Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Aug. 16

It's so hot. Let's start out today with some cool-looking flowers:

The high heat and humidity here in the mid-Atlantic have taken a toll on the flowers, but these Limelight hydrangeas are doing well!

The Pilot

That's a refreshing color!

Posted by: K.T. at 01:29 PM | Comments (46) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thinking in new ways, or maybe letting a machine do your thinking

"Grok make me a plate of Cheetos in the style of the Dutch Masters."

We are about to start building small nuclear plants all over the country so anyone who wants to can make more of this "art"

- Walter Kirn

For decades, we have been hearing from advocates of "green energy" that nuclear plants cannot be considered as a replacement for fossil fuels to provide energy for homes and businesses. I haven't seen this argument used much against the proposals to build small nuclear plants to power Artificial Intelligence capacities. Where are the campaigns to cover the countryside with solar panels or windmills to power AI?

*

Posted by: K.T. at 11:02 AM | Comments (195) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Little Suamico)

1. This is an open thread, feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2. Be kind, be nice. Even trolls and certain weirdos have feelings.
3. No. Don't. Even. Ask. No running with sharp objects.
4. Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:28 AM | Comments (377) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 16 August 2025

Top Story

• GPT-5 is getting warmer and friendlier. (The Verge)
  
  Not better, mind you. Indeed. they seem to have rather embraced the shambles of a rollout.
  
  But what can you do except not use it which I already am doing. Or not doing, depending on how that works.
  
  
  
• How to avoid your AI therapy driving you crazy. (WCCFTech)
  
  You know, there seems to be a theme here.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, ONT!

Welcome to Friday. Here's a quick peek at what it's like gathering content for Friday's ONT.

Posted by: WeirdDave at 09:58 PM | Comments (441) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Finally Friday Cafe

Route 66, Monument Valley, AZ

Cats are opposed to the surveillance state.

Ah, it's finally Friday. What a week.

Dog is my copilot.

Dogs help their master.

Rosie O'Donnell said The View is cancelled?!?!

A coyote was separated from his pack so he made friends with the neighborhood dogs. That's not a great situation for a coyote so they brought him to a refuge and gave him a friend.

Rescuing and rehabbing an injured owl.

A dog helps a sloth named Chuey heal up after being electrified by a power line.

Bear cub takes a dip in your hot tub.

Poppy the baby pygmy hippo goes for her first swim.

Solving the most perplexing mystery in history: What football game were they watching in Die Hard?

Guitar and parrot perform "Sultans of Swing."

Goat knows how to entice a lady.

Mild violence caution on this clip from Steve Inman: A goat shows that he's no fan of influencers or selfies. Ask permission before you photograph someone else for your stupid TikTok feed!

This guy has filled his house with secret doors and secret rooms. He's either young at heart, or a serial killer.

Flipping each other off.

A new dog moved in next door.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (285) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week in Woke

Leftists are trash. Look how many Gen Z and Millennial lefties are eager to Disconnect from family members for challenging their cult's evil doctrines:

The left is made up of a lot of hateful, malignant, worthless, vile, and deeply stupid people. Did you know that?

The bio of this Nobel Laureate:

evan loves worf
@esjesjesj

one piece, communist, prison abolitionist, Elon Musk--obsessed much, anti-zionist | alt @eeesssjjj, esjesjesj on bsky

A Maryland Man, by which I mean an MS-13 gang member and double child-murderer is suing Trump and his Bureau of Prisons to compel them to use his preferred pronouns.

An MS-13 gang member who is serving time for murder filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and the Bureau of Prisons, demanding they recognize the inmate as a "woman" despite being born male.

Oscar Contreras Aguilar was sentenced to 21-years in prison for the 2016 murders of a 14-year-old and 17-year-old Edvin Mendez. The gang member killed the teenagers over the belief they were cooperating with law enforcement, per the Daily Wire.

Contreras Aguilar filed the lawsuit last month, claiming the bureau and Trump have "refused to recognize" his gender identity. The inmate changed his name to Fendi G. Skyy in 2024 and identified as female. Contreras Aguilar then complained that transgender inmates were mistreated in comparison to other prisoners.

"Transgender women prisoners in men's prisons," he claimed in the July filing, are often met with "harsher, more degrading treatment than their cisgender counterparts."

I should hope so!

The Supreme Court "banned" racism in school admissions, but they didn't really mean it. Anti-white/anti-Asian/anti-male discrimination is still going on with barely-covert "proxy" factors used to favor members of one race over another.

The current scheme is to find zip codes of mostly white people and impose quotas on those zip codes so that only a certain number of applicants from them can be accepted. And then the schools say, "We're not technically discriminating against whites, we're just discriminating against zip codes where mostly white people live."

And meanwhile the standards for zip codes where "black and brown" people live are lowered to the lowest possible level.

And the Supreme Court declined to hear a lower court's blessing of this illegal, racist work-around of the Constitution's clear forbiddance.

But they'll have a new chance to hear another appeal. I guess we'll just have to wait to see if Amy Coney Barrett decides the Constitution is in force this week, or not.

What good is the Supreme Court's two-year-old ban on racial preferences in educational admissions if the high court lets other high-demand schools flagrantly flout it?

That's what justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas asked their colleagues last year when SCOTUS declined to review a ruling that upheld an admissions scheme explicitly designed to change racial demographics in Boston's most prestigious public high schools, several months after the duo scolded the court for declining a similar Virginia case across the river from D.C.

The plaintiffs in the Boston challenge have come back with a new 14th Amendment lawsuit claiming the mid-litigation pivot to a different admissions scheme for the so-called exam schools, based on socioeconomic "tiers" instead of the original zip codes, has created the "disparate impact" result required by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: underrepresentation.

"Now, by clustering most white students together in one 'tier' where they compete only against each other for Exam School seats, the current Tier System 'succeeded' in reducing the proportion of white students admitted to the Exam Schools below the group's share of the applicant pool three years in a row," the suit says.

Filed by the Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence on behalf of dozens of parents of white and Asian-American students denied and seeking admission to Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy and John D. O'Bryant School of Science and Mathematics, the lawsuit includes data on the composition of the applicant pool from a public records request.

"Because these students were denied admission to their Exam School of choice due to their race, court-ordered admission to those schools is the only remedy for this race-based harm," and a permanent injunction on the tier system is the only remedy for future applicants, the suit says.

"Boston Public Schools cannot launder racial quotas through socioeconomic labels" in the tier system, said the coalition's lawyer, Chris Kieser of the Pacific Legal Foundation. "The Equal Protection Clause forbids government discrimination, whether done openly or by proxy."

Study: Professors deliberately targeted white students with racial abuse and are chagrined to discover that the white students did not like this at all. They bemoan a "whitelash" against their agenda of unending humiliation and state-enforced second-class-citizen status for whites.

'Whitelash': Professors say white students get angry, frustrated by 'anti-racist education'

Social work professors call out 'whitelash' in classrooms pushing anti-racism lessons

Two social work scholars argue that their "anti-racist education" efforts in the classroom faced "whitelash" from white students, who became emotionally distraught, pushed back by using "color-blind rhetoric," or later wrote negative course reviews.

Oh no, they used "color-blind rhetoric"? Is there no end to all of this White Supremacist Fascism?

Quinn Hafen from the University of Wyoming and Marie Villescas from Colorado State University recently published an article in the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research detailing their experience creating a "pedagogy of discomfort" to challenge white supremacy in the classroom. The research was conducted at CSU.

The method was criticized by two scholars in interviews with The College Fix, who called the experiment somewhat abusive.

"[T]he more I reflect on that paper, the more I find it cruel to shame students based on immutable identities they hold, regardless of identity," one observer said via email. "For the professors, it appeared that White and male students were their target."

We should not be content that some "experts," speaking anonymously, venture a tepid opinion that racially humiliating whites and males may be abusive.

This is where we are.

Defund the academy.

The College Fix reached out via email to both Hafen and Villescas regarding some of the concerns raised about their teaching methods. Hafen and Villescas did not reply.

'White backlash' and 'white fragility'

Hafen and Villescas wrote in their July paper -- which was taken down from the journal's website on Saturday -- that as "social work moves in the direction of anti-racist education and practice, social workers of color have urgently called attention to how theme [sic] profession continues to perpetuate white supremacy and harm BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)."

The two scholars wrote that when anti-racist educators attempt to bring attention to how their field advances white supremacy in the classroom, white students attempt to "re-establish the white supremacist status quo" through resistance and the espousal of "color-blind rhetoric."

This "[r]etaliatory white backlash," they wrote, is best referred to as "whitelash," which they describe as intimately entwined with the socio-relational process of white emotionality and the maintenance of racial hierarchies.

Thus, in an attempt to "expose" and "disarm" this white resistance to anti-racist education, the scholarly duo documented their own exploration of the pedagogical strategies they utilized while co-teaching two different undergraduate social work courses in 2023.

Specifically, the strategies were "interracial teaching partnerships" and the "pedagogy of discomfort," both of which the authors highlighted as having the potential to "promote student and instructor self-reflexivity and accountability" while "challenging the reproduction of whiteness in the classroom."

The former they described as "an anti-racist pedagogical approach in which two or more racially diverse instructors co-teach a course." The latter they characterized as a teaching method "that seeks to make visible the ways in which emotional comfort maintains structural oppression" and that "requires both instructors and students to embrace vulnerability and discomposure and question what they have been taught to see."

Through assessments based on classroom surveys and their own self-reflection, they wrote that they found their white students did not always respond favorably to lessons on their "white fragility" and "social work's role in perpetuating whiteness."

Some white students, the scholars noted, became emotionally distraught during these and similar lessons while others pushed back or later wrote negative course reviews.

Through the documentation of their experiences and analyses, the scholars wrote, they hope to illustrate "how whitelash against anti-racism education can be transformed from an inevitable setback, into an opportunity to disrupt the social production of whiteness."

I mentioned that Billie Eilish is being cancelled by the left for saying she liked being in Ireland, where everyone was as "pasty" as she is. (She's of Irish descent.) Apparently this is unconscionable White Supremacy.

Don't feel bad for her, though. She has relentlessly Virtue Signaled her support of BLM. Live by BLM, die by BLM.

The New York Times and everyone else in the Gaslight Media will soon be claiming it's the right who are obsessed with Billie Eilish's cultural sentiments, and that no one on the left ever brought it up at all.

Gutfeld appeared on Fallon last week. Gutfeld delivered a massive ratings boost to Fallon.

Gutfeld’s appearance drew 1.7 million viewers, marking the highest-rated "Tonight Show" of 2025 and giving the program a 57% increase compared to its year-to-date average of 1.1 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen Media Research.

So of course Jimmy Fallon, who went woke years ago after resisting it for a year or two, is now being cancelled for platforming Gutfeld and White Supreamcism.

And yet, liberal mainstream media figures are furious that Fallon did this. Just look at the headlines. "Jimmy Fallon kisses the conservative ring," said Vulture, as if bothering to engage a conservative was an explicit endorsement of everything the conservative thinks.

The Daily Beast spun it this way: "Jimmy Fallon Fawns All Over MAGA Late-Night Host Greg Gutfeld in Softball Chat" -- as if a humorous late-night show needs to be some vicious skewering of non-liberal perspectives.

And of course, what remains of BuzzFeed was eager to attack Fallon for daring to platform Gutfeld. "'This Seals It For Me': People Are Completely Turning On Jimmy Fallon For His Recent Talk Show Guest, And It's Not Pretty."

In one month, the New York Times will report the news from the Mandela Effect Zone where no one on the left made a big deal about one talk show host appearing on a different show, and it was all the crazed righties making a big deal about it.

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (246) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Daily Signal: The Left is Burning Churches and the Media Is Silent

383 churches were attacked in 2024.

And the media is still babbling about George Floyd and January 6th, the most violent day in history, in the entire universe.

Although the backlash to the overturning of Roe v. Wade appears to have subsided, vandals, arsonists, and worse targeted hundreds of churches in 2024, according to a new report.

Travis Weber, vice president for policy and government affairs at the Family Research Council, which released the report Monday, said most Americans would be surprised to hear that 383 churches suffered 415 attacks in 2024.

"We have a tendency in the West and in the United States to think of ourselves as safe and freedom-loving, tolerant, and protective of religious freedom, including religious freedom to practice Christianity," he told The Daily Signal in an interview Friday. "So, I think the fact that we have hundreds of incidents--specifically, 415--in the year 2024 is very revealing."

While these 415 attacks represented a decrease from the 2023 high of 485 attacks, it still included hundreds more incidents than in 2022 (19, 2021 (9, and previous years.

...

The Family Research Council used open-source documents, reports, and news articles to assess attacks against Christian churches. The 2024 report identified 284 acts of vandalism, 55 incidents of arson or other fires, 28 gun-related attacks, 14 bomb threats, and 47 other incidents, such as physical assault, disruption of church services, and general threats of harm.

In August, four churches in southern Ohio caught fire, and authorities suspected one person may have set all four fires. Authorities have yet to name a suspect. Also in August, a man allegedly killed the secretary of St. Mark AME Zion Church in Athens, Tennessee, before setting fire to the building, completely burning down the roof.

Other attackers disrupted services by entering churches with guns. These gun-related incidents increased from 12 in 2023 to 28 last year.

The left continues mainstreaming the idea that violence is just politics by other means.

They will come to grief for that.

Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (148) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Democrat Cult's Only Candidate for Governor of SC Is a Drugged-Out Unstable Rage Monkey

This is the real Democrat Cult.

I just wish he hadn't said the n-word. If he hadn't said the n-word, he could continue to run in a damaged state.

But the Democrat Cult won't support anyone saying the n-word. Not unless they're already in office, I mean. They defended blackface before, Lord knows.

Wild, newly released dash cam footage shows the Democrat's choice to run for governor in South Carolina getting arrested recently in just his underwear -- with him swearing and using the n-word while referring to himself as both God and Superman.

Married father-of-four William "Mullins" McLeod, 53, is facing calls from his own party to step down from the gubernatorial race he only formally entered Monday after video emerged a day later of his bizarre arrest just months earlier in May, according to WCBD.

The prominent attorney was stopped in downtown Charleston while "yelling at the top of his lungs" wearing only underwear and shoes, according to a police report -- which suggested he showed signs "typical of an individual under the influence of a stimulant narcotic."

The Dem referred to his upcoming election race -- even threatening to kick an opponent's "f--king teeth in" -- while refusing to tell cops his name, instead referring to himself as God and Superman, the hour-long video released through a Freedom of Information Act request shows.

"It doesn't matter, my friend, trust me," he told one officer when asked his name.

"I'm one of the most just humans to ever walk this soil," he said.

"Superman sounds good," he added, bizarrely.

McLeod, who only entered the Democratic race for Governor in the Palmetto State on Monday, also issued threats toward current and former South Carolina politicians during the profanity-laden rant.

"I'm gonna kick your f--king teeth in," he says at one point, appearing to reference Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson, who announced his bid for governor earlier this summer.

McLeod -- who is heard uttering the n-word at least twice in the video -- also refuses to get out of the patrol car when it arrives at the jail, instead telling an officer he would sleep in the back seat.

"No, I'm not doing it, no. I'm not getting out of this car. It's time to go to bed," he shouts at the officer, before being forcibly removed and booked into the jail shortly before 1 a.m., according to an arrest report retrieved by WCBD.

...

It wasn't immediately clear whether McLeod -- who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010 and served two terms as Charleston County Democratic Party chairman -- was tested for drugs during his arrest.

"Mullins" demanded the public show him "grace," and promised that when the Full Story came out, people would see he was in the right to be on drugs calling himself God and Superman and dropping n-bombs like a rapper.

"And when they learn what happened around my unlawful arrest, it will be a reason why I absolutely need to be our state's governor," he said, adding that he had been exercising his "God-given, constitutional right to be in a public place" when he was arrested.

He then flashed gang signs and said "Smell you later, n-bombs."

Democrat Fatigue is real.

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (235) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Emmy-Nominated Anchorwoman and "Journalist" Sent Email to Criminal Hubby Laughing About Defrauding the Goverment of $300,000 in PPP Loans

We are Real News, Mr. President.

A former Emmy-nominated TV news anchor convicted in a billion-dollar COVID fraud scheme sent a scandalous text to her partner in crime that joked about cheating taxpayers out of taxpayer money.

Stephanie Hockridge-Reis, who worked for a local station in Phoenix before becoming a fintech entrepreneur, sent the message to her husband, Nathan Reis, after applying for Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans during the height of the pandemic.

"This is us trying to apply for free money -- when we don't quite qualify. lol," she texted Reis, 47, according to a federal indictment obtained by The Arizona Republic.

The couple was accused of fraudulently obtaining over $300,000 in PPP loans for themselves, including one application that falsely claimed he was a veteran and an African American.

You'd think that would be enough to get the propaganda media to cover this. (This report is in Murdoch's NY Post, which doesn't count.)

Nope.

Reis took a plea deal on Monday and will be sentenced in November.

Hockridge-Reis, 42, was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June by a jury in the Northern District of Texas. She was acquitted on four additional counts of wire fraud. Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 10.

She faces up to 20 years in prison.

The Post has sought comment from the duo.

The couple's Scottsdale-based fintech firm, Blueacorn, which the couple co-founded in 2020, processed over $12.5 billion in PPP loans -- with somewhere between $250 million and $300 million going to the company's ownership, including Hockridge-Reis.

Blueacorn received over $1 billion in taxpayer-funded processing fees for facilitating PPP loans but spent less than 1% ($8.6 million) on fraud prevention and only $13.7 million on eligibility verification, according to a congressional investigation.

In other words: They defrauded the government of a lot more than the $300,000 in PPP loans they did not qualify for.

Posted by: Ace at 04:00 PM | Comments (174) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump Orders the Nation's Museum, the Smithsonian, To De-Wokify

This is an important step.

It's important on its own, and its important to let the left know that we do not respect them and we no longer fear them.

Trump Moves To Rid Smithsonian Of Left-Wing Spin, Highlight American History

'Our goal is for the Smithsonian to be fact-based, scholarly, and historically sound.'

By Mary Margaret Olohan

WASHINGTON -- Some of Washington's top museums feature exhibits laced with an aggressively left-wing spin on American history, a Daily Wire review of Smithsonian exhibits found. Ahead of America's 250th anniversary, President Donald Trump is taking action to weed out that ideology and historical spin from these institutions.

Americans who visit the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., might expect to learn about the factual history of the United States, to view American art and artifacts, and to be inspired by tales of American courage and valor. But visitors are often greeted with overt ideological content, gender ideology, and LGBTQ propaganda, or aggressive reframing of events like the COVID-19 pandemic or the Black Lives Matter movement.

In an August 12 letter, Trump officials Lindsey Halligan, Vince Haley, and Russ Vought informed Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch that the Trump administration will be conducting a "comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions" in fulfillment of the president's executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

"This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions," the Trump officials told the Smithsonian, noting that their review is "rooted in respect for the Smithsonian's vital mission and its extraordinary contributions" and that they want to "support a broader vision of excellence that highlights historically accurate, uplifting, and inclusive portrayals of America's heritage."

The move comes amid widespread concerns about how Washington institutions have repackaged and represented American history in the nation's capital -- or interspersed woke ideology throughout the Smithsonian museums. While critics and media such as ABC News argue that the president is trying to make the museums align with his personal "view of American history," the president's team maintains that American history should not be framed or packaged through any ideological lens.

"It is an honor to work alongside the Smithsonian in reviewing its museums and exhibits, with the shared goal of ensuring this treasured institution reflects the very best America has to offer -- accuracy, excellence, and the richness of our shared history," Halligan, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Associate Staff Secretary, told The Daily Wire. "While certain ideological influences have permeated the Smithsonian over time, our goal is for the Smithsonian to be fact-based, scholarly, and historically sound."

"The current Smithsonian exhibits are publicly available so everyone can see firsthand what we have observed," she added.

That includes the National Museum of American History, where visitors were greeted upon entry by a "Pride Progress" flag that consists of the white, pink, purple, black, and brown stripes representing the transgender pride flag and "LGBTQ people of color." That flag is featured at the museum's entrance on Constitution Avenue, according to tourists and visitors of the Smithsonian.

The museum's "Change Your Game" exhibit "showcases dynamic stories and objects related to diverse inventors, athletes, and technologies that have changed how sports are played." The exhibit includes a big display on gender testing in athletics featuring Caster Semenya and Mack Beggs. Semenya, who is not American, was born with a rare condition called hyperandrogenism, which causes higher testosterone levels in women. Beggs, a woman who identifies as a man, competed in female high school wrestling in Texas despite taking high doses of testosterone.

The display does not contain examples of men competing as women and dominating in female sports, which the majority of Americans oppose.

Much more at the link.

This caused a minor furor on CNN (naturally), and the argument turned heated.

Abby Philips is, of course, a woke DEI leftist but she pretends to "moderate" the panel discussion on her show, but she is always telling the lone Republican to be quiet and accept the claims made by the six liberals present.

Two nights ago, Julie Roginski, another Regime liberal and a Guest of Last Resort on panel shows, decided to make a play for a permanent CNN job by repeatedly launching irrelevant personal attacks on Scott Jennings, deciding, somehow, that Jennings' support of Trump proves that he must be wrong about crime and woke museums Because January 6th. She made an extremely strained hypocrisy attack on Jennings, something along the lines of "well you said January 6th was bad in the past but now you support Trump so you must love crime."

Jennings called foul, and Abby Philips, of course, rode to the rescue of her fellow Regime DEI liberal, telling Jennings he needed to let her "finish her point," which was just to insult him.

Okay none of that is interesting. But the interesting -- or semi-interesting -- thing is that Scott Jennings then began calling out Abby Philips for letting her liberal panelists insult him all night while always counseling him alone to be respectful.

Jennings doesn't usually do that, and I think the reason is simple: He also never calls out CNN for its intense partisan bias. And I think that's because his contract specifies that he cannot impugn CNN nor its other "talent," like Abby Philips.

So it's telling that he's violating what I'm pretty sure is a term of his contract, that he never mention the Big Secret that CNN is a nasty leftwing propganda organization.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gavin Newsom Gives "Rally" Speech to Nearly Empty Room to Push for an Amendment Allowing Him to Gerrymander the State Even Harder

California is already heavily gerrymandered, as Scott Jennings in a clip below points out. 40% of voters are Republican, but Republicans only have 17% of the state's congressional seats.

Liberals like to pretend that they are far better people than they are, so state law mandates that congressional lines be drawn by an "independent commission," this commission being Democrat-dominated and producing the congressional split of 40 Democrats to 12 Republicans.

But this fake "independent commission" presents impediments to Newsom's presidential primary stunt of redrawing the maps now, and only on his own authority, so he staged a "rally" filled with Democrat office-holders and almost no one else to propagandize for a constitutional amendment that will give him all of the power.

Voters are skeptical of Newsom's power-grab.

A new poll shows strong opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to shift redistricting power from California's independent commission to the Democrat-led Legislature.

Key Details:

Newsom's proposal would transfer congressional map-drawing authority from the constitutionally mandated independent commission to the state Legislature, requiring voter approval in a November referendum.
A Politico--Citrin Center--Possibility Lab survey found Californians prefer the independent panel over legislative control by a wide margin, undercutting Democrats' justification for the overhaul.
Newsom has threatened to redraw California's maps to net Democrats new seats, claiming it would "offset" GOP gains in Texas. Proposed maps are expected to be unveiled Tuesday.

A "leaked" plan shows that Newsom would steal five more seats from Republicans, reducing the Republican delegation from 12 to 7.

I don't believe this, though. I think this leak is intended for one audience: Governor Abbott of Texas. I think Newsom's pretending he can cut this many seats to get Abbott to back off.

Because I don't believe you can gerrymander 40% of the population so hard they only have five districts where they form the majority.

And also: Abbott has already threatened to re-district and take eight seats from Democrats, so bring it on, Hair-Gel.

The New York Times asks "Is Texas really less gerrymandered than California, or is that just another Republican lie?"

Check out this typical "fact-check" treatment:

In a recent defense of Republican efforts to redraw Texas' congressional maps with a greater Republican advantage, Vice President JD Vance criticized the current maps in California as an extreme gerrymander. There, he suggested, Democrats had already given themselves an egregious number of safe blue seats in Congress.

While Mr. Vance ignored that California's maps are drawn by an independent commission, not Democrats, he cited a seemingly simple statistic as proof: the partisan breakdown of the state's congressional delegation as compared with the statewide partisan vote share.

The "independent" commission is dominated by Democrats. The Democrats like to pretend they're for "reform" and "good, clean government," so they set up "independent commissions," supposedly, to take the politics out of politics.

But then they pack those "independent commissions" full of partisan Democrats. Democrats want the appearance of non-partisan politics, but not the reality of it.

Democrats control about 80 percent of California's seats in the U.S. House but earned roughly 60 percent of the statewide vote in the 2024 presidential election, a more than 20 percent point disparity. Texas Republicans won 58 percent of the vote, yet hold 66 percent of the seats -- an 8-point gap.

This is why I say this is a "typical fact-check:" They concede that a "simple statistic" proves that the Republican is telling the truth, but they then say: But what are statistics anyway? Just lies told by the White Man with numbers.

But this statistic, taken by itself, ignores several critical factors, like how voters are geographically sorted in a state; how close the elections were in some of those congressional districts; the importance of protecting the rights of voters of color; and the ability of a popular congressional incumbent to run against statewide trends.

All of this is just commie gobbedlygook to distract from the main point: Yes, California much more heavily gerrymandered than Texas was.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (266) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pam Bondi Apponts DEA Commissioner to be Emergency Chief of Police; the Pro-Crime DC City Government Sues

Headline: Pam Bondi deprives obese lesbian of DEI job.

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday night issued a directive that places the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Terry Cole, as Washington, D.C.'s "emergency police commissioner."

The position will give Cole the same authority as Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, who reports directly to Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. It is not clear what Smith will be doing while the Trump administration takes over the city's law enforcement.

President Donald Trump on Monday federalized the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and deployed 800 National Guard troops in the capital city to help curb the district's high crime rate.

Cole, who previously worked as Virginia's Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security before leading the DEA, will assume the "powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police," and the MPD must "receive approval from Commissioner Cole" before issuing any orders, according to the Associated Press.

DC is suing to stop this.

We can't have an outsider seeing the real crime figures!

We'll all go to jail!

The suit appeared inevitable since Bondi made the announcement Thursday afternoon, as part of President Trump's initiative to send federal agents to the nation's capitol to curb violent crime, and top D.C. officials challenged Bondi's move last night.

DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in the lawsuit that Trump is overreaching with his authority, The according to the Associated Press. Schwalb asked a judge to find that control of the Metropolitan Police Department remains under DC's authority and sought an emergency restraining order.

"The administration's unlawful actions are an affront to the dignity and autonomy of the 700,000 Americans who call D.C. home. This is the gravest threat to Home Rule that the District has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it," Schwalb said.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Schwalb late Thursday, calling the move "unlawful."

Bondi also revoked DC's sanctuary city policies.

[Bondi] has ordered an END to dangerous sanctuary policies in Washington, DC", wrote the Department of Justice's Chad Gilmartin.

In the order, Bondi lamented the state of crime in the city, saying "[t]hese dangers are multiplied by the District's sanctuary city policies, which actively shield criminal aliens from the consequences required by federal law."

"The proliferation of illegal aliens into our country during the prior Administration, including into our Nation's capital, presents extreme public safety and national security risks to our country," she continued.

Posted by: Ace at 01:08 PM | Comments (289) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Melania Trump Threatens $1 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Drug-Addict and Lifelong John Hunter Biden

You don't have a pardon for any new crimes you commit, Hunter, and your daddy is not only out of office but out of favor with the Democrat Cult.

Hunter Biden, the black sheep of the Biden family, has long flirted with legal trouble, and he has benefited greatly from his father's blanket pardon for any alleged crimes committed over a ten-year period. Yet he now faces a new legal threat, one that even daddy's pardon can't shield him from.

Melania Trump is taking a firm stand against Hunter Biden's reckless and defamatory claims linking her to Jeffrey Epstein, threatening a lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages. Hunter alleged in a recent YouTube interview that Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump -- a baseless accusation that has been widely circulated and condemned.

Hunter Biden, in an interview with British journalist Andrew Callaghan, stated, "Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep." He doubled down with "Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania, and that's how Melania and the first lady and the President met," repeating these false remarks despite their glaring lack of credibility. These inflammatory claims hinge on assertions made by Michael Wolff, an author with a notorious reputation for fabricating stories.

Wolff's allegations appeared in a Daily Beast article, which was swiftly retracted and apologized for after Melania's legal team challenged its veracity.

Melania Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, issued a scathing demand for Hunter Biden to immediately retract his defamatory statements and issue a public apology. Brito described the comments as "false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory," emphasizing how the allegations caused "overwhelming financial and reputational harm" to the First Lady. The lawyer made it clear that failure to comply would lead to pursuing all legal remedies, reflecting the seriousness of this reckless defamation.

The narrative of Epstein introducing Melania to Donald Trump has been thoroughly debunked. Melania and Donald Trump have consistently maintained that they first met at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998 through modeling agent Paolo Zampolli--not through Epstein. Though Trump and Epstein were acquaintances in the 1990s and early 2000s, their relationship soured by 2004, and Donald Trump has no connection to Epstein's criminal legacy. Meanwhile, Democrats keep trying and failing to weaponize Trump's past associations, ignoring that figures like Bill Clinton have far deeper and more troubling links to Epstein.

The life Hunter has lived since birth -- always privileged, always skating on every crime because Daddy will make a phone call, always "earning" a million per year to sell out the interests of the United States to disgusting corrupt foreigners -- is over.

He needs to accept this and adjust.

No one is going to pay him $100,000 a pop for his "watercolors" anymore. His "honey brother" isn't going to cover a $20 million judgement against him.

But he'll keep on going. He's a drug addict and he has the damaged brain of a drug addict.

Update: Asked if he would ever issue an apology for his defamation, he said "F*** that" and laughed.

He thinks he's judgment-proof. But Trump has enough money to sue him without an expectation of getting money in return. And he can attach Hunter's future earnings, whatever those turn out to be.

And if the crack-addict hides his money -- which he will -- Trump can get a judge to throw him in jail.

Posted by: Ace at 12:05 PM | Comments (322) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Marsha, the Recovering Gluten Sufferer with a Trans Child, is Now a Witch

I recently documented here and at The Blaze the story of “Marsha,” the daughter of a couple I am close to. A few years ago, Marsha was a loud and vocal sufferer of gluten intolerance (self-diagnosed, of course.) Miraculously, she recovered from her gluten allergy once that fad played out. With trans children being a status symbol in her progressive circles, Marsha subsequently began cross-dressing her children, including a tween daughter that now identifies as a boy.

My thesis was that the trans fad is a short-term social contagion, much like the inexplicable epidemic of gluten intolerance that swept the country for a few years. Obviously, no one was prescribing the amputation of body parts during peak-gluten, and neither should children be receiving “gender affirming care” just because they have been swept up in a social contagion.

Now, there is another fad sweeping the Marsha demographic – identifying oneself as a witch. Predictably, Marsha is now proclaiming herself to be a witch. And of course, she is producing Tik Tok videos that talk about casting spells, her coven, etc.

Ace recently documented – and heartily mocked – this witch fad. Specifically, he featured the “4 AM Club,” which is made up of self-proclaimed witches, mystics, and mediums who believe we have been living in an alternate reality since November 6, 2024 (e.g. Election Day.)

“The 4am Club: Meet The Lunatic Women Who Believe We're In the "Wrong Timeline," Who Claim We Have to Get Back to the "Right Timeline" Where Kamala Harris Won the Election” [Ace – 7/21/2025]

Feel free to rib me for being aware of this, but on reality TV shows, a lot of the millennial-aged, white women are now proclaiming themselves to be witches.

Naturally, universities are now providing courses for these women to get college credit by talking about being a witch.

“How feminist witch studies redefine magic and power” [The Current – UC Santa Barbara – 4/01/2025]

Witchcraft has been feared, mocked and romanticized — but rarely has it been fully understood as a story of feminist resistance and enduring cultural power. Feminist studies scholar Jane Ward has set out to change that narrative. Her latest book — a collaboration with co-author Soma Chaudhuri — introduces “feminist witch studies,” a new interdisciplinary field that explores the power, persecution and political dimensions of witchcraft across cultures.

The witch fad will blow over, just like the gluten fad did, and so will the transgender fad. Those fads appeal to people like Marsha, a demographic that seeks victim status while also seeking inclusion in the latest trendy identity group. But only one of these social contagions disfigures people for life. As I wrote in this piece titled “Her son wears dresses, her daughter’s a ‘boy,’ and it’s all for status” [The Blaze – 6/28/2025]”:

Marsha has once again been swept up in a social contagion — a phenomenon especially common among her age group. The gluten craze ended with little more than inconvenience. But the transgender trend leads to lasting harm. It encourages confusion, medicalization, and, in many cases, the sterilization of children.

Marsha is no longer gluten intolerant. In a year or two she will no longer be a witch. There are many of us praying that her daughter will survive the trans fad without being permanently harmed.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (357) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

High Bridge
Ernest Lawson

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (276) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 8/15/25

Good morning kids. The top story of the day is the summit between President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin today in Alaska. No doubt the media are aiming their poison pen Koluzhnikov memes at Trump. But in the real world.

Although the stated purpose of today’s Trump-Putin summit in Alaska is to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine, the meeting will also be an important demonstration of how Trump is restoring America’s leadership on the world stage and establishing himself as one of America’s most powerful and influential presidents.

Trump’s critics predictably claim Putin manipulated him with his proposal to hold a summit to stop the crippling energy sanctions that Trump was about to impose on Russia and to buy time to continue the war.

Putin may be planning to use the summit to manipulate Trump. If he does, I believe Trump will abruptly end the meeting and implement the energy sanctions. Indeed, Trump warned this week that there will be “severe consequences” if he determines Putin is not serious at the summit about ending the war. It is clear that in recent weeks, Trump has become increasingly angry with Putin for defying his diplomatic efforts to end the war. CNN reported on Wednesday that Trump’s anger with Putin was “palpable.” Given Trump’s much-reported frustration with Putin and several decisive foreign policy moves by the president during his second term, especially Trump’s decision to bomb Iran, I believe Putin realizes that Trump will react harshly against Russia if he does not come to the summit ready to negotiate an end to the war or presses for demands that Trump views as unreasonable.

The author of this essay . . . "Fred Fleitz previously served as National Security Council chief of staff, a CIA analyst, and a House Intelligence Committee staff member. He is the Vice Chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for American Security."

Beyond the Ukraine situation, which I don't think is going to end any time soon as a result of what comes out of this meeting. The facts on the ground at least from my perspective is that Russia is not going to give up any territory it took and for sure neither is Zelensky, especially since aside from the fact that it was Ukraine that was invaded, he and his cronies have profited handsomely from the globalist war mongers in the EU and sadly from over here, despite the rivers of blood that have already been spilled.

In any case, Trump and foreign affairs team have proven themselves to be both effective peace makers and champions of American interest in extending and preserving your national security interests. I would like to see how and if Trump can shift Russia into a position to recognize the massive threat posed by Xi and China to global security and of course the spread of Islam that Russia is not and as we saw in Beslan and elsewhere over the years and will not be immune from going forward.

As Trump himself is fond of saying, we'll just have to wait and see. Back here in the lower 48, as the National Guard is indeed helping combat crime, the chutzpocrisy from the Democrats is off the charts as this next piece demonstrates:

Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency Wednesday in a rural county of her state due to a surge in violent crime and drug trafficking. Grisham’s office announced in a press release that the state of emergency will include Rio Arriba County, the city of Española and Pueblo Indian communities in the area in response to a “significant surge in violent crime, drug trafficking and public safety threats” which the governor’s office said have “overwhelmed local resources.” 
. . .The emergency declaration came just two days after President Donald Trump’s Monday announcement that he is deploying the National Guard to combat crime in the nation’s capital. Grisham had slammed Trump’s move as a “massive executive overreach” in a Monday joint press release alongside Democratic Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller.

And Jasmine Crockett proves yet again that huffing eyelash glue and inbreeding is a lethal combination. That and the candidate for governor of South Carolina dancing around semi-naked and drunk.

Meh. That is the Democrat Party. Throw in a pogrom here and there and you've got a winner!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

Have a great weekend!

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:41 AM | Comments (382) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 15 August 2025

Top Story

• Meta's alleged AI rules allowed chatbots to flirt with children, lie, and throw around racial slurs. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Asked for comment, Meta said yes: These are in fact Meta's official rules, in effect across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and approved by the company's technical, public policy, legal, and ethics staff, all of whom are now out of work.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (205) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thursday Overnight Open Thread - August 14, 2025 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings! Oh - you were expecting an ONT from Weird Dave? Well...

That's right. All your Thursday night ONT are belong to me now!

In case you missed this from Weird Dave last week:

Personal Note

This is the last Thursday ONT I will be writing. I've been doing this for almost ten years, I'm tired boss. Don't worry, I'll still be kicking your weekend off right by meeting your meme needs on the Friday ONT, but starting next week Thursdays will be covered by the eminently capable Doof. It's been a pleasure and an honor to entertain you Morons all these years.

So, time to step on in and see how "eminently capable" this Doof guy really is!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (485) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Thursday Cafe

Family with covered wagon
Kansas, 1908

Rescue sheep are as playful as puppies.

A dog gave birth to puppies prematurely, and none survived. She was heartbroken, but her spirits returned when she was given orphaned kittens to raise.

The ultimate battle: Baby bear vs. baby fawn.

A lovebird got hit by a car, so
a man took it home and cared for it until it healed.

The Cat Version of John Bolton drops subtle hints that he's ready for treats and/or invading Pakistan.

"Eighteen more years of this bullshit."

A pet blanket.

Dog munches on fresh strawberries.

He became immersed in the story.

Helm's Deep, India. (Someone pointed out that you would never in a million years build a fortress at the bottom of a mountain gully because your enemies could just climb the mountain and start dropping 500 pound blocks of stone on you. All day long. Until the stone runs out. This kind of ruins Two Towers for me.)

An adoption story.

Posted by: Ace at 07:44 PM | Comments (242) | Trackbacks (Suck)