Quick Hits: Small Change Edition

Democrats will pass law to delay the the elections to replace Stefanik.

The party that claims to want to "defend democracy" has decided to abandon the struggle in New York.

New York state Democrats are going to pass a bill that allows Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul to delay scheduling special elections until November. Current law requires Hochul to schedule a special election 90 days after a vacancy is declared.

The nomination of former Rep. Elise Stefanik to be UN ambassador will create a vacancy in her deep red district once the Senate confirms her nomination. Once the bill passes (Democrats have large majorities in both Houses), Hochul could deny citizens of New York's 21st Congressional District any representation for an extra six months.

The move has profound national implications. Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson will have one fewer vote to pass Trump's agenda. Currently, Johnson has a 218-215 majority with two vacancies, as well as Stefanik's seat once she's confirmed. In addition to Stefanik's seat, Florida's Mike Walz resigned to become Trump's national security advisor, and Rep. Matt Gaetz resigned when Trump nominated him for attorney general.

All three seats are expected to be filled by Republicans. But in the meantime, Speaker Johnson has a nightmare majority where he can't lose more than one GOP vote.

Schumer announced a website -- where did the funding for it come from? -- for Deep State ringers to "report" on DOGE workers.

Schumer's announcement touts the new portal as a means to encourage "brave public servants" to report wrongdoing, but the move raises skepticism about its true purpose. While whistleblower protections are important, the timing and framing of this initiative suggest it could be used selectively rather than as a genuine tool for government transparency.

The online form allows individuals to file complaints on issues like fraud and wasteful spending, but concerns remain over how these complaints will be handled and whether they will only target agencies or individuals unfavorable to Democratic leadership. Given the history of politicized investigations in Washington, critics argue this could be another tool to shield allies while selectively targeting opponents.

Nike ran a Super Bowl ads promoting women's sports -- despite having used all their corporate power to displace female athletes with male ones.

Nike's Super Bowl advertisement managed to combine a grating woke lecture with the gender ideology hypocrisy that has come to define the brand over the last several years.

...

However, instead of celebrating women's sports, Nike chose to present its ad with obnoxious woke talking points. The commercial's narrator (rapper Doechii) asserted that men are telling female athletes that they can't be confident, emotional, ambitious, set records, keep score, or have any fun. The ad then says female athletes should do those things, ending with the tagline, "You can't win. So win."

It's a bizarre ad that would still be out of place in 2020, when woke corporate posturing was the norm. Who is out there telling female athletes they can't keep score in their games, set records, or have fun playing sports? Watching Nike's ad, you would think there is some large-scale sexist backlash against women's sports for existing.

Weirder, though, is that Nike is doing far more damage to women's sports than this phantom group of sexists. Nike is one of the biggest promoters of the transgender movement, to the point that it partnered with Dylan Mulvaney, a man who claims to be a woman, to promote sports bras and other women's sports attire. In 2023, Nike announced its "No Pride, No Sport" campaign that asserts that sports without transgender people are "incomplete." The campaign urged people to "prioritize safe spaces for trans and non-binary youth" and promoted "trans-led grassroots" movements.

Nike is trying to present itself as the brand of women's empowerment despite its own shortcomings when it comes to female athletes. That includes boosting a movement that asserts that men should be able to break women's records in women's sports and force female athletes out of women's locker rooms so men can be more comfortable in them. If anyone is telling female athletes what they can't do, it's Nike. They tell women that they can't have their own sports without including men who claim to be women, which makes the sanctimonious preaching that much more bizarre.

The Boy Scouts have officially dropped "Boy" from their name.

The Boy Scouts of America's recent name change to "Scouting America" has ignited debate over the organization's legacy and the role of traditional masculinity in raising strong men. Mark Hancock argues that instead of erasing history, America should reaffirm the foundational principles that once guided young men toward honor and purpose.

Key Details:

Mark Hancock warns that American boys are struggling due to a culture that has "devalued traditional masculinity" and failed to provide them with a clear sense of purpose.

The principles set forth by scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell offer a "roadmap" for raising strong, capable men.

Programs like Trail Life USA seek to preserve and expand on these values, offering boys the mentorship and challenges needed to build character.

Surprise! The Communist Samantha Power used USAID to fund terror groups in the Middle East.

As the Trump administration works to shutter the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), current and former U.S. officials who worked closely with the embattled aid group say they watched for years as it funneled millions of dollars to anti-Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism.

That funding caused internal friction across multiple administrations, according to those who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon. In some cases, USAID fought to conceal how taxpayer funds were spent. And when it came to Israel, officials recalled battling USAID over funding for groups that worked to undermine the Jewish state or maintained ties to terror organizations.

"For those who believe in a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, elements of USAID have been problematic for years," said one former State Department official who worked with USAID during the Biden administration. "There was even a lack of embarrassment among some USAID staffers about being associated with terrorist organizations."

Some of the terror-tied funding initiatives are publicly known. In November 2022, for instance, USAID awarded $100,000 to a Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group. Just six days before Hamas's Oct. 7 assault on Israel, USAID handed $900,000 "to a terror charity in Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh."

USAID's hostilities toward the Jewish state, however, ran deeper than the agency's grantmaking.

Under Samantha Power, former president Joe Biden's pick to run USAID, agency officials fought pro-Israel policymaking at the State Department, often urging their colleagues at Foggy Bottom to pare down statements that praised the Jewish state, former officials said. In 2021, during a period of conflict with Hamas, Power herself refused to meet with Israel's ambassador unless Israel reached a ceasefire with the Iran-backed terror group. The decision put Power at odds with the White House National Security Council, which had signed off on the meeting, emails obtained by the Free Beacon show.

Years later, in September, Power's USAID accused Israel of deliberately blocking Gazan aid deliveries, which Hamas is known to steal for its own use and for black market sales that fund its terror activities. USAID staffers went as far as to urge the Biden State Department to end military aid to Israel. Former secretary of state Antony Blinken rejected the request.

The overwhelming majority of those staffers were set to go on leave by midnight Saturday. A federal judge blocked the action until Feb. 14, though the decision is temporary and the case is expected to go to the Supreme Court. Democratic lawmakers have vehemently opposed the cuts, arguing that they endanger millions of vulnerable people across the globe.

"People can quibble about this or that," the current U.S. official said of the Democratic attention surrounding USAID. "But let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good. This is long overdue."

While Biden was telling us that FEMA just didn't have the money to help American victims of Hurricane Helene, he was spending tens of millions of dollars to put up illegal aliens in "luxury hotels."

Note that FEMA attempted, illegally, to make a payment to house illegals in hotels even after Trump ordered them to pause their spending.

Elon Musk
@elonmusk

The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.

Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President's executive order.

That money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!

A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds.

Posted by: Ace at 05:50 PM | Comments (362) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Reform Takes Lead in UK Polls

MUKGA.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK overtook Britain's Labour government in a national opinion poll for the first time Monday evening, putting them in first place ahead of the main opposition Conservatives.

YouGov's poll, which surveyed 2,223 adults at the start of February, puts Reform UK on 25 percent support.

That's up two points from YouGov's previous poll. Labour are meanwhile down three points on 24 percent, with the Tories dropping a point to 21 percent support.

The polling is a long way out from a general election -- which does not need to take place until August 2029 -- and Reform's lead is within the margin of error. POLITICO's Poll of Polls has Labour and Reform level pegging at 25 percent each, with the Conservatives sitting on 22 percent.

What accounts for this shift?

It's impossible to say.

In completely, utterly unrelated news from the UK: a Muslim "asylum" seeking pedophile was repeatedly allowed to stay in the UK despite attempting to sext underage girls.

A Pakistani immigrant has been allowed to stay in Britain despite preying on "barely pubescent girls" when his wife would not have sex with him.

The paedophile, who has been granted anonymity for his own protection, was caught in August 2022 for messaging decoy children he believed were young girls online.

He was sentenced to 18 months in prison after admitting three counts of attempting to cause a child under 16 to engage in a sexual act.

He appealed his deportation order citing some kind of "human rights" claim. The jagoff cowards of the UK government of course granted his appeal and let him stay.

...

MH told the tribunal hearing that he began grooming the young girls online in March 2021, when his wife was in hospital with Covid.

He continued for the next year until digital paedophile hunters caught him and he was arrested.

The offender's wife, who regularly visited him in prison, said she felt "partly responsible" for his crimes because they were not having sex.

The anonymous judge overseeing the hearing said he accepted her "guilt" for failing to provide "intimate relations", which he felt would "detrimentally impact her ability to care for her children".

He also accepted that MH has a "genuine and subsisting relationship" with his two small children, aged three and four, with whom he was allowed up to 12 hours of supervised contact each day.

The judge ruled that deporting him from the country would be "unduly harsh", due to his family taking a "dim view" of his crimes, claiming the criminal would face "significant difficulties" in his home country.

Oh! I see. Pakistan would look dimly on his pedophilia, so he must be allowed to continue to chat up young girls in the UK.

Speaking to The Sun, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick called this case "disgraceful".

We've often noted that many "asylum" seekers are just criminals whose "persecution" is by police attempting to arrest them for murder, rape, and crimes against children.

This is also completely unrelated to Reform's rise: "asylum" seekers are "loitering" outside of UK elementary schools, checking out the children.

Police say this is merely a difference in "cultural expectations."

Residents of Deanshanger in Northamptonshire have raised concerns about behaviour of migrants living in a hotel near primary school

There have been complaints of men 'hanging around' Deanshanger Primary School

Police have told migrants to adhere to "cultural expectations" following reports they were loitering outside a primary school.

Northamptonshire Police said it would "deliver some work" around "appropriate behaviours" following complaints of men "hanging around" near the school.

The force pledged to work with a hotel housing asylum seekers and step up patrols after the reports of "suspicious activity" in the village of Deanshanger.

Migrants have been staying in a hotel outside the village for around three years and are among thousands living in temporary accommodation across the country.

However, in recent months there has been increasing concern over young men loitering near Deanshanger Primary School, including claims of filming.

Following concerns, Sgt Lorna Clarke from the neighbourhood policing team issued an update to residents in which she confirmed the force had received "several calls" from people "concerned about males hanging around the primary school at drop-off and pick-up".

She said that there had been several posts on social media and WhatsApp and that she had personally spoken to those concerned and the school.

Sgt Clarke said that after speaking to people directly and having her officers "attend the hotel", they had not identified a risk to anyone and "there is no evidence to support that any offences had taken place".

She added: "While I fully appreciate the community's concerns, I ask that people don't take this matter into their own hands, but continue to speak to the police about any incidents they witness or any concerns they have. We are well linked in with the hotel and can deliver some work there around appropriate behaviours and different cultural expectations."

Posted by: Ace at 04:46 PM | Comments (262) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Surprise! Hamas Refuses to Release Third Group of Hostages, Violating Ceasefire Deal

What a surprise.

Hamas has said the next hostage release scheduled to take place in Gaza on Saturday will be postponed "until further notice," accusing Israel of breaking the ceasefire deal.

Israel described the postponement as a "complete violation of the ceasefire" and called on the Israeli military to prepare for "any possible scenario" in Gaza.

In a post on X, Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas' armed wing, said that the handover of the prisoners "who were scheduled to be released next Saturday ... will be postponed until further notice, and until the occupation commits to and compensates for the entitlements of the past weeks retroactively."

He added: "We affirm our commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the occupation commits to them."

Abu Obeida detailed various alleged violations of the agreement by Israel over the past three weeks, including "delaying the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Strip, and not allowing the entry of relief supplies in all their forms according to what was agreed upon."

In response to Hamas' announcement, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the country's military to "prepare at the highest level of alert for any possible scenario in Gaza."

The defense minister described Hamas' postponement as a "complete violation of the ceasefire agreement and the deal to release the hostages."

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently holding consultations with his security leadership team, an Israeli official told CNN. A political-security cabinet meeting initially scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday local time is also being moved up to the morning hours due to Hamas' announcement, the official said.

Why refuse to release them? Well, they want to start negotiations again to make more demands for their release, beyond what they've already agreed to.

And one suspects that they don't want to release the hostages they've raped and tortured. Might not be so great for Palestinians' claims to be the "oppressed."

The hostages Hamas released are all "haggard" and thin from stress and starvation.

Posted by: Ace at 03:47 PM | Comments (235) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Answers to Guitar Quiz

"Beat It" featured Eddie Van Halen.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps," featured Eric Clapton as the lead guitarist. He was uncredited.

"No More Lonely Nights" features Pink Floyd's David Gilmour.

"Thunder Island" features Joe Walsh.

"Don't Mean Nothin'" features Joe Walsh again. He's like the Michael McDonald of guitar solos.

"Day After Day" features George Harrison on slide guitar.

Posted by: Ace at 03:02 PM | No Comments | Trackbacks (Suck)

Obama Judges (Illegally) Blocks Trump's Freeze on Federal Spending, Also Forbid Trump from Exercising Authority Over Bureaucrats

Here we go again with the Unconstitutional Reign of the Hawaiian Judges.

This particular judge-shopped Hawaiian judge is from deep blue Rhode Island.

Kyle Becker
@kylenabecker

BREAKING: Obama Judge Blocks Trump Administration's Freeze on Federal Funding

In a sweeping decision, a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from freezing any federal funding, dealing a significant legal blow to the White House's efforts to withhold funds that are suspected of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money.

Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued the ruling, reinforcing a temporary restraining order (TRO) previously placed on the administration.

The court found that the government had continued to freeze funds despite prior legal orders, prompting the judge to mandate immediate compliance.

The ruling states that "all orders and judgments of courts must be complied with promptly" and warns that ignoring the order risks contempt charges. The Trump administration had attempted to justify the broad funding freeze as an effort to root out fraud, but the court ruled that such an expansive pause exceeded lawful authority and violated the TRO.

Judge McConnell's order requires the Trump administration to:

- Immediately restore all frozen funding during the pendency of the TRO.

- Cease any federal funding pause under the directive until a ruling on a preliminary injunction is made.

- Take all necessary steps to ensure the TRO is fully implemented without delay.

- Adhere to the TRO's plain text, preventing any funding pauses linked to the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) directives or the President's 2025 executive orders.

- Resume funding of institutes and agencies affected, including programs funded under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act.

This decision follows a legal challenge from 22 Democratic-leaning states and the District of Columbia, which sued the Trump administration over its broad suspension of federal disbursements.

The lawsuit, filed in late January, argued that the administration was improperly halting funds that had been duly appropriated by Congress.

Last month, Judge McConnell issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the administration from withholding funds while the lawsuit proceeded.

The decision marks a critical setback for President Trump's broader efforts to reshape government spending policies, particularly regarding states and programs that conflict with his administration's agenda.

Legal experts suggest that the Trump administration's only remaining option is to seek mandamus relief, an extraordinary legal measure to overrule the district court's decision. The Trump administration has not yet announced its next legal steps.

Posted by: Ace at 02:36 PM | Comments (524) | Trackbacks (Suck)

CBS Poll: Trump Is At Highest Approval Rating of Both Terms; 70% Agree He's Doing What He Promised to Do

30% are bitter lefties who know damn well he's doing what he said he was going to do, but they lie to the pollster because they refuse to give Trump credit for anything.

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (417) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Vibe Shift: Trump Cheered, Taylor Swift Booed at Super Bowl

Happy Monday!

People are done being scolded and even terrorized by these monsters.

Trump got a lot of cheers as he came out to greet the players, who wanted to shake hands with him. That used to be normal but the anti-civilizational savages of the left made it -- past tense -- mandatory to publicly rebuke Trump.

Their power is over.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (533) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: The Lithium Battery Fire Problem Isn’t Confined to EVs; Plug-In Hybrids & Battery Storage Are Also Going Up in Flames

If This is “Clean Energy,” What is Dirty Energy?

What had been one the world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage facilities, Moss Landing Energy Storage in Monterey County California, burst into flames in mid-January, and burned for several days. There was no way to contain it so the fire was left to burn itself out, but it continued to periodically re-ignite. Now, over three weeks later, there is still
fear of Moss Landing re-igniting.

Rainfall poses a significant threat to the Vistra battery plant in Moss Landing, where exposed lithium-ion batteries could react violently and spark a flare-up.

"Water reacts to lithium in a very violently responsive way," said Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church.

Initially as the fire raged, nearby residents were evacuated.

“Evacuations ordered in California after fire at battery power plant in Moss Landing” [USA Today – 01/17/2025]

Monterey County soon thereafter declared a state of emergency.

“'Terrifying': Monterey County declares emergency after massive lithium battery plant fire” [USA Today – 01/23/2025]

Initial tests are being done to examine the environmental damage, and it is very bad news.

“‘Extremely disturbing’: High levels of heavy metals at Monterey estuary after lithium battery site fire” [LA Times – 01/29/2025]

Days after one of the world’s largest lithium ion battery storage facilities burst into flames in Monterey County, researchers found alarmingly high concentrations of heavy metals at a nearby estuary that is home to several endangered species.

The concentration of nickel, manganese and cobalt measured on the surface of the soil is hundreds to thousands of times as much as the levels in the surface soil prior to the fire or compared with levels measured deeper in the soil.

San José State’s soil samples suggest there could be long-term environmental and health effects from the toxic blaze…

By the way, Moss Landing is not an isolated event. Just a few days later there was a similar fire in Australia.

“Factory in Cheltenham in Melbourne's south-east erupts in flames after lithium-ion batteries catch fire, prompting smoke alert for surrounding areas” [Sky News Australia – 01/30/2025]

There is nothing funny about these awful lithium-ion fires, but I do chuckle when these stories unironically refer to battery storage fires in the context of “clean energy.”

*****

Plug-In Hybrids: Another Fiery Solution to a Problem that Doesn’t Exist

Traditional hybrid vehicles (e.g. the Prius) that produce electricity with regenerative braking are an amazing technological development. The electricity is stored in a small battery that can then be used an energy source to reduce the amount of gasoline used for propulsion. This generally results in better miles per gallon than realized in a non-hybrid, gasoline-powered car. Toyota is now applying this technology to most of its fleet. In fact, Toyota was heavily criticized and mocked by the climate cultists for missing out on the “EV transition” as it focused instead on traditional, Prius-style hybrid vehicles.

It’s a confusing shame that the word “hybrid” is also used for the subset of EVs known as “plug-in hybrids.” A plug-in hybrid has two complete powertrain systems – one gasoline and one electric, so it is terribly inefficient, with limited range, unnecessarily heavy, and it has twice as many ways to mechanically fail. Plug-in hybrids also still require a large, unstable, lithium-ion battery, just like pure EVs, and they have the similar problem of spontaneously combusting.

A long-time member of the Ace of Spades horde from a left coast state sent me an email with the attached photo of a friend’s plug-in Jeep Cherokee.

He wrote:

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (413) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast
Ludolf Backhuysen

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (405) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 2/10 /25

Good morning kids. As Elon Musk took a wrecking ball and a flamethrower to USAID and exposed not only the colossal waste of that nest of vipers, but of the multi-trillion dollar multi-headed hydra that is the bureaucracy as well as its agents in and out of government that have brought our society, nation and much of the world to the brink of disaster.

The cold hard reality is we are and have been for quite some time governed by a vast cabal of self-styled elites whose belief system and lust for absolute power engendered within them a wholly underserved status of having absolute moral authority to do as and what they want. The ability of politicians and others to game the system has been exposed by a combination of many of their schemes and delusions crashing down, mostly on us (from the border, to crime, sexual perversions and deviancies, anti-Semitism, anti-christianity, and red-green madness that has strangled our economy, and the incineration of Los Angeles because of DEI on top of environmentalist ideological pathologies. The emergence of Donald Trump and his exposure of this by promising to reverse it, has caused this monster to bare its fangs and attempt to strike back.

Besides Sesame Street in Iraq, where no doubt Bert and Ernie will sing about the joys of Jew-hatred while burning American flags and hurling homosexual muppets off of rooftops, is one thing. But USAID has funded some of the most heinous homegrown anti-Americans right here among us, in government, academia, the C-suites and elsewhere. Cutting off the funding of USAID is merely the tip of the iceberg. Money is the lifeblood of this cancerous rot. Of course the reactions have been typical, from scumbag degenerate thugs like Hakeem Jeffries, openly calling for violence in the streets to prevent and indeed overthrow this government, legitimately elected and having more of a mandate for the policies Trump is attempting including DOGE than perhaps any other president since Ronald Reagan.

Insurrection we much, eh Hakeem? Of course, the cornered beast is not going to just sit there and bleed out. Not after two centuries of nearly achieving absolute power. So this comes as no surprise, revolting as it is nevertheless:

A federal judge issued a ruling on Saturday, blocking Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from having access to Treasury Department data and records. . .In what universe is the Treasury Secretary not allowed to look at the records of the agency he manages? . . . The judge's rationale for the maneuver seems to have been pulled out of the air -- there isn't any.

Now the Trump team will have to work without records, without data, with no knowledge of how the Treasury's funds are spent because the deep state says the Trump team, legitimately elected by the voters, has no right to see them.

It was a ruling so bad, so disruptive, so overreaching into the executive branch that it surely will be overturned by a higher court, after a lengthy legal battle, and while that should disgrace the judge for awhile, it also may be the plan -- to cut into Trump's term so that he cannot govern at all.

Good on Elon Musk for putting forth a strategy for impeachment of these hacks in black. But sadly, that relies on a process where those who would do the voting are as corrupt and obstreperous as those they would be charged with removing from the bench.

Trump already showed the way with his EO ignoring the bastardization of the 14th Amendment. Unfotunately this too will ultimately wind up at SCOTUS which is dodgy at best, even with the huge win in Dobbs overturning Roe v Wade. Given the justified fear factor of the non-Thomas justices. Fear for their lives as well as fear of ostracism from the DC elite party circuit.

But that said, and we have discussed this many times before, but perhaps Trump is at long last the Chief Executive we have needed to destroy the specter of Marbury Vs. Madison, the case that allowed the Judiciary to acquire an outsized power it was never intended to have and which it has for far too long abused in maintaining the status quo.

Meanwhile Musk is setting the DOGEs loose on the absolutely anti-Constitutional CFPB, Fauxcahontas Warrens's politburo that is self-funded, has no oversight from Congress, cannot be abolished or audited and has the power to control the lives and livelihoods of every American citizen.

Tell me where that is constitutional. That should be abolished by Executive Order. the employees fired and the building demolished. Catch us if you can.

Mark Levin has spoken and written about the long dark shadow of Marbury at length, but this segment and transcription from his show in the wake of January 6th 2021 is quite worth a listen/read as a quick refresher:

Finally killing it would go a long way in truly making America great again. Or putting us back on track.

In that light, I give you this latest essay from honorary Horde member and lurker extraordinaire Victor Davis Hanson:

The Democrats' radical overreach, election losses, and Musk-fueled government exposés have left them flailing, doubling down on failure instead of recalibrating for a political comeback.

The Democrat Party is polling about 31 percent approval, a near-historic low. Despite enjoying a huge lead in fundraising, legacy media favoritism, and incumbency, in the 2024 election, Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump. Ever since, they have offered nothing new, no novel agenda, no innovative policies—nothing other than screaming that they are loudly against everything and anything that the president is for.

His notion while nice to believe that the Democrats are committing political suicide may IMHO be premature because while no doubt Trump and his agenda pre and now post election are garnering widespread approval, I think he and others are predicting a longterm rightward shift in America. Even if this might be happening to some smaller yet not insignificant extent, it would take quite some doing for the Leftists en masse to reject their beliefs, and shibboleths to defect.

Even if they split into two parties (which would be phenomenal) The anti-Americanism and anti-judeo-Christian anti-westernism will still be there to greater or lesser extents in both parties.

Deprogramming the past several generations of our citizens and preventing the brainwashing of successive generations is key.

But for now, Trump is riding a crest of approval which matches the trough of disapproval for Democrats and Leftists. Taking advantage of that to win hearts and minds and nation rebuilding here at home is going to be key.

We'll just have to wait and see.

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
• The idea that Hunter Biden, with no security clearance, was allegedly dictating the flow of information to his father is a much bigger deal than Elon Musk going after government waste, don’t you think? “That's who was basically running the show. So Hunter basically battened down the hatches after the debate to make sure his father would only receive intel he pre-approved.”
  Now We Know Who was Running the Country for Joe Biden

• “The Bureau’s new leadership will run a substantially more streamlined and efficient bureau.”
  CFPB Gutted In Latest Trump Admin Move To Cut Government Waste
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: The Democrats' radical overreach, election losses, and Musk-fueled government exposés have left them flailing, doubling down on failure instead of recalibrating for a political comeback.
  How To Commit Democrat Party Suicide (VDH presupposes a longterm major rightward cultural swing - jjs)
  
• Someone, please tell me I’ve misread this approved and funded grant.
  Is There A Problem With Colorado State University And Its Nipah Virus Research?

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:25 AM | Comments (398) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 10 February 2025

Top Story

• Did Google fake the AI output in its Super Bowl ad? Yes. (The Verge)
  
  Not only was it wrong, it was a verbatim copy of text that has appeared on the web since 2020, before Google Gemini existed.

  But Google maintained that the website description was written by Gemini all along. In addition to showing Gemini "generate" the description in the commercial, Google Cloud apps president Jerry Dischler said on X that the Gouda stat was "not a hallucination," adding that "Gemini is grounded in the Web."

  Well, if by "grounded in" you mean "a human copying and pasting directly from", then sure.
  
  The original text claimed that Gouda accounts for 50 to 60 percent of cheese consumption worldwide, and is "one of" the most most popular varieties of cheese, which is comical.
  
  Everyone knows that's Venezuelan beaver cheese.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (94) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - February 9, 2025 [Doof]

Mystery click dedicated to the Horde

Howdy Hordelings! Did you enjoying watching the professional football contest this evening? Anyway... Welcome to the Sunday ONT!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (602) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Super Bowling 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 Halftime guys and gals!! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be Super Bowl Sunday? It's the LIXth Super Bowl game, by the way, and is scheduled to start at 6:30pm Eastern, although the pre-game show started approximately three weeks earlier (or so it seems).

Q: Weasel, won't you pleeeeze give us your thoughts on the game?
A: Well, if you insist.

I used to like pro football games, back in the days before the NFL went all nutty over "player safety" and insisted on requiring face masks on helmets and moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone. Still, with the likes of John Unitas and Dick Butkis and Larry Czonka the game was mostly still watchable. Unfortunately, a bunch of sissy-boys took over so instead I simply watched the Super Bowl for the clever and funny commercials. Then the retards of the left took over, becoming the self-appointed arbiters of what was funny and clever and did what they typically do by taking the fun out of everything and made the whole thing an unwatchable and woke shit-show. It was then I stopped watching altogether.

The End

Having said that, our glorious leader President Donald J. Trump, today becomes the first sitting president to attend the game so suddenly I can tolerate football again. Another Trump miracle! Anyhoo, I figure at least some of you are interested, so feel free to discuss the game tonight in the comments.

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 (657) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Mailed In Edition (First Class Postage Though!)

This is exactly what I am talking about when I refer to English pub food as being quite good. That is a carefully boned rib chop, cured and smoked as bacon. Topped with a fried egg, and served with some sauce that was a mystery to me but quite tasty, and some onion/apple relish off to the left. I am not usually a fan of anything apple within 50 feet of my dinner plate, but that stuff was delicious!

The chips were wonderful. The beer was delicious.

If you don't like that sort of food you are simply taking the contrarian position and you will be sent to your room.

[This is going to be a bare-bones Food Thread. I am recovering from some sort of malady that I caught from some Frog trying to weaken Anglo-Saxon culture so they can express contempt for us without fear of getting punched in the nose. Plus, the snowblowing kicked my *ss!

So you people will have to open up a can of whoop-ass on the Gun Thread snobs and put them in their rightful place at the bottom of the famous and coveted AoSHQ 4:00pm-10:00pm Sunday Time Slot! Can you do it without the guiding hands of Dildo? Wait... what?

By the way, does anyone know where this competition came from? I suspect it was from a 9mm enthusiast, but who knows, it might even be a shaken Manhattan troglodyte!]

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (393) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

This might be the epitome of First World Problems! After snowblowing my and the neighbors' driveway and sidewalks, I'm really tired and want to lie down and take a nap.

Posted by: CBD at 02:12 PM | Comments (245) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Moral Relativism And The Supremacy Of Some Cultures

This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.

The moral tradition of the West has evolved for 2,500 years, and it hasn't been easy. Would you like to live in a world governed by the Sophists and the Skeptics, who thought that that justice was just convention administered by the strong?

Or much of European history, in which the law came from royalty, whose bona fides were simply being born to the correct parents?

But compared to the rest of the world, we are unimaginably better off. We mostly got rid of slavery starting at the beginning of the 19th century. Take a look at the Arab world today? They still have them and they are in no rush to end the practice.

Our armies are far more civilized than the rest of the worlds' and interestingly enough, also better at war. Yes, that is debatable, but backed by Western economies we will eventually come out on top.

And where would you rather be... Behind the Chinese lines or behind the American lines? Look at Israel, which has more reasons than any other country to respond with total savagery, yet they comport themselves with amazing restraint, often at the expense of the lives of their soldiers.

The problem nowadays is that we have lost sight of the superiority of our culture and have subsumed it in an ocean of moral relativity and non-Western brutality.

Maybe we should return to first principles, and renew our commitment to ideas that used to be axiomatic, but are now up for debate.

Really? Child rape? Murder of innocents? mutilation of children on the alter of sociopathic sexual perversions? Destruction of the individual in service to the state?

These aren't complicated ideas, as Sir Charles understood very well.

That statue is in Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London, and until is is torn down they may have a chance at redemption. But they certainly need a modern Napier. Luckily, America seems to have gotten one in the form of President Donald Trump!

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (335) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-9-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

HT: Biden's Dog

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 (you were warned...). 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...or these pants...(GO TEAM!)

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

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (394) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 9 February 2025

Top Story

• Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has weighed in on the DeepSeek drama, saying that in tests the performance of the Chinese AI was "the worst of basically any model we'd ever tested". (Tech Crunch)
  
  He went on to say:

  It had absolutely no blocks whatsoever against generating this information.

  What he's complaining about is that it answered the question.
  
  The full interview transcript is here.
  
  Now, the claim is the information related to bioweapons, and "can't be found on Google or can't be easily found in textbooks", which means that this is public information, not military secrets, and the entire complaint is that DeepSeek works.
  
  And that is simply not allowed.
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (253) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" February 8, 2025 [The 3 D's]

Welcome in one and all to the debut of something! Join us - if you dare - on a foray into a place of such exclusivity that could only happen here at AOSHQ. A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. This --- is Club ONT!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (540) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Guest Music Thread [Joe Mannix]

Musical genre is one of those things that is subject to endless subdivision to the point of the absurd, and to endless conglomeration to the point of the useless. I am occasionally fascinated by some of the distinctions and subdivisions within genre, usually argued by those who are obsessed with whatever it is. Take, as a "for instance," Shoegaze. Per Wikipedia, Shoegaze is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volume. It emerged in Ireland and the United Kingdom in the late 1980s among neo-psychedelic groups who usually stood motionless during live performances in a detached, non-confrontational state. Could be anything, I suppose.

What interests me more is what qualifies for any given appellation. Staying on the "Shoegaze" topic, take two bands widely considered representative of the genre. There's Lush and there's The Jesus and Mary Chain. They aren't exactly similar. Oh well. None of it really matters anyway, I suppose. If there's a thing, people are always willing to argue the finer points of it!

What genres are you in to, if any? Do you care about the minutiae of subgenre, or is it all just noise (unless, of course, you consider Shoegaze to be a subset or offshoot of Noise Pop, in which case we're right back where we started...)? Me, I am fascinated by the minutiae but would rather just put the record on!

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!

***

Exceptional Live Performances
AC/DC puts on a hell of a show. The scale of this concert at a stadium in Argentina is enormous, and boy can they work a crowd.

***

Posted by: Joe Mannix at 07:30 PM | Comments (302) | Trackbacks (Suck)