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
Good morning kids. Not to toot my own horn but am I good or what?! In yesterday's Morning Report, I wrote:
we have two separate shootings on two of the nation’s top campuses, Brown University and at MIT. . .Are these incidents all connected somehow. Given the assassination of Charlie Kirk and several failed attempts on President Trump as well as the violent rhetoric and actual violence and acts of terrorism by the Left cheered on and encouraged by the Democrat propagandist media and the Democrats themselves not just in the Trump era but virtually throughout our history. Well anything is possible, and maybe the MIT Professor had links to Academia’s bête noire The State of Israel or was targeted by the Chi-Coms or other foreign state actors? Meh, just spit-ballin’ here. Don’t cost nuthin’. . .
Well, the gunman offed himsef and it turns out he was a Portuguese national, as was his victim at MIT. What his connection to the victims at Brown is unclear, except for the fact that he attended Brown at one point. But here's the kicker:
Israeli officials are reportedly investigating a possible Iranian connection to the murder of senior MIT nuclear scientist Prof. Nuno F. G. Loureiro, who was reportedly shot at his home on Monday evening by unknown assailants and died in the hospital a few hours later. Professor Loureiro, 47, was the director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose faculty he joined in 2016. He was born and raised in Portugal, earning an undergraduate degree from the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon and a Ph.D. from Imperial College in London, then spending several years at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion in Lisbon before moving to the United States. . . “The Israeli investigation is being conducted against the backdrop of Loureiro’s sensitive field of research,” JP reported. “However, informed sources have emphasized that at this stage, there is no unequivocal determination or evidence linking the murder to a state or intelligence operation.”
The Jewish magazine Forward on Wednesday sought to debunk social media rumors that Loureiro was killed because he was an outspoken supporter of Israel and Jewish people as unfounded. The rumors appear to be based on some social media posts that were mistakenly attributed to Prof. Loureiro, but actually written by someone else using the same name, along with a photo posted to social media that claimed to show a “Stand With Israel” sign in the professor’s window. . . There has been much speculation about such a connection, since the killer has proven remarkably elusive in both cases, and Loureiro’s home in Brookline is only about 50 miles from Brown University, so it would not be difficult for the killer to get from one murder site to the other in less than two days.
Well about me saying "Am I good or what?" I'll go with the "or what" choice. As I said, given everything going on both at home and abroad and the Venn diagram of events intersects at quite a few points. Almost any day of the week, the links we have can be played almost like that old game called "Mad Libs" no not angry leftists but a play on the expression Ad-lib, although there are myriad Mad Libs/angry leftists that populate virtually every link to one degree or another. Where or how the victims and perpetrator in these killings are connected vis a vis the motive is still unknown, and as President Trump is fond of saying, we'll just have to wait and see. Unless of course the propaganda media and their paymasters in the institutional left deem the truth way to inconvenient and damaging to their narrative.
How bad is the establishment media? How much does it present propaganda disguised as news? How low will it stoop? Here’s a case study.
A “Sioux Falls man” was arrested on Tuesday. It seems that this particular Sioux Falls man was minding his own business, not bothering anybody, livestreaming on Facebook, when he suddenly decided to let the world know that all was not right in the world of Sioux Falls Man. He announced, right on his Facebook livestream, that he was planning to burn a building down. He also brandished a gun and a knife. . . Having thus advertised his intentions to the world, Sioux Falls man was arrested, and the local media covered the story. Yet the way that one Sioux Falls “news” outlet presented the facts has implications that go far beyond Sioux Falls and the story of one local boy who went bad. . . You’d reasonably expect, or even assume, that this was a photo of the Sioux Falls man who was livestreaming and announced his plans to commit an act of arson. Yet not only was it not a photo of the perp, but it was a photo that showed someone who was about as different from the perp as it would be possible to get. . . the real Sioux Falls man who issued this arson threat was not the man in KELO’s photo. Instead, he was a black man named Mohamed Mansarry. Likely because of all the attention KELO received from their false photo (End Wokeness has 3.9 million followers on X), it has taken down the story that it initially circulated with the misleading photo; now all there is at that link is a Page Not Found notice. . .
The story that KELO now has up carries Mohamed Mansarry. But what was going on with that other photo? One X user offered the most likely explanation: “The media operates as a laundering service for the regime’s persistent failures. This visual deception in Sioux Falls is a blatant example of narrative control. KELO News substitutes a stock photo of a white man for Mohamed Mansarry to preserve a hollow multicultural illusion. This is a calculated attempt to sanitize demographic reality. You liberal sycophants swallow this visual poison because you fear the truth more than the fire Mansarry threatened to start. The press functions as the propaganda wing of a crumbling state that relies on your blindness to survive.”
At the tail end of the latest edition of the podcast CBD and I were reminiscing about the good old days growing up in the greater NYC area. For me it was the Flatbush/Midwood section of Brooklyn, having graduated from what was an outstanding example of what the concept of the Melting Pot ought to be: Midwood High School, where whatever your religion, ethnicity or background, we all somehow managed to get along and embraced not only our heritages but our common heritage of being American. Anyway, when we were off the air, CBD asked me about notable alumni:
Unfortunately one of my predecessors was Woody Allen and some years after I ventured as far away as across the street to Brooklyn College, came the truly execrable Hakeem Jeffries. I don't know if fellow alums Didi Conn, Morty Gunty or David Peel collectively offset the latter two.
Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead,” network medical analyst Jonathan Reiner said the “manic cadence” of President Donald Trump’s White House address raised medical concerns.
One of Dr. Reiner's former patients was the late VP Dick Cheney. IIRC way back when when Cheney either had one of his dozens of heart attacks or was diagnosed with a serious heart ailment early on in Dubya's first term, I believe Reiner operated on him, and he became a go-to press source for politician-related medical stories. Anyway, Oh Johnny, my old friend and classmate, it pains me to say this but that you've let yourself descend to the level of being a flaming asshole paid propagandist with an MD shingle is disgusting and disappointing beyond belief. I'm ashamed and embarrassed for you, and I cannot believe we came up together in the same environment.
Perhaps this story is too personal but it is nevertheless illustrative of the nature of both the media as well as how one's personal politics can cloud any sense of ethics and decency, or more frighteningly that their personal politics and blinkered uninformed worldview gives them a sense of moral superiority that they are justified in doing what they do. Lying is truth telling to them. They have gone full Orwellian 1984. Meh, basta cosi.
Patriots of the Caribbean: Sen. Mike Lee Bill Authorizes Privateers to Combat Cartels Outside U.S. Borders — “The Constitution provides for Letters of Marque and Reprisal as a tool against the enemies of the United States,” Lee said. “Cartels have replaced corsairs in the modern era, but we can still give private American citizens and their businesses a stake in the fight against these murderous foreign criminals. The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization act will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets.”
God forbid the Democrats seize control . . . I can imagine them one day deputizing Antifa goons to use deadly force on suspected conservatives! Nous Somme les deux Charlies maintenant - Kirk et Hebdo .
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.
A high-profile Zohran Mamdani appointee resigned Thursday after newly unearthed posts revealed a series of antisemitic comments online — including rants about “money hungry Jews” and defunding NYPD “piggies.” The short-lived appointment fell apart once the Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey demanded answers Thursday from Mayor-elect Mamdani’s team about whether its members knew about Catherine Almonte Da Costa’s past antisemitic posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. Da Costa, whom Mamdani tapped on Wednesday as the city’s next director of appointments, had several vile stereotype-laden posts from 2011 and 2012, the ADL revealed in a post on X Zohran Mamdani appointee resigns after vile antisemitic social media posts resurface (Meh, the Islamunist bench of Einsatz-Groupie Jew-haters runs very deep - jjs)
BONDI BEACH CHANUKAH BLOODBATH
Cops from New South Wales (NSW), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) responded to a tip of a “violent act” in planning, according to an NSW Police statement. The men were headed for unknown reasons to Bondi Beach and five were arrested, reported news.com.au Australian Police Reportedly Ram Car To Foil Suspected Second Terror Plot In Days
There’s no denying that Biden's economic legacy is a disaster. Inflation averaged nearly 5% during his tenure and peaked at a jaw-dropping 9.1%, the worst inflation crisis in generations. Democrats' reckless spending spree fueled the fire, and American families paid the price. The Economic Comeback Under Trump Is Very Real
Professor Loureiro, 47, was the director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose faculty he joined in 2016. He was born and raised in Portugal, earning an undergraduate degree from the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon and a Ph.D. from Imperial College in London, then spending several years at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion in Lisbon before moving to the United States. Report: Israel Investigates Possible Iran Link in Killing of MIT Nuclear Scientist
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
The story that KELO now has up carries Mohamed Mansarry. But what was going on with that other photo? One X user offered the most likely explanation: “The media operates as a laundering service for the regime’s persistent failures. This visual deception in Sioux Falls is a blatant example of narrative control. KELO News substitutes a stock photo of a white man for Mohamed Mansarry to preserve a hollow multicultural illusion. This is a calculated attempt to sanitize demographic reality. You liberal sycophants swallow this visual poison because you fear the truth more than the fire Mansarry threatened to start. The press functions as the propaganda wing of a crumbling state that relies on your blindness to survive.” ‘Sioux Falls Man’ Is Arrested, and There’s Something Weird About the News Coverage
Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead,” network medical analyst Jonathan Reiner said the “manic cadence” of President Donald Trump’s White House address raised medical concerns. (Oh Jonathan, My old friend and classmate, it pains me to say this but that you've let yourself descend to the level of being a flaming asshole propagandist with an MD sheepskin is disgusting; I'm ashamed and embarrassed for you - JJS) CNN’s Reiner: ‘Manic Cadence’ of Trump’s Speech Raises Health Concerns
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‘The EU’s AI Act should be a wake-up call for every American who cares about sovereignty and free expression.’ ‘The idea that a laissez-faire approach to artificial intelligence protects free markets is no longer tenable when Europe is already writing and enforcing the rules.’ New Heartland Institute Study: Europe Is Now Regulating America’s AI
Robert Zimmerman: "The frightening part to me, however, is the weak response by parents. Only half are convinced this technology is harming their kids, and even those who do believe so are not taking it away from their children, only limiting its use in a variety of superficial and generally ineffective ways." New study: AI is corrupting the minds of children
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
“Trump Media & Technology Group built uncancellable infrastructure to secure free expression online for Americans, and now we’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” TMTG Chairman and CEO Devin Nunes said in a statement.Trump Media Announces $6 Billion Merger With Tech Giant To Spearhead ‘Fusion Energy’ Revolution
Stefanik, whose team argues she has the best shot at defeating incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, is facing Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Even though Stefanik currently leads Blakeman by 31 points, President Donald Trump has asserted both are “great people” and declined to get involved in the race at this point. Elise Stefanik Went Full MAGA — So Where Is Her Trump Endorsement?
“So, all this stuff they’re doing with the not getting off of the trans for everyone, not getting off of the just racial politics, the victimhood politics, the soft on crime politics…none of this stuff is actually helping their brand, amongst themselves.” Shock Poll Reveals Democrats at Worst Level of the Century (take another poll New Year's eve 2100 and call me - jjs)
The Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act authorizes President Donald Trump to commission American operators under letters of marque to seize cartel property and persons on land or sea outside the United States. Exclusive — Patriots of the Caribbean: Sen. Mike Lee Bill Authorizes Privateers to Combat Cartels Outside U.S. Borders (I can imagine Democrats one day deputizing Antifa goons to use deadly force on suspected conservatives! Nous Somme Charlie Kirk et Hebdo maintenant - jjs)
The Indo-Pacific is where global power now concentrates, and decades of U.S. neglect have left deterrence against a rising China urgent, fragile, and racing against time. Deterrence by Denial in the Indo-Pacific
I negotiated directly with the drug companies in foreign nations to which were taken advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400 500 and even 600% in other words, your drug costs will be plummeting downward, and I use the threat of tariffs to get foreign countries who would never have done it to pay the cost of this giant dollar reduction. ‘I’m Doing What No Politician Has Ever Done’: TrumpRx Delivers Historic Price Cuts Up to 600%
The deadline for this report suggests that Trump’s executive order today is precisely aimed at providing Isaacman the political clout he needs to pull those astronauts from [the spring SLS-Orion lunar] mission, for legitimate safety concerns. When he releases this report in March, he will do so with great fanfare, in a manner that will allow him to take such a politically charged action.
New Trump executive order today guarantees major changes coming to NASA’s Moon program
Flammarion Crater is of interest because some scientists believe it once held a lake. These channels on the periphery of the crater floor support that hypothesis, especially as they seem to drain downward into the crater. Ancient Martian drainage into crater lake, now turned into ridges
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.
My Apple ID, which I have held for around 25 years (it was originally a username, before they had to be email addresses; it's from the iTools era), has been permanently disabled. This isn't just an email address; it is my core digital identity. It holds terabytes of family photos, my entire message history, and is the key to syncing my work across the ecosystem.
I effectively have over $30,000 worth of previously-active "bricked" hardware. My iPhone, iPad, Watch, and Macs cannot sync, update, or function properly. I have lost access to thousands of dollars in purchased software and media.
You might be thinking at this point that this guy is an idiot for giving a single company complete control over his personal and work life in this way.
Thursday Overnight Open Thread - December 18, 2025 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Joyce Bealer (U.S.), 3rd Place Landscape Photographer of the Year
Howdy Hordelings! Thanks for stopping by the Thursday ONT.
Happy Hannukah to those who are celebrating.
Coming up on the shortest daylight day of the year.
Two weeks to get your 2025 charitable donations in.
OK - enough preambling. Let's step inside, shall we?!?
In what the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) called “an extremely rare event,” an adult Michigan man became infected with rabies following a kidney transplant. According to a CDC report, the man received a left kidney from a deceased donor in Idaho in December 2024. The procedure went perfectly, and the patient made a full recovery, but just over five weeks later, he started experiencing worrying symptoms.
The unnamed kidney recipient first started experiencing tremors, leg weakness, confusion, and urinary incontinence, but things only got worse. Within days, he was hospitalized with fever, difficulty swallowing, signs of hydrophobia, and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. He soon had to be mechanically ventilated because he couldn’t breathe by himself, and died a week into his hospitalization.
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Having visited Zion National Park recently, I can attest to crowd sizes and shuttle bus congestion. This might be a good way to address those things.
America's national parks are becoming increasingly popular, with over 330 million visits recorded in 2024 alone. As more travelers head outdoors, the National Park Service (NPS) has been experimenting with different entry and reservation systems to manage growing crowds.
That's what federal and state officials discussed recently during a meeting hosted by Utah's Public Lands Coordinating Council. At this meeting, officials revisited the idea of implementing timed entry systems at Zion and Arches National Parks to manage congestion during peak travel seasons.
While state leaders have expressed hesitation about expanding timed entry—particularly at Zion—a former NPS superintendent argues that some form of reservation system is becoming unavoidable as park crowds continue to surge.
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She's handling this better than I think I would have
Target employee who was harassed over her Charlie Kirk shirt speaks out— says she does not want the woman who harassed her to lose her job over it
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. I really wouldn’t want to see her lose her job over it.” pic.twitter.com/5rEUHHkfkb
The nasty shopper issued an apology. Sincere? You decide.
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I'm aware of the "No math on the blog" rule. Rules must sometimes be broken!
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Physics / weights and measures are math adjacent. Apparently they worked differently back in the stone ages.
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One week until Christmas. Have you watched many Christmas movies yet? You're probably aware of the "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" debate. But how about "Is Home Alone a Christian movie?"
Annual reminder that Home Alone is a Christian movie.
Watch this scene very carefully, where Kevin is drawn to the beauty and warmth of the church.
As he walks inside to "O Holy Night", he hears the words "Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!"
Annual reminder that Home Alone is a Christian movie.
Watch this scene very carefully, where Kevin is drawn to the beauty and warmth of the church.
As he walks inside to "O Holy Night", he hears the words "Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!"
A sanctuary candle passes across the foreground, indicating that Christ is present inside the church.
Kevin then has an encounter with a Christ figure: Old Man Marley. Kevin makes a confession to him, then shakes his hand and we see a bandage on Marley's hand.
It's never explained why his hand is wounded, but earlier in the movie we saw that his hand was actually pierced ALL THE WAY THROUGH — like the nails driven through Christ's hands on the cross.
At the end of the movie, Kevin cannot save himself from the burglars, and so Marley appears again to rescue him.
What's the common thread / common meaning / common leitmotif? Other than they're all songs from prog rock bands.
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Tonight's ONT brought to you by Shirley
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Tonight's ONT is the artificially intelligent property of Doof Enterprises, LLC. Permission to use granted to the Ace Media Empire.
Your feedback may or may not be very important to Doof Enterprises. Follow Mr. Doof on X @doof2112 or do the email thing – doof2112 at proton dot me. All I want for Christmas are some Rush deep cuts!
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Just the News on Wednesday that federal and local officials involved in the prosecutions of President Donald Trump may face legal action if the Department of Justice identifies a conspiracy to deprive him or his followers of his civil rights.
"The Department of Justice is at the heart of considering these issues right now, so I can't really talk about the specifics, but in general terms, yes," she said on the Just the News, No Noise television show.
"The Civil Rights Division and the DOJ generally do have the tool of a criminal conspiracy statute for conspiracy against rights, and this dates back to the start of the Ku Klux Klan, and when the Klan and its predecessors used to go after people, and they could involve, sometimes local law enforcement to do that," she said. "And so we have the ability, if we can prove a conspiracy to violate someone's civil rights, that that could be a criminal matter."
...
"That also goes for lawyers who leak and betray confidence as a breach of privilege, and for people who violate their oath as attorneys, they could also face bar sanctions if there's a bar referral after an investigation like that," Dhillon explained.
"So, I would say all of those things are on the table for lawyers and DOJ officials and others who conspired with them at the state level, state prosecutors, state police and so forth, who conspired to violate civil rights. And it could also include executive branch officials from the first administration who knowingly conspired and orchestrated a violation of federal civil rights."
The four Republicans who signed on Wednesday morning and pushed it to 218 were Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., and Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa.
All four of them represent competitive districts that could make or break the GOP's narrow House majority. Democrats have been slamming each of them as complicit in the impending lapse of the funding, which first passed in 2021 under President Joe Biden in a bid to cap premiums for "benchmark" plans at 8.5% of income. ...
"House leadership then decided to reject every single one of these amendments," Fitzpatrick said. "As I've stated many times before, the only policy that is worse than a clean three-year extension without any reforms, is a policy of complete expiration without any bridge. Unfortunately, it is House leadership themselves that have forced this outcome."
It's possible this was Failure Theater from Johnson.
Update: I assume this is the car rented by the shooter, found abandoned in New Hampshire.
Updates on Brown Shooter: Federal LE, Not the Bumbling State and City LE, Identified the Suspect; the Person of Interest "In Proximity" to the Shooter Is a Homeless Man Who Provided Details About Killer
—Ace
i didn't think the witness would be able to add much here. The shooter was wearing his Covid Coward Crime mask, after all.
But Jordan Schachtel's sources say he helped identify the shooter.
Note it's federal agents who cracked the case, not the bumbling Brown security officials or the multicultural disaster of the Providence PD.
Jordan Schachtel
@JordanSchachtel
1h
Hearing from govt sources that there is a major breakthrough in the Brown shooting case and a person of interest has been ID'd by federal law enforcement. Apparently it's NOT the Hamas encampment leader Mr Mustapha. Nobody has been ruled out but they have a hard ID on one person.
Local news reports that LE is also investigating any connections btwn the Brown incident and the targeted killing of an MIT professor two days later an hour down the road.
Sources believe the Brown attack was not targeted, though the MIT incident clearly was. Very strange.
Compilation of sources and reports say: the "person of interest" is reportedly a homeless guy who lives in the area, but he provided critical info on the shooter. Police have a DNA match and there should be news re arrest very soon on this front.
Jordan Schachtel
@JordanSchachtel
5m
The shelter-in-place order for Brown University was lifted on Saturday. That same day, just an hour down the road, the suspect on the loose reportedly murdered renowned MIT prof Nuno Loureiro.
I don't know how the president of Brown stays in office after this tragic debacle.
Update: Car rented by Brown shooter also seen near slain MIT professor. Or at least a car of the same make and model (and one assumes, color, which is a good bet because every stupid car is silver now).
NY Times: authorities believe Brown University shooter used rented vehicle that is same make and model of car connected to killing of MIT professorhttps://t.co/NP8pIet3DSpic.twitter.com/vucAo5Ophh
The clearest picture of the Brown University assassin. It's time to ban face masks in public, barring medical necessity. States rightly banned masks in early 20th century to stop crimes by KKK who hid behind masks. Pro-Hamas criminals also use medical masks to hide their faces. pic.twitter.com/2MS8WIslHD
They rammed the car because, it is reported, they believed they had to stop the car immediately.
An unmarked police car rammed a vehicle carrying a group of men believed to be travelling towards Bondi beach, possibly planning a "violent act".
New South Wales police said there was no connection between the counterterrorism operation and the investigation into the Bondi terror attack on Sunday, in which a father and son opened fire on Chanukkah celebrations, leaving 15 dead.
No connection, huh? None at all?
You're ready to declare that so soon?
Well, that's standard practice in Australia now. One of their top "journalists" declared that the attack on a Hannukah celebration, attended by Jews, by a pair of bearded Muslim men "had nothing to do with religion."
The ABC's global affairs editor has sparked controversy by claiming Sunday's deadly attack on a Jewish festival at Bondi Beach had 'nothing to do with religion'.
Speaking on the ABC Politics Now podcast on Tuesday, veteran reporter Laura Tingle insisted the terrorists' actions were unrelated to their faith.
Her comments came despite mounting reports Naveed Akram, 24, and his father Sajid, 50, specifically targeted the Jewish celebration, and that homemade Islamic State flags were found in their silver hatchback.
The ABC itself reported that Naveed had previously been investigated by ASIO in 2019 over alleged links to an ISIS cell in Sydney.
Podcast host Patricia Karvelas said the pair 'absolutely are radicalised... they were targeting Jews. It is antisemitic, but we are ascribing all sorts of things, right?'
Tingle hit back: 'Their actions are not based on their religion'.
The veteran journalist also dismissed claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Australia was targeted for recognising Palestine.
'I don't think that really stacks up,' she said.
'I can't quite see how recognising Palestine leads to greater antisemitism, because if you think about it, it reduces the anger in the pro-Palestinian lobby I would have thought, and thus should actually reduce the temperature.'
Uh-huh. Either that or it convinces they that their low-level insurgency is a winning strategy, given the cowardly appeasement offered to them, and encourages them to ramp the jihad up still further.
Either/or.
An ABC spokeswoman defended Tingle, saying her role is to provide analysis.
'Laura Tingle is a senior and highly experienced journalist whose role as ABC Global Affairs Editor includes providing her assessment and analysis,' she said.
'The conversation on the podcast concerned terrorism and radicalisation and the comment was about separating religion from radicalisation.'
The two terrorists had ISIS flags -- Islamic State flags, that is.
Nothing to do with religion, huh? The actual terrorists say different.
Heavily-armed tactical officers in an unmarked police Land Cruiser drove into a white Hyundai hatchback carrying several men who were travelling from Melbourne in the direction of Bondi beach, local media said.
Police said tactical operations officers had contained two cars in the Sydney suburb of Liverpool after a tip-off that a "violent act was possibly being planned". Seven men were detained.
Person of Interest Sought in Brown Shooting Claim: Brown Disabled Security Cameras Because Left-Wing Groups Complained Their Criminals Were Being Photographed UPDATE: Link to MIT Physicist Slaying?
—Ace
Crimes which could then serve as a basis for expelling foreign-born terror-activists from the country.
So, the allegation goes, they pressured Brown into simply turning off their cameras, and Brown, of course, complied.
Of course they won't tell the public who they're looking for. It's standard police practice to withhold information during a manhunt so that the public cannot help you find the suspect.
Wait a minute, no, that's not standard police practice at all, is it?
A person of interest has been identified in the deadly mass shooting at Brown University, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CBS News on Thursday.
Law enforcement has identified a person, and a search for that individual is underway, the sources said.
Remember, they put out a picture of a man seen "in proximity" of the actual suspect, asking for tips about who he was. Their hope was that this man might be a witness who could offer a description of the actual suspect, I gather.
So when they say "a person of interest" has been identified, they might just be referring to this witness, not the killer. The photo of this "in proximity" person of interest was a lot more useful than ones of the killer, because we continue to allow people to wear masks in public because Taylor Lorenz will cry if we don't.
Meanwhile, there is a claim that Brown deliberately disabled many of its cameras because left-wing criminal "activists" didn't want the police having videotaped evidence of their crimes, and their foreign-born Islamic agitators didn't want to be expelled from the country.
And then this literal wilful blindness enabled the killer to (so far) walk away from his crime, unidentified.
I don't know if this is true. Brown the cops claim that it's not suspicious that there are only a couple of videos of the terrorist killer because this building was on the edge of the campus, bordering on a residential neighborhood with no camera coverage.
Uh, okay, that's plausible.
What's the excuse for their being no cameras inside a school building? At the doors?
BREAKING: Far-left groups reportedly pressured Brown University and other colleges to disable CCTV cameras—so violent pro-Palestinian activists wouldn’t be held accountable.
Now there’s a killer on the loose, and Brown has little to no footage to identify the shooter. pic.twitter.com/W4WlFTr850
REPORTER: “The camera in that building Brown pulled off because the sanctuary city law we have. You don't want to record illegal immigrants and you don't want to provide footage to FBI… Brown University pulled the camera and you can't identify the person”pic.twitter.com/v43BgtLhR9
Meanwhile, "authorities," such as they are, are asking for video of the scene of the crime for a week before the attack. I assume the point is to see if they can find the killer scouting and casing the site.
If the cameras were in fact turned off, then obviously we won't have any new clues.
Except about the need to defund Brown University completely and deny all student loans to students there.
Update: h/t to JackStraw, a Rhode Island tv news report says that there is a possible link between the Brown shooting and the assassination of an MIT physics professor.
BREAKING: Authorities just dropped a BOMBSHELL - evidence from the Brown University attack might be CONNECTED to the brutal murder of that MIT Professor. #BrownUniversity#MITpic.twitter.com/f3XVTUFJrY
Note that this is just something they're investigating as a possibility.
But cops seem to be telling all of the media this. Even Groomer Network ABC.
BREAKING: The mass shooting at Brown University and the murder of an MIT professor in Brookline, Massachusetts, may be linked, multiple sources briefed on the investigation told ABC News.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday announced a series of proposed regulations to block hospitals from performing myriad gender-related treatments on children.
The regulations would block surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone treatments, which the department said "cause irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other irreversible physiological effects."
"Under my leadership, and answering President Trump's call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.
The House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday night that makes it a felony for doctors to perform transgender surgeries and procedures on minors, despite heavy opposition from over 200 House Democrats.
The legislation, titled the Protect Children's Innocence Act, passed in a 216-211 vote, which saw 207 House Democrats and four moderate House Republicans object to it. Three House Democrats joined with their Republican counterparts to pass it.
The four House Republicans to vote with the Democrats are Reps. Mike Lawler of New York, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Kennedy of Utah, and Gabe Evans of Colorado, while the three Democrats are Reps. Don Davis of North Carolina, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Henry Cuellar of Texas, according to the Daily Signal.
Women didn't just violently assault men and expect to have some kind of Feminist Force Field that would protect them from retaliation.
San Francisco police revealed the identity of the woman whose booze-soaked rampage at an upscale eatery went viral this week -- and her tech employer confirmed she's been canned for the humiliating scene.
Her employer may be a tech company but she's no coder. She's just another idiot DEI hire.
Police identified Shireen Afkari -- listed as a marketing manager for the fitness app Strava and former employee of Credit Karma on a now-scrubbed LinkedIn profile -- as the woman who was caught on video taunting and pummeling staff at Hazie's before being body-slammed by a bartender and later tripping and face-planting on the sidewalk in the Hayes Valley neighborhood, according to KRON.
Officers arrived at 9:41 p.m. Saturday after Afkari, who was accompanied by a male companion, was dragged out of the restaurant after taking a swing at staff and violently knocking a phone out of another person's hands.
"He's f--ing harassing me," Afkari shouted at a bartender off camera before being hauled outside by Miguel Marchese, a staffer who later shared video of the incident on Instagram.
"Ooooh, he's a liar."
Afkari was arrested for public drunkenness and sent to county jail, according to cops.
She was fired. She was not charged with assault because the bar's staff, for some reason, declined to press charges.
I don't know what started her angry drunken rampage. If I were forced to guess, I would guess that she was cut off and decided this was "harassment."
Update: That guess was right. From Judge Elric the Blade:
Ace, that is exactly correct. From some more recent reporting:
Speaking to San Francisco's KRON4, Miguel Marchese, a bartender at Hazie's, who was at the centre of the ordeal, said the couple came in at around 9 pm and staff rapidly raised concerns about their level of intoxication.
"The night was quite chaotic, the couple came in, they were requesting dinner service," Marchese said.
"Initially, the server verbalized to me that she could tell that her table was not only intoxicated, but perhaps on some other substances and they were giving her quite a rough time and being quite verbally abrasive with her and then I do believe after that [the server] asked for the manager to intervene."
Marchese said the manager then removed cocktails from the couple's table and asked them to leave.
"He retracts her cocktails from the table, because I just made them, he brings them back and he simply tells me, 'they've had enough to drink, we shouldn't serve them anymore.' And then later, it just kind of spiraled into chaos," he said.
The Inflation Rate Falls As Trump Promises a New "Golden Age"
—Ace
I turned off Trump's speech because it made me anxious. He was rushing through the script so fast he tripped over words and didn't emPHAsize key points to drive the message home.
But he did hit the points. The speech was about 20 minutes. I think he should have taken maybe 28 minutes to give the speech, adding in emphasis and pauses.
A fiery President Donald Trump on Wednesday night promised Americans a shock-and-awe push for affordability, offering a glimpse of his 2026 agenda to overhaul Democrat policies that have left housing and health insurance increasingly out of reach for working Americans.
"Tonight, after 11 months, our border is secure, inflation is stopped, wages are up, prices are down, our nation is strong, America is respected, and our country is back - stronger than ever before. We are poised for an economic boom, the likes of which the world has never seen," he declared in a nationally televised address from the White House.
In tone and delivery, Trump brought optimism to the 20-minute address and vowed to voters that they would soon see lower prices, higher wages and a brighter future. He also made clear he intends to inject himself onto the midterm elections ballot when Americans will choose which party will control Congress in 2026.
Woven throughout the speech were assurances that while many foreign issues have captured the Trump triage, America's kitchen table issues are his main focus.
At many points in the speech, Trump reflected back on a year prior, and the near-anemic economy Americans were suffering with, emphasizing that they can't afford to go back to the era of Democratic policies.
The speech was markedly and definitively "Trump." Senior White House aides confirmed to Just The News that shortly before the speech, the president tinkered with it and added his own fiery flair.
Maybe that's why there was stumbling over some words -- because he had just edited it.
...
Democrats lead Republicans on the 2026 generic ballot 48 to 45, but a change in prices could convince 74% of them that inflation and costs are no longer a problem, according to a new Echelon Insights poll.
"I was surprised. It was a better number than anyone was expecting," says Harvard Professor of Economics Ken Rogoff on November inflation coming in WAY BELOW expectations.
Bowtie Goebbels Tucker Carlson had announced before the speech that Reliable Congressional Sources had confirmed to him Trump would use the speech to DECLARE WAR ON VENEZUELA, which Bowtie Goebbels is of course opposed to. He has on Maduro spokesmen to assure his largely-foreign audience that Venezuela is a nice country that doesn't send Tren de Aragua terrorists to the US.
Tucker Carlson put out a video saying a member of congress told him President Trump was going to announce a war with Venezuela tonight.
Imagine being this wrong!
I'm guessing his source was either Thomas Massie or Marjorie Traitor Greene! 😂🤡 pic.twitter.com/cRsD56kxE9
I saw a Bowtie Goebbels cultist declare that Carlson was SECRETLY RIGHT, because Trump really had planned to DECLARE WAR ON VENEZUELA but Carlson's brave disclosure of this before the speech forced Trump to change it.
Sure. Trump was ready to announce a war -- one of the most controversial things a President can do -- but Tucker Carlson saying so a few hours before the speech was enough to get him to back off the DECLARATION OF WAR.
Inflation is a cold-hearted bitch. It steals our paychecks, and we will never recover the loss. Sure, compensation eventually catches up (mostly), but the gap between rising prices and rising wages is significant.
And inflation destroys any possibility of planning for many companies. How do you budget for next year or next quarter if you simply do not know how much your raw materials are going to cost?
Pricing competition becomes insanely difficult too! Revenue from today pays for product you sell tomorrow, but if inflation suddenly increases by more than you planned, how do you restock? You simply buy less, and...hope!
So this is good news. How the rancid whores in the media are going to spin this is anyone's guess, but decreasing inflation is a very good thing for the economy, and no matter how much they huff and puff and bullsh*t with the numbers, Americans are better off.
Price pressures may be cooling across the economy, with the 12‑month inflation rate slowing sharply in November.
The annual inflation rate eased to 2.7 percent last month—the lowest level since July—from 3 percent in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Economists had penciled in a reading of 3.1 percent.
The core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes volatile energy and food prices due to their noisy signals, also cooled to 2.6 percent from 3 percent in September. This represented the lowest reading since March 2021.
But even better than moderating inflation is this little nugget of pure golden deliciousness!
Tariff-sensitive items were little changed over the past 12 months.
The apparel index is up 0.2 percent year over year, while the new-vehicle index has risen 0.6 percent over the 12 months ending in November. Additionally, on an annualized basis, appliances have increased by 0.5 percent, smartphones have declined by 9.4 percent, and footwear has dipped by 0.1 percent.
And weren't we told by our betters that tariffs are inflationary? You know, those 26-year-old "journalists" who took one economics class in college and never attended because it was at 8:00AM and they were usually still high! The "journalists" and pundits confidently claimed that a one-time increase in the wholesale price of tariffed products would continue to push their prices up indefinitely. Of course no modern country has ever shifted revenue to tariffs so quickly, and the data simply aren't there to make anything more than a wild-assed-guess!
But they did it anyway, and it looks like they were just a little bit off in their predictions.
Nobody knows whether a tariff-based economy will function as well as President Trump has proclaimed, but the early indications are good, and the naysayers are being proven incorrect. Revenue from the tariffs is robust, which is also proving the President correct.
Last night's presidential address is an excellent start to the administration's focus on communicated to the American people what the President is doing to address inflation, employment, the return of manufacturing to America, the vanishing possibility of home ownership for many young Americans, and other economic challenges that we face.
I hope he keeps hammering home his efforts to redirect our economy toward Americans, and away from illegals, and the leeches of Europe. It is long past time!
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!
Good morning kids. First we have reports of wildfires with near hurricane force winds spreading in the high plains. Prayers for the safety of all of those affected as well as for the firefighting crews and first responders who will hopefully be able to get the situation under control as rapidly as possible.
Elsewhere in the news, we have two separate shootings on two of the nation's top campuses, Brown University and at MIT.
At Brown, two students were slain, one of them was evidently a prominent conservative on campus. And that the Providence RI PD cannot or will not confirm that the shooter shouted that popular phrase that all the hep cats dig Hold that Tiger! Allah Akbar it means that he probably did and so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities and cause "backlash!" they have kept it dark.
Are these incidents all connected somehow. Given the assassination of Charlie Kirk and several failed attempts on President Trump as well as the violent rhetoric and actual violence and acts of terrorism by the Left cheered on and encouraged by the Democrat propagandist media and the Democrats themselves not just in the Trump era but virtually throughout our history. Well anything is possible, and maybe the MIT Professor had links to Academia's bête noire The State of Israel or was targeted by the Chi-Coms or other foreign state actors? Meh, just spit-ballin' here. Don't cost nuthin'. . .
A Jewish New Yorker described Tuesday how he was stabbed just centimeters from his heart by a hateful sicko — who made a chilling promise before lunging at him on a Brooklyn street.
“I’m going to kill a Jew today,” the knife-wielding goon seethed before launching the antisemitic attack, said victim Elias Rosner, 35, in an interview with The Post on Wednesday.
Rosner, a member of the Lubavitch Hasidic community in Crown Heights, had just left the temple on Tuesday afternoon when he came across the still-at-large attacker spewing antisemitic slurs.
“I was waiting in a crowd of Jewish people and this guy started spouting stuff,” Rosner recalled. “I’m going to kill Jewish people, I’m going to kill a Jew today, I don’t give a f–k … We wouldn’t be in this mess if the Holocaust had happened,” the unhinged man ranted, according to Rosner.
The man “looked very serious” — but Rosner refused to cower in the face of the ugly threats, he said. “I guess I was the one guy that had the bravery to look him in the eye,” he said.
“So, he was waiting. He set a trap up for me a block ahead. He came around the corner and it just started happening.”
Rosner was stabbed once in the chest, at the corner of Kingston Avenue and Lincoln Place around 4 p.m., by the madman, police said, adding the NYPD was investigating the attack as an antisemitic hate crime — on the third night of the Hanukkah Jewish holiday.
The Brooklynite only narrowly escaped with his life — miraculously saved by his sweater, he said.. . Rosner said the attack was part of the uptick in antisemitic sentiment following Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, with the anti-Jewish hate trickling down to Big Apple neighborhoods, including on college campuses and in the subways.
If the neighborhood of "Crown Heights" sounds somewhat familiar to some of you, it was the scene of a car accident back in 1991 involving a young black child who was hit by a car being driven by a Hassidic man. Sadly with tensions already (historically) running high between the long-standing Hassidic community and their black neighbors, Al Sharpton was on the scene faster than you can say "White Interlopers and Diamond Merchants" and a near full scale race riot and pogrom broke out resulting in the beating death, at the hands of a mob of black youths of one Yankel Rosenbaum, an orthodox Jewish student who was visiting the US from, of all places Australia!! For three straight days and nights Jewish homes and shops were attacked, and two weeks later, another man was killed by the mobs, who wasn't even Jewish but mistaken for one, having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Crown Heights pogrom and the sheer ineptitude of then mayor David Dinkins in allowing it to happen by handcuffing law enforcement, ultimately led to his ouster two years later and the temporary reprieve of the Big Apple from doom with the glory years of Rudy Giuliani. Yet, here we are 34 years on and the city has decided that a Muslim Communist is what NYC needs.
The attack has left Sydney’s Jewish community shaken, with some members now considering emigrating to Israel. Chavi, a 27-year-old mother who was at the event with her baby, described using her body as a shield to protect her child during the attack. “I love Australia, I was born here, and I know [Israel] is in the Middle East… but we were just sitting ducks here,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
And yet New York and far too many of its Jews by birth only just shoved a thermonuclear enema up its collective keister.
British authorities sentenced a Dorset man to 18 months in jail for inciting hate and violence on X in the heated aftermath of the 2024 Southport stabbings that left three children dead and another 10 people injured. . . There's no denying the nasty nature of Yarwood's posts, sent to X before the identity of the killer — 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana — was known, but was widely misreported to have been a Muslim immigrant. Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, but his parents were evangelical immigrants from Rwanda. . . Even a veteran of intemperate tweets like myself would never post anything like Yarwood did, but still, 33 views? This guy barely incited more racial hatred than Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh in all three Lethal Weapon movies combined. See, that's funny because one is black and the other is white and they're basically family and race hardly comes up. I miss movies like those.
But oh no, President Trump said nasty things about Rob Reiner. As CBD and I discussed on the latest episode of the podcast, linked here and in the sidebar and posted on the usual outlets listed below, there are far more crucial things the President can and should be communicating to the American people than his personal animus towards the late Mr. Reiner.
Contemporary Americans do not believe that our current civilization could self-destruct a third time in the West, followed by an impoverished and brutal Dark Age.
But what caused these prior returns to tribalism and loss of science, technology, and the rule of law?
Historians cite several causes of societal collapse—and today they are hauntingly familiar.Like people, societies age. Complacency sets in.
Meh, professor, in the immortal words of Nick Lowe, "You've got to be cruel to be kind!"
Have a good day.
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
Rapidly spreading wildfires have triggered evacuations in South Dakota and Wyoming, fueled by hurricane-force winds from a widespread storm system affecting the entire country.According to the FOX Forecast Center, wind gusts reaching as high as 70 mph have been recorded in the Pennington County region of South Dakota, driving the rapid expansion of the wildfire. South Dakota, Wyoming See Evacuations Due To Wildfires Erupting From Hurricane-Force Winds
Victor Davis Hanson: History suggests civilizations fall when complacency, debt, and tribalism replace unity, discipline, and reform—prompting fears the West may be nearing a familiar decline. Can the Dark Ages Return?
Amid the partisan polarization, there is a two-to-one plurality for less migration vs more migration. Just 18 percent of citizens want legalized migration to be increased, while 35 percent want it decreased or zeroed. Poll: Plurality Want Less or Zero Legal Migration
During a sermon delivered earlier this month at the North Miami Islamic Center in Miami, Florida, Islamic preacher Dr. Fadi Yousef Kablawi told congregants that the United States has committed so much injustice globally that it warrants divine punishment, arguing that the only reason such judgment has not occurred is due to the presence of righteous Muslims within the country. (High time Kablawi went Kablooee, IYKWIM - jjs) Miami Imam: U.S. Deserves Divine Punishment, Trump ‘Human Garbage’ — ‘The Foot of the Dirtiest Somali Is Cleaner Than Your Face’
Trump tells America: ‘I’m fixing’ Biden’s mess in chart-filled primetime address President Trump came out swinging against his predecessor in his address to the nation while touting the progress he’s made over the past year. FIXER-UPPER-IN-CHIEF
Democrats responded to President Donald Trump's year-end address by insisting he sounded panicky, defensive, and even scared. That claim spread quickly across the left, only to collapse under basic listening. President Trump spoke like a president reviewing progress, not a man searching for cover. Trump's Speech: Panic Is What the Left Wants to See
Trump’s capsule histories of his predecessors are a bracing reminder of how accustomed we have all become to leftists writing our history books, and would make a pointed and funny book. However, many who support Trump are saying that it’s time he cut out the endless carping at his leftist predecessors, and step up his efforts to undo the damage they left in their wake. Trump Adds Captions to Presidential Portraits and — Well, You Just Have to See Them
What Pennsylvania and the nation are being shown is not a strong candidate buoyed by organic support, but a carefully engineered projection. More Josh Shapiro: The Hologram Candidate
The protesters, much like current socialist President Xiomara Castro, claim that “fraud” was allegedly committed in the yet-to-be finalized results despite international observers stating that they found no evidence of fraud. The National Electoral Council (CNE) attributed new delays in the counting process to the protests, which have continued as of early Wednesday morning. Honduras: Leftist Riots Slow Presidential Vote Count Showing Socialists Out of Power (I smell Pelosorosi - jjs)
Four moderate House Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York — signed a discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies slated to expire at the year’s end. The petition was sponsored by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and is supported by every Democratic lawmaker. (RELATED: ‘Absolute Bulls–t’: GOP Moderate Nukes Party Leaders As Obamacare Cliff Nears) 4 Republicans Sign Democrat Obamacare Petition To Force House Vote On Subsidies
The Senate today finally confirmed Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA administrator, by a vote of 67 to 30. All of the opposition came from Democrats, who fear Isaacman will eliminate several NASA centers in their states, centers that for decades have accomplished little but be jobs programs sucking money from the American taxpayer. Jared Isaacman confirmed as NASA administrator
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
The national broadcaster responsible for hosting the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest announced on Wednesday that audience members will be allowed to bring “all official flags,” presumably including the 'Palestinian' flag, and that booing will not be censored out of the live event, emboldening pro-Hamas protesters who have made the non-political event a major target. Eurovision Song Contest to Allow Booing, 'Palestinian' Flags After Refusing to Boot Israel
Melania covers the twenty days leading up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration and will debut in theaters on January 30 2026. In coordination with the world-wide release, Amazon will release a documentary mini-series after the film’s debut. ‘Melania’: Amazon Releases Trailer for the Feature Documentary About the First Lady
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.
Micron has two factories under construction in Idaho due to come on line in 2027, and another planned in New York to be operational in 2030.
Even with those three new factories churning out chips they only expect to meet half to two thirds of demand.
In the meantime, though, the company posted a revenue increase of 57% over last year, so they don't really care about you and your money, as indicated by them shutting down their Crucial consumer brand after nearly 30 years.
And the second of my two new mini-PCs arrived today. I set up the first one last night - just plugged it in, turned it on, lied and told Windows I didn't have internet, and it works. It's pretty fast too, with none of the lag I get with my laptop.
Partly because the CPU is nearly twice as fast as the one in my laptop, partly because it's a clean install of Windows and doesn't have about 200 different applications installed yet. I'll fix that.
It really does have 64GB of RAM. 64GB of Crucial RAM, apparently, which is now a collectors item.
15GB per second and 3.3 million IOPS, the equivalent to a RAID array of 25,000 hard drives.
And it's not much more expensive than PCIe 4.0 models. Not because it's cheap, but because the price increases in flash memory have overwhelmed the price increment for the faster PCIe 5.0 controller.
In my experience, if you can precisely specify the requirements, and the AI can crib from public code in another programming language, and you can run the code in a sandbox where break-ins can't happen, and you're willing to do the testing, and the job is the sort of annoying boilerplate work of plugging two things together that don't really want to be plugged together, AI is useful.
In other words, the stuff that you would dump on a junior team member so that one day they would be a senior team member.
But this kind of work wasn't much fun back when we didn't have AI, so I'm not sure we've made things worse.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: Only -358 shopping days 'til last Christmas!
Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - December 17, 2025 [North Pole Rex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the post-cafe overnight variety.
Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors. Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice.
ONT Department of Military Long Form Reading Material
Apologies if this has already been posted somewhere on Ace of Spades, but posting to make sure you see. Mandatory reading (since this is a semi-serious military blog at times).
And here's the truth no one outside the building understands: often Trump himself doesn't know the decision in advance - and that is by design.
In the old model, a policy chief like Colby - if he wasn't drowned out entirely by the bureaucratic circus - would brief the President only after the internal machinery had already decided which ideas were "viable." By the time anything reached the Oval Office, the cake was half-baked.
Colby doesn't play that game. He encourages his team to present the President with multiple strategic pathways that share one overarching objective: put America first. Not metaphorically-literally. Then Trump chooses.
And once the President selects a strategy, everything changes.
In previous administrations, the moment a plan left the Oval Office, think tanks, senators, lobbyists, foreign service officials, intel chiefs, and a whole menagerie of Beltway fauna would descend on the National Security Council to tug at the plan, dilute it, reshape it, or kill it entirely. Every actor demanded their piece, their clause, their carve-out, their exception. Strategy, once released into the wild, rarely survived the stampede.
That era is over.
Trump doesn't ignore these players - he's altered significant strategies to accommodate strong objections from Congress and foreign allies - but he no longer allows them to hijack the core plan. They may comment. They may object. They may warn. They may advise. But they are no longer permitted to quietly amputate or rewrite the strategic heart before it beats.
The wonks are in charge again - but not the conference-circuit wonks with PhDs, hotel per diems, and NATO summit panels funded by NGOs with agendas buried in their footnotes. Not the pseudo-experts who present PowerPoints about imaginary futures.
The wonks in charge now are the ones who can take the boundless complexity of geopolitics and distill it down to America's core interests - those who can see the world not as a chessboard or a cocktail party but as a dynamic system requiring clarity, courage, and constant recalibration.
And for the first time in decades, the Pentagon is beginning to operate according to that principle.
Anyone build their own Lego piece sorter? I didn't know this, but there is an entire sub-genre on YouTube of people making videos about making Lego piece sorters. I will admit, as a general rule, I am endlessly fascinated seeing many different solutions attempting to solve the same problem. (But I am also easily amused, so there is that...)
***
ONT Department of Military History
Last Wednesday's ONT included the story of the Vietnam-era toilet bomb. But wait, there's more!
CWO3 Wayne Toth, a member of VFA-25, who shared his photos with us for this article, also gave us a little background on how the toilet-bomb was brought back to life:
"I am the Gunner in now VFA-25. We had a change of command and decided to replicate it. This time on a brand new BLOCK III Super Hornet.
One of my AO3s (AO3 Meagan Rickets) picked up a toilet from [the] marketplace, and I cut the steel, used Mk 76 lugs, made the tail assembly out of multiple dryer exhausts, and our Corrosion Control made the stickers."
The change of command ceremony occurred on September 16 at Naval Air Station Lemoore where the historic toilet recreation was so proudly displayed. During the ceremony, Commander Mark "IROC" Tedrow, a former Blue Angel, took over as skipper of VFA-25 from Commander Kristen Hansen. It was a perfect place for a fun callback to the proud history of the squadron.
Bonus answer to the question from last week: Why did the original toilet have an "E" on it?
Saturday's Hobby Thread requires Horde participation. On last Saturday's Hobby Thread, we honored the Christmas ornament. Many among the Horde sent photos of ornaments from their collections to the Hobby Thread email address. It seemed to go well, so we're doing it again this Saturday. That means if you missed it the first time or you have another ornament to submit, you get another chance.
Could be something sentimental, something you made as a child or an adult, something special given to you, something you picked up on your travels, something whimsical or fun, something particularly novel, something really old, something handmade, something intricate or fancy, something irreverent and cheeky, etc.
If there is a story behind your photo, send a brief description. I may edit or inappropriately embellish, so be warned.
If you don't have an ornament, but have some other favorite festive Christmas decoration, send it in. Ornaments get priority but will feature other decorations if there is space.
President Trump is set to address the nation in prime time Wednesday night, using a nationally televised speech to highlight major accomplishments over his first year back in office while offering a preview of the policy fights ahead as his administration presses deeper into America's "Golden Age."
The address is scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern, live from the White House. Trump announced the speech himself Tuesday in a post on Truth Social, writing, "My Fellow Americans: I will be giving an ADDRESS TO THE NATION tomorrow night, LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, at 9 P.M. EST." He added, "It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!"
Ravens partner for life , they strengthen their pair bonds by performing what can be described as vocal "duets" or a soft, warbling "song" for one another.
Podcast: Will Ukraine be a flashpoint for a Korean conflict, Trump's intemperate Reiner comments, it's the economy stupid! the Monroe/Trump Doctrine, Bondi, Brown, MIT, and more!
Megyn Kelly finally calls out Candace Owens
Whoops, I meant she bravely attacks Sydney Sweeney for "bending the knee." (Sweeney put out a very empty PR statement saying "I'm against hate." Whoop-de-doo.)
Megyn Kelly claims she doesn't want to call people out on the right when asked about Candace Owens but then has no compunctions at all about calling people out on the right.
As long as they're not Candace Owens. Strangely, she seems blind and deaf to anything Candace Owens says. That's why this woman calls her "Megyn Keller."
She's now asking her pay-pigs in Pakistan how they think she should address the Candace Owens situation, and if they think this is really all about Israel and the Jews.
Podcast: Pete Hegseth is everything the left hates...and we love! Illinois is the next flashpoint for federal supremacy with regard to our borders, Trump's communication leaves something to be desired, and more!
I have happily forgotten what Milo Yiannopoulos sounds like, but I still enjoyed this impression from from Ami Kozak.
Well, bamboo is actually a type of grass, and underground, it's all connected in a sprawling network, just like the parts of this story I never wanted to tell. I wish I hadn't been put in this position, that I didn't have to write about any of this, that I didn't have to subject myself or my loved ones to embarrassment and further loss of privacy.
We're back to the fucking bamboo. Guys, I don't think I can pay for bamboo ruminations.
I think he added that because he was embarrassed about all the bamboo imagery from Part 1. He's justifying his twin obsessions: His ex, and bamboo. Which is not a tree but a kind of grass, he'll have you know.
On Tuesday, the book arrived in stores. At lunchtime, in the Midtown Manhattan nexus of media and publishing, interest in Nuzzi's story seemed more muted. The Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue had seven copies tucked into a "New & Notable" rack next to the escalator, below Malala Yousafzai's "Finding My Way." Not many had sold so far, a store employee said.
A few blocks uptown, at a branch of the local independent chain McNally Jackson Books, a few volumes lay on a table of new and noteworthy nonfiction near the front of the store. No one was lining up to get them, or even browsing. Bookseller Alex Howe told CNN around 3 p.m. that though the store had procured "several dozen" copies, not a single one had yet sold -- a figure he said was surprising, considering how many people in media and publishing work in the area.
"We ordered a lot and so far, people have not been beating down the door," Howe said. "I'm not sure where we're gonna put them because right now, supply is outpacing demand." (A manager at McNally Jackson noted that Howe was speaking only in a personal capacity, not as a representative of the store.)
She trashes Ryan Lizza for his "Revenge Porn" here. Emily Jashinsky says that when the Bulwark's gay grifter Tim Miller asked why she didn't report on the (alleged) use of ketamine by RFKJr., she broke down in tears and asked to end the interview.
Podcast: Sefton is back with CBD to discuss killing narco-terrorists (we are both for it!), the TN special election, Trump's communication skills, and more!
Incumbent Senator John Cornyn (RINO - TX) betrayed his party and his country by voting in favor Biden's Afghan resettlement bill in 2021. Cornyn voted to bring in the Afghan who shot two National Guard soldiers on US soil. A vote for Cornyn is an endorsement of importing unvetted, radicalized murderers. [Buck]
