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
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk signaled Thursday that he is lining up behind Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, a notable turn after months of public friction with President Trump and flirtation with launching a third political party of his own.
"America is toast if the radical left wins," Musk wrote on X, warning that a Democrat-controlled Congress would "open the floodgates to illegal immigration and fraud" and that the country "won't be America anymore." The post came in response to a conservative influencer claiming Musk was "going all-in funding Republicans to help President Trump take back full control" of Congress in November 2026.
According to Axios, Musk has already begun making sizable contributions to GOP candidates in key House and Senate races, though the precise amounts will not be public until campaign finance disclosures are released later this month. The signal carries weight. Musk poured more than $290 million into the 2024 election cycle, becoming the largest single political donor that year by a wide margin.
RINO Republican Mike DeWine says it's no big deal that we're having our patrimony stolen from us by foreign pirates -- it's just "the cost of doing business."
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's office on potential fraud at childcare centers in Columbus-- which has the second highest Somali population in America:
Interesting video. The CIA promoted abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollack as some kind of bulwark against the propaganda value of Soviet art, which itself was realistic and representational. (Though idealized in showing proud, strong, happy Soviet peasants harvesting the abundant fields.)
So using taxpayer money, they pushed this crap. "Our" art would be simple geometric shapes and paint splatters.
It was literal Gay Ops.
But that's not the most egregious CIA Gay Op. They also funded and promoted leftwing magazines, including one founded by Bill Kristol's father, Irving Kristol. The point of this was to give leftwing intellectuals a leftwing ideology to believe in that wasn't actual communism.
But what they did was fund magazines that relentlessly attacked the right and pushed socialism.
Fifty years later, this op came to its ultimate fruition as a majority of the younger generations, for the first time in American history, now support socialism.
And many support communism.
Bang-up job, guys. Give yourselves all a promotion.
Just as an FYI: Irving Kristol eventually turned away from leftist more or less completely and founded the anti-communist "neoconservative" movement.
"America First:" Stop Taking Any Action Against Any Hostile Foreign Regime, Focus on Fentanyl Smuggling Also "America First:" Don't Take Hostile Action Against the World's Biggest Narcoterrorist States
—Ace
The "America First" clowns both want an end to drug smuggling from foreign countries, and a policy of pink pacifism toward the foreign dictators arranging the bulk of drug smuggling into the US.
They are incoherent. They are just angry and unreasoning and pissed of at everything, and frankly, you shouldn't listen to people who get off on their own omnidirectional rage to the exclusion of any capacity for rational thought.
Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro is striking a suddenly conciliatory tone toward Washington after a reported CIA drone strike targeted a cartel-linked docking area inside his country, claiming Caracas is now "ready" to negotiate with the United States on drug trafficking -- and even dangling access to Venezuela's oil sector as leverage.
In a sit-down interview recorded on New Year's Eve with Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet and aired Thursday on state television, Maduro said the U.S. government has long known Venezuela is open to talks, insisting that if Washington wants a note-for-note agreement to combat narcotics flows, "we're ready."
He went further, suggesting that American energy firms could return in force, saying Venezuela is open to U.S. oil investment "whenever they want it, wherever they want it and however they want it," explicitly referencing past dealings with Chevron.
The remarks come amid an aggressive U.S. pressure campaign that has seen at least 35 American strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since early September, operations U.S. officials say have killed more than 115 suspected traffickers.
I do not believe he's ready to talk due to Trump following Tucker Carlson's pinko pacifist plan of just being nice to Venezuela. I think he's ready to talk because Trump is using the US military to blow up his drug boats and seize his "Dark Fleet" terrorist oil ships.
More CBS "News:" CBS Executives Killed an Interview With Elon Musk Because They Insisted They Should Be Able to Edit and Hide What He Had to Say
—Ace
Elon Musk wanted to do the interview live precisely so they couldn't give him an Asshole Edit and hide his actual words to push their previously-decided narrative.
CBS "news" executives said they would never, ever agree to do that. They need to control the narrative.
This comes from former CBS investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, who left the network, presumably over this kind of absolute bias and corruption.
Mario Nawfal
@MarioNawfal
12h
🇺🇸 CATHERINE HERRIDGE: CBS WALKED AWAY FROM ELON BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T CONTROL HIM
Catherine revealed CBS passed on what could have been one of the biggest interviews in modern media, not because Elon refused, but because the network did.
She said discussions were underway after her work connected to the Twitter Files, and an opportunity emerged to interview Elon live on his own platform.
That's when everything stalled.
"I went to the CBS executives and I said, this is the opportunity that we have.
He's saying, I want to do it live and on my platform.
He's one of the most influential human beings on the planet.
And the reaction from the executives was, well, we can't do it live.
And I was like, what do you mean we can't do it live?
They said, we don't know what he's going to say.
And I'm thinking, isn't that the point of journalism?
They said it has to be taped.
We have to be able to edit it. It has to be on our platform.
We have to control the platform.
Everything just got shut down.
It was one of the biggest interviews you could ever have.
I felt ashamed. I never went back to Elon to say they want to do it, but only if they can control it.
I couldn't do that to someone whose DNA is free speech."
Catherine Herridge
@C__Herridge
21h
Straight to the Point:
When Corporate Media Bias Is Baked In
In the fall of 2023, I brought CBS News a proposed interview opportunity with Elon Musk.
CBS Executives said the interview couldn't be done live, rather it had to be pre-recorded so they had the ability to edit Musk and it had to be on a CBS platform.
"We don't know what [@ElonMusk
] is going to say!"
I could not believe what the CBS News executives were saying. Isn't that the point of journalism? You don't know what the person's going to say?
At that time, @cbsnews
was under different management and did not respond to our questions seeking comment.
@thelatmg
@latimesstudios
So here's the obvious truth: "Reporters" want to grill opponents (and they do consider them "opponents") and make them look foolish and ask them questions they struggle to answer.
But "reporters" are themselves pretty stupid. Among "professionals," they're the least intelligent and educated. (And they're very lazy and have very high rates of alcoholism.)
"Reporters" do not want their opponents turning the tables on them and make them look foolish and make them struggle to answer questions.
That's why they insist, absolutely, on the power to edit the interview. To make sure they always come off looking like heroes and always come out on top.
But this is obviously a huge and corrupt deception. Editing an interview to make it look as if your debate opponent (and these are debates, not "interviews") lost is itself a corrupt lie. You are deliberately altering the actual historical record of the event to present a false story to the public.
The edit is for purposes of disinformation -- and a very narcissistic, self-serving form of disinformation.
🇺🇸 CATHERINE HERRIDGE: CBS WALKED AWAY FROM ELON BECAUSE THEY COULDN’T CONTROL HIM
Catherine revealed CBS passed on what could have been one of the biggest interviews in modern media, not because Elon refused, but because the network did.
Day 4 of protests in Iran. The people are chanting for the return of the King. No chants against the West. No chants against Israel. Iran was hijacked by terrorists in 1979, and the people want their country back. Is the media only interested when protests attack Israel? pic.twitter.com/YkAhxUuUXm
Trump serves up notice that he's not Obama and will not rescue the Iranian regime:
The White House
@WhiteHouse
4h
"If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Gummi
@gummibear737
8h
This is a threat the US could have never made if Iran still had nuclear weapons
An Iran free from the Mullahs would be a gift to the entire world
Thank you President Trump for that
But the treasonous clowns who pretend to be "patriots" by always blaming America first -- just like the left does, just like Obama did -- insist that we should embrace Obama's pro-Mullah policy.
They claim we have problems here in the US. Well yes, we do. But the US Armed Forces do not make or enforce immigration policy and only a very small number of craft are involved in drug interdiction. Steve Bannon's and Tucker Carlson's dishonest claim that we cannot take care of foreign problems because of fentanyl and Muslims in NYC is just bullshit cover for their real agenda and real motivation.
Trump is currently running the largest deportation effort in American history and is on the verge of toppling a huge foreign fentanyl-exporting regime. (More on that later.) He's plainly not distracted, so stop with the bullshit that any time he even looks at a foreign country he's too distracted to deport illegals or interdict drug boats.
Bannon, of course, blames the Jews, citing "Tel Aviv (Mark) Levin" as behind the novel idea that we should oppose the world's largest terrorist funder and trainer, Iran, and support the people rising up against them.
The Nazis, both of the pseudoright and Islamofascist variety, have been screaming about Trump meeting with his "boss" -- Noted Jew Netanyahu -- and are now claiming the protests are fake and Jewish.
An0maly
@LegendaryEnergy
5h
Netanyahu hangs out with Trump for two days and he’s already back to regime change in Iran.
Everyone knows we fund fake protests in other countries when we want to stage a coup.
Western Patriot
@TheDitko83
45m
And Steve Bannon talks about Israel and the Jews! What a moron. Try using your own eyes and facts on the ground. You ain't losing your cities to the Jooos!
AG
@AGHamilton29
1h
We really should revisit just how badly clowns like Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson whiffed on their commentary around the Iran strikes and why they got it so wrong because it demonstrates how ignorant/dishonest they are on these subjects.
The regime in Tehran is now weaker than ever, the nuclear threat is substantially degraded, the proxy threat is substantially lower, and the entire world is safer because Trump ignored these schmucks.
Even Vance, who is constantly playing footsie with Nazis, chides Bannon and Tucker Carlson for their Qatar-funded propaganda:
Vance calls out the woke right who spent months lying about President Trump’s Iran strikes.
“The people who accused the president of wanting to get into a regime-change war for Israel — I wonder if they’ll step back and admit they were wrong about that.”pic.twitter.com/z4JVBqgtVi
CBS "News" Announces That They Have "Missed" Big Stories Because They Only Talk to "Advocates," "Academics," and "Elites;" Admits That No One Trusts the "Legacy Media" Any Longer
—Ace
And they promise they'll correct that.
Now, they continue lying by omission -- the problem isn't just that they only speak to "advocates" or "academics" or "elites." There are conservative versions of those, whom they don't speak to. Their bias is not to "advocates" or "academics" or "elites," but to the communist left.
They're claiming that their bias is towards experts while they ignore the uninformed general public.
Um, the "experts" told us the vaccine worked and was totally safe and that covid didn't come from a Chinese lab.
They still refuse to admit that and I would never trust a lifelong liar until he admits his lifelong lies.
Still, this is a pretty big statement, lies and all.
The legacy media has never before acknowledged that it is merely a legacy media, among other newer medias. They insist they are the one and only media.
"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."
THE MORNING RANT: Instacart Allowed Pricing Based on Who You Are Rather than What You’re Buying
—Buck Throckmorton
A subject I keep returning to is the management philosophy of financializing every aspect of a business’ operations, providing short term gain, but ultimately destroying equity and causing the erosion of customer loyalty. By treating employees as a pestilence and customers as prey, these corporate destructors provide ammunition to the enemies of free markets.
Instacart is the latest company to receive major blowback. In this case, it was for a despicable and discriminatory pricing tool it provided grocers. As documented by Consumer Reports, and then reported more broadly:
• Customers using Instacart to purchase groceries through major grocery chains (including Albertson’s, Target, Costco, Kroger, Safeway and others) were subject to “algorithmic pricing.”
• The same grocery item bought from the same store at the same time would have a different price depending on who the customer was, and how the algorithm gauged the customer’s price sensitivity.
• An experiment by Consumer Reports had online shoppers order identical baskets of groceries at the same time from the same store. The price of that basket of groceries varied from $114.34 to $123.93
This is significantly different from offering discounts to those enrolled in loyalty programs, or getting discounts for buying a bundle of products or in bulk. In those situations, all customers have access to the same pricing.
In a tweet, my Tennessee state representative, Michele Reneau, succinctly summed up just how offensive this Instacart initiative was, ”If the price depends on who you are instead of what you’re buying, that’s not capitalism.”
If the price depends on who you are instead of what you’re buying, that’s not capitalism. https://t.co/GkNrG3L4Bs
We are in a political battle against the siren song of socialism. It is imperative, therefore, that those in executive positions in corporate America stop engaging in amoral practices to mine the last possible dollar of revenue from customers. Doing so provides ammunition to the enemies of economic freedom.
The rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will be assumed on January 1 by Somalia – a barely functional state that has exported thousands of “refugees” to the rest of the world, accompanied by crime waves and social distortions U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer highlighted the absurdity of handing over the presidency of the Security Council to “the #1 Worst Country in the World on the failed state index last year.”
. . . “Somalia is a failed state that under 12 indicators was ranked the world’s worst on terrorism, corruption, inability to collect taxes, mass displacement, economic collapse, group grievance, brain drain, and chronic insecurity,” he continued.
I wonder if there is any connection to the Turtle Island Liberation Front that came to the fore in the waning days of last year. TO refresh your memory:
Multiple splinter cell members of the radical Turtle Island Liberation Front, which posts disturbing slogans such as “Death to America” on social media, were arrested last Friday for allegedly plotting a New Year’s Eve terror attack in the Los Angeles area. Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), a little-known “pro-Palestine, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government” extremist group, has quietly been raising funds and resources to usher in a “revolutionary change in government.” “TILF also calls for the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” an FBI affidavit noted. “Moreover, TILF advocates that liberalism and peaceful protest will be the downfall of those who believe it is enough, and that ‘direct action is the only way.’”
Just when you thought the Somali welfare fraud story couldn’t get any more ridiculous, allegations have emerged that Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abdisalam Abdi Ali and Somalia’s UN Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman ran a company called Progressive Health Care Services Inc in Cincinatti, Ohio.
What America desperately needs is the ATBLF, the Anti-Turtle Bay Liberation Front!
Scores of Zohran Mamdani fans who braved freezing temperatures to celebrate the new mayor as he was publicly sworn into office Thursday were left disappointed by the bash the socialist pol had promised.
Around 10,000 supporters stood outside City Hall during the event — billed as an “Inauguration for a New Era Block Party” by Mamdani’s staff — crammed into several barricaded pens without access to bathrooms or any food concession stands.
The hilarity of this is just priceless!!! No food and no bathrooms in sub zero temperatures. Somewhere out in the great beyond Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Ivan Denisovich and the tortured souls that haunt the Gulag Archipelago are pointing their fingers and laughing their asses off at NYC's braindead schmucks.
To paraphrase a punchline from the radioactively non-PC yet funny book for those old enough to remember it, "Race Riots" the reason there was no tree bark lasagna on hand for the rubes was because the political prisoner with the recipe had died.
Ah yes, the glories of Socialism. Live it and Love it, all you young fools taken in by Bernie, Titty Caca Cortez and this lanky, swarthy Jew- and America-hating hunk of piss. Good and hard my ex fellow New Yorkers.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said it succinctly on Wednesday, commenting on the news that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani intended to be sworn in on the Qur’an: “The enemy is inside the gates.” . . . At a cursory glance, swearing in on the Qur’an doesn’t seem to present any problems. ne primary reason, however, why many people object to American officials being sworn in on the Qur’an is because the Islamic holy book teaches values that are vastly different from American and Judeo-Christian values, particularly the necessity for Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims and subjugate them under the hegemony of Islamic law. . . Even more important for the concept of taking an oath to serve faithfully and honestly is the fact that the Qur’an sanctions lying to unbelievers under certain circumstances. The Qur’an teaches that deception is allowed: “Let not the believers take unbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does that has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them, taking security.” (Qur'an 3:28). . . Of course, it is forbidden today, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia,” to discuss the actual contents of the Qur’an and their possible relevance to the question of officials being sworn in on the Qur’an. Still, it is jarring to think of American officials pledging to uphold the U.S. Constitution on a book that calls for warfare against non-Muslims and allows lying to them.
No wonder there is such an affinity between Democrat/Leftists and Muslims. They're the Cerberus of Chang and Eng Bunkers of Rosy Grier/Ray Milland Incredible Two-Headed Transplants.
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
. . . Somalia – a barely functional state that has exported thousands of “refugees” to the rest of the world, accompanied by crime waves and social distortions. Somalia Assumes Rotating Presidency of U.N. Security Council (Because of course! - jjs)
City workers should call a hotline to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) when ICE appears, demand that the agency present judicial warrants for access to buildings and send documentation of any ICE incident to the city attorney, the memo says. “PIRC will activate MigraWatch volunteers to investigate and confirm reports of ICE,” reads the document, which is labeled an “Employee Guide” for interacting with immigration authorities. EXCLUSIVE: Portland Memo Tells City Officials To Record ICE Agents, Call ‘MigraWatch’ Activists For Help
Texas’s new immigration‑enforcement law hit the state like a shockwave this morning, wiping out any remaining sanctuary‑style defiance by ordering every county sheriff to partner with ICE formally. The mandatory 287(g) crackdown is designed to hard‑wire deportation cooperation into every jail from the Panhandle to the Rio Grande. No More Sanctuary Texas Sheriffs: Mandatory ICE Partnership in Sweeping State Law Begins Today
Based on a detailed analysis from the Austin Daily Herald and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, the new paid leave rules are thoroughly socialistic, offering higher monetary amounts for paid leave of workers who make lower incomes. Not only that, but employers will be required to provide nearly five months of leave to certain employees, an anti-free market, impractical, and utterly unjust standard. No doubt many small businesses will have to close their doors on this plan. Minnesota’s Ridiculous Paid Leave Rule Takes Effect; Critics Say Illegal Aliens Will Benefit
At a cursory glance, swearing in on the Qur’an doesn’t seem to present any problems. ne primary reason, however, why many people object to American officials being sworn in on the Qur’an is because the Islamic holy book teaches values that are vastly different from American and Judeo-Christian values, particularly the necessity for Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims and subjugate them under the hegemony of Islamic law. . . Even more important for the concept of taking an oath to serve faithfully and honestly is the fact that the Qur’an sanctions lying to unbelievers under certain circumstances. The Qur’an teaches that deception is allowed: “Let not the believers take unbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoever does that has no connection with Allah unless you are guarding yourselves against them, taking security.” (Qur’an 3:28). . . Of course, it is forbidden today, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia,” to discuss the actual contents of the Qur’an and their possible relevance to the question of officials being sworn in on the Qur’an. Still, it is jarring to think of American officials pledging to uphold the U.S. Constitution on a book that calls for warfare against non-Muslims and allows lying to them. Does It Matter Which Book an Official Is Sworn In On?
J-6 FBI/PELOSI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH,
The former special counsel sat down for an over eight-hour deposition with the House Judiciary Committee on December 17, 2025, and when the transcript was released to the public on Wednesday, it contained a stunning admission. It turns out that the former special counsel admitted under oath that Cassidy Hutchinson, the committee's star witness, relied on secondhand hearsay instead of firsthand evidence when she testified about Trump's conduct after the 2020 election. Smith said if he were acting as a defense attorney and Hutchinson were called as a witness, "the first thing" he would do would be to seek to exclude portions of her testimony. Jack Smith Just Blew Up His Entire January 6 Case
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
If you’re a California worker, you will have fewer opportunities as employers cut jobs to meet the cost of California’s default. If you’re a California employer, you should be on the phone to either your state assembly member or state senator to remedy this injustice. Or you could call a couple of people named Abbott and DeSantis. How deadbeat Gavin Newsom put Cali businesses on the hook for his bills
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Media will cover the Somali Medicare and Medicaid fraud, the daycare fraud, the foodservice fraud, maybe even the Somali vote fraud. They will cover it when they are forced to, when it becomes so overwhelming that they can’t bury it anymore. Somali Corruption and the Mainstream Media
Campus censorship hit record highs in 2025, proving the threat to free speech in higher education isn’t ideological—it’s a growing culture of intolerance enabled by timid leadership. Push for Censorship on Campus Hit Record Levels in 2025
With history, polling, and the economy pulling in opposite directions, the 2026 midterms may hinge on whether voters feel rising affordability pain or see strong growth—and which mood prevails. Setting Up the 2026 Midterms
The Republican-led Congress set several records in 2025, though not all of them were achievements lawmakers would be keen to celebrate. With fewer than 40 bills signed into law as of Dec. 22, the House and Senate posted the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency in modern history, Congress Breaks Record For Doing The Least (IIRC they voted to give themselves pay raises, nein? - jjs)
Membership is expected to promote cross-border trade and investment, and the Bulgarian government pressed for years to get in. Yet polls show the changeover is taking place against a background of widespread skepticism among ordinary people. Bulgaria Becomes Latest to Join Euro Currency Union Despite Public Opposition
“The Church’s crime has been to oppose the terms of Pashinyan’s diplomacy. . .The deal represents a major erosion of Armenia’s defensive position.” The Price of Westernization in Armenia
School enrollment in South Korea dwindled by nearly 5 million students during the same time period, according to the Korea Times, indicating that the school shutdowns are directly related to South Korea’s status as the world’s least fertile country. South Korea Loses over 4,000 Schools in a Generation to Birth Rate Collapse
HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
“Thank you to the 18 governors who are leading the charge on SNAP reform to restore the health of Americans—especially our kids. Their courageous leadership is exactly what we need to Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy said in December. “We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create.” 5 States Cut SNAP Benefits for Unhealthy Food as Part of ‘MAHA’ Agenda
ACTUAL SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY
Dominating this revolution in 2025 in every way possible however were two entities, one a private American company and the second a communist nation attempting to imitate capitalism. The former is SpaceX, accomplishing more in this single year than whole nations and even the whole globe had managed in any year since the launch of Sputnik. The latter is China, which in 2025 became a true space power, its achievements matching and even exceeding anything done by either the U.S. or the Soviet Union for most of the space age. The global launch industry in 2025: The real space race is between SpaceX and China
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
Whether your tradition leads you to join a Catholic Mass honoring the Mother of God on the Eighth Day of Christmas or not, it may still be fitting to pause and reflect on her indispensable role in the story of the Incarnation today. And if she’s still with you, consider reaching out to your own mother today. Honoring Christ’s Mother on the Eighth Day of Christmas.
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.
OpenAI is betting big on audio AI, and it's not just about making ChatGPT sound better. According to new reporting from The Information, the company has unified several engineering, product, and research teams over the past two months to overhaul its audio models, all in preparation for an audio-first personal device expected to launch in about a year.
This is going to sink without a trace and I am here for it.
It's not just the tech giants placing this bet. A motley crew of startups has emerged with the same conviction, albeit with varying degrees of success. The makers of the Humane AI Pin burned through hundreds of millions before their screenless wearable became a cautionary tale.
OpenAI's effort is going to burn through far more money and achieve the same results, which is to say none whatsoever.
We already have phones. They already do everything these AI devices do, and more, and if we don't want to look at the screen, we can just not look at the screen.
But there's a reason video killed the radio star.
At least Tech Crunch has an early entry in its "Dumbest Things in Tech in 2026" roundup.
OpenAI and the unlamented Humane pin are not alone in this folly. There's billions of dollars chasing this lack of ideas.
The one place where I see possibility is AI glasses. You can integrate a camera and a speaker and a microphone and a tiny display. Your hands are free to do whatever. There are problems, yes, but also real value.
It has 16 cores running at 1.9GHz, 10 AI cores each able to perform 4096 multiple-and-add operations per clock cycle, and 48GB or 96GB of RAM. Do not expect this one to be cheap.
They have also announced - at least in China - the Orange Pi AI Studio Pro which runs two of these boards linked together. Price not listed for that one either.
The hack here was the leaking of secure boot keys for the hardware, which means that owners can now jailbreak their PlayStation. Sony can release new hardware that can't be jailbroken - and probably will - but it can't do anything about the 85 million consoles already sold.
Nvidia will announced no consumer products at all, AMD will announce only relabels of existing products, and Intel will announce Panther lake, which is not a bad product unless you need more than four full-speed cores because that's all it has. (And all three versions of Panther Lake announced involve major tradeoffs even with that limit stipulated.)
Though the biggest question here is why anybody would bother.
I think I bought too many computers. The parts I need for Froppy just shipped, and I've run out of names for all the others.
On the other hand, I'm now thoroughly covered in case I start having hardware failures in the older systems, and I can re-use all the old RAM and SSDs in newer motherboards. And I didn't pay hyper-inflated prices for any of it.
Musical Interlude
Song is Konya wa Hurricane from the anime Bubblegum Crisis. Anime is... Oh. You guessed.
One of the best opening sequences to anything ever. Apart from the great soundtrack, it introduces us to all the major characters without telling you that they are the major characters, and to the premise of the series without saying a word. There are a couple of minutes of establishing shots before the song starts, but I chose this clip precisely because it has those.
Disclaimer: Burning touch? We have pills for that now.
America turns 250 this year. Check out this cool video from "America250".
The next chapter of our American story starts now.
250 years of rising, remembering, and turning toward one another to embrace our part in history.
As we begin this once-in-a-generation year, take a moment to reflect on who we are—and who we want to be. Happy 2026. Happy… pic.twitter.com/fUj2twHZDB
Can you imagine what kind of alternate universe video would have been made if Kamala was POTUS?
***
CBS News says they're totally gonna be better now
"On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we've taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you."
Jan 1, 1980: The Far Side by Gary Larson was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle #80s Ran in syndication until January 1, 1995 pic.twitter.com/HaAfSi2DEk
Chicago O’Hare International Airport, one of the busiest travel hubs in the world, made headlines this week after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials confiscated several illegal and disturbing items from an arriving passenger’s luggage—including monkey meat.
The traveler, arriving from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was stopped during a routine inspection at O’Hare. Upon examination of their luggage, officers discovered over 11 pounds of pest-infested beans, 17 pounds of unidentifiable plant material, and approximately 4 pounds of dried monkey meat, which was later classified as non-human primate meat. In addition to the monkey meat, authorities also seized what they described as mummified small primates.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the article contains no mention of greasy, grimy gopher guts.
***
Need to pick up a bleated Christmas gift for someone?
Democrat Hitman Jack Smith Admits: I Never Called Madison Cornbread to Testify Because Her Testimony Was Nothing But Second- or Third-Hand Gossip and Hearsay
Madison Cornbread -- government name, Cassidy Hutchinson -- was the low-level sorority sister aide who decided to become a Democrat superstar influencer by peddling a lot of nonsense about what other people supposedly said to her about Trump violently seizing the steering wheel of the presidential limo (from the back seat!) in order to wrest the controls away from the driver and go to the Capitol so he could lead the insurrection.
All of her "testimony" was nonsense along the lines of "and then Bill told me something to the effect of" or "and then John told me something to the effect of."
She was very proud of the "to the effect of" phrase. She thought it made her sound smaaaaaht.
Jack Smith now says that all of her testimony was something to the effect of bullshit nonsense hearsay, and all, by the way, denied by the people she claimed she had heard it from, and that's why he never even considered calling her as a witness.
. This brings us back, then, to the strange case of "Madison Cornbread." She became the "star witness" of that Star Chamber charade because she was willing to share mere gossip -- "so-and-so told me that Trump said this" -- in particular claiming that Trump had attempted to physically overpower his limousine driver to force him to drive to the Capitol. Actual witnesses immediately contradicted this testimony, but of course the J6 committee never presented these contradicting witnesses, allowing Cassidy Hutchinson's dubious testimony to become the defining narrative.
Naturally, Simon & Schuster gave her a fat advance to write a book, a six-figure payoff for her service to the anti-Trump cause.
Of course, another six-figure media payoff. And Republicans continue to permit this.
And now, more than three years after her 15 minutes of fame, we get this ironic coda:
The House Select January 6th Committee's "star" Cassidy Hutchinson provided "secondhand hearsay" about the 2021 Capitol riot and wasn't considered as a witness in the election interference case brought against President Trump, according to former special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith told the House Judiciary Committee in a closed-door deposition on Dec. 17 that Hutchinson -- who testified at the Jan. 6 select panel's made-for-TV hearings in June 2022 -- "certainly" wouldn't have made a "powerful" witness because she couldn't provide "firsthand" testimony.
"My recollection with Ms. Hutchinson, at least one of the issues was a number of the things that she gave evidence on were secondhand hearsay, were things that she had heard from other people," the ex-Trump prosecutor testified to the Judiciary lawmakers and staff, the deposition's transcript shows.
Game. Set. Match.
Here we have the special counsel who got the assignment to put Donald Trump in prison over the 2020 election dispute saying, under oath, that Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony was just gossip. Any first-year law student has to know that hearsay is inadmissable as evidence in a legal proceeding, and Jack Smith couldn't go to court with that stuff.
Thanks to The Patriarch Tree.
I'm not working today, just some open threads and then a Cafe, but I thought you'd like an update on Madison Cornbread.
What are your plans? I've got a good one. I haven't been to a restaurant in at least a month but I'm going out for steak. Specifically, a tomahawk ribeye.
Podcast: The Somali grift might be the biggest financial scandal in American history, will the Mullahs finally fall? CFPB gets a lifeline from a corrupt judge, Brigitte Bardot...RIP, and more!
This isn't Christmas Eve fare, and I thought about waiting until the 26th to post it, but supposedly an amateur detective has solved the Zodiac killer mystery. And the horrific Black Dahlia killing. He says it's the same person! I always thought of them as very far apart in time but I think Black Dahlia was mid-fifties (nope, 1947) mid and the Zodiac murders began in 1968 so it's possible it's the same killer.
The killer, if it's the same man, would have been in his 20s when he killed the Black Dahlia and his 40s when he did the Zodiac murders. Possible.
A little caveat: I saw someone snark on Reddit, "The Zodiac case gets solved more often than Wordle." There are a ton of coincidences here, supposedly, like a Zodiac cipher being solved by the name "Elizabeth." Elizabeth Short was the name of the so-called Black Dahlia.
If you don't know about the Black Dahlia, don't look it up. Just accept that it's grisly on the level of Jack the Ripper.
Yes, the named suspect resembles the police sketch of Zodiac.
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.
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Case:
"Want some more fraud? Let's take a look at SNAP. ..."
