Gun Thread: Late July Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be late July? Know what's coming next? August! August is coming next! Going to be a quick one tonight, guys and gals, as I goofed around and waited until the last minute to write something.

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (240) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Dijon Mustard...It's Hot?

That looks like a regular jar of Dijon mustard...right? It's a French label, but the company exports a lot of it to the United States, so I am sure that most of you can find a jar of it fairly easily. It's good quality stuff, if a bit expensive, so I usually buy another brand (Roland) in bulk.

But the stuff in France is far, far hotter than the American version! Wow! Amazing stuff, delicious, but sinus-clearing hot! And the other brands we have tasted have been hotter than their American versions, so it isn't an anomaly.

And that's weird, because the frogs are not fond of spicy food. They are definitely surrender monkeys when it comes to Scoville Units!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (218) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

Today is the last day of The Tour de France, and it is routed right around the corner from my apartment! If you haven't seen professional cyclists ride, it is an absolutely amazing thing. They ride really, really, fast! And because there is a climb just a mile and a half or so up the street around Sacré-Cœur, they will probably be bunched up, which makes it even more exciting.

Of course there are hundreds of pedestrian barriers all over the neighborhood, and where they have been placed is quintessentially French. Not neatly along the curb. Not stacked at the corners ready for deployment on Sunday morning. No...they are lined up in no particular plan, in no particular place! Like...blocking off 75% of the walkway across the main road. Or splitting the sidewalk neatly in two.

They do similar things around street construction, but the best is at the airport. 7:00am, and the barriers leading to immigration are fully deployed, as if they are expecting 5,000 people instead of a few hundred. So back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, about 30 times. It takes far longer to walk the maze than to clear customs.

And we wonder why we had to bail them out twice in 25 years?

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (173) | Trackbacks (Suck)

America Should Have A Longer Memory

America and Americans are famously forgiving. After a few fits and starts, our relationship with Great Britain became a pillar of our foreign policy. Our own War Of The Southern Rebellion was brutal and cruel, but aside from mostly friendly differences, we are one nation. Japan and Germany were bitter enemies, yet 10 years after WWII had ended we were well on our way to becoming loyal diplomatic and trade partners with both countries. Even Vietnam, whose conduct after we signed a treaty and left was reprehensible, is now a trading partner and a travel destination for Americans!

And terrorist groups get off just as easily. Hezbollah killed 241 Americans in 1983, and continued their attacks on America for years, yet they are still around! Iran kidnapped 66 American diplomats and kept them as hostages for 444 days, then spent the next 45 years attacking America whenever it could through its terrorist proxies (like Hezbollah!).

And we mostly just went about our business, because none of these attacks were existential threats to us, and certainly not to the homeland. Even September 11th's attacks quickly faded into the past, and instead of hunting down every al Qaeda member on earth, we mostly just droned the obvious ones. And now, even our president is lauding a former al Qaeda member as some sort of Syrian Thomas Jefferson.

But maybe that isn't such a good idea. Having a long memory of our enemies and their attacks seems to be a strong indicator of cultural and social strength. Having a commitment to punishing their transgressions against our country and people, and more importantly, never forgetting seems to be a wiser approach than our culturally embedded attitude of almost instant forgiveness.

For instance:

This flight instructor was either a moron, or was purposefully obtuse, yet the worst we did was revoke his work permit?

Vueling pilot of plane that saw Jewish kids removed was flight instructor of two 9/11 terrorists

According to his book, Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohamed Atta, hijackers of United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11, respectively, were entrusted to him by the aviation academy after they “paid hefty sums of money to get the best instructors.”

Chirivellas described them as “normal,” but noted that they had an aggressive attitude, short tempers, and a strong interest in Boeing commercial flights. “I didn’t understand at the time their interest in those planes, when they couldn’t even pass the basic theoretical exams.”

Only an hour after the September 11 attacks, Chivirellas was called by the aviation academy about an FBI investigation that involved two of his students. “When it was confirmed that they performed the attack, I felt shivers down my spine.”

The official investigation declared that there was no connection between Chivirellas and the terrorists, and that he trained them without knowing their real intentions. Still, his work permit for the United States was revoked once he had to renew it after the attacks.

If he was guiltless, then why did we revoke his permit? And if he had some culpability, why is he not in Guantanamo? Or dead?

Israel sees these issues very differently. For instance, after the murders of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics in 1972 by the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September, Israel spent years chasing the organizers.

And after the catastrophe of October 7th, Israel has clearly and publicly embarked on a comprehensive program to kill every single person involved in its planning and execution. That will go a long way towards forging a national consensus, and perhaps allowing some sort of acceptance of the many failures in policy that led to the attacks.

Perhaps it is time for America to remember the many fallen, and instead of moving on, exact a price for every single American killed.

And if that means decapitating Iran? Well, as they say, revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (188) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 7-27-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (349) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 27 July 2025

Top Story

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that AI is not a licensed therapist, doctor, or lawyer and there are no legal privacy guarantees for its users. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Sam thinks there should.
  
  But not for any reason other than it would benefit him personally.
  
  
  
• AI is also not a programmer. (Mashable)
  
  Though to be fair it was Google Gemini this time that blindly deleted a user's entire project.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (187) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" July 26, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

Mystery Click carries extra importance tonight. Keep reading.

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Congratulations, if you are here, you are officially part of the Club - sorry about that.

Clever comments earn restroom tokens. The same tokens can also be used for the jukebox so proceed with care. Club ONT management has instituted a strict policy based on the mystery click above. Anyone caught not having fun and not Wanging Chung will be removed from the premises immediately.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (311) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A Guest Music Thread [Joe Mannix]

What do you think of when you hear "bootleg" in the context of music? I usually think of cassette tapes with hand-scrawled labels or CD-Rs that will rot unless quickly backed up. I might even think of "a bunch of MP3s someone recorded at a show.' What I didn't think of until recently, though, was "professional-looking, commercially-pressed CD with liner notes and label information."

I have been sanitizing and updating my digital music library and stumbled across an album that I just couldn't find anywhere. It wasn't on the big metadata services and when I searched for less-well-known track names, various search engine AIs responded along the lines of "that artist never did a song by that name, but these other artists did." Yet I had the CD in my hands. It was professionally manufactured, not a CD-R. It was a mainstream artist, not an unknown independent. It had a record label and a catalogue number printed on the liner notes. No barcode, but that isn't too weird.

So I looked up the catalogue number and still got nothing. Going for broke, I just looked up the record label, hoping I could find some reference based on the label. I finally got a legitimate hit. It wasn't a label, it was a pseudo-label - a European company that produced and distributed bootlegs. It was referenced as a "bootleg label," and that's all they did. They did it very professionally, but the reason I could find nothing about this album on the internet is that the album doesn't technically exist. It is a pirate album.

I have some bootlegs in my collection and I know what they are, but this was a first for me! I don't think "serious, professional product" when I think "bootleg." Expectations status: subverted.

Do you have any bootlegs in your collection? How's the production value, both of the physical medium and the recording?

NOTE: As always, the intro is just a conversation starter if needed. You're welcome to go off-topic, just please keep it to the world of music!

***

Posted by: Joe Mannix at 07:30 PM | Comments (351) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - July 26, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it wobbled and lurched and shook and made terrible scraping sounds. Apparently, it either needs a tune-up or a vacation. Either way, the wheel was of no help which means this edition of the Hobby Thread is a random grab-bag of miscellaneous content.

I have faith that you can either find something in the content that resonates or contribute your own hobbying interests.

You might be tempted to say "I have no hobbies or interests." Bah. Dig around in the content and soak in the comments. Be curious. Glad you're here.

[Top photo: Sunflower Festival, Monongahela, PA]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (181) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, July 26

Courtesy Misanthropic Humanitarian

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:28 PM | Comments (97) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 26

Spotted in a raised garden bed at a local assisted living facility where my mother lives. Not ours but they caught our attention.

Cheers,
TRex

A lovely scene for residents of that facility and a great photo! Thanks for sending it in!

*

Bleg:

Hello,

I hope you can help me. I've been a (really) long-time lurker at Ace of Spades HQ, and was wondering if you still have links to the old gardening threads.

Way back when-- unfortunately, I don't have a date, or this would be much easier -- there was a thread on Christmas/Thanksgiving cactuses. The advice in it was invaluable..... among other things, we finally understood why my father's cactus, would bloom twice a year, once around thanksgiving, and once again in early spring.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to save the thread, and various internet searches have turned up nothing.

Is there any hope?

Thanks,
Heather

There's a video with information in the post on 12/2/23 and more information on 11/22/14.

There are a couple of other mentions and photos, too. Anybody else have tips on growing these cacti?

Posted by: K.T. at 01:22 PM | Comments (36) | Trackbacks (Suck)

After Russiagate, where do you go for news?

Above, a cartoon borrowed from a lefty. I'm surprised that he's still hanging on to this issue. Can't decide if that lefty agrees that networks like the one Colbert dissed should die, too. Would you be okay with that?

The Colbert kerfuffle is widely misrepresented as involving his cancelation after CBS gave in to Trump concerning the way Trump was portrayed on CBS. But remember that Trump's lawsuit concerned the refusal of CBS to release the transcript of the interview of Kamala Harris on "60 Minutes". It was NOT about programs like Colbert's criticizing Trump.

One of my lefty's own commenters said, "He's still alive but no longer caged!" What repression!

Their misrepresentation of the Trump suit against CBS in current memes demonstrates that they aren't used to people fighting back.

He then posted a worrisome meme about the impending transformation of CBS into another Fox News with the upcoming buy-out of the network. You get the idea . . . Progressives are under siege in the mainstream media. Heh.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:07 AM | Comments (193) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. As much as I love coffee it does not inspire me to utter unsolicited opinions. I can do that on my very own, thank you very much.

So before we enter the Prayer Revival, just a few housekeeping matters to take care of. (Rulz for those of you in Valders)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate or try all three!
B) Be kind, be nice. Trolls have feelings or so I'm told.
3) No. You will not have our endorsement or condolences if you run with sharp objects.
D) A big Thank You to Annie for her stellar work on the Prayer Revival.
5) Finally, please have a wonderful weekend.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:00 AM | Comments (380) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 26 July 2025

Top Story

• Tea, an app for women to share the private data of men, was hacked - if you can use that term for an application that appears to have had no security whatsoever - and the personal information of all the users has been leaked online - if you can use that expression when all the personal information was already public if you knew to look. (WCCFTech)
  
  And being a "women-only" app, it required users to upload government-issued photo ID for their protection. So a site dedicated to doxing other people just doxed all its own users.
  
  This is why we can't have nice things.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, Britain, which as of yesterday requires all its subjects to provide government-issued photo ID to view porn on Twitter, is already using the technology to block reports of anti-illegal immigration protests. (Twitter)
  
  1984.0.0.1.
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (69) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gentlemen, This Is The ONT Manifest

Welcome to meme day! How about we start with some animal facts?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fri-Yay Cafe

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

I think this is what JackStraw sees when he smokes his marijuana cigarettes.

Tucking in your baby elephant for a nap.

These geese are employed by DHS to disappear progressives.

Out of control.

Dog demonstrates proper form in the hurdles. (The fourth dog. They're all good boys but the fourth dog is the best boy at hurdles.)

This dog DOMINATES the stairs.

A horse's buddy lends him a hoof.

You wanted to get close to nature but nature decided to get close to you.

Stray cat is very happy to see the human who feeds her.

We need to limit cats' screen time.

Baby bear practices going out of control.

That's a lot of coke.

I've linked this before, but it's good: a parachute fails to properly deploy and the diver gets "shrouded" by the parachute's cloth, which wraps around him and blocks him from deploying his safety chute. He only has 10-15 seconds to free himself and get that second chute opened.

Is it Friday yet?

Steve Inman:

A FAFO collection, mostly showing bestial left-wing women who have drank the Feminist and Transgender Kool-Aid and really believe they can beat up men if they just ignore "Society's Patriarchal Programming" and believe in shemselves.

A truck thief gets asphalt justice.

Dog is so shocked that a cat slapped him he just doesn't know what to do.

Aggressive panhandler meets aggressive manhandler.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (251) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Week in Woke

Adi
@Adi13

Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney [George's wretched wife], you passionately called for the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged 'genocide in Gaza.' Yet, curiously, as the daughter of a Syrian Druze father, you've remained silent while over 1,000 Syrian Druze have been massacred, amid reports of rape, abduction, and other atrocities. But since Jews aren't involved, the story seems to attract far less attention.

House Judiciary Committee: Biden's FBI smeared Catholics as terrorists.

The 51-page report comes after the FBI under former director Christopher Wray circulated an internal memo dubbed the Richmond Memorandum, created by the Richmond field office in 2023, which labeled traditional Catholics as "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists."

The report accuses the bureau of creating a "manufactured narrative to insert federal law-enforcement agents into places of worship." The report includes revelations that the FBI allegedly spied on a priest because he refused to discuss a private conversation that he had with a parishioner.

...

"There appeared to be no legitimate law-enforcement purpose for investigating this priest," the report determined. "This new information suggests that the FBI's religious liberty abuses were more widespread than the FBI initially admitted and led the public to believe."

The report also found that the Richmond memorandum was not an isolated incident as previously believed, and that terms like "Radical Traditionalist Catholic" were used in 13 documents between 2009 and 2023.

"These new findings make it apparent that the FBI under President Biden and Director Wray withheld key information responsive to the Committee's oversight," the report reads. "The Committee remains committed to conducting oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration's abuse of federal law-enforcement resources against Catholic Americans."

New York has settled with a Christian photographer they illegally coerced into photographing gay weddings.

New York ended four years of litigation by Christian wedding photographer Emilee Carpenter by paying her $225,000 in legal fees and promising not to enforce several laws that infringe Carpenter's First Amendment rights, leaving her free to avoid photographing same-sex weddings.

The consent decree between Attorney General Letitia James and Carpenter's lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom follows a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci, nominated by President Obama, that it was "beyond debate" the Empire State cannot apply public accommodations laws to "expressive activity to compel speech."

The Democrat Party has endorsed Minneapolis Mayor Jonathan Frey's socialist Somali challenger.

From KSTP:

Minneapolis DFL Chair John Maraist confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that State Sen. Omar Fateh won the party's endorsement through a show of badges on Saturday night.

An endorsement of Fateh, who is running as a Democratic Socialist, would create a unique moment for the city's DFL Party, possibly signaling a further shift for the party.

"People are starting to accept, you know, some more socialist and more, you know, to the left politics, which, in my view, is a good thing. It's a progressive thing," said Colton Baldus, a delegate in support of Fateh.

Current Mayor Jacob Frey's campaign manager released the following statement:

"This election should be decided by the entire city rather than the small group of people who became delegates, particularly in light of the extremely flawed and irregular conduct of this convention. Voters will now have a clear choice between the records and leadership of Sen. Fateh and Mayor Frey. We look forward to taking our vision to the voters in November."

I saw someone point out that Frey kneeled and cried for George Floyd. But he just wasn't woke enough for today's Democrat Communist Party.

From Instapundit, the San Fransisco Standard reports that businesses are hiring "etiquette coaches" to instruct Gen Z savages on proper workplace dress and decorum.

They want to be promoted after only a few months, treat the office like their bedroom, show up in sweats or skimpy office-siren fits, FaceTime friends from their desks, and ghost their managers.

This is the gist of employer complaints about Gen Z workers, who seem to be having a uniquely hard time getting along in the office -- much worse, managers say, than the generations before them. In a December 2024 survey of 1,000 employers by Intelligent.com, 12.5% said a Gen Z candidate had brought Mom or Dad to a job interview. The bosses are fed up.

Gen Zers, meanwhile, see things differently: From their perspective, millennial and Gen X managers have no work-life balance.

In other words: they work at work.

The generational divide has become starker in the past few months, as return-to-office policies have brought in Gen Zers for the first time -- in many cases after years of working and attending school remotely. In the Bay Area, the culture clash has led employers to a new solution: hiring etiquette experts to train young employees in basic workplace manners.

Rosalinda Randall, a Marin-based etiquette coach, said inquiries have risen 50% over the last two months. The requests come from tech campus managers, winery execs, and even country clubs. All are a variation on the same complaint: Gen Z employees are treating the office like an extension of their homes.

Netflix will not be renewing their $100 million deal to feature the non-prince Harry and the non-duchess Megan in stupid podcast-level "shows."

Netflix will not be renewing their eye-popping $100 million deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex signed the lucrative deal in 2020 to earn some cash after quitting royal life and moving to the US.

However, the couple still have other plans for the future.

"There are more TV projects coming soon with both the duke and duchess," a source told Page Six. They also are set to sign a first-look deal with the streamer when their exclusive deal ends this year.

Ugh. I think a first-look deal is just a kind of option. You're selling the option to someone to have the first chance to buy a show. It's much, much cheaper than buying a show. Like an option to produce a screenplay might cost $10,000, but if the screenplay is actually produced, you'd get $100,000.

So I don't think this is a big payday for the unemployed losers but still Netflix is paying them for something. Why? Do they literally just want to spend themselves into unprofitability? After three years of wretched duds that no one likes, what is left of the Markles that you'd need a "first look" contract for?

Where are the lefties screaming about this? The Markles are woke AF, too. Shouldn't they be guaranteed lifetime media contracts like Stephen Colbert?

Woke is officially dead. Celebrities are now denouncing wokeness without fear of cancellation.

Legendary musician Billy Joel told Bill Maher he doesn't care if the far left complains about his statements or music anymore.

During the latest episode of Maher's "Club Random" podcast released Monday, the two discussed the "woke" left's reaction to anything it disagrees with, with Joel admitting he is over being concerned about what that group thinks of him.

"At this point... I'm inured to it," Joel said in reply to Maher asking if he doesn't care if woke people criticize him any longer.

...

The host continued, noting how mad leftists get when people don't declare, "'Trump's the worst.'"

...

"And you don't care what they say about you -- the woke?" Maher asked.

"At this point, no," the musician replied, though he noted how he tries to understand the point of view of people who disagree with him.

In the UK, students were told to wear clothing advertising their cultures and ethnic identities.

A native-born British girl wore a Union Jack dress. She was kicked out of school and could not return until she changed. Turns out the school only meant "burkas." Anyone celebrating their British identity is a racist.

The UK needs their own Trump:

Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (314) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ninth Circuit Panel: No, You Can't Discriminate Against Christians Just Because They Refuse To Say They'd Support Transing Their Children

Oregon attempted to block a Christian woman from adopting a child because she refused to say she'd support genital mutilation for the child if the child hypothetically decided to be "Trans."

The Ninth Circuit Court of appeals overturned Oregon's decision and rebuked them for blatant invidious discrimination.

Judges nominated by presidents Trump, Clinton and George W. Bush walk into a First Amendment case about compelled affirmation of gender identity and facilitation of medicalized transitions as a condition of adoption. The punchline may surprise you.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday blocked Oregon's Department of Human Services from denying Jessica Bates' application to adopt the siblings she is fostering based on her refusal to honor the asserted gender identity of "hypothetical adopted children" in speech or actions, with the Trump and Clinton nominees overruling the Bush nominee.

U.S District Judge Adrienne Nelson, nominated by President Biden, denied a preliminary injunction for the widowed Christian mother of five in 2023, arguing the failure to "respect a child's LGBTQ+ identity imposes collateral harm on the child's development, safety, and physical well-being."

Of course. Note that is the lowly district court judge making the original lawless ruling. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, acting through a three-judge panel, then overruled this woke cow.

Oregon has "training materials" for prospective adoptive parents, called "RAFT." One of the "guidances" this woke manual demands is fealty to the trans cause for all adoptive parents.

"Oregon only initiated its investigation into Bates's beliefs after she expressed disagreement with the RAFT training," which it said defines its "expectation" for adhering to the regulation that adoption applicants "respect, accept and support" the gender identity of adoptive children, said the opinion by Judge Daniel Bress, joined by Judge Michael Hawkins.

"In the context of raising children, such respect and support inevitably both restricts and compels speech," as Judge Nelson found, they said, dinging Bush nominee Judge Richard Clifton's dissent for botching the factual record and hence the correct review standards.

"The situation would be no different if the state had restricted parental speech favoring more 'progressive' views of sexuality and gender identity, while compelling speech along the lines of Bates's more traditional understanding," according to the opinion.

The duo said a "state's general conception of the child's best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights," such that it could deny adoption based on the "political view, race, or religious affiliations" of prospective parents.

This is unbelievable: Oregon will refuse you an adoption if you won't take your children to "pride" sexual kink events and fetish parades.

Oregon deems as unfit prospective parents who won't take young children "to events like pride parades," as ODHS explicitly demanded of Bates, which is "false and incredibly dangerous," Bates's lawyer Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom said in celebrating the ruling.

"The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state's ideological crusade," he said.

...

Oregon's RAFT training is far-reaching even by the standards of gender affirmation, resembling a Canadian gender studies course more than American adoption requirements.

The Bress opinion recounts its distinctives, referring to children by the LGBTQ variant "LGBTQI2-S," which is common in Canada and whose last abbreviation means "two-spirit," a modern indigenous term of disputed authenticity.

RAFT claims "an infinite number of pronouns" exist and that prospective parents must always ask for them first. Regardless of whether their children identify as LGBTQ, parents should display "symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment" and provide books and media that celebrate LGBTQ people such as "transgender women in history."

The materials take aim at religion, claiming "faith-based communities" can be sources of "prejudice and rejection" and instructing parents not to force youth to attend religious activities "openly hostile or unsupportive of people with diverse" sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

...

Adoptive parents must give children "the ability to discuss, provide, and obtain authorization for medically necessary, transition-related treatment, if desired," referring to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries to resemble the opposite sex that allegedly improve mental health and reduce suicides, a claim with little rigorous evidence.

...

The majority repeatedly cites RAFT examples as both strong suggestions and mandates, "broadly reflective of a particular viewpoint on sexual orientation and gender identity, which parents must actively promote under Oregon's policy."

The state's claim that it's regulating speech only "incidental to conduct" would have been "much stronger" if it "simply outlawed harassment or denigration of LGBTQ children --which Bates strongly avers she would not do," but its speech regulation "predominates," they said.

That's not the only big win this week.

Due to Trump's E.O. demanding that women's sports be reserved for -- now here's a twist -- women, the Olympic and Paralympic Committees have banned men from participating in women's sports.

Trump is rolling back Woke like Reagan rolled back the Soviet Union.

From the NYT:

The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women's sports, and now will comply with President Trump's executive order on the issue, according to a post on the organization's website.

The new policy, expressed in a short, vaguely worded paragraph, is tucked under the category of "USOPC Athlete Safety Policy" on the site, and does not include details of how the ban will work. Nor does the new policy include the word "transgender" or the title of Mr. Trump's executive order, "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports," referring to it instead as "Executive Order 14201." ...

The committee's new policy means that the national governing bodies of sports federations in the United States -- which oversee sporting events for all ages, from youth to masters' competitions -- now must follow the U.S.O.P.C.'s lead, according to several chief executives of sports within the Olympic movement.

The Olympic Committee is so afraid to make this change that they basically hid it and refuse to comment further on it. But apparently their hand was forced by Trump's E.O.

Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (230) | Trackbacks (Suck)

NPR's Top Editor Resigns After Propaganda Network Loses $500 Million in Federal Funding, Claims Her Resignation Has Nothing to Do With the Cuts

"Hello," they lied.

NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives.

Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday.

Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts.

I mean...

She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.

...

Supporters of the cuts to federal funding - which also affected PBS - said it was unfair to expect all Americans to subsidize a network with such an isolated worldview.

...

'I have had two big executive jobs for two years and I want to take a break. I want to make sure my performance is always top-notch for the company,' she said, after joining NPR from CNN in 2012 as chief international editor.

'It's not a good time to do it, but it's never a good time.'

'I needed to pick a date and share my decision.'

'The best thing we can do is do the best work possible every day,' she said as debate continues over whether the company really engaged in systemic bias as the administration claims.

'We need to hear from all kinds of people - and that is our job.

'And we need to be as clear and transparent as we possibly can, and our audiences can decide how useful we are for them.'

'One of the things that was attractive when I came here was this philosophy of all things considered,' she continued.

...

Maher also addressed statistics that showed the broadcaster having 87 registered Democrats on-staff this time last year and not a single Republican.

The disparity, Maher conceded, was 'concerning - if true.' She insisted NPR does not track such affiliations.

Apparently this editor was hired to review stories for "fairness and balance."

Crackerjack job.

I don't know what's going on here, but here's my speculation: This woman was hired as a fig-leaf concession. NPR had been exposed as hopelessly leftwing by Uri Berliner, who they then suspended and forced out, and they needed to placate Congress by pretending they cared about balance.

But the moment Congress cancelled their funding, they decided they were all done with this very weak effort at pretending, so they had no further use of their "fairness and balance" fig-leaf editor.

NPR's batty wine-aunt CEO says that Republicans cancelled funding for her perverse propaganda network just because they don't want people of marginalized communities to have voices.

"This argument about public media being 'biased' is a stalking horse. We report on soybean farmers and LGBTQ activism. We report on coal miners and eco-warriors," she continued. "Having non-White voices and perspectives on air does not make us woke. Covering the existence of disagreement and difference in our country does not make us biased. It makes us reflective of the complex, diverse nation we serve."

Maher said NPR would "take a moment to mourn" and ultimately move forward.

Ex-NPR editor Uri Berliner roasted the outlet last year over its biased coverage on such issues as COVID-19, Hunter Biden's laptop and the Russiagate saga. He soon after resigned and joined The Free Press.

Woke white CEOs are very eager to deny job opportunities to white men to give the jobs to "diverse, marginalized people." Strangely, they never give up their own jobs, despite being whiter than Bjork's thighs in winter.

And now: a former NPR CEO says that maybe we don't need state media at all.

What a concept!

Posted by: Ace at 04:20 PM | Comments (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Alligator Alcatraz Airlines Begins Sending Illegals Back Home; Vance Predicts We May See Net Negative Immigration In the Next Year

DeSantis is flying the illegals out.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Friday that the Department of Homeland Security has started flying illegal immigrants out of his state's "Alligator Alcatraz" detention facility.

"I'm pleased to report that those flights out of Alligator Alcatraz by DHS have begun," DeSantis said, Fox News reported. "The cadence is increasing. We've already had a number of flights, in the last few days, we've had hundreds of illegals [that] have been removed from here."

...

"The whole purpose is to make this be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations of illegal aliens, and that is the goal. And one of the reasons why this was a sensible spot is because you have this runway that's right here. You don't have to drive them an hour to an airport. You go a couple thousand feet and they can be on a plane and out of here," DeSantis also said.

Vice President Vance thinks that we may see net negative migration -- outward migration -- this year.

Vice President JD Vance defended the Trump administration's immigration policies in a speech Wednesday, predicting that the United States was on the cusp of "net negative immigration."

Speaking at an artificial intelligence summit hosted by the All In Podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, the vice president addressed conservative critics who claim the White House is not doing enough to fight illegal immigration.

Noting that the Trump administration has faced legal and practical struggles while pursuing its goal of 1 million deportations this year, Vance nevertheless said that if you consider the "net number" of deportations, the Trump administration has been "wildly successful."

"In 2025 we will have the first net negative immigration number in about 50 or 60 years in the United States," Vance said.

He also responded to a claim that Biden, get this, deported more illegals than Trump. He called that a "totally fake statistic," noting that Biden counted simple turn-arounds at the border as "deportations." That is, if you're turned away at the border, you're "deported."

We have never before counted simple turn-aways as "deportations."

This is the same fakery Obama perpetuated, in order to laughingly call himself "the Deporter In Chief" while flooding the country with illegals.

The left continues agitating for its antifa street militias to kill ICE by pushing hoaxes about people being "disappeared" by ICE.

That article recounts the Guatamalan liar who claimed her grandfather -- who had died peacefully of natural causes in 2019 -- had been "disappeared" by ICE two weeks ago.

It then cites a couple of other recent "disappearing" hoaxes:

In another hoax, Yuriana Julia "Juli" Pelaez Calderon, a 41-year-old illegal immigrant, was charged with conspiracy and making false statements for orchestrating a fake kidnapping by supposed ICE agents to scam donations and discredit federal law enforcement.

On June 30, her family and attorneys claimed she was ambushed at a Los Angeles Jack in the Box, taken to San Ysidro, and pressured to self-deport, sparking a GoFundMe campaign that raised $80 before being shut down. The family and their attorneys held press conferences, where their claims were eagerly repeated by local media.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied the kidnapping claims, and surveillance footage and phone records confirmed the story was a hoax, showing Calderon freely leaving the restaurant.

...

In another disturbing incident of disinformation, in a TikTok post with over 800,000 views, a woman says, "They're throwing the deportees out of the planes and into the ocean. [...] they're shackling people, flying out into open ocean and throwing them out. The flight patterns, there is people tracking them on this app, the flights going out with the deportees. Watching them go out to the open ocean and circle back. A family in Italy saw five shackled bodies wash up on the shore."

These claims have surged on social media since the original posting, and got millions of views before others posted comments noting that the claims were wholly unsubstantiated.

These hoaxes are spread to drive up leftwing enthusiasm and also to encourage the left's street assassins to start killing people. They intend to use hoaxes to win either by the ballot or the bullet.

Note that the leftwing media is not pushing back against this dangerous misinformation, offered WITHOUT EVIDENCE, at all, just like they never push back on any of the left's misinformation.

And speaking of the left encouraging its various foreign assassins and domestic terrorists to kill American police: One of the thugs who shot the off-duty CPB officer was cleared for entry into the country via a Zoom call.

AThe illegal immigrant accused of shooting an off-duty border officer in a Manhattan park was only vetted using Zoom before being released into the US under the Biden administration, The Post has learned.

Dominican Republic national Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, 21, waltzed across the US-Mexico border into Arizona in April 2023 -- during the raging migrant crisis that saw federal agents take drastic measures in an attempt to free up resources.

That month alone, the US saw a wave of more than 183,000 migrants come across the southern border.

"The whole system was overwhelmed by what the Biden administration was allowing," Charles Marino, former senior law enforcement adviser to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, told The Post.

"The endgame was to facilitate the processing of as many illegals into the country as possible," Marino said.

They've all been vetted, doncha know.

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (357) | Trackbacks (Suck)