May 20, 2025
Daily Tech News 20 May 2025
Top Story
- Intel has announced two and a half new graphics cards aimed at workstations: The Arc Pro B50 and B60. (Tom's Hardware)
The B50, priced at $299, has 16GB of RAM and a cut-down version of the B580 GPU. It has 16 GPU cores rather than 20, and the 16GB of RAM is on a 12GHz 128-bit bus instead of having 12GB of RAM on a 19GHz 192-bit bus.
So yes, it will run slower (unless you need more than 12GB of RAM, in which case the B580 will flounder), but on the other hand it uses only 70W of power, which is tiny. The B580 specified 190W.
At just 70W it can run on power just from the PCIe slot, and it's available in a half-height version to fit in awkward cases like the Hyte Y family (which can only fit a single full-height card).
The other card, the Arc Pro B60, is a B580 with 24GB of RAM. At full power (200W) it should perform within 10% of the B580. In low power mode (120W) it will slow down by about 15%. Priced around $500.
- Wait, you said two and a half.
I did.
The Intel Arc Pro Dual 48GB Turbo is the half. (Tom's Hardware)
Made by Maxsun, it's two B60s sharing a single card. Very literally: The B60 uses a PCIe 5.0 x8 connection, so each of the chips on this card takes up one half of a PCIe x16 slot.
If you're playing games you'll get the same performance as a B580 or B60. But if you're running AI, you can use all 48GB of RAM for a single task thanks to new software from Intel.
And if you have a server you can combine four of these to assign 192GB of VRAM to a single task.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (138) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 19, 2025
Monday Overnight Open Thread - May 19, 2025 [Doof]
Treasure Island, Florida
Howdy Hordelings! The Monday ONT is here for your nighttime enjoyment. Step on in and see what's in store for you. Regulars - you know what to do. Lurkers - please don't let the regulars scare you into silence. The ONT encourages delurking!
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:58 PM | Comments (379) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Fingerdance Cafe
Posted by: Ace at 07:28 PM | Comments (263) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Quick Hits
Marxist grifter AOC has removed her engagement ring.
You're not going to believe this: A former press secretary to "Doctor" Jill Biden said there was a "culture of concealment" in the Biden, Inc. crime family.
David Axelrod's call for us to put aside questions about the Biden Senility Conspiracy while he "struggles" with cancer -- and note, this cancer is now incurable, so he'll have it for as long as he lives -- is rejected.
A tall-masted Mexican navy ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
FBI Director Kash Patel said on Fox News that "truckloads" of previously unreleased documents related to the Russia probe known as Crossfire Hurricane and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot will soon be made public in a "wave of transparency." He said the previous FBI leadership hid documents and information pertaining to the Russia probe "where people weren't supposed to look." Patel, alongside Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, said on the Fox News show "Sunday Morning Futures" that the release could happen within two weeks. "Just give us about a week or two," Patel said.
Authorities are investigating after a Mexican Navy ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge on May 17, leaving two dead and 19 injured. The Cuauhtémoc, a sail training vessel for the Mexican Navy, lost power before striking the bridge connecting the Brooklyn and Manhattan boroughs around 8:20 p.m. ET, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. Social media videos of the crash showed the ship's 147-foot masts sheared off by the impact. Adams said on X that there were nearly 300 people on board. In addition to the two sailors who died, two people are in critical condition, Adams said.A Mexican ship crashed into a bridge in a blue city port and Charles Schumer has only one question: How did DOGE and Musk cause this?
Nick SortorVideo of the senile obsessive Chuck Schumer here. Video of the Musk-caused collision here. Too bad. It's a beautiful ship.
@nicksortor NEW: Chuck Schumer has blamed DOGE for the Brooklyn Bridge ship accident Man, the Elon Derangement Syndrome is STRONG here According to Schumer, DOGE is the reason a MEXICAN SHIP reversed itself into a bridge at a high rate of speed, which it was too tall to clear. WTF is wrong with these people?
Marxist grifter AOC has removed her engagement ring.
Look closely and you'll see: Something is missing from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D., N.Y.) ring finger. Ocasio-Cortez hasn't been pictured wearing her engagement ring since November 2023, according to an extensive Washington Free Beacon review of Getty and Associated Press images, as well as the lawmaker's social media posts and public appearances. The ring's 17-month absence, which has gone unnoticed in the press until now, raises questions about the status of her betrothal to her low-profile fiancé, web developer Riley Roberts, who proposed to Ocasio-Cortez during a vacation to Puerto Rico in April 2022. No news of their nuptials has emerged in the three years since. ... Far from being mere tabloid fodder, the legal status of Ocasio-Cortez's relationship with Roberts also carries significant financial and ethical ramifications for the potential 2028 presidential candidate. By virtue of remaining unmarried to Ocasio-Cortez, Roberts retains certain privacy privileges not afforded to the legally married spouses of other lawmakers. He has been exempt from publicly disclosing his assets, stock trades, and his places of employment as a part of Ocasio-Cortez's annual financial disclosure reports. It's a level of secrecy not granted to the spouses of Ocasio-Cortez's married colleagues such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), whose husband's market-busting stock trades frequently make national headlines.I mentioned on Friday that Jen Psaki's ratings crashed the day after she debuted. Free Beacon:
The leftwing "analyst" at AdWeek finds good news for CNN: Kasie Hunt was their most-watched propagandist on Friday. That's the headline. They ran that headline instead of the real headline: CNN's ratings are a disaster. Their ratings in the all-important demo are well below one hundred thousand all day long:
Psaki debuted her new show, The Briefing, which will occupy Maddow's coveted 9 p.m. weekday time slot (except on Mondays, when Maddow hosts), on May 6. MSNBC's new boss, Rebecca Kutler, reportedly views Psaki as the "face of the network's new era." The ratings for the debut weren't bad, presumably because some Maddow fans were unaware of the switchover. They crashed down to earth the following day. On May 7, viewership in the crucial 25-54 age demographic--the only number advertisers care about--plunged from 139,000 to just 65,000, a decline of 53 percent. The Briefing was crushed in the demographic by time-slot competitors at Fox News and CNN. Psaki was also outperformed by reruns of Bob's Burger, King of Queens, and Paw Patrol. During her first week in primetime, Psaki averaged 92,000 viewers in the demographic, a 47 percent decline compared to Maddow's last full week. On Tuesday, The Briefing drew just 79,000 viewers in the coveted age group, putting Psaki in fourth place among MSNBC's weekday hosts. Even Nicolle Wallace, the obnoxious personality known for her flirtatious infatuation with convicted felon Michael Avenatti, got more viewers. Only the Maddow look-alike Chris Hayes at 6 p.m. and Stephanie Rhule at 11 p.m., well past the bedtime of MSNBC's elderly viewers, had lower ratings in the demographic. Hayes is widely regarded as one of the worst hosts in the history of cable news.
You're not going to believe this: A former press secretary to "Doctor" Jill Biden said there was a "culture of concealment" in the Biden, Inc. crime family.
Biden family insider Michael LaRosa opened up about the former administration's culture of concealment while speaking to Fox News on Sunday, telling "FOX & Friends Weekend" co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy that the people surrounding the former president during his tenure in the White House were unwilling to be transparent. "This was a group in the White House who were allergic to transparency, and I'm talking about just in the East Wing," he said. "The very first day walking into the White House, the usher was fired, and I couldn't get reporters straight answers, because nobody would give me straight answers." ... "What I am suggesting... [is] it was not intuitive... it was not their style to be transparent about anything. They took days and months to be deliberative, and I'm talking about the small things, about when the dog bites occurred," LaRosa said, referencing the former first family's dog, Major, who had reportedly bitten multiple people. "Or about the wedding with the grandkids," he continued. "They got caught lying to the press about press coverage, because they were so scared to be transparent about anything. "I said to myself at some point, 'If it's this hard to get them to just be transparent and disclose things and to just be upfront from the beginning about anything, even the small things... My God, what would happen if there were big things?'"Good thing those "big things" never happened. (Sarcasm.)
David Axelrod's call for us to put aside questions about the Biden Senility Conspiracy while he "struggles" with cancer -- and note, this cancer is now incurable, so he'll have it for as long as he lives -- is rejected.
If anything, Hur was too gentle with Biden. He patiently listened to the president's rambling, incoherent anecdotes, and attempted to steer him back to the topic at hand: alleged improper storage of classified documents. Biden's behavior during the five-hour interview raised serious questions about his fitness for office at that time, let alone whether he remained sharp enough to perform the most demanding job in the world for another four years. Top Democrats, however, echoed Biden's talking points that behind closed doors, the president was at the top of his game. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D--N.Y.) said Biden's mental acuity was "as good as it's been over the years," and that the pair would talk several times a week. The message from virtually every Democratic leader who interacted with Biden was the same: Hur is a partisan actor and shouldn't be trusted, Biden is absolutely fine. Everyone knows that's false. ... It would be very convenient for the Democratic leadership, then, if the media and the public simply moved on from the Biden cover-up. Unsurprisingly, at least one prominent Democratic pundit is advising just that. David Axelrod, former advisor to President Barack Obama and current CNN talking head, said on Sunday that conversations about Biden's cognitive decline "should be more muted and set aside for now as he's struggling through this." That's a preposterous suggestion made in service of an obvious, partisan cause. Biden and his handlers steadfastly maintained that he was fit for office and should seek a second term, even amidst mounting, well-founded concerns about his health. They attempted to pull a fast one on the American people, and they were caught. It is perfectly possible to remain respectful, magnanimous, and well-meaning toward Biden in terms of his battle with cancer while continuing to seek answers about who knew what, and when.Roger Simon: It's time for the conspirators to resign in disgrace. He calls them "traitors."
Alex Berenson has an accurate enough description of the rather lengthy leaked portions. (You can listen for yourself here if you have the stomach):Even CNN's DEI Propagandist Abby Phillip thinks Biden sounds pretty bad in those tapes that Biden fought desperately to conceal forever. (Maybe that was a clue Phillip could have followed up on two years ago.)Is there anything remotely surprising about this? Not at all. If anything, it's understated. Nevertheless, it's good that we could finally hear some of the interview. The reasons it was covered up are all too obvious. ... You can also be sure that every major and most of the minor nations of the world were well aware of what was happening simply by watching television, as the rest of us did, or through their intelligence agencies in greater detail. They may even have known about the cancer before any of us. To put it bluntly, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong-on, to name a few, all knew the so-called Leader of the Free World was "gaga." They also may know more of who was really calling the shots behind him. Meanwhile, inflation ran rampant and illegal immigrants of all sorts flooded into our country weakening it, destroying our economy and threatening the safety of our citizens. And yet Democrat Party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries said nothing. Indeed, they did the opposite. They insisted Biden was fine, as did the vast percentage of the mainstream (aka legacy) media when almost all knew better. They did it for so long that when Biden finally fell apart they had no choice but to turn to Kamala Harris, far from the most formidable of competitors. In this country, treason is defined as levying war against the United States or "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." This coverup or coverups sounds like the latter to me. Whether it would hold in a court of law is another question, but nonetheless the perpetrators are people who still act as if they deserve to lead us. They decidedly do not. They are, quite clearly, liars.
"They are awful. They show a man in severe cognitive decline. Biden couldn't recall even basic facts, like when elections are held. Yes, Joe Biden -- who had lusted for the presidency his entire life -- thought Donald Trump had won in November 2017, not 2016. It wasn't a verbal slip. He didn't know. An aide had to correct him. "Even that summary doesn't capture Biden's struggles. "What he says is bad. How he says it is worse. His voice is weak and whispery. He goes silent for stretches, loses his train of thought, offers oddly emotional asides about his son Beau -- though he could not remember when Beau died. He seems not to remember being vice-president; he speaks of being a senator and then jumps to running for president."
CNN anchor Abby Phillip said Friday that Special Counsel Robert Hur "undersold" former President Joe Biden's cognitive issues in his report on Biden's handling of classified documents. Phillip made the comments on NewsNight after Axios released audio clips of Hur's 2023 interview with Biden, which included moments where the president appeared confused, struggled to recall dates, and grew emotional discussing the death of his son Beau. In one excerpt, Biden paused before saying, "What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30th," after stumbling over the timeline of events. Another clip featured Biden saying, "Well, um... I, I, I, I, I don't know," when asked to recall details related to documents from 2017 or 2018. Hur's written report about Biden's mishandling of classified documents described Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." At the time, Democrats accused him of attempting to undercut Biden's credibility and peppering the report with political bias. But Phillip said Friday night that Hur may have actually downplayed what the audio revealed. "In a way, Robert Hur kind of undersold this," Phillip said. "He kind of threw Joe Biden a lifeline. It was an opportunity, actually, for Democrats to take it seriously, maybe change gears at that point, maybe give a potential nominee more time."Sadly, Scott Adams announced he too has prostate cancer and does not expect to survive the summer. I'm sure David Axelrod will call for a reversal of newspapers' cowardly decision to stop running his Dilbert cartoon because he was pro-Trump. Just while he struggles with cancer. Right? Nor no?
Posted by: Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (283) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Surprise: Harvard Continues Practicing Illegal Racial Discrimination Against Whites; When Called Out for Their Website Advising Administrators About How to Discriminate Against Whites, They Delete That Page But Keep the Policy
Trigger warning for those who might faint to learn obvious things.
Rufo:
Christopher F. Rufo
@realchrisrufo BREAKING: Following my reporting, Harvard has deleted its discriminatory faculty hiring guide from its website. The guide recommended monitoring applicants by race, favoring "women and minorities," and sending white men to the back of the reading list--violating civil rights law.
90% women hires to 10% male hires is equality? And note this isn't some temporary remedy; this is the ultimate goal that they want to keep forever. They want to get women up to 90% of their workforce and keep it there.
The Trump administration has escalated its battle with Harvard University, freezing all future grants and threatening to strip the school's tax-exempt status. In response, Harvard has adopted some conciliatory measures-- rebranding its DEI office and cancelling its racially segregated graduation ceremonies--but, behind the scenes, the university's discrimination machine continues to operate at full capacity. We've obtained a trove of internal documents that reveal Harvard's racial favoritism in faculty and administrative hiring. The university's DEI programs are more than "unconscious bias" training. They are vectors for systematic discrimination against disfavored groups: namely, white men. As one Harvard researcher told us, "endless evidence" suggests that the university continues to discriminate against the supposed oppressor class in hiring and promotions. For years, Harvard's DEI department has explicitly sought to engineer a more racially "diverse" faculty pool. The university-wide Inclusive Hiring Initiative provided "guidelines and training" for those involved in the hiring process and was explicitly tied to Harvard's DEI goals. The stated mission of the initiative is to "[i]nstill an understanding of how departments can leverage the selection process" to build "an increasingly diverse workforce." In another hiring guide, "Best Practices for Conducting Faculty Searches," the university recommends several discriminatory practices. At the beginning of the hiring process, Harvard instructs search committees to "ensure that the early lists include women and minorities" and to "consider reading the applications of women and minorities first." The university counsels that committee chairs should "continually monitor" the racial composition of the candidate list and, as they narrow it down, "attend to all women and minorities on the long list." Harvard deliberately factors race into the hiring process. The university gives committee chairs privileged access to "self-identified demographic data, including gender, race, and ethnicity" and encourages chairs to "use this information to encourage diversity in the applicant pool, long list, and short list." Harvard admits that some of its hiring programs have explicit "placement goals" for women and minorities--which, despite the university's denial, function as a soft quota. In the past, the university has made extensive use of DEI statements--a "required qualification for all position descriptions and job postings"--and university-supplied "diversity-related sample interview questions," which effectively filtered out candidates who did not adhere to the principles of left-wing racialism. Though Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences officially discontinued its use of mandatory DEI statements last year, the university continues to promote non-mandatory diversity statements for faculty positions and includes language about "diversity, equity, and inclusion" as guiding principles. ... Harvard's discriminatory programs are not limited to faculty hiring. According to one of the internal documents we obtained, the university has adopted explicit racial hiring goals for administrative and support positions under the guise of affirmative action. For various divisions and occupations within the school, Harvard lists the percentage of each workforce that belongs to a "protected class," as well as target goals. For example, the university declared a goal of increasing the share of minorities in one department's alumni affairs office nearly sixfold, and of raising the share of female assistants in the School of Public Health to more than 90 percent.
From two weeks ago: Harvard's own internal investigation found rampant antisemtism at Harvard, not just in the student body, but in the faculty.
"Employers seldom set goals like these if they don't intend them to be acted on," Heriot said after reviewing the document. "These particular goals are hilarious," she added. "Harvard has a few job categories that are already female dominated, sometimes with over seventy percent of its employees in those categories being female. Rather than being concerned with why more men aren't applying, Harvard sets a goal to make these job categories even more female dominated." ... Harvard, asked whether it still operates these programs, did not respond. The only major change to the university's faculty-hiring process of which our source was aware was the above-mentioned repeal of mandatory DEI statements at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Harvard University, in the midst of its funding fight with the Trump administration, released its long-awaited anti-Semitism report on Tuesday. It provides a scathing account of life at the Ivy League institution in the wake of Oct. 7, finding that "politicized instruction" in four Harvard schools "mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism." The report raises particular concerns with the Graduate School of Education, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Divinity School, and Medical School, four schools that the Trump administration also targeted for "egregious records of antisemitism or other bias." At those schools, Jewish and Israeli students were routinely ostracized and subject to instruction "that effectively made a specific view on the Israel-Hamas conflict a litmus test for full classroom participation," according to the report. In one example, a "Pyramid of White Supremacy" graphic disseminated to students in a required School of Education course stated that those who oppose the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement are engaged in "coded genocide." That portion of the pyramid was just one step removed from "overt genocide," which included the KKK, "lynching," "burning crosses," and "bombing black churches." When a Jewish student expressed concerns, the instructor did not remove the graphic from course materials and instead "referenced the 'land acknowledgement' made earlier in class."From Hot Air, the NYT says that some Harvard officials are starting to worry about criminal charges.
The "Pyramid of White Supremacy" presented to some Graduate School of Education students. The report details similar incidents at the School of Public Health, where Jewish students raised concerns over anti-Israel webinars only to be asked, "Who is more marginalized, Jews or Palestinians?" At the Divinity School, Jewish students were subject to "the embrace of a pedagogy of 'de-zionization'" in which instructors "attribute to Jews two great sins: first, in the Levant, the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba; and second, in the United States, participation in White supremacy." ... The report also includes anecdotes from students who were discriminated against for being Jewish or Israeli. In one case, a Jewish student planned to deliver a short speech at a Harvard conference describing "how their grandfather survived the Holocaust by migrating to the then-British Mandate of Palestine," now Israel. The conference's directors objected, saying the speech was not "tasteful" and was "inherently one-sided because it does not acknowledge the displacements of Palestinian populations." In another example, Jewish students said they were "routinely asked to clarify that they were 'one of the good ones' by denouncing the State of Israel and renouncing any attachment to it."
Harvard has basked in acclaim from White House critics for fighting back so far. After Mr. Trump threatened the school's federal funding, Harvard sued the administration, and legal experts said the university has a strong case. But behind closed doors, several senior officials at Harvard and on its top governing board have acknowledged they are in an untenable crisis. Even if Harvard quickly wins in court, they have determined, the school will still face wide-ranging funding problems and continuing investigations by the administration. Some university officials even fear that the range of civil investigations could turn into full-blown criminal inquiries.
Posted by: Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (207) | Trackbacks (Suck)
America Is Dividing Into Red and Blue Economic Blocs, and Red America Is Winning
From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, the rabidly left/globalist Economist frets about the brain drain away from blue states and cities.
But-but-but Democrats are so smaaaart, obviously they should be making more money. Why aren't they, then? Well, for one thing, they're not that smart. Also, a lot of them grew up being paid for by their wealthy parents. They lack drive and grit. For another thing, they have certain "disadvantages." I'll allow FBI profiler Will Graham to explain.
These trends play out across America. Along with Kai Wu of Sparkline Capital, a fund manager, we assembled 30 listed firms that are seen favourably by Republicans or Democrats, based on surveys. The process was inevitably arbitrary: there is no single poll that covers all companies. In the end, the Republican basket included firms such as John Deere, Fox and Harley-Davidson, whereas the Democratic one featured Etsy, Lululemon, Lyft and more. The recent market turmoil hit the Republican basket hard. But in the past decade its shareholder returns, including dividends, have thrashed the blue basket (see chart 3). Why do MAGA companies seem to outperform? Maybe they eschew virtue-signalling. Point Bridge America First, an exchange-traded fund that uses the stock ticker MAGA, only includes firms that support Republicans. The Democratic Large-Cap Core Fund, with the stock ticker DEMZ, invests in companies that make big donations to the Democrats. Since the end of 2020 MAGA's price has easily outperformed DEMZ. Goldman Sachs, a bank, has built a stock index containing firms "that could benefit from key Republican policies", such as those in oil. In the past decade the share prices of these companies have comfortably beaten the market. ...
There are more Buddy Garritys today. In 2024, 47% of Americans reporting annual incomes above $1m lived in Trump-voting states, up from 43% in 2014. Incomes among poorer folk are rising, too. Population growth is strong. ... Republican states including Florida and Texas are still enticing internal migrants. And with local consumer confidence strong, expect spending in MAGA-land to hold up better than in Democratic-leaning areas.
Posted by: Ace at 04:25 PM | Comments (243) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Supreme Court Overrules District Court Judge Who Issued a (What Else?) Nationwide Injunction Against Deporting Venezuelans, Cubans, Hatians, and Nicaraugans
Get this: The statute at the heart of this dispute says that the president can grant "case by case" protections against deportations. Biden ignored this and protected all illegals from four countries -- Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
The district court is upholding Biden's grant of blanket immunity while requiring Trump to engage in "case by case" decisions to revoke the immunity. The law makes no requirement of a "case by case" determination for revoking immunity. So, where the law demands the president to engage in particularlized, individualized case-by-case decision to grant immunity to deportation, the courts ignore it and let Biden give blanket immunity to millions. When Trump acts to remove this illegal blanket immunity, the courts confabulate a judge-invented requirement of case-by-case consideration of each of the millions of illegals. Sounds about right. The Supreme Court overruled -- stayed -- the lower court's injunction, but that court will still rule "on the merits" at trial, allegedly, and I have no doubt which way this rogue criminal judge will rule. Remember, injunctions are pre-trial relief which are granted when a judge guesses how the trial will turn out, and who he wants to win. Still, it's a victory for the moment.The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to lift a lower court injunction that blocked President Donald Trump's decision to terminate the protected legal status of hundreds of thousands of migrants living in the U.S., in a win for the administration as it looks to deliver on its hard-line immigration enforcement policies. The decision clears the way for the Trump administration to move forward with its plans to terminate Biden-era Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for roughly 300,000 Venezuelan migrants living in the U.S. and allows the administration to move forward with plans to immediately remove these migrants, which lawyers for the administration argued they should be able to do. ... At issue was the TPS program, which allows people from certain countries to live and work in the U.S. legally if they cannot work safely in their home country due to a disaster, armed conflict or other "extraordinary and temporary conditions." ... In March, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed to keep the protections in place, siding with plaintiffs from the National TPS Alliance in ruling that the termination of the TPS program, which is extended in 18-month increments, is "unprecedented" and suggested that the abrupt termination may have been "predicated on negative stereotypes" about Venezuelan migrants.Essentially the judge ruled that any opposition to open borders is "racist" and therefore any action to end open borders can be overruled by a judge.
Sauer disputed this in the appeal to the Supreme Court. In it, he also accused the lower court judge of improperly intruding on the executive branch's authority over immigration policy. "Forceful condemnations of gang violence and broad questioning of the integrity of the prior administration's immigration practices, including potential abuses of the TPS program, do not evince discriminatory intent," Sauer said, describing Chen's descriptions as "cherry-picked" and "wrongly portrayed" as "racially tinged."
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley The Supreme Court delivered a win for the Administration today by lifting the injunction on the move to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protections for hundreds of thousands of people allowed into the country by Biden from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela... ...A California district judge had blocked the move and the Ninth Circuit refused to lift the injunction. It will now go back to the Ninth Circuit for the resolution of the merits. Only Justice Jackson dissented in the order today... https://documentcloud.org/documents/25948079-24a1059-order/ ...Notably, while the statute states that this special status could be assigned on a "case-by-case" basis, the Biden Administration unlawfully adopted a wholesale policy granting temporary parole to hundreds of thousands of individuals from four countries -- Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela ("CHNV") ... ...Yet, the district court would have required case-by-case determinations to end the status. The law however barred review of these determinations: "Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory)... no court shall have jurisdiction to review ... any other decision or action of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority for which is specified under this title to be in the discretion of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security, other than the granting of relief under section 208(a). [8 U.S.C. § 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) (emphasis added).]" ...The administration was open about its desire to remove these individuals before they accrued over two years of continuous presence, as that would trigger a longer removal process. ...The language underlying this special status is highly deferential to the government. The status as parolees is temporary and can be terminated, in the view of the Administration... ...These paroles brought this challenge in one of the most liberal circuits in the country and could still prevail before the Ninth Circuit. It would then be back to the Supreme Court for a review of the merits if the writ is granted.
Posted by: Ace at 03:24 PM | Comments (200) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Audacity: New York Times Says That Hur Tapes Reveal What "Many Suspected" But Which Democrats -- Just Democrats, Not Their Media Enablers -- Denied
Just "Democrats," huh? No media figures joined the cover-up?
'Watch Me,' Biden Said. But Hearing Him in Hur Interview Is More Revealing.
The former president's halting responses to questions by a special counsel show him exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be -- and as Democrats repeatedly insisted he was not. For much of his time in the White House, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. offered a quick rebuttal to those raising concerns about his age: "Watch me," he said. Yet, in the end, it may be the sound of Mr. Biden's own voice that proves what his aides worked furiously, and spent hundreds of millions of campaign dollars, to try to keep the public from seeing with its own eyes. The five-hour-and-10-minute audio recording of a special counsel's interview with Mr. Biden on Oct. 8 and 9, 2023, shows a president struggling to recall dates and details, whose thoughts seem jumbled as he tries to recreate events that had occurred just a few years earlier. The information in the audio recording, which Axios published on Saturday, is not new. The 258-page transcript of the interview of Mr. Biden by Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents, was released in March 2024. His report set off a political firestorm in the midst of the president's re-election campaign. But the sound of Mr. Biden's fragile voice and unsteady responses offers a revelation of its own. The Hur tapes reveal the president exactly as a majority of Americans believed him to be -- and as Democrats repeatedly insisted he was not. In the days after Mr. Hur released his report, Democrats fanned out across the news media to vouch for the president, assuring the public of their eyewitness vantage point on his deep knowledge and sure-handed command of the nation and the world. He was "sharp" and at the "top of his game," they said almost in unison. He was "focused, impressive, formidable and effective," as Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, one of the youngest leading Democrats, put it memorably. Biden administration officials declined to release the audio recording of his interview, asserting executive privilege.
The New York Times' Peter Baker immediately claimed, WITHOUT EVIDENCE, that Trump had leaked the tape to embarrass Biden. He's attempting the standard Democrat-Media trick of attempting to shift the story from the contents of the leak to propriety of the leak. In fact, he even asserts that Axios should have refused to publish these extremely newsworthy recordings, on prinzibuhl or something. Weird how they never do this with leaks against Republicans.
But behind the closed doors of the White House's map room, where Mr. Biden answered Mr. Hur's patient queries over the beat of a ticking grandfather clock, the former president offers responses that trail off midsentence and jumbled thoughts that appear unrelated to the question. There are pauses as he struggles for details and extended digressions on the moldings in his home, the importance of Gutenberg's printing press and the storage of his prized Corvette. In the audio recording, Mr. Hur's conclusion -- that a jury would see Mr. Biden as a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" -- is not merely valid, it is irrefutable. "Well, if it was 2013 -- when did I stop being vice president?" Mr. Biden wonders in a weakened voice, when asked by Mr. Hur to identify papers stored in the home he rented after he left office in 2017. "They didn't get to Wilmington until 2022 or something, right? Or 20-whatever. I don't know."
For Democrats, the audio recording's release puts party leaders in the uncomfortable position of having to reconcile the man heard in Mr. Hur's interview with the forceful president they described in response to their voters' insistent questions. For months after the election, Democrats hoped to avoid the questions of what they knew and when about Mr. Biden's fitness to serve a second term. Hearing the recording may further a kind of truth-and-reconciliation moment for a party that has only begun to let go of its denials. It does not take much for Mr. Hur to uncover what Democrats had tried so hard to conceal. At first, Mr. Biden sounds fairly capable. He describes the binders packed with classified and unclassified information that he read through during his eight years as vice president. And he discusses his goals after leaving that office in 2017, including his desire to remain involved with "consequential" foreign policy matters and cancer research. Then, about an hour into the recording, Mr. Biden's answers take a sharp turn.
A simple question about the documents that were stored at the Naval Observatory elicits an 11-minute response. It begins with a young Mr. Biden winning an international tort competition in law school, winds through an early legal case involving a 23-year-old man who lost part of his penis in an oil-refinery accident and concludes with Mr. Biden winning a seat on the New Castle, Del., County Council in 1970. Again and again, Mr. Biden answers the prosecutor not as someone under federal investigation but as an aging politician recounting his life story for posterity. Like many people as they age, Mr. Biden remains himself. He cracks jokes about his wife looking hot in a bikini and about how he is still a "young man." He displays the flashes of ego and self-aggrandizement that have been staples of his political career, boasting about "fundamentally changing" the nation's strategic position in the Indo-Pacific. And he luxuriates in his own long-winded stories about his political influence, describing being handed an archer's bow by the leader of Mongolia and nonchalantly shooting a bull's-eye. But now, the details elude him. Mr. Biden's lawyers step in to supply the date when his son Beau died -- an event that devastated the former president and defined his final years in public life. They remind Mr. Biden of the year that he left the vice president's office and Donald J. Trump was first inaugurated as president.
Now, while some even on the left are expressing justifiable outrage at the massive deception on someone's part, the media's involvement is hardly questioned at all in the media, despite the book out now from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson which at the very least suggests incuriosity or failure to notice things among American mainstream journalists during the time that American voters were definitely noticing them. Baker, himself a White House correspondent mind you, never broke any news about Biden's age. He contributed to a wishy-washy article at the NYT last year covering some "they said, they said" over Biden's competence that ultimately left the reader with the conclusion that "sure, he's old, but also, not that [old] though." He and Yale professor Natasha Sarin spoke with MSNBC's Alex Witt on Saturday, and briefly touched on the subject to equally underwhelming effect. Witt introduced the subject not with a question about what Baker knew as a White House correspondent, or what he did or does believe about Biden's competence then or now. Instead, the MSNBC host opened by saying, with a full SMH tone of voice, "Why release the full audio now? I mean, it's after the fact. And do we know how Axios got the tapes?" Baker, who, again, is a White House correspondent, offered implied criticism of Axios for the distasteful accepting of the audio tapes from the Trump administration, gave some verbal side-eye to Tapper and Thompson, and said the audio of an American president which not only exonerates Hur but gives a living voice to the ongoing process of exposing the cover-up -- of that significant piece of historic audio, Baker said it's only obvious purpose is to "embarrass" Biden. He generously allowed a moment later that hearing the audio does have some limited value in that it helps to explain why Biden didn't have to face any charges as a result of Hur's investigation.Jonathan Turley questions why Biden was allowed to commit multiple crimes with full Deep State Impunity.
"For posterity's sake." Those words from President Joe Biden sum up the crushing impact of the leaked audiotapes from the interview between then-President Joe Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur. Not only did they remove any serious doubt over Biden committing the federal crimes charged against President Donald Trump, but they also constituted what is akin to a political racketeering indictment against much of the Washington establishment. The interview from Oct. 8-9, 2023, has long been sought by Congress, but was kept under wraps by the government even as Biden campaigned for a second term. Many of us balked at Hur's conclusion that no charges were appropriate despite the fact that the President removed classified material for decades, stored it in grossly negligent ways, and moved it around to unsecure locations, including his garage in Delaware. Given President Donald Trump's indictment for the same offenses, it was hard to imagine how the Special Counsel could not recommend the same criminal charges (presumably after he left office). Instead, Hur declared it would have been hard to get a jury to convict Biden because he was "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." It appears that Trump, on the other hand, was presumptively not sympathetic or well-meaning and possessed a good memory for prosecution. The contrast was glaring and only reinforced the view of many citizens that there are two tracks for justice in Washington. Soon after the report's release, President Biden gave an irate press conference in which he lied about the findings of his culpability and lashed out at any suggestion that he had gapped or stumbled in the interview. For example, when reporters raised how Biden forgot when his son Beau died, Biden angrily responded, "How in the hell dare he raise that?" Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself it wasn't any of their damn business." However, it was not Hur but Biden himself who raised the death of his son, and he forgot a wide array of dates, including when he served in office. Nevertheless, media outlets like the Atlantic followed the lead of the White House in attacking Hur for "misleading" the public on Biden's memory. The interview shows that in 2023 it was clear that Biden was mentally diminished despite claims from many allies and former aides that there was a sudden loss of capacity just before the disastrous debate in 2024. It is now undeniable that the White House staff actively hid the president's incompetence from the American public. That includes questions over the assurances of White House press secretary Jen Psaki (who left her post in May 2022) and Karine Jean-Pierre who portrayed Biden as sharp and running circles around the staff.Miranda Devine argues the real story here isn't that Biden was senile, which we all knew, but that he was blazingly guilty of having stolen classified documents and "stored" them in completely insecure places, and then playing the Confused Old Man to avoid answering questions about this.
Miranda Devine
@mirandadevine Here's the supposedly full audio of Special Counsel Robert Hur interviewing President Joe Biden. The segment released last night was cherry-picked to reflect a narrative that supports the Hur/DOJ's convenient conclusion that Biden was guilty but unfit for trial due to his cognitive deficits. The full audio, by contrast, shows Biden in full command of the facts when it suited him but growing wary and vague and filibustering when he perceived that the prosecutors were building a trap. And in case he didn't detect it, his lawyer Bob Bauer would interrupt to alert him. Merrick Garland and Robert Hur did not want to charge the sitting president, obviously, but they had too much incriminating evidence, such as classified material all over his home and office including from his days as senator, interviews his former aide Kathy Chung and a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer, in February 2017, in which Biden said that he had "just found all the classified stuff downstairs" in the basement of his Virginia home.
Hur's ingenious excuse leveraging Biden's cognitive issues got everyone off the hook.
There is much more to this story than the Biden-was-senile cover up. More importantly, Biden was corrupt -- and that is still being covered up. Why? My guess is it's because the cover-up artists still work in the DOJ and they are now covering up their cover up under the noses of Trump's appointees.
Miranda DevineI don't know if I buy this "he was just pretending" thing. Yes, he lied and was evasive, but he's clearly also senile. It's incredible that he's being asked about his theft of US top secret documents and instead brags, ludicrously, about impressing Mongolians with his incredible archery skill. He sounds like Kim Il-Jung bragging about shooting a 18 in a round of golf.
@mirandadevine Seriously, has anyone listened to the whole Hur audio? The establishment takeout that this is just about Joe Biden having pudding for brains is lazy and misses the deeper point, which is that the prosecutors had him cold on possessing classified documents he had no right to keep. Biden lies and dissembles and filibusters and goes vague and mumbly at all the crucial points, with the help of lawyer Bob Bauer, who interrupts every time Joe might incriminate himself and laughs like a hyena when Joe gets feisty or cracks a sarcastic joke at the prosecutors' expense. It is vintage Biden, nasty, smarmy, and self aggrandizing. He tries to impress the lawyers in the room with exaggerated highlights of his subpar legal career. At one point he boasts about spending Thanksgiving in Nantucket handwriting a memo about Afghanistan to Obama to try to "save his ass". Delusions of grandeur. You can hear the prosecutors' frustration - they're in a straitjacket and with a strict time limit. He reminds them out of the gate that he has just been on the phone to Bibi Netanyahu talking about the Oct. 7 attack - the previous day -- just so they know they are keeping him from more important business. Bottom line is he absurdly lies throughout. He denies having kept classified material for his personal use. It is not something he would ever do because he's so upright and honorable. And yet the prosecutors found reams of it tucked away everywhere in his house, garage, and Penn Center office, along with Biden's recorded admission to his ghostwriter that he had found classified material in his basement he could use for his memoir. So they had a dilemma. Do they charge the sitting president and label him a pathological liar, causing a massive scandal and constitutional crisis? Or do they use his age and mental fog as an excuse not to charge him? Pretty clear which was the easier path.
Posted by: Ace at 02:12 PM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Oncologists Say There's No Way Biden Just Developed His Stage IV Cancer In the Past Few Months
The "doctor" who saw him in the White House gave him the demanded clean bill of health just fifteen months ago.
This was almost certainly a lie. One lie among many lies told about Biden's physical and mental decline. Obamacare architect and Death Panels Advocate Ezekiel Emmanuel says there's no way Biden's cancer just suddenly developed in the "past 100 to 200 days," as Team Biden insists.Emmanuel then claimed that it's Trump's doctors who are telling lies, somehow. See the article for that. I just can't. Other doctors agree: Biden must have had this cancer for years.
A top oncologist who once worked for former President Joe Biden claimed Monday that his old boss must have had prostate cancer long before Sunday's public announcement of his diagnosis and suggested the oldest-ever president may even have had the disease for "a decade." Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, a former member of Biden's transition team who helped craft the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, stunned MSNBC's left-leaning "Morning Joe" with his analysis that the 82-year-old likely had cancer while serving as president. "He's had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading," Emanuel told the Biden-supporting hosts early Monday. "He did not develop it in the last 100 to 200 days." "He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. Yes, I don't think there's any disagreement about that." The Sunday announcement from the former president's office came two days after he learned of the diagnosis. The 82-year-old had reported urinary symptoms which led doctors to find a "small nodule" on Biden's prostate earlier this month, according to his staff. Given the cancer's Gleason score of 9 and the fact that it metastasized to the bone, many medical experts speculated that the former president had the prostate cancer for some time. Some doctors have said it is "inconceivable" Biden's diagnosis managed to go undetected for so long. Emanuel noted that while some doctors recommended not doing a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) exam -- a routine bloodwork test -- after the age of 70, he should have had those exams when he was younger. "He was vice president and had a lot of exams under 70. So it's a little surprising that they didn't do it," the oncologist said. "And maybe President Biden decided he didn't want the test. Many men do decide they don't want a PSA, but this is also aggressive. "When we talk about the aggressive part, what we mean is that Gleason score, that score is from two up to 10. And he's a nine. And that means that the cancer doesn't look normal, it looks very abnormal, which is probably why it's in the bone," he continued.
A handful of medical experts were quick to question how the former president could be diagnosed at such a late stage -- especially given that prostate cancer can be detected early with routine bloodwork, which is recommended for men over the age of 50. "It is inconceivable that this was not being followed before he left the Presidency," Dr. Howard Formman said in a post on X. "Gleason grade 9 would have had an elevated PSA level for some time before this diagnosis. And he must have had a PSA test numerous times before. This is odd," he added. "I wish him well and hope he has an opportunity for maximizing his quality of life." Dr. Steven Quay flagged similar concerns, saying Biden's type of cancer is the easiest to diagnose when it first starts and progresses. "The PSA blood test shows the rate of cancer cell growth. For even with the most aggressive form, it is a 5-7 year journey without treatment before it becomes metastatic," he said. "Meaning, it would be malpractice for this patient to show up and be first diagnosed with metastatic disease in May 2025," he continued. "It is highly likely he was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure and the American people were uninformed." Medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel also weighed in, telling Fox News that it was surprising Biden's illness was so aggressive given his high profile. "I mean, he must have had the best possible care here. I'm a little taken aback that it's this far advanced," he said. Urologist Dr. David Shusterman speculated that Biden could have known for some time. "The fact that we just find it at a Gleason nine is just pretty much unheard of in this day and age of medicine," Shusterman told "NewsNation Prime." "This is what I typically would see in a VA hospital, where a patient hasn't had medical attention in 10 years, presents to an emergency room with bone pain, and then they find that it's metastatic prostate cancer." Meanwhile, President Trump's son Don Jr. went further in bluntly suggesting the news was hidden. "What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???" the first son wrote on Truth Social."Doctor" Jill Biden should lose her license.
On Sunday, CNN framed Biden's diagnosis as one that delays conversations on Biden's mental decline, asking CNN Chief Political Correspondent David Axelrod, "his medical condition now, his announced medical condition now, do you believe that silences or delays a lot of conversations about his last year and a half of his presidency, for now?" Axelrod replied, "yeah, well I think those conversations are going to happen, but they should be more muted and set aside for now as he's struggling through this."
Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (410) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Kash Patel and Dan Bongino: Jeffrey Epstein Did, In Fact, Kill Himself
Fox News:
"As someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was," Patel said when questioned about Epstein's death. He added that those who disagree with him "have a right to their opinion."Many are convinced Epstein was murdered and the fact that we have not one but two people friendly to us telling us otherwise doesn't sway them. In fact, they're now saying that Kash Patel was probably at Epstein's Pedo Island too, and he's lying just to cover up Trump's visits to the island.
Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (348) | Trackbacks (Suck)
THE MORNING RANT: Jacksonville Airport Fire Destroys 50 Cars, With Structural Damage to the Parking Garage
In a press conference, Mayor Donna Deegan said there were about 50 cars that were damaged from the fire that was still burning, but under control. Deegan also said the fire started on the second floor with one car and spread to other cars.Fire chief Keith Powers is reported as stating that that there was a partial collapse on the second and third floors, then a secondary collapse about 30 minutes later, to which he added, “We’re not putting firefighters in there.” Here is a picture of the original car spontaneously erupting in flames, with fire blasting sideways and igniting neighboring cars.
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (376) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Vercingétorix devant César
Lionel Noel Royer [Hat Tip: MP4]
Vercingétorix devant César
Lionel Noel Royer [Hat Tip: MP4]
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (254) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report — 5/ 19 /25 
Elsewhere, I'm waiting for Jake Tapper's mea culpa about Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis, insofar as he likely was diagnosed quite some time ago and probably was being treated, perhaps as far back as the latter part of his pseudo-presidency. Perhaps his Depends were mostly urine soaked more than fecal matter? Remember, he spent more time on vacation allegedly in Rehoboth than at the White House. The wrecking ball he took to the nation was operated mostly by Obama's apparatchiks. Biden could have been having operations and radiation unbeknownst to us, just like Lloyd AWOL-stin Austin. And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know. Have a great day.
The suspect in the explosion at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, on Saturday was reportedly an “anti-natalist” who did not believe people should have more children. The blast occurred at the American Reproductive Centers (ARC) just before 11:00 a.m., shattering windows and leaving debris in its wake, BBC News reported Sunday.If they can't kill children in the womb, or disfigure them via castration, or molest them into becoming homosexual catamites then no one can have them. Certainly not normal, loving, God-fearing parents of the traditional mother and father variety. Because the planet must be saved, or something. We're battling Malthusians, Luddites and Deviants. I don''t have enough seashells to spell out "86 the anti-natalists." Where's James Comey-dumpster when you need him.
Still, Comey could very well end up being prosecuted for his post. If he is prosecuted, his only real defense would be that he was so ignorant of things that he’s supposed to have expert knowledge of, such as Mafia lingo and what constitutes an actionable threat, that he didn’t know what he was doing. It doesn’t help that Comey has been quite public with his complaints that Trump and his administration have allegedly lied about and defamed him, so it would appear he has a motive to resent Trump. And if the prosecution depends on the establishing the “context” and “nature of the statement” to prove intent, a case against Comey could very well consider the plot of his recent novel, which is damning.
Elsewhere, I'm waiting for Jake Tapper's mea culpa about Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants Biden's prostate cancer diagnosis, insofar as he likely was diagnosed quite some time ago and probably was being treated, perhaps as far back as the latter part of his pseudo-presidency. Perhaps his Depends were mostly urine soaked more than fecal matter? Remember, he spent more time on vacation allegedly in Rehoboth than at the White House. The wrecking ball he took to the nation was operated mostly by Obama's apparatchiks. Biden could have been having operations and radiation unbeknownst to us, just like Lloyd AWOL-stin Austin. And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know. Have a great day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- From good friend and friend of the blog Michael Walsh - jjs
THE CONVERSATION: Michael Anton, Diplomat
Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:10 AM | Comments (418) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 19 May 2025
Top Story
- Why we're unlikely to get artificial general intelligence anytime soon. (MSN)
Because all the money - somehow - is working on artificial vapid idiots."The technology we're building today is not sufficient to get there," said Nick Frosst, a founder of the AI startup Cohere who previously worked as a researcher at Google and studied under the most revered AI researcher of the last 50 years. "What we are building now are things that take in words and predict the next most likely word, or they take in pixels and predict the next most likely pixel. That's very different from what you and I do."
This is of course true and makes me wonder how Nick has avoided being executed as a heretic.Opinions differ in part because scientists cannot even agree on a way of defining human intelligence, arguing endlessly over the merits and flaws of IQ tests and other benchmarks. Comparing our own brains to machines is even more subjective. This means that identifying AGI is essentially a matter of opinion.
Correct. But we are at least getting good at creating vapid idiots.
I'm not sure why we are doing that, but we are good at it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:32 AM | Comments (162) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 18, 2025
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - May 18, 2025 [Doof]
Gelndalough Cathedral in Wicklow, Ireland
Howdy Hordelings! Hope you have enjoyed your Sunday. The ONT is here for you to close out your day in the best way possible. Won't ya step on in and grace us with your amazing comments?
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (438) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gun Thread: Lack O' Content Episode 1 Edition! 
Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (274) | Trackbacks (Suck)
SUNDAY FOOD & COOKING THREAD - May 18, 2025
*****
Lesbian Potluck
mile 10 yards by bringing a tub of potato salad or something cold from the grocery store deli case.
Our family has since adopted the term “lesbian potluck” for any event to which you might bring food of some sort, but for which there is no expectation of putting any effort into cooking or food prep.
*****
Center Cut Brownies
Brownies are a staple dessert in my house, not only because they are easy to make, but also because I like cake-type desserts to be very moist, and I am able to make super-moist brownies by adding extra vegetable oil and then undercooking them.
I was shocked to learn recently that some people prefer brownies whose cut includes the outside edge, which tend to be harder and drier than the pure gooey goodness of center cut brownies.
As for me, what I do now is cut off the entire exterior perimeter of the brownies after I’ve pulled them out of the oven – about ½ inch from the perimeter of the pan. Then I cut the brownies into squares, which are all pure, center-cut with no crisp edges. As for those crisp edges, they can be repurposed as an addition to vanilla ice cream.
Are you a center-cut brownie person, or one of those puzzling people who likes crispy brownies from the perimeter?
Mr. CBD is unable to present you the regular, chef-prepared, Sunday Food Thread that you have come to expect. So with apologies from management, I have been called to kitchen duty today. Your regular scheduled food thread should be back next week. For now, here are a few items to chew on:
What’s Cooking Today? Spoonbread!Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 04:00 PM | Comments (358) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Dear Lee Zeldin: One More Item…
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is constantly fulfilling my political wish list and reversing regulations in a manner that I only dreamed might ever happen. Again, this is why I voted for Donald Trump.
Here are just a very few of the headlines we’ve been enjoying. This wish-list item just got passed in the past week: EPA Chief: Auto Start/Stop Technology Is Done This headline obviously thrilled me: EPA Takes Action to Terminate EV Mandate As did this one: EPA head says he'll roll back dozens of environmental regulations, including rules on climate change 2025 This line from Mr. Zeldin is so beautiful I’d like to put it to music: “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age…” OK, Mr. Zeldin, we know you won’t let us down, but we’re all on pins and needles awaiting the announcement that every person who works with power tools is ready to hear. I’ll give you a hint:
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 02:00 PM | Comments (273) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Streisand Effect: Texas RINO Dade Phelan is Promoting the Memes He Is Trying to Criminalize
Please Mr. Phelan, continue to let us know of any and all memes you encounter that disrespect you. Far be it from me, however, to post any of those memes that Rep. Phelan wants to criminalize. But I will post a video of him struggling to make a coherent sentence at the dais of the state House of Representatives.
It’s also worth remembering that the same “respectable” establishment Republicans in Texas who state that Donald Trump has neither the character nor temperament to serve in public office remain steadfast in their support for Dade Phelan. [buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
The fissures in Texas Republican politics are somewhat reflective of the national battle for the soul of the Republican Party, as the anti-MAGA establishment has allied with Democrats to try to defeat the Republicans’ conservative base by any means necessary.
In 2023, “Republican” Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Dade Phelan, sought to impeach Texas’ Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who has aggressively used his office to battle the left’s agenda. While Paxton was technically impeached for “misusing the powers of his office,” it was an obvious political exercise to take out an elected conservative warrior. The good news is that the impeachment failed, as enough senate Republicans in the state legislature heard from angry constituents who helped the Senators understand that if they removed Paxton from office via impeachment, they would also be terminating their own political careers. Best of all, Paxton has emerged stronger than ever from all this, and he is poised to defeat 24-year incumbent John Cornyn in the 2026 Texas Republican primary for the US Senate. Meanwhile, Dade Phelan became an object of scorn and mockery. There is a famous video of him incoherently drunk as he was speaking to the House around the time of the impeachment trial. Having been widely mocked, Phelan is now trying to make it criminally illegal for Texans to mock him. Although he is no longer Speaker of the House, he still serves as a Republican representative in the legislature in an alliance with Democrats and a lot of other fake-Republicans. So, he had his buddies in the legislature pass a bill for the purpose of criminalizing memes that mock Dade Phelan. Seriously. Texas House Approves Former Speaker Dade Phelan’s Meme Regulation Bill: Punishment under the legislation could result in up to a year in jail [Texas Scorecard – April 30, 2025]The Texas House has approved legislation by former Speaker Dade Phelan that would criminalize the distribution of altered political media, such as memes, videos, or audio recordings, unless they contain a government-mandated disclaimer. Despite tweaks in a recently adopted committee substitute, the bill continues to face intense criticism from First Amendment advocates who warn it would chill political speech and satire.It is not yet law, as it still must be passed by the state Senate and signed by Governor Abbott. Meanwhile, Rep. Phelan is going on social media highlighting examples of the memes he is trying to criminalize. I believe this is called the Streisand Effect, in which you bring attention to that which you are trying to suppress.
The Streisand Effect. RINO Dade Phelan (who led efforts to impeach Texas AG Ken Paxton) has pushed the Texas legislature to criminalize memes that mock Phelan. The mockery keeps increasing, so now Dade is actually spreading the memes by whining to make them stop. https://t.co/Q1IGOBBiED
— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) May 7, 2025
Please Mr. Phelan, continue to let us know of any and all memes you encounter that disrespect you. Far be it from me, however, to post any of those memes that Rep. Phelan wants to criminalize. But I will post a video of him struggling to make a coherent sentence at the dais of the state House of Representatives.
It’s also worth remembering that the same “respectable” establishment Republicans in Texas who state that Donald Trump has neither the character nor temperament to serve in public office remain steadfast in their support for Dade Phelan. [buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 12:00 PM | Comments (294) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-18-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (207) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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