market share. Buyer’s remorse is growing:
Even if your Chinese EV doesn’t lock you in against your will, there’s a high probability that it is a spy-mobile in service to the Chinese communist government.
It’s almost treasonous that European governments are buying electric vehicles from China:
Hundreds of state-of-the-art electric buses operating across Britain could be remotely switched off by China due to a "kill switch" in their batteries, security services have discovered.
Disgraced ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested early Friday over the anti-ICE protest that stormed a Minneapolis church during Sunday service, according to his attorney and Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
"Don Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents ... in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy awards," Lemon's attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement shared with multiple reporters.
He was one of four people arrested by federal agents early Friday "in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota," Bondi later confirmed in a statement.
Lemon spent the night in jail and is expected to make a first appearance in court sometime Friday, according to Brian Stelter, the chief media analyst for Lemon's former network.
His attorney maintained that the frequently fired correspondent was there as a journalist, making it "constitutionally protected work."
A lot of J6 people acted as journalists during the J6 "insurrection." They reported, they recorded, they livestreamed. They were told that a claim of "journalism" does not excuse lawbreaking.
Leftists, as usual, want a different rule for themselves and their enemies. They want "journalism" to be a Guild with Special Rights and Privileges and, of course, they want the power to say who is and who is not a "journalist." Only leftists may join the Guild and have these Special Rights and Privileges.
This attempt to turn themselves into nobles and us into peasants must be resisted with all force.
"The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable," said Lowell, who also represented disgraced former first son Hunter Biden.
Of course.
...
It was not immediately clear what charges he is facing. However, Lemon has been accused of violating the Enforcement Act of 1871, which bans interference with certain civil rights -- such as voting or serving on juries -- or, in this case, the right to practice one's religion.
Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, it was originally created to prevent the racial terrorist group from paramilitary vigilantism.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, also said the DOJ was considering charging Lemon under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 federal law that also covers interference with religious worship, as well as conspiracy statutes.
A journalist who was with disgraced ex-CNN host Don Lemon when he allegedly stormed a Minnesota church has shared video of the moment agents came to also arrest her Friday morning.
"There's agents at my door," independent journalist Georgia Fort said as she livestreamed the arrest on Facebook Live.
"As a member of the press, I filmed the church protest a few weeks ago and now I'm being arrested for that," Fort added.
"It's hard to understand how we have a Constitution, Constitutional rights, when we can just be arrested for being a member of the press."
At one point, a female arresting officer can be heard telling Fort to hurry up and come outside.
It remains unclear what charges Fort and Lemon are facing over the Jan. 18 demonstration at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.
🚨 IT'S OFFICIAL: Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been ARRESTED by federal agents in Los Angeles in connection with the anti-ICE mob that stormed a church in Minneapolis during a Sunday service.
Eh, if you read the piece, it's the usual political posturing, can-kicking and other nonsense that means more arguments and bullshit in the coming weeks. The big deal with this was the Democrats' insistence on the complete defunding of ICE which although demand by their bloodthirsty insane base is something that of course would never fly with normal American and so ICE will continue to enforce federal law in the rounding up and deportation of illegal aliens.
Collins, R-Maine, said she spoke with Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who told her the news. . . Collins hasn’t joined her colleagues Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who have called for Noem to resign.
Kind of a shocker considering Collins and Murkowski are perpetually joined at the hip when it comes to opposing President Trump and supporting far too many anti-American Leftist political initiatives, primarily abortion. I assume Collins sees that Downeasters have had it with their own Somali Islamo-Grifting swarm of locusts, and so her future ability to bamboozle them into voting for her means she has to at least do her best to fake being in agreement with them about this issue.
"Breaking Bad" actor Giancarlo Esposito calls for "revolution" as a result of the events in Minneapolis. He says "millions" might lose their lives, but "the rest of us would survive."
Typical. "Aux Barricades" fools. Go charge into the machine-gun fire while I stay here in the safety of my trailer mixing the martinis. I can see this degenerate commanding one of Stalin's penal battalions ready to shoot anyone who hesitates. For the glory of the revolution, you see!
Anti-ICE agitators mistakenly targeted two Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents having dinner at a restaurant in Lynwood, California, on Wednesday evening—prompting the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office to be called and engage in crowd control. The two TSA agents were mistakenly identified by unknown individuals as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, prompting a crowd of demonstrators to show up outside the restaurant, with several carrying Mexican flags and others carrying anti-ICE signs.In footage from the scene, several Los Angeles County Sheriff officers can be seen forming a loose perimeter around the dining establishment, while several dozen anti-ICE agitators blow horns, whistles, and wave flags and signs. Local reports indicate the TSA agents were forced to call the sheriff for backup as the crowd gathered outside.
Meh. If they wound up dead. ICE, TSA, what's the diff? to the Left it would be "Message Sent."
Mark Anderson, a 36-year-old man from Mankato, Minnesota, was arrested at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening after allegedly impersonating a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. Anderson claimed he had a court order to release Luigi Mangione, who is accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. According to the criminal complaint, Anderson presented a Minnesota driver’s license when asked for credentials and carried a bag containing a barbecue fork and a pizza cutter.
On the international scene, With a carrier battle group steaming towards Iran to presumably smother the regime with a My Pillow to help it achieve 72 virginhood.
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Cuba only has "about 15 to 20 days" of oil left, based on knowledge of its last shipment, which came from Mexico in early January. There are also rumors floating around the many international businesses and at least a dozen European and Latin American embassies are planning to evacuate Cuba soon amid the crisis, due to the "rapid collapse of internal conditions" and the potential for it to get much worse in the weeks to come. Some say they fear U.S. military intervention given what happened with Maduro.
That would be something to see but I'd rather we here in America no longer had to fear the long dark shadow of Communism that is the Democrat Party. I have a dream today!
Have a great weekend.
And lastly, 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
Our Virtual Civil War Part Four. . .Wisdom from a former communist who campaigned for Xiden . . and Where are the 'republicans' on anything but voting for more funding of this color revolution shit(National Endowment for Democracy)!?!?!?!?! Why the Democrats Fail in the Art of War
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the multiple assassination attempts on President Trump, and the violent targeting of federal agents in Minnesota, non-leftists in America must accept that leftists intend to do them harm. Too Many Democrats Want Us Dead
The remarks allude to an organized effort by Democrat sanctuary city mayors to actively obstruct and interfere with federal immigration enforcement operations beyond refusing to cooperate with ICE detainers. Top Dems Admit Taxpayer-Funded, Organized Anti-ICE Operations
Abandoning deportations would be a capitulation to Democrat demands when doing so has the potential to do massive damage to the rule of law across the country. You Can’t Have A Secure Border Without Deportations
Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to split the bill “funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) off from a ‘minibus’ package of five other major funding bills,” ... Senate Strikes Deal to Fund Government, Averting a Shutdown
Well, who exactly is the propagandist and liar here? It is no surprise that Tucker Carlson feels "completely comfortable here in the seat of Islam." He is a welcome and lauded guest of the state, and his presence there is useful for the Saudi monarchy. They aren't going to give him any trouble for being a Christian, and even if they were, Carlson is not there as a missionary or preacher. He didn't proselytize, and no one expected him to do so. If he had done so, it would have been quite quickly made clear to him that such behavior was not what the Saudis invited him for, and that he should stop it forthwith or would be just as quickly shown the door. Tucker Carlson Is a 'Fervent Christian' but Feels 'Completely Comfortable in the Seat of Islam’
Productivity is surging in America, which will likely mean subdued inflation even while wages rise and rapid economic growth continues. What Is Fueling Our Productivity Boom?
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
What’s more, Assistant to the President & White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung uncovered that four of CNN’s oh-so-screened questioners are straight-up Democrat party donors . . Disgraced CNN Rigs Minnesota Town Hall with Leftists and Democrat Donors (Potemkin Village puppet show - jjs)
One of the most incredible accomplishments in the annals of global propaganda is the idea that Republicans in the United States are opposed to civil rights for individuals and the Democrats are for them. America’s Structural Anti-Republicanism
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
The Sierra Club is calling for a local Democrat representative to be dismissed from his role on a key committee, which the Democrat Massachusetts House Speaker panned as a “foolish.” State-level Democrat Massachusetts Rep. Mark Cusack, who chairs the state’s House Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, was reportedly planning to soften the state’s climate mandates and cut some funding for a green program, according to the CommonWealth Beacon. The local Sierra Club executive committee chapter then unanimously voted for Cusack to be removed as chair in a first-ever move for the chapter, outraged at the purported effort to “walk back the state’s landmark clean energy laws,” according to the local publication and Sierra Club. Greenies And Democrats At Each Other’s Throats As Climate Change Talking Point Evaporates
THE 2020 and SUBSEQUENT ELECTION HEISTS , SHENANIGANS/FRAUD and AFTERMATH
The Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, led by Committee on House Administration Chairman Steil, implements minimum baseline standards for administering federal elections. The new initiative includes a long list of election integrity initiatives, including many advocated by President Donald Trump and prioritized on the stump by Republican politicians. Rep. Bryan Steil Unveils ‘Make Elections Great Again Act’ to End Lawless Voting
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY
To some, these events mark the latest unraveling of the rules-based international order. The sight of a great power, untethered from any multilateral constraints, openly threatening a smaller one is exactly what they have devoted their careers to preventing. Ironically, this crisis reveals that despite his own preference for disruption and open disdain for settled conventions, Trump is one of the staunchest champions of one of the most important pillars of the post-Cold War order—nuclear nonproliferation. Trump, the Great Nonproliferator?
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Cuba only has "about 15 to 20 days" of oil left, based on knowledge of its last shipment, which came from Mexico in early January. There are also rumors floating around the many international businesses and at least a dozen European and Latin American embassies are planning to evacuate Cuba soon amid the crisis, due to the "rapid collapse of internal conditions" and the potential for it to get much worse in the weeks to come. Some say they fear U.S. military intervention given what happened with Maduro. Cuba's Bad Day Just Got a Whole Lot Worse
There is a good chance Artemis-2 will succeed, and the astronauts will come home safely. And that success will prove nothing. NASA’s space effort will continue to be dominated by the same wrong priorities that killed the astronauts on Challenger and Columbia, and is thus certain to eventually kill astronauts on a later Artemis mission. It continues to put schedule above engineering, to a level that ignores clear engineering failures that should never be ignored. Artemis-2 proves NASA learned nothing from the Challenger and Columbia failures
Those mountains, ranging from 600 to 9,000 feet high, are made of frozen ice, which on Pluto are as hard as granite due to the endless cold. And the white frozen ocean is frozen nitrogen, broken into polygon shaped blocks. Even stranger: those ice mountains might even be floating in that nitrogen sea! Pluto’s mountains of ice surrounded by a sea of frozen nitrogen
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
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 exposed chats showed users asked the app "How do I painlessly kill myself," to write suicide notes, "how to make meth," and how to hack various apps.
How could this happen? Did some brilliant hacker find a devious path through a rat's nest of firewalls and security devices to reach the servers?
Not exactly.
The issue is a misconfiguration in the app's usage of the mobile app development platform Google Firebase, which by default makes it easy for anyone to make themselves an "authenticated" user who can access the app's backend storage where in many instances user data is stored.
Every message from every user was public. Oops.
And half of all iOS apps have the same problem.
404 Media seems to have fallen on stupid times, judging from the sidebar: App for Quitting Porn Leaked Users' Masturbation Habits, well, okay, that's legit tech news with a prurient slant. Two Heads, Three Boobs: The AI Babe Meta Is Getting Surreal is less legit. And I Replaced My Friends With AI Because They Won't Play Tarkov With Me is just pathetic whether it's real or not.
Bondu confirmed in conversations with the researchers that more than 50,000 chat transcripts were accessible through the exposed web portal, essentially all conversations the toys had engaged in other than those that had been manually deleted by parents or staff.
Also, The Verge is working to destroy any tattered shreds of misplaced trust that it still desperately clings to. It's gone full-blown Trotskyite student newspaper.
Jasmine Mamiya, a mother of two, was shocked to learn she had developed a third breast after giving birth to her second child. While recovering in the hospital, a lactation consultant pointed out what appeared to be a nipple growing under her armpit — something Mamiya initially thought was just a skin tag.
The consultant explained that during pregnancy, it’s possible for some women to grow extra breast tissue along what’s called the “milk line” — a vertical path running from the armpits to the groin. These can sometimes form a full third breast, complete with a nipple, and even have the ability to produce milk.
Check out the whole story. There's a video clip at the link. It's less than whelming.
An Oviedo man was arrested this week after he was caught engaging in a “sexual performance” with a vacuum cleaner, according to the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office.
In a release, deputies said they responded to Grassendale Street in Kissimmee’s Windsor Hills Resort on Jan. 22 after receiving reports of a man “exposing his sexual organs in front of a residence.”
“The victims that observed this behavior provided a statement and a cell phone recording of a male, partially clothed, in front of a residence, engaged in a sexual performance with a vacuum cleaner,” the release reads.
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Not related, yet somehow related
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Frozen waves? Kewl!
Mind blown! Frozen crashing waves at Lake Sayram, Xinjiang, ice shove phenomenon piles up turquoise ice like a frozen tsunami. Unreal beauty! ❄️ 🌊💙 🔥 pic.twitter.com/1rmmxorF85
Preparations are underway for the worldwide kicky-ball event happening later this year. Los Angeles is attempting to cover up graffiti in some areas. How's that working out for them?
With the FIFA World Cup months away, Caltrans has been spending millions of dollars to clean up trash and graffiti on local freeways, but one effort to stop street art doesn't appear to be working.
Two weeks ago, Caltrans crews installed artificial ivy on the walls of the 101 Freeway in Downtown Los Angeles to cover up and hopefully deter graffiti. But, taggers have already left their mark.
To cover up the graffiti, Caltrans crews are installing artificial ivy on the walls. There are mixed opinions on whether or not it's a good idea.
Contained in the story is an example of California ridiculousness.
Due to a mural and related agreements at this location and several walls along U.S. 101 in downtown Los Angeles, Caltrans is not legally allowed to paint over or remove graffiti.
I can't wait to not watch the World Cup this year.
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No clue if the top half of this is a real avatar used by Alex Pretti. Too funny for me to care if it's not!
Earworm status - activated. Click away!
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DJ Doof - Guess The Theme
Another easy one tonight. Difficulty level 1 out of 5
What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif?
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Could the mystery click be anything else?
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This may shock some of the most easily shocked readers, but it turns out that the pampered foreign communist Zohran Mamdani has been in office for two weeks and he's already out of money and will need to liberate more money from taxpayers.
Chief Nerd
@TheChiefNerd
🚨 BREAKING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani Says New York City is Facing a "Fiscal Crisis at the Scale of the Great Recession"
"That means looking inward into savings and efficiencies. That also means raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations."
Former mayor Eric Adams calls bullsh*t.
Eric Adams
@ericadamsfornyc
In case anyone was wondering, this was the real motive behind today's press conference.
Mayor Mamdani promised a laundry list of "free" giveaways to buy votes, with no plan to pay for them. Now that the math doesn't work, instead of owning the fact that he misled New Yorkers, he's blaming me.
Let's be clear: I left him over $8 BILLION in reserves.
This is the same Mamdani who spent years attacking me for not spending enough during the migrant crisis.
The only reason those reserves exist is because I ignored him and his socialist comrades who demanded we blow billions more with no guardrails.
"Free" isn't free. It's just a bill someone else has to pay.
Eric Adams
@ericadamsfornyc
4h
When you promise "free" everything on Sunday, boldly declare that millionaires and billionaires shouldn't exist on Monday, and by Tuesday you're scrambling to fund your giveaways with the very people you wanted gone just yesterday.
InteractivePolls
@IAPolls2022
US CENSUS: Net international migration fell 53.8% from 2.7 million (2024) to 1.3 million (2025) -- just 321K projected for 2026
Will Chamberlain
@willchamberlain
The most basic category error the left makes - repeatedly - on every police shooting is to characterize the shooting as an unjust "punishment" for the conduct of the person shot. They then argue that said person didn't "deserve" to be "executed," and so clearly the police officer is in the wrong.
That's not what it's about. It's NEVER what's it's about. Punishment is administered through the judicial system. The right of a law enforcement officer to use deadly force in self-defense or defense of others is about the rights of the officer, his colleagues, and nearby civilians as human beings whose lives have value, too. They have a right to respond to the imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm with deadly force. And in exercising that right, they are not judged from the perspective of an omniscient superhuman, with perfect knowledge of everything happening in that moment; they are held to the standard of the reasonable person perceiving what they can from that viewpoint.
In the words of William Munny, deserve's got nothing to do with it.
Tiffany Cross is a very low-IQ black racist fired by MSNBC for being a basket-case and a liability. Of course CNN's Abby Phillip decided she needed to feature this Empowered Black Woman Racist on her failing show.
Note that CNN routinely cancels people for dealing in "misinformation."
But not here, of course.
And she was back at it last night, this time asserting, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, that ICE is a "white supremacy" "militia" which is now staffed almost entirely by... Proud Boys.
O'LEARY: "Did you just say ICE officers are militia?!"
CROSS: "Yes. Have you not been paying attention?"
O'LEARY: "Yeah...I think you're stretching a little bit."
CROSS: "They certainly mirror the Gestapo."
O'LEARY: "This is a federal, state mandate, you're pushing that a little bit there. That's WAY offside."
*Abby Phillip looked concerned.*
PHILLIP: "But Tiffany, you're just making a supposition here. There's no concrete evidence of actual Proud Boy members."
O'LEARY: "Yeah, you gotta be careful here. That's WAY offside. These are men and women serving the government, risking their lives, serving the government. You're calling them Proud Boy militia, did you say that?!"
"You're way offside, way offside."
CROSS: "I'm actually not. But I think that there are White supremacist tattoos on their necks."
O'LEARY: "White supremacist federal officers?!"
CROSS: "Yeah! White supremacist federal officers!"
O'LEARY: "Okay that's...where are you going with this? Why would you say that?! Men and women working for the federal government, risking their lives, carrying out a mandate and their White supremacists?!"
CROSS: "Yes, and you're a member of a cult..."
O'LEARY: "WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!"
They want war. They will have it.
Soros DA Larry Krasner to ICE: "If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades... we will find your identities!"
Absolutely CHILLING. THIS is the Democrat party, folks.
Here's George Soros-backed Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner. He publicly declared that Democrats will “hunt down” @ICEgov agents when @realDonaldTrump leaves office:
Walz positioning himself as the governor of the rebels seceding from the U.S. for an unjust cause is a little too on the nose. pic.twitter.com/E1CFa86WmR
Podcast:Jim Lakely of The Heartland Institute joins us for a wide-ranging discussion of Heartland's recent Anti-Davos initiative: The World Prosperity Forum. We also discuss MN's all-encompassing graft, free markets as an antidote to misery, the truth behind the ICE riots in Minneapolis, and more!
Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk about insurrection in MN coming to NYC? Trump's Greenland rhetoric was over the top, the Gaza Peace Panel is anything but, Minnesota churchgoers need to step up, and is it possible that if the Persian people toss out the Mullahs they will begin a Muslim reformation?
Long-time Coblogger and commenter "Niedermeyer's Dead Horse" is having significant health issues, and would appreciate the thoughts and prayers of The Horde. If you wish to reach out, use @NiedsG on X/Twitter. [CBD]
Disclose.tv
@disclosetv
30m
JUST IN - DOJ investigating Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for conspiracy to impede immigration agents -- CBS
Podcast: CBD and Sefton chat about the end game in Iran, what to do about the Fed, its supposed "independence," and its hyper-politicized chairman, the housing crunch, and Trump's harebrained suggestion to decrease credit card interest!
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, and an always interesting observer of the human and political condition, has died. RIP. [CBD]
Tousi TV: France closes embassy in Tehran, US Department of State advises all US citizens to get out of Iran He's been saying that Tuesday will be a decisive day. Other reports say that Trump is in the last stages of planning an action against the mullahs. (And other reports say that Tucker Carlson Simp JD Vance is attempting to get Trump to agree to "negotiations" with Iran -- for fucking what? What do we get out of saving the fucking mullahs and letting them kill and torture their own people? Apart from Tucker Carlson getting to pretend he's a Big Man Influencer and that he's worth all the Qatari money he's receiving.)
Asmongold predicted that AWFLs would turn on immigration the moment we started importing hot women into the country, and he was right via garrett
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