Breaking: Putin Agrees to Peace Talks, But Says He Wants to Talk to Trump and Wants to "Remove the Initial Reasons for the Crisis"

That is, he wants Trump to agree that Ukraine will not be allowed in NATO and he will keep the land he's conquered.

He may also have additional demands, like that Ukraine won't be armed by America or Europe, which is probably a non-starter.

This is certainly not an agreement to a lasting peace. But peace can only happen if you can get the warring parties to stop shooting at each other and start talking. So this isn't an end to the war, but it is a necessary step if the war is to ever end.

Eric Daugherty
@EricLDaugh

BREAKING: Russia agrees with U.S./Ukraine ceasefire, but wants to speak to Trump first.

PUTIN: "We agree with the proposals for the ceasefire, but our position is based on the assumption that the ceasefire would lead to long-term peace, something that would remove the initial reasons for the crisis."

More meetings expected on this situation today.

Posted by: Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (426) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Trump Organization Sues Capital One Bank for Politically-Discriminatory Debanking

Trump is fighting the war on all fronts simultaneously.

Capital One Bank, emboldened by the Nazi media and authoritarian left, "debanked" all Trump supporters located in Washington DC on Insurrection Day (which will one day become a federal holiday celebrating freedom and #Resistance against a corrupt regime). They debanked the Trump Organization and other Trump concerns as well.

On Friday, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, DJT Holdings, and other entities under the Trump Organization run by Eric and Donald Trump, Jr. sued Capital One in Dade County, Fla., federal court for "unjustifiably" closing the Trump organization's bank accounts.

The 22-page complaint alleges that on March 8, 2021, Capital One "notified Plaintiffs that hundreds of bank accounts that they controlled, were beneficiaries of, and actively used to transact would be closed on June 7, 2021. Capital One did not provide Plaintiffs any recourse, remedy, or alternative--its decision was final."

Trump world contends that it "suffered considerable financial harm and losses caused not only by the interruption to their access to Capital One's banking services, but also by the devastating impact on Plaintiffs' ability to transact and access their monies."

The Trump Organization alleges that though its entities had been Capital One's customers for decades, the bank, because of its "woke beliefs ... needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views. In essence, Capital One 'de-banked' Plaintiffs' Accounts because Capital One believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so." The Trump entities also allege that Capitol One broke consumer laws in North Carolina, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

Eric Trump said the company's treatment of the Trump Organization "was a clear attack on free speech and free enterprise that flies in the face of the bedrock principles and freedoms that define our country. Moreover, the arbitrary closure of these accounts, without justifiable cause, reflects a broader effort to silence and undermine the success of the Trump Organization and those who dare to express their political views."

Capital One insists the allegations are untrue.

Capital One isn't the only one accused of discriminating against customers for their political viewpoints. Bank of America is, too. Even Sen. Liz Fauxchahontas Warren's staff counted 11,955 people who complained that BOA cut them off without warning or explanation.

Bring the reckoning.

Posted by: Ace at 12:26 PM | Comments (440) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Great! Let's make Greenland a protectorate or a colony or a territory or whatever legal definition suits us. It's too big to tip over, and it would be fun to poke the EU in the eye and take a chunk of one of their pseudo-countries. They can't do much about it, except make squawking noises and threaten us with stern letters and mean editorials. And it certainly sends a message to the world (read: China and Russia) that once again we are going to take seriously the defense of our borders and our air and sea lanes.

Except... what the hell do we get out of Greenland that we can't get out of good old America? Strategically important minerals? Oil? A shrimp and cod fishery? An economy that requires huge subsidies? A rabid environmentalist population?

A shift in our natural resources policy will allow us to mine our own rare earth and other strategic materials. We have plenty of oil. We also have plenty of shrimp and cod. And... sadly... we have the inner cities that require immensely expensive federal and state subsidies. And as for loony environmentalists? We have California and Oregon and Vermont and...

So what does Greenland really have to offer?

Thule Air Base. Or correctly: PITUFFIK SPACE BASE!

All the other stuff is silly and unimportant in the geopolitical game we are playing. We don't need to annex Greenland, which unfortunately comes with 56,000 Greenlanders, who really, really, really don't want to join America. Something like 85% expressed that opinion.

What we need to do is obtain an ironclad agreement, in perpetuity, for unimpeded access to Greenland for military use. Denmark can continue to subsidize the island, Greenlanders can puff out their chests and proclaim their sort-of independence, and we get a vital air base that we can use to protect the North Atlantic and the Arctic from the depredations of our geopolitical rivals. We can throw in some sort of "Most Favored Nation" status for mining and oil extraction, but Greenland is a nasty place to do that sort of stuff, so maybe just negotiate the option and worry about it when we really need it.

Greenland's Opposition Party Wins Election Amid Trump's Push for Control of Territory

“We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit,” he said in a March 5 Facebook post, referring to the Inuit people in Greenland who form the island’s majority population. “The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland.”

A poll of Greenlanders in January found that 56 percent of Greenlanders would vote for independence, with 28 percent opposing it and 17 percent being unsure. The same poll found that 85 percent of respondents opposed joining the United States.

President Trump is doing what he does best; keeping everyone rocked back on their heels, trying to figure out what he is going to do next. And that is a marvelous thing, up to a point. Are we really going to choose a military option and take Greenland by force, when 85% of them don't want to join us? Doesn't that give implicit permission to communist China to waltz over the Taiwan Straight and take the Republic of China? Hell, more of them want to join China than Greenlanders want to join America!

It is absolutely marvelous to see a muscular and unapologetic America emerge on the world stage. Europe has no idea what to do, China and Russia are trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and the Americantraitors left is having a collective stroke over the president's actions.

Am I worried about war with Greenland and Denmark? No. We aren't going to send the Marines to take an ice covered island that we can probably buy from Denmark for less than the cost of one amphibious assault ship's trip to Qequertarsauq or Ujarasussuk. President Trump will make a deal that is beneficial to both America and Greenland. Everybody will eventually calm down, and Bostonians and Portlanders won't have to live in fear of a massive counter-attack of angry Greenlanders in their fishing boats, throwing rotten cod at them as they have cocktails on the harbor.

Although I really do like that image!

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X]

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The Oceanides
Gustave Dore

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (408) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 3/ 13 /25

Good morning kids. I often start my column with the words "One of the most execrable examples of humanity" and that could describe virtually everyone in the Democrat Left, so at this point, perhaps I should probably just retire it and get right to it. A congress-momzer who appears to use semen as some form of emollient on his lips, named Seth Moulton is yet the latest illustration of Ace of Spades Law of political nature 1: "Our speech is violence but their violence is speech.

In the clip, Moulton responded to a question from CNN host Audie Cornish on the Trump administration potentially classifying violence against Teslas or Tesla dealerships by stating, “So, Trump thinks that if you try to kill cops to overthrow the government and change an election, that’s not domestic terrorism, but, somehow, having a protest in front of a Tesla dealership is?” And “The bottom line with Trump is, freedom and liberties belong to people who agree with him, and that’s it. That’s his view of America. That’s not a view that people who believe in our Constitution share.”
. . . “So, he’s basically justifying terrorism here, because he will not condemn the terrorists. … He doesn’t even do the pro forma, I condemn all acts of political violence, which you should do. But he doesn’t do that.”

Let's unpack this and get to the crux of the biscuit. First of all, Moulton is referring to j-6 where Malig-Nancy Pelosi and the FBI/DOJ's false flag op resulted in innocent protesters being murdered by her goons and no police were attacked at all. They in fact were the attackers at her and her party's behest.

But that aside, Even if that was true, how can he justify the terroristic firebombing of Tesla dealerships by not only ignoring the attacks but labeling them as "protest" and legitimate and constotutional. If one more scumbag like him hides behind the very document they have shredded for 200 years and claim the mantle of patriots, my head will explode.

Well, let's underscore the aforementioned on a humorous note!

A masked man vandalized a Tesla charging station  and attempted to burn it down using molotov cocktails in North Charleston, South Carolina, ultimately setting himself on fire in the process. The maniac spray-painted “Long live Ukraine” next to a vulgar message aimed at President Trump at the scene.

The Post and Courier reports that in a bizarre incident that unfolded in North Charleston, South Carolina, a masked Trump hater vandalized and attempted to set fire to Tesla charging stations, only to end up setting himself ablaze in the process. The incident, which took place near a Mellow Mushroom pizzeria at 4855 Tanger Outlet Blvd., has left the community stunned and authorities searching for answers. According to witnesses, the masked individual, wearing a gray jacket or hoodie, spray-painted the message “(expletive) TRUMP LONG LIVE UKRAINE” near the bank of Tesla charging stations before proceeding with his ill-fated attempt to destroy the electric vehicle chargers. The man reportedly used beer bottles as makeshift Molotov cocktails, setting them on fire and hurling them at three charging stations. However, during this act of arson, the man inadvertently set himself on fire, with witnesses reporting flames spreading across his back.

As onlookers began calling 911, the masked individual fled the scene, running past a nearby Zaxby’s restaurant and towards the hotels behind it. The North Charleston police department has not yet identified or arrested the suspect, but the incident has resulted in an estimated $60,000 in damages to the Tesla charging infrastructure.

Elsewhere, and not wholly unrelated vis a vis the Democrats falling all over themselves to defend and beatify and terrorism loving and Jew-baiting beast from Syria from being ejected from our country for fomenting violence against Jews, the estimable Melanie Phillips nails it.

Such indifference to the outrageous lawbreaking, harassment and intimidation that has consumed universities, which have echoed for months chants for Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews, throws into even sharper relief the shocking revelation that support for Israel in America has fallen to below 50% for the first time.

The latest Gallup polling revealed only 46% of Americans say their sympathies lie more with Israel than the Palestinians, while 33%.

Thirty-three percent sympathize more with the Palestinians, up by 6 percentage points from last year.

How could this have happened?

American support for Israel has long been as reliable as the sun rising in the morning.

Israel is not only regarded as America’s indispensable bulwark in the Middle East; Americans’ support for it has been more full-throated and emotional than among many Jewish communities around the world.
The huge drop in support overall has been caused by Democrat supporters, who have registered a stunning 59% support for the Palestinians versus only 21% for Israel.

In sharp contrast, Republicans support Israel over the Palestinians 75% to 10%. . .

. . . So why have the Democrats turned against the Jewish state?

. . . Jewish values are at the very heart of Western and American culture.

Concepts at the core of democracy — limited government and the rule of law founded in the consent of the people — were introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible.

They were explicitly drawn upon by America’s Founding Fathers when they laid down the principles of the US Constitution and defined the American nation.

That nation and its foundational values have been under sustained assault by liberal universalists led by the Democrat Party.

Scratch an opponent of Israel and you’ll find someone who believes the worst of the West and rubbishes its institutions.

Scratch a protester against the West and you’ll find an enemy of Israel.

The war against Israel is a war against the West; and the war against the West is a war against the Jews.

BINGO! And this is why it is perfectly acceptable in the eyes of Democrats to hurl firebombs at Tesla dealerships, beat up Jews on campuses, attempt to assassinate Donald Trump and on and on and on.

So, unless and until a very large segment of the disaffected Democrat base sees all this for what it is, and finally lets the scales fall from their eyes, this next item is meaningless.

As Mel Gibson discovered, the recent LA fires so thoroughly destroyed his home that the remains would fit inside an urn. For this disaster, Gibson cited willful neglect on the part of Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass, who decamped to Africa while the smoke was rising, and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was busy promoting his bullet train project in the central valley. . .
. . . Newsom claimed that those who voted no the recall “were really saying ‘yes’ to vaccines, science, inclusion and pluralism.” If Californians thought voter fraud carried the day it would be hard to blame them. The millions of illegals registered to vote by the DMV prompted little if any curiosity from the state’s press corps. For all but the willfully blind, the illegals constitute California’s imported electorate, and this is the Democrats’ plan for the entire country. When Kamala Harris ran for the US. Senate, Gov. Newsom named Alex Padilla to replace her. The senator nobody voted for now wants the Treasury Department to register voters at federally funded tax-preparation centers for those with “limited English,” code for illegals in the style of “migrant” and “undocumented.”  This is a version of motor-voter for the millions of illegals Biden brought in, with no criminal background checks or health records. Trump is deporting as many as possible, violent criminals first, but there’s more he can do. All federal aid to California should be conditioned on ballot reform, specifically targeting illegal voters. Anyone who supports voting by illegals forfeits any claim to follow the rule of law. Voter fraud should be a front-line issue leading into the mid-terms and 2028. In the meantime, we’ll have to see what happens with the recall for Gov. Newsom, now joined by Mel Gibson. “California was ill-prepared and had scant resources to deal with the inevitable fires.” Gibson explains. “So are we supposed to believe our elected officials didn’t know that? Of course they knew that. Governor Newsom and Karen Bass let us all down.”

My reaction to all of this is, Meh, so you get rid of Newsom and you replace him with who?!

This is just more swapping of deck chairs on the Titanic, when the passengers need to abandon ship and move over to a U.S.S. CONSTITUTION. Literal and figurative.

Have a great day.

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.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Never in the 236-year political history of the United States has there been a more expansive, criminal, and blatant scheme to manipulate the electoral process than the actions of ActBlue in league with the Democrat Party.
  Is ActBlue a Criminal Enterprise?

• Glenn Reynolds:Now, with Republicans in charge of Congress and Trump in the White House, ActBlue’s management and staff are bolting. Most importantly, we need to shrink the size of both the federal government and its budget.  USAID is no more, and Trump has promised to abolish the Department of Education.  That’s just the beginning. Many more cuts to the bureaucracy must follow.
  Trump is deworming Washington — now to keep the parasites out for good
  
• Melanie Phillips: ” Jewish values are at the very heart of Western and American culture. Concepts at the core of democracy — limited government and the rule of law founded in the consent of the people — were introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible. They were explicitly drawn upon by America’s Founding Fathers when they laid down the principles of the US Constitution and defined the American nation. That nation and its foundational values have been under sustained assault by liberal universalists led by the Democratic Party. Scratch an opponent of Israel and you’ll find someone who believes the worst of the West and rubbishes its institutions. Scratch a protester against the West and you’ll find an enemy of Israel. The war against Israel is a war against the West; and the war against the West is a war against the Jews.
  Democrats’ Israel betrayal: How the party flipped on its staunchest ally

• The order effectively keeps these officers from accessing their pensions.
  ‘Vindictive Tyrant’: Hochul Bars Corrections Officers She Fired From Ever Working For New York Again (C-U Next Tuesday - jjs)

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:25 AM | Comments (332) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 13 March 2025

Top Story

• Roomba manufacturer iRobot says it's not dead and doesn't want to go on the cart. (Ars Technica)
  
  Amazon tried to buy the company in 2022 but the deal was stymied by European regulators who claimed it would reduce consumer choice.
  
  Now consumer choice seems set to reduce all by itself with the company not being willing to commit to its own future existence.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (159) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - March 12, 2025 [TRex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.

This is the Wednesday night ONT.

[Top photo: Above the Colorado River at Lake Travis, Austin, Texas]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (350) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Good Boys With Toys Cafe

From the NY Mirror in the 1950s
People had more wisdom in the olden days.

Bobcat proves he's definitely a cat.

Dog meets the new puppy. He tries to give the puppy his tennis ball.

Reuniting a lost lamb with its mama.

More kisses, more!

Dog wants its master to acknowledge its toy.

Another all-in. The dog is doing his best.

Dog is a very shy snuggler.

Dolphin gives dog a little smoocher.

Out of control!

Posted by: Ace at 07:58 PM | Comments (239) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Hits

Eleven billion Canadian dollars to overseas gender and transgender propaganda.

In American dollars, that's like four hundred buck!

WNBA " " " Star " " " (I only am allotted so many quotation marks) hints that the ladies of the WNBA might just go on strike if they're not paid as much money as real basketball players are paid.

She makes a good case for letting trannies play.

Before reading this, keep in mind that the real NBA, the men's league, actually would allow any woman to play if they were good enough. They're not a men's only league by rule, but by practical fact.

Also keep in mind the NBA makes fifty (five-zero) times as much money as the WNBA, and the WNBA is, was, and always will be heavily subsidized by the NBA, who take less money to give more money to the women's league players.

It's already the Welfare National Basketball Association and of course they demand more welfare.

Reese and fellow WNBA player DiJonai Carrington addressed the next WNBA collective bargaining agreement during Reese's podcast Friday.

"I've got to get in the meetings because I'm hearing like, 'If y'all don't give us what we want, we sitting out,'" Reese said.

"The WNBA don't pay my bills at all. I don't even think it pays one of my bills. Literally."

The sports comedy X account "Hater Report" then posted a video of Reese missing the layups with the caption, "Angel Reese DESERVES more money. PAY HER PLEASE."

Other users got in on the parade of sarcastic comments.

"GIVE HER THE MAX," one user wrote.

Another user joked, "Please give this girl a raise before she decides to sit out the next season."

Reese went right out and showed why she should be paid as much as the real basketball players:

WNBA player Angel Reese may not have helped her negotiating leverage much with a viral lowlight Monday.

During an Unrivaled game, Reese missed three straight shots while standing right under the basket, and one of the shots hit the bottom edge of the backboard.

Reese was able to at least come away with two offensive rebounds on the possession but fell to the hardwood after missing her third shot.

Footage of the sequence quickly spread across social media, and many mocked the timing of it after Reese ignited controversy with recent claims WNBA players may refuse to play games to negotiate higher pay.

Greatest athlete in a three-block radius!

Fans rip Angel Reese over her performance after star threatened to strike over lack of WNBA pay rise

Fans were left unimpressed by Angel Reese's performance in an Unrivaled game on Monday night as a video of her missing layups went viral.

Reese, who is playing in the 3-on-3 league ahead of the WNBA season in May, recently threatened to boycott the W if if the league does not meet players' demands for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

And fans remembered those remarks as she struggled offensively against Vinyl BC, with a video on X showing her missing four shots down low, some of which were closely contested by defenders.

While her team won 74-46 on the night, Reese shot just 5-13 for 10 points, and fans mocked her over her previous boycott comments.

'She gotta be worth at least 25-30/year. Not million,....... cents,' one said.

What are we going to do if she sits out this coming WNBA season?,' another sarcastically asked.

'But she wants to be paid more,' a third said.

And a fourth asked, 'How does one get to the WNBA playing like this? Doesn't seem like it should be possible.

...

While the average salary for Unrivaled players is said to top $200,000 for the eight-week season, Reese is set to make just under $75,000 playing for the Sky in 2025, according to Spotrac.

McDonald's is currently offering some kind of "Angel Reese Combo Meals." This is more welfare for her and the WNBA. The sales appeal of having the name "Angel Reese" on a product is less than the current value of a Hunter Biden watercolor.

Posted by: Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (396) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Kash Patel Announces the Prosecution of a "Director Level" CBP Employee Who Defrauded the Federal Government of FEMA Funds and Lied to Federal Agents

The best and the brightest.

FBI Director Kash Patel
@FBIDirectorKash

TODAY: Following efforts with our interagency partners, I can report that a career Director level employee at US Customs and Border Protection has been charged with allegedly attempting to defraud FEMA, as well as lying to federal agents.

This is part of the new FBI’s renewed efforts to crack down on public corruption and deliver accountability for the American people.

Justice will be done.

Thanks to our partners @AGPamBondi @TheJusticeDept and our @FBIDetroit
team for their work.

Here's the scam: She claimed that flooding damaged her basement, and then claimed further that FEMA should pay to fix the damages. I don't know if those claims are real.

She then doubled down on fraud and claimed she could not live in her house while her basement was being fixed, so she asked for, and received, rental subsidies to pay her rent as she lived in a rented apartment.

But she didn't rent another place. She stayed home and pocketed the money which was supposedly paying for her necessary second residence.

DIRECTOR AT CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION CHARGED WITH SCHEME TO FRAUDULENTY OBTAIN DISASTER AID AND LYING TO FEDERAL AGENTS

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

For Immediate Release

U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Michigan

DETROIT -- A federal criminal complaint was unsealed today charging the Director of United States Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Center for Excellence and Expertise over Automotive and Aerospace Engineering with engaging in a scheme to defraud the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and lying to federal agents, Acting United States Attorney Julie A. Beck announced.

Beck was joined in the announcement by Cheyvoryea Gibson, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Daniel Altman, Executive Director of CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).

Serina Baker-Hill, 55, of Detroit, is a career employee of CBP. Following a series of floods in the Detroit area in August of 2023, Michigan's request for a federal disaster declaration was approved, which allowed residents to apply for FEMA assistance. Baker-Hill applied for FEMA assistance for flood damage and a FEMA inspector determined there was damage to the basement in Baker-Hill's home. During the inspection, Baker-Hill informed the inspector she was not able to live safely in the home while the repairs were being made. Consequently, FEMA approved benefits for Baker Hill to assist with home repairs and for two months of rental assistance. The approval letter from FEMA indicated that the rental assistance money was to be used solely to help Baker-Hill pay rent and essential utility costs while she was in temporary housing.

According to Baker-Hill's bank records, none of the FEMA money was used for rental, hotel, or utility expenses. Video surveillance at the home showed that Baker-Hill and her husband continued to live in the home after receiving the rental assistance funds from FEMA. Additionally, records for the home do not show a significant drop in utilities consistent with the property being unoccupied during this time.

Baker-Hill was later interviewed by FBI and CBP-OPR agents and informed them that she has never committed illegal activity of any kind and had never defrauded the U.S. government.

According to the Washington Times, this dedicated Civil Servant (thank you for your service) is also being investigated for drug trafficking.

Senior DHS official investigated for drug trafficking, charged with disaster fraud

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, March 12, 2025

A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security was being investigated for potential involvement in drug trafficking, according to new court files unsealed Tuesday.

The revelation came in a case in which authorities charged the official, Serina Baker Hill, with bilking the government out of thousands of dollars in disaster relief money for a home she claimed was made unlivable because of flooding.

Court documents show agents detected the disaster scam while listening to wiretap conversations between Ms. Hill and her husband, Maurice Hill, whom they suspected of drug trafficking. They were monitoring Ms. Hill's communications too because of her role as director of Customs and Border Protection's Center for Excellence and Expertise over Automotive and Aerospace Engineering.

"During the course of the investigations, it was discovered that both HILL and Maurice had engaged in a scheme to defraud FEMA after flooding occurred in Detroit, Michigan on August 24, 2023," wrote FBI Special Agent Andrew J. Matas.

When agents confronted Ms. Hill in a 2024 interview, she lied to them, Mr. Matas said.

...

Ms. Hill is charged with lying, wire fraud, disaster fraud and making false statements to the government. That latter charge stems from her denying that she had never defrauded the government.

In the court documents, Mr. Matas said the FBI has been probing Mr. Hill for drug trafficking and "other offenses." That's why they were monitoring his phone and electronic communications.

Democrats will be holding sparsely-attended rallies for the criminal within days. She has a perfect defense against the charges: Muh Racism.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 PM | Comments (287) | Trackbacks (Suck)

FBI Scientist Explains Why American Intelligence Now Favors the Lab Leak Theory (and In Fact Always Did)

The CIA also concluded with "low confidence" that the virus was cooked up in Fauci's Wuhan branch, but that finding was suppressed by Biden, and only revealed when John Ratcliffe became CIA Director.

But at every turn, Vanity Fair attempts to undermine the scoop this FBI scientist has delivered to them.

Here's how Vanity Fair spins this revelation to its readers: Somehow, this is all Trump's fault, doncha know:

As bird flu spreads, and Team Trump begins dismantling America's public health apparatus, a former FBI scientist and investigator speaks out about the evidence that led the bureau to suspect that COVID-19 was sparked by an incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

America's public health apparatus has lied to us for five years and hasn't done jack squat to contain any viral outbreak. In fact, it created the biggest one of all time.

It's time to shut it all down.

Despite their efforts to undermine him, the scientist's disclosures badly damage the Fake Consensus of a wet-market "spillover."

Vanity Fair can now report that FBI scientists closely scrutinized the research activities of a group of graduate students and researchers who worked under Shi Zhengli, the lead coronavirus scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). For at least three years prior to the pandemic, those scientists performed risky research on a group of viruses that included one of the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. The FBI found that Shi's researchers, in their publications, were not candid about the inventory of viruses in their possession and the true breadth of their work, which was conducted in labs with a low biosafety level. The intelligence community also determined that, in the autumn of 2019, three of Shi's researchers fell ill with COVID-like symptoms.

WIV scientists, Bannan says, had "thousands of samples in their lab" that they'd collected from bats in Yunnan Province in southern China. The WIV had been researching them "for years," he says. Among them were viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2. Intelligence agencies still don't have a complete picture of which virus samples were housed at the WIV. But the scientists' "lack of candor" about their inventory, as well as their years of work manipulating coronaviruses to determine the changes necessary to infect humans, added to the circumstantial evidence indicating that the outbreak might have started among the WIV's researchers. Shi Zhengli and a WIV administrator did not respond to requests for comment.

More spin from VF: They want you to continue trusting Saint Anthony Fauci.

Don't believe these FBI Science-Liars!

A moderate-confidence assessment does not equal certainty. Nor does it mean that the FBI is correct. Typically, it means that an intelligence agency has information that is "plausible," with sources that are "proving to be high quality," but it may need more sources to reach a high-confidence assessment, says Shawn Turner, former public affairs director for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under President Obama.

"We were not asked to prove anything," says Bannan. "We were asked to make an assessment," which involves the weighing of evidence. Though he considers a natural origin possible, he says, "To me, there is enough scientific evidence to say it is likely this was a lab incident."

Bannan, a registered Democrat, has a PhD in microbiology, and spent almost 20 years as an FBI scientist. In 2009, he was among the recipients of the FBI Director's Award for outstanding scientific advancement for his work on the anthrax investigation. He says he decided to come forward for several reasons. One was to counter what he described as inaccurate claims espoused by some proponents of the natural-origin theory, their discrediting of government scientists, and the branding of the lab hypothesis as a right-wing conspiracy theory. He also wanted to counter what he described as the bias toward a natural spillover in the government's reviews to date, and the sidelining of scientific evidence supporting a laboratory origin.

...

Shi tracked the origin of the outbreak to horseshoe bats. Her research--some of it funded by the National Institutes of Health through an American nonprofit named EcoHealth Alliance--found some bat viruses that could infect human cells through a protein called the ACE2 receptor.

In March 2020, when Bannan was assigned to assist the FBI team investigating COVID-19's origins, the group confronted an obvious question. How had a bat virus seemingly primed to infect humans arrived in Wuhan in the first place? The bats in question are not believed to be native to Wuhan, and many of the horseshoe bats that Shi studied lived roughly 1,000 miles to the southwest, in Yunnan Province.

...

With COVID-19, however, no infected animal has ever been identified, despite an extensive search. As Bannan puts it, "How and where the SARS-CoV-2 virus became well adapted to humans is the question that compels scientists to examine the laboratory origin."

...

The WIV team hunted far and wide for bat-coronavirus samples, but one source in particular--an abandoned mine shaft in the mountains of Mojiang County in Yunnan Province--stood out to Bannan and the FBI scientists.

In 2012, six miners became gravely ill after shoveling bat guano from the floor of the mine shaft. Their symptoms included cough, fever, and labored breathing. They were treated at the First Affiliated Hospital at the Kunming Medical University in Yunnan's capital, where a medical student chronicled details of the incident in a thesis.

The pulmonologist who consulted on their case was one of China's top SARS experts. Suspecting a viral SARS infection, Dr. Zhong Nanshan learned that the guano came from rufous horseshoe bats, the same species implicated in the 2002 SARS outbreak. Within months, three of the six miners were dead. The WIV tested their blood samples and found four of them positive for SARS antibodies, according to a separate thesis by a graduate student at China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The mine shaft became a hot spot for studying viral emergence, and the WIV collected numerous samples from there, including one it named Ra4991.

Six years later, with SARS-CoV-2 overtaking the world and an army of scientists searching for a progenitor virus, Shi Zhengli and several colleagues published a paper noting that the WIV possessed a viral sample they had named RaTG13, which proved to be 96.2% similar to SARS-CoV-2. That meant RaTG13 was the closest known match at the time to the virus that caused COVID-19.

What Shi failed to mention in her paper was that RaTG13 had been renamed. Its original name was Ra4991--the virus from the abandoned mine shaft where three miners likely contracted a fatal illness.

As internet sleuths connected the dots between RaTG13 and Ra4991, Shi updated her published work, and tried to explain the omission.

Posted by: Ace at 04:25 PM | Comments (330) | Trackbacks (Suck)

NYT Fires Half of Its Editorial Staff

Learn to code.

Learn to do something. Anything, really.

The New York Times is reshuffling its operations at the opinion section -- reducing the frequency of its editorials while shrinking its roster of editorial board writers, according to a report.

The Gray Lady has reportedly offered several of its editorial board members new jobs within the opinion section or buyout packages if they choose to leave the company.

Mara Gay (who is frequently seen on left-leaning news channel MSNBC), Brent Staples, Jesse Wegman and Farah Stockman are editorial board members who were given the option of accepting a buyout, the news site Semafor reported on Monday.

Mara Gay is the innumerate idiot who did some quick arithmetic and asserted that if Michael Bloomberg took the $500 million he spent on his 2020 bid for president and paid it out to American citizens, he could give them each over one million dollars. Because you know there are fewer than 500 citizens in America.

An MSNBC news anchor and pundit are being ridiculed after suggesting that Michael Bloomberg could have given every American a million dollars with the amount of money spent on his campaign.

While discussing Bloomberg's huge investment in advertising campaigns throughout his 2020 Democratic-run, anchor Brian Williams discussed a tweet making the claim with a glaringly obvious mathematical calculation.

He suggested that because Bloomberg had spent $500 million on his campaign and there were 327 million people in America, he could have given each member of the population a million pounds with money to spare.

Williams showed a screen-grab of the tweet during the broadcast that read: "Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The US population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over. I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for most people. Yet he wasted it all on ads and STILL LOST."

Speaking in disbelief, Williams said: "When I read it tonight on social media it kind of all became clear."

Even more embarrasingly, in the middle of reading out, the tweet remarked: "Don't tell us if you're ahead of us on the math."

NYT Editorial Board Member Mara Gay then agreed: "It's an incredible way of putting it. It's true. It's disturbing. It does suggest what we're talking about here which is there's too much money in politics."

A Twitter with the username Andrew Kaczynski posted a clip of the mistake on Twitter with the caption "how did this end up on tv?"

Brent Staples is the useless black editorial writer that no one reads, not the neocon writer Brett Stephens, who people only read when he admits he's been wrong about everything in his adult life as an "intellectual."

The New York Times branded these do-nothing DEIs as low quality.

"Publishing fewer, higher-quality editorials, the thesis goes, will lead to more audience attention," according to the Semafor report.

The Times is also mulling possible changes to its endorsement policy, including backing candidates in races across the country, according to Semafor.

Oh great, because voters in Montana don't hear enough about liberal New York Times' "journalists'" opinions on every fkcuing thing.

A Times spokesperson confirmed the accuracy of Semafor's reporting and declined further comment.

Opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editor Patrick Healy, and publisher AG Sulzberger are considering restructuring the opinion department by having more editors participate in the editorial board while reducing the number of staff dedicated exclusively to writing editorials, according to Semafor.

Earlier this year, longtime op-ed columnist Paul Krugman went public with his criticisms of Kingsbury and Healy -- accusing the two executives of effectively censoring his opinion pieces before he left the newspaper late last year.

Krugman told Columbia Journalism Review that the two editorial bosses were "exerting a heavy hand on what went out under my name" and that as a result, he "approached Mondays and Thursdays (when his columns appeared) with dread."

On the days his column appeared in the Times' pages, he "often spent the afternoon in rage" after publication, according to CJR.

Oh have an infarction, asshole.

...

The final straw for Krugman was when he was told by Kingsbury that his output would be reduced from two columns per week to just one.

And he had previously been reduced from three columns per week to two.

It's almost as if everyone knows Paul Krugman is a crackpot asshole who spews nothing but thoughtless reflexive leftwing talking points.

Mark Hemingway
@Heminator

Since Trump got elected, Ruth Marcus, Jim Acosta, Norah O'Donnell, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Chris Wallace, Joy Reid, Neil Cavuto, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Lester Holt all resigned or were fired.

They shut down 538 and now they're getting rid of the entire NYT editorial board. Amazing.

Posted by: Ace at 03:23 PM | Comments (331) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trump To Lay Off 1,300 Department of Education Layabouts and Slapdicks, Cutting Staff by Nearly Half

Reagan was a pussy.

Just kidding. But also kinda serious.

The Trump administration has begun cutting over 1,300 employees from the Department of Education, reducing its workforce by nearly half. The move is part of a broader effort to downsize the federal government and refocus the agency's mission.

Key Details:

The department will reduce its workforce from 4,130 to approximately 2,200 employees.
The agency says the cuts target redundant and unnecessary operations while maintaining core student aid and civil rights functions.
Secretary Linda McMahon framed the reduction as a step toward restoring efficiency and accountability in education.
The department is consolidating its Washington, D.C., offices, closing some leased spaces nationwide.
The move has sparked protests from unions and Democrats, who argue it will harm students.

Diving Deeper:

The Department of Education has begun one of the most significant workforce reductions in its history, as the Trump administration finalizes cuts to over 1,300 employees--nearly half of the agency's total workforce. The decision, which takes effect over the coming weeks, is part of a broader push to streamline the federal government and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies.

David Strom wonders about a CNN report which claims that allegedly "libertarian" organization CATO is actually worried that Trump is cutting too deep.

Such sweeping reduction "is a reason to be concerned," one expert previously told CNN.

"If [Trump] says, 'We're going to have a 50% reduction in staff,' there is reason to be concerned about how the system will work: Is that enough people?" said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute. "We're going to learn whether or not they can do the job with fewer of them."

Note that CNN admits that he said this previously, speaking as a hypothetical.

Still, it's odd -- or completely expected, actually -- that an organization that claims to be libertarian or conservative and hammers donor checks based on that representation would turn out to be yet another controlled opposition front.

Posted by: Ace at 02:15 PM | Comments (517) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Politico: Internal Democrat Polling Shows "Massive Branding Problem"

Ah, of course. Politico reports this in terms of the Democrats' preferred framing, that their problems only have to do with "messaging" and "branding," and not at all with their core pseudo-religious cult doctrines.

You just have to stop saying "LatinX" and then bob's your uncle!

The Democratic Party's brand is in rough shape in the congressional battlegrounds.

Nearly two months into the second Donald Trump administration, a majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are "more focused on helping other people than people like me," according to an internal poll conducted by the Democratic group Navigator Research. Among independents, just 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared with 55 percent who said they're focused on others.

The polling, shared first with POLITICO, is one of the first comprehensive surveys of voters in swing congressional districts since November 2024. House Democratic members and staff are scheduled to hear from one of the researchers, who will present their findings, at their caucus' Issues Conference on Wednesday in Leesburg, Virginia. The meeting is aimed at guiding members' messaging as they prepare for the 2026 midterms, and the survey suggests the party has an enormous amount of work to do to repair its image.

"The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people's challenges," said Molly Murphy, one of the pollsters who worked on the research by Navigator, a project within the Hub Project, a Democratic nonprofit group. "Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he's doing, that criticism of Trump doesn't translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned."

Especially alarming for Democrats were findings around voters' views of Democrats and work. Just 44 percent of those polled said they think Democrats respect work, while even fewer -- 39 percent -- said the party values work. Only 42 percent said Democrats share their values. A majority, meanwhile -- 56 percent -- said Democrats are not looking out for working people.

Only 39 percent believe Democrats have the right priorities.

"We've always had the stigma of being the 'welfare party,' but I do think this is related to a post-Covid feeling that we don't care about people working, and we've had a very long hangover from that, which feels really, really consequential," Murphy said. "How can you care about working people if you don't care about work? It's going to be really hard in the midterms if voters don't think we care about work."

Republicans, too, face their own branding problems, according to the survey, with 54 percent of voters saying they view Republicans in Congress unfavorably. Only about a third of voters said they approve of the GOP's handling of the economy.

David Strom points out that this means 46% of the public approves of congressional Republicans -- which Strom remarks is nearly miraculous. When are congressional approval rates ever above 50%? Or even close to 50%?

But Democrats' difficulties appear to go deeper. For example, the poll found a whopping 69 percent of voters said Democrats were "too focused on being politically correct." Another 51 percent said "elitist" described the Democratic Party well.

Sounds like they don't have a problem with their brand so much as a problem with their core ideology of elevating niche preoccupations over more important concerns that affect everybody.

When a party is disfavored by the public, you always see retirements. It's not just that the losing party fears they may be turned out of office unless they resign. It's also that it's no fun to work in the minority, with little chance of actually doing anything.

Plus the opportunities for grift are so much poorer when you don't have power. No one's giving insider information to a corrupt Democrat who can't even pass a bill to boost their stock price.

Two Democrat Senators have already announced they won't seek reelection. Now a third joins them.

Conventional wisdom around midterms usually has the party in the White House losing steam as voters correct for overreach. So why have three Senate Democrats already announced their intent to retire ahead of the 2026 elections?
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Jeanne Shaheen made the surprising announcement this morning that she would forego a fourth term, following Tina Smith in Minnesota and Gary Peters in Michigan. Shaheen probably would have had a decent incumbent advantage in New Hampshire -- and Chris Sununu had already passed on challenging her.

Obviously it's way too early for tea leaves. BUT, now that you've mentioned it, if we are looking at tea leaves, it sure seems that Democrats don't believe they'll be taking the majority in the Senate any time soon.

Posted by: Ace at 01:15 PM | Comments (402) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Inflation Is Cut By More Than Half In Trump's First Month In Office

He said inflation would start coming down "on day one."

Promise kept!

The last reading on inflation under the Usurper Zombie was 5.7%, annualized. Trump's first reading is 2.4%, annualized.

In his first full month back in office, Trump oversaw a sharp slowdown in inflation, which fell more than expected in February. The monthly rate dropped by more than half from January under Biden as gas prices declined, energy costs eased, and core inflation hit a four-year low--early signs that Trump's policies are already making an impact.

Key Details:

February's monthly CPI increase of 0.2% was lower than expected, well below January's 0.5% under former President Joe Biden.

Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, came in at 3.1% annually--its lowest level in four years.

Energy prices dipped 0.2% in February, with gasoline prices falling 3.1%, offering relief to American consumers.

Diving Deeper:

Inflation took a noticeable step down in February, delivering an early economic win for the Trump administration just a month into his return to the White House. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that consumer prices rose 0.2% over the month and 2.8% year-over-year, both coming in below economists' expectations.

Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, also slowed to a 3.1% annual increase--its lowest level in four years--signaling that price pressures are easing.

E.J. Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation, pointed to this dramatic reversal, noting on X that inflation had "reaccelerated since January of last year" before plummeting under Trump. His analysis shows that price growth, which had been stubbornly high throughout Biden's presidency, immediately slowed once Biden left office.

Posted by: Ace at 12:07 PM | Comments (397) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wednesday Morning Rant

Obviated Democracy

There was a European election a few months ago and it was perhaps an example of Our Sacred Democracy in action. At the end of November while the dust was still settling around Trump's re-election and the mad scramble was fully underway, Romania had an election of its own. A man called Calin Georgescu got enough votes in that election to proceed to the runoff. His platform is unacceptable, as he is a nationalist, a Ukraine skeptic, a COVID skeptic and, if reporting is to be believed, also a Nazi, a moon-landing denier and a stooge of Putin.

He was, of course, a "far-right candidate." Whether that's true or not, I have no idea. But in the wake of his electoral surge, there was an inevitable recount. He won that, too. Then it went to court. The opponents to the election outcome argued not that the election was fake, but that it was manipulated by Russian social media operations, unleashing dormant TikTok accounts and buying off influencers to back Georgescu without disclosure, in violation of the law.

Posted by: Joe Mannix at 11:00 AM | Comments (243) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope
Henri Rousseau

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (341) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 3/ 12 /25

Good morning kids. On a number of fronts, the Trump MAGA agenda is moving forward, despite all efforts by the anti-American Dems and their cohorts to derail it. First up, the CR that Trump has backed passed in the House and now it's on to the Senate. As I asked yesterday, does continuing to fund a federal leviathan at least like this with these CR's and not a real budget antithetical to MAGA and DOGE? It seems though on a positive note there is an actual spending freeze in the thing so some on our side are calling this a win. Elsewhere there are very strong numbers in the labor market and evidence that prices such as with eggs (the most visible and talked about item we've been pelted with by the propaganda machine as a supposed sign of Trump failing to deliver) have fallen significantly and rapidly.

Elsewhere, Shecky Zelensky, the clown corruptocrat president of Ukraine is now willing to agree to a ceasefire with Putin and Canada has also cried uncle vis a vis the trade spat as Ontario has suspended the electricity levy against us.

Meanwhile, Linda McMahon in her position as head of the Dept. of Education is already taking a bulldozer to the whole rotten edifice with immediate mass layoffs. And that seems to be the start of dismantling it lock stock and barrel.

And on a few stomach-turning fronts, the Democrats continue to do what Meathead Reiner has failed to do since Trump won his massive landslide victory last November, and that is set themselves on fire. But is it even possible for that which emanates from the Infernal reaches to set itself on fire in the first place. Only time will tell in the long run, but putting the hyperbole aside for a moment, we have the Democrats falling all over themselves defending a terrorist cheerleader and quite likely directly linked to terrorists themselves, in protesting his deportation.

Watching Democrats try on different arguments to thwart Donald Trump, I’m reminded of a story involving the late Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight.

After John Feinstein wrote an unflattering portrait of Knight, he responded by attacking the author mercilessly. In one barrage, Knight called him both “a whore and a pimp,” leading Feinstein to quip: “I wish he’d make up his mind so I’d know how to dress.”

So it is with Democrats as they search desperately for a way to rally the public against Trump.
Their only guiding light — to be against whatever he is for — is creating confusing contradictions and leading them ever deeper into political parody. Consider that the same members of Congress who refused to stand as Trump honored a child with cancer and families who lost loved ones to murderous illegal immigrants are now defending an Arab immigrant who is a leader of a group that sympathizes with terror organizations Hamas and Hezbollah and calls for the “end of Western civilization.” Defending him is a strange hill to die on, but the Dems have become a very strange party.

The suggestion that he’s a political prisoner led an astonished GOP senator, Tom Cotton, to respond by asking if it’s true “that Dems are fighting for a pro-Hamas foreigner who has made life hell for Jews on campus?”

Sadly, it is true, with House Dem Jamie Raskin confirming it with an outrageous attack on the White House.

The arrest of Khalil “is ripped straight from the authoritarian playbook,” Raskin said in a statement, and charged it proves Trump “is hellbent on wielding fear and intimidation as weapons to crush political dissent.”

Ho hum, another day in the crazy lane. The case is instructive for another reason, too.

Columbia anti-Israel agitator Mahmoud Khalil being deported over ‘pro-Hamas propaganda flyers,’ White House says Beyond the Dems’ madness, they and their lickspittle media are hell-bent on distorting the facts by echoing Khalil’s claim that he was just exercising his free speech rights. This is especially rich coming from the party that created cancel culture and defended the Biden junta's censorship regime on social media. . .

. . . Trump’s promise —
As Trump himself put it, his team “will not tolerate pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American” activity on college campuses. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”

Emphasis mine, as it raises some very interesting questions, particularly who gets to decide what defines each of those things. As Justice Potter Stewart stated vis a vis obscenity, I'll know it when I see it. If you'v read my opinions here and elsewhere, you know where I stand on Democrats and Leftists. So I'm most curious as for President Trump to amplify his thoughts on what constitutes being "anti-American" and how to deal with that?! Believe me, everything wrong with this country has its root cause in our educational system dating back to John Dewey, the infestation of the refugees from "the Frankfurt school" like Marcuse and Adorno all the way up to Bill Ayers and his acolytes that resulted in garbage like the 1619 Project and Ibram X. Krement's hideous racialist Jive Kampf screeds being pumped into several generations of American kids' heads creating as Rush Limbaugh said "skulls full of mush."

The other aspect to the virulent opposition to giving this fiend the boot is that it "intersects" (SWIDT?) with the immigration issue, specifically finally getting serious about sealing the damn border and deporting en masse as many illegal aliens as we can round up. Something that hasn't been done in well over 60 or more years.

As we have pondered since the election, was that event the signal of a sea-change in the mindset of the American people and electorate? Or is the demise of the Democrat party, even those declaring it from within the movement itself premature, or what is really going on here?

Democrats are in deep, deep trouble, according to their own internal polling.

Politico’s Elena Schneider, revealing the Democrat numbers, wrote on Tuesday that the Democrat brand is in the gutter.

“The Democratic Party’s brand is in rough shape in the congressional battlegrounds,” Schneider wrote. “Nearly two months into the second Donald Trump administration, a majority of voters in battleground House districts still believe Democrats in Congress are ‘more focused on helping other people than people like me,’ according to an internal poll conducted by the Democrat group Navigator Research. Among independents, just 27 percent believe Democrats are focused on helping them, compared with 55 percent who said they’re focused on others.” Democrat pollster Molly Murphy is quoted in the Politico piece as saying while voters were somewhat critical of Trump in some spots, the Democrats have serious damage to fix with their own brand before voters trust them in government again. Murphy and others from Navigator, which is part of Democrat nonprofit the Hub Project, are expected to present these polling numbers to House Democrats in Leesburg, Virginia, at their Issues Conference later this week.

“The Democratic brand is still not where it needs to be in terms of core trust and understanding people’s challenges,” Murphy said. “Even though voters are critical about Trump and some of the things he’s doing, that criticism of Trump doesn’t translate into trust in Democrats. The trust has to be earned.”

What these people are not asking themselves is what is the Democrat "Brand" in the first place? It can't be supporting things that the majority of American people reject as insanity/depravity and/or declaring Trump to be literally Hitler, and that the Left are the defenders of "our precious democracy."

Of course, this kind of rhetoric is most unhelpful to their cause, yet still they persist:

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) suggested Tuesday that Americans elected President Donald Trump because the country is in its "angry teenage years" and voters' brains have not fully formed.
"I don’t think there’s anyone who feels like what’s going on right now is normal, even if you voted for Trump," Slotkin said on The View. "We’re about to turn 250 years old, right? We’re still pretty young for a country."

Yeah, keep it up genius. Filthy courveh.

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.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• As birthrates drop in developed nations, mass immigration reshapes demographics, raising concerns about cultural integration, intelligence decline, and the long-term stability of advanced economies.
  Immigration and Fertility by Nation
  
• "An affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice."
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• Christian Toto: Sober, relentless look at antisemitism's rise on college campuses and beyond
  ‘October 8’ – 2025’s Most Important Documentary

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:42 AM | Comments (340) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 12 March 2025

Top Story

• Apple's Mac Studio has been updated with the 32-core M3 Ultra CPU, which is great if you want to run Handbrake transcoding all day but kind of sucks for anything else. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, I don't have Passmark scores for this particular chip, but the 24-core M2 Ultra was slower than a 12-core previous-generation AMD desktop chip, and the latest 16-core M4 Max is slower than a 12-core previous generation AMD laptop chip.
  
  So it's perfect if you're spending someone else's money, have a square foot of desk space, run Handbrake transcoding all day, and electricity costs ten dollars per kWh.
  
  It also looks pretty. I'll grant Apple that.
  
  But you still can't upgrade memory or storage after purchase. You can configure as much at 512GB of RAM and 16TB of storage, but that will cost you over $14,000.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (167) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - March 11, 2025 [scampydog]

View from the Bandon Lighthouse - looking out over the Coquille River and Pacific Ocean.

Good evening and Happy Tuesday ONT. Spring is inbound! Change of seasons and change of the times. America is finding its legs again. Thank you for spending some of your Tuesday evening here. Let's get to the ONT.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:59 PM | Comments (397) | Trackbacks (Suck)