Saturday Night "Club ONT" February 15, 2025 [The 3 D's]

Welcome to another presentation of Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino. Keep your hands to yourself, and make sure your arms and legs stay between the margins. This --- is Club ONT!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (460) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Evening Movie Thread [moviegique]: Well-Meaning AI Tyrants

So, this past fortnight-and-a-half, I saw a few movies, as usual: The new French Count of Monte Cristo, The Big Lebowski (again), Steven Soderbergh's ghost POV movie Presence, Hundreds of Beavers (again), and the lugubrious Oscar longshot Memoir of a Snail.

But nearly ten years ago, I was dabbling with Stack Exchange and came across this question, from a guy who had just seen Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, and asked: What is the first instance of the "Saving humans from themselves" trope?

So I thought I'd post my reply, updated to freshen the (constantly expiring) links. As a bonus, all the images link to the mentioned movies (except the first, which is only a trailer).

I think this is probably answerable.

The easiest answer is Colossus: The Forbin Project which is a semi-satirical take on the subject (filmed in 1970, based on a contemporary book). A super-computer built in the US to defend against a Soviet attack combines with its Soviet counterpart to dominate all aspects of human behavior. You can watch it on YouTube (with commercials):

You can't watch it online for free anymore, I don't think. Here's the trailer.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (393) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - February 15, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread.

We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin. Turns out, the Wheel is always looking for a bargain. It said BARGAIN HUNTING. Happy hunting!

[Photo:Round Top, Texas]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (141) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, February 15

* * *

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

Would you like a treat?

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

* * *

Posted by: K.T. at 03:30 PM | Comments (61) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Feb. 15

Hoping you are well and fully recovered.

We are up in northern Israel for the next few days, staying at our vacation home, and entertaining friends. Mrs. BD just adorned our table with the wild poppies we let grown on our back lawn.

Best regards from Jerusalem – er – northern Israel,

Biden’s Dog

Thanks. The flowers are gorgeous. They look kind of like Anemone Coronaria (Poppy Anemone) to me. "In 2013 Anemone coronaria was elected as the national flower of the State of Israel, in a poll arranged by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel."

I think that applies to the red form, but I love them all. Information on new hybrids and on history, mythology, etc. at the link.

They will grow from fall-planted tubers in mild parts of California, and can be inter-planted with violas, primroses or sweet alyssum.

One of the few potted flowers you can grow in red, white and blue.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:28 PM | Comments (56) | Trackbacks (Suck)

What has surprised you (and others) most about Trump 2?

from NanasTruths

Differences between Trump 1 and Trump 2

As I was listening to the discussion between CBD, J.J. Sefton and Michael Walsh on this week's CutJibNewsletter Speaks podcast, I was impressed by Walsh's feeling of a great difference in the country as he returned from overseas after the election.

Do you have a similar feeling that something big has changed? One thing I noticed was that the typical lefty activist types on my social media mostly seemed to be on sort of a delayed response. They seem to have been caught by surprise by the rapid-fire actions of the President.

What reactions have you noticed? Do you have any personal reactions to share?

Have there been ideological developments since Trump 1?

This week, Powerline put up a piece from The Free Press by Matthew Continetti in its daily reading suggestions: The Prophet of Trump's Second Term

Posted by: K.T. at 11:06 AM | Comments (421) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

[H/T Blake]

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian (ONT Cob Emeritus) at 08:18 AM | Comments (464) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 15 February 2025

Top Story

• Nvidia has delayed the launch of its RTX 5070 card - a $549 high-end model - until after AMD's announcement on the 28th. (Ars Technica)
  
  The article points out something I hadn't noticed before: The 5070 is likely to be markedly slower than the 4070 Super, since it cuts the number of shaders from 7168 to 6144. The 5070 Ti is pretty much a wash; it increases the core count slightly but decreases clock speeds a little.
  
  The 5090 and 5080 meanwhile are overpriced, irrelevant, and not available for purchase anywhere. The $750 5070 Ti will launch next week, and is expected to be more of the same.
  
  The mainstream market is now AMD's race to lose, and they probably will.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (207) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Love And ONTs

Happy Valentines Day!

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (402) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Valentine's Day Cafe

Guardian dogs never stop guarding.

Frog is miffed that his fellow frog took the bug without even calling dibbs!

Carnivorous frogs hunt the most dangerous game.

Little kids are baffled by the artifact known as a landline phone.

Donkey enjoys his Pirate Chicken toy.

Working dog never stops workin' it.

This cat will not vacate the dog bed no matter what the poor dog does to evict him.

ICYMI: Dogs pick up human games as quick as humans do.

This bear is out-of-control but a guy with balls of mithril says Oh yes you will be in-control, buddy.

Snow on the ocean.

Second-story men.

A tiger practices seizing and pouncing on his mate, who is not happy about it at all.

This husky will tell you when you're done petting him.

Vacation train.

Just keep looking straight ahead until the light changes...

Labrador wants to make friends with a whale shark.

Ruminants ruminating.

Red Beach in Iran.

Inman:

A jerk-off driver gets instant karma.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (432) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Hits

Via David Strom, searches for "Criminal Defense Attorney" have been soaring in the DC area:

Tom Homan has referred AOC to the DOJ for possible charges after Donkey-Chompers told illegal aliens to "resist" ICE during raids.

President Donald Trump's Border Czar, Tom Homan, accused New York Democrat Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of impeding U.S. immigration law enforcement efforts after she was caught advising illegal aliens on how to avoid deportation.

Homan told Fox News, "Impediment is impediment in my opinion," when asked if her actions were "crossing the line" and noted that he was "working with the Department of Justice to find out."

According to 8 US Code 1324 1/A/iv: "Any person who-- encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law; or engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts, shall be punished."

AOC hosted the "Know Your Rights With ICE" webinar live on her Facebook page on Feb. 12, which provided illegals in her NY congressional district with information on how to handle Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent search requests at their homes or workplaces.

She told illegals viewing the webinar, "When one of these things [raids] comes to your backyard, you can resist, and when that happens over millions of people, is that you generate enough friction that they cannot go as fast as they want to go," so it slows down ICE raids.

"Believe it or not, in America, EVERYONE has rights," Ocasio-Cortez later posted on her X account.

Homan questioned whether AOC's behavior constituted obstruction of immigration enforcement and asked the DOJ for clarification on whether her acts could be considered unlawful interference.

"I sent a letter today to the deputy attorney general. At what level is that impediment? Is that impediment? I'm not an attorney. I'm not a prosecutor. Is that impeding our law enforcement efforts? If so, what are we going to do about it?" asked Homan.

Yesterday we talked about the EPA clawing back $20 billion that EPA officials admitted they were just shoveling out the door to unqualified recipients to make sure the money was given to Democrat cronies before Trump could review the disbursements. The EPA goon described this as being like "throwing gold bars off the Titanic before it sank."

Real Clear Investigation's Jim Varney was all over this story back in October.

Although there isn't much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.

After gaining nonprofit status i August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House's $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.

So it was a pop-up NGO that quite fortunately popped up just months before Biden gave it nearly a billion in taxpayer dollars.

Say, did any of you get a heads-up to quickly file paperwork for "non-profit" so that you could receive a billion dollars?

Or was it just Biden's cronies and donors?

The Justice Climate Fund is not the only nonprofit newcomer suddenly made rich by the GGRF. Within a month of gaining nonprofit status from the IRS, Power Forward Communities, which reported 2023 revenues of $100, was awarded $2 billion.

They went from having total revenues of ONE HUNDRED (100) DOLLARS to being awarded $2 billion.

That tracks.

The awards were made by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is new to the world of major grantmaking. The agency acknowledges it has never handed out such gigantic sums of money, and its inspector general told Congress last month it marked a "fantastically complex" and "unusual" setup that his small staff would be hard-pressed to follow.

Critics note that many of the awardees are run by politically connected figures. The single biggest winner in the awards, which were announced in April, was the Climate United Fund, which is slated to receive $6.97 billion. The fund's directors include prominent Democrats, such as Phil Angelides, a former California State Treasurer. After this article was published Climate United told RCI that Anthony Foxx, who served as Transportation Secretary in the Obama administration, was "listed as a board member for our [grant] application but did not commit to serving post award." A press release on the group's website names Foxx as a member of its "Inaugural Board of Directors."

The unprecedented nature of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created as part of 2022's Inflation Reduction Act, is raising concerns about the Biden administration's efforts to spend tens of billions of dollars in its final months, a gusher of taxpayer money that will flow into a poorly understood, untested, and difficult to audit format. The tremendous sums involved, the novelty of the program, and the EPA's lack of experience in the field, as well as the unproven track record of some of the newly hatched recipients, have drawn the attention of lawmakers and others uncertain about how the taxpayers' billions will ultimately be spent and who will keep track of it all. <

"These groups are political front groups that are simply created to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to Democrat campaigns under the guise of doing something good," said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff in the Trump administration.

Daren Bakst, director of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment and a sharp critic of the Biden administration's climate change spending splurge, said, "It's worse than a slush fund -- it's a slush fund to create non-profit slush funds."

...

Neither the Justice Climate Fund nor Power Forward Communities responded to questions about their plans to spend the close to $3 billion in public funds they had received.

Kaitlin Collins, the Witch-Schnozzed Imbecile from CNN, attempted to shame Trump into talking badly about Mitch McConnell by shrieking "he had polio!" (Um, what?) The EU acknowledges they must "grow up" and pay their own way for defense.

Politico:

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, [EU Commission chairpyrsyn] von der Leyen said she wanted to trigger an emergency clause that would allow governments greater leeway so that military expenditure would not show up in the tightly controlled budget deficit limits.

"I will propose to activate the escape clause for defense investments," she said. "This will allow member states to substantially increase their defense expenditure."

The idea would allow governments to increase their defense spending substantially without violating the EU's budget rules.

Highly indebted European countries, such as Italy and Greece, have supported this option, arguing that it would allow them to significantly increase defense spending without making other budget cuts.

I used to be very skeptical of Trump's instincts to push NATO to spend more, and to threaten to abandon them if they didn't. I'm no longer skeptical. The EU is a hostile bloc and is my enemy. It's not Russia that is attempting to steal my right to speech and my right to profit from my speech by draining me of any advertising revenue -- it's the EU.

Meanwhile, Adam Kinzinger, who is stupid, has a great plan to really stick it to Trump.

He thinks Trump would be very, very upset if Europe finally put on its big boy pants and took over all funding for the War in Ukraine.

Posted by: Ace at 06:26 PM | Comments (277) | Trackbacks (Suck)

New Leftist Attack on Musk and Trump: Trump Is Buying $400,000,000 of Armored Tesla Cybertrucks in a Corrupt Payoff

There is such a deal.

There's just one problem with this claim: The State Department inked the deal to buy these electric trucks on December 13, 2024.

When Biden was "president."

Nothing to do with Trump. It's all about Biden's insane drive to make everyone drive electric vehicles.

Rachel Maddow gleefully reported on the purchase -- but failed to tell her viewers that this is a Biden-era deal, part of Biden's drive to turn the State Department into a "zero carbon" agency.

And it's not as if she didn't know -- the first reporting on this from the leftwing Ryan Grim stated the date of the contract in the first sentence.

Though he does attempt to blame the contract on Trump anyway, saying it was awarded "after Trump's election." Not his inauguration, which would happen 40 days later.

The State Department's procurement forecast, revised as of late December 2024, lists Tesla as the recipient of the largest expected contract, with Marco Rubio's department planning to buy $400,000,000 worth of "Armored Tesla."

The award is targeted for Q4, and is forecast to last for five years.

The procurement forecast is listed as having been modified on December 13, 2024, a month after Donald Trump's election. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the heading, "extent competed," the document reads merely "TBD."

Does Grim mean to say that everyone knows Trump was the Real President during this period?

This is deliberate disinformation.

Will GARM be instructing advertisers to boycott her disinformation and conspiracy theory show, or nah?

Nah, right?

Posted by: Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (227) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Another Trans Terrorist Plotted a School Shooting, But This Time, Without 13% of Its Force MIA and Locking Up J6ers, The FBI Stops Her

The media calls this rabid demon a "transgender male." I don't know what that means. Is it a boy deluded into thinking he's a girl, or a girl deluded into thinking she's a boy?

The media wants to keep us confused.

By the way: The national media isn't covering this story. I found it on News Nation. They picked up the story from a local outlet.

Apparently CNN, AP, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and NPR all had more important things to do than cover one of their favorite topics, a school shooting.

An 18-year-old Mooresville High School student who had a collage of mass shooters in the student's bedroom was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly planning a school shooting on Valentine's Day.

According to court documents recently filed in Morgan County by the Mooresville Metropolitan Police Department, Trinity Shockley was arrested on the following charges:

* One count of conspiracy to commit murder, a Level 1 felony
* One count of intimidation: threat to commit terrorism, a Level 5 felony
* One count of conspiracy to commit intimidation: threat to commit terrorism, a Level 5 felony

On Tuesday evening, law enforcement received a tip about a planned school shooting at Mooresville High School. A person of interest was later identified as Shockley, a news release from the department said.

...

The tip stated that a person, later identified as Shockley, was planning a shooting and had access to an AR-15 rifle and had ordered a bulletproof vest. The tip stated that Shockley reportedly admired Nikolas Cruz, the man who conducted the shooting at Parkland High School in Florida which occurred on Valentine's Day in 2018.

After an investigation, authorities found archives of Shockley's Discord and Snapchat accounts which included conversations about planning a school shooting. On Discord, Shockley's username was reportedly "Crazy Nikolaz."

In one message on Snapchat, Shockley -- who identified in the messages as a 12th grade transgender person named Jamie -- said in January that the shooting would be "Parkland part two" and that Shockley had been planning this for a year.

In another conversation from Feb. 7, Shockley reportedly planned to shoot someone who Shockley had a crush on, but did not plan to commit suicide. Shockley did express having suicidal thoughts at other points in life due to bullying and other mental health issues.

The documents said that Shockley spoke with a counselor on Tuesday afternoon at Mooresville High School and reportedly disclosed being sexually attracted to Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooter. Shockley reportedly confessed to writing to Cruz multiple times while he had been in prison and claimed to possess a heart locket necklace with Cruz's photo inside.

...

During the search, law enforcement collected photos on a wall of mass shooters like Cruz, as well as Dylann Roof, the man who killed multiple people in a church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. The documents said that Shockley also had a photo album of mass shooters, as well as buttons with their faces on it.

The documents said that other items were seized from the Shockley's home, including:

A few AR-15 magazines and a box of 50 .40 caliber rounds from Shockley's father's room
A Soft armor vest

Law enforcement reportedly seized a number of notebooks from Shockley's room. The notebooks allegedly included several passages including one where Shockley identified as "Dex... a transgender male (who has) a lot of homicidal thoughts."

"These thoughts never seem to stop, you may believe that I am some edgelord, but in reality, I am just a loser," Shockley reportedly said in an entry dated Dec. 16, 2024. "I am grateful for my chance to live but in reality, I am scared of living. Is it the government you ask? No. It is this sad reality of living with piece(s) of s---... I hope whoever reads this takes acknowledgment and maybe use it for your massacre. "

In other entries from January, Shockley wrote about wanting to hurt others and said people need to be "killed" and "wiped away from humanity." Shockley also expressed love for Cruz, comparing him to a popular indie pop artist.

In an interview police conducted with Shockley on Wednesday, Shockley reportedly told police that Shockley was "interested in mass (murderers) and the mindset of them." Shockley also claimed to relate to Cruz's motive due to the recent death of a family member.

We keep seeing this.

I just checked Andy Ngo's reporting, which actually tells us: This is a girl who claims to be a boy.

So was this female transgender -- like, actually a female -- taking testosterone, either through prescription or obtained illegally?

And if so:

Could it be, possibly, that testosterone, which we all know causes aggression and even rage (in high doses) in males, might maybe conceivably be causing 'roid rage in girls whose bodies have much lower levels of testosterone and who therefore experience more psychological problems at high doses?

I denounce myself for fascistly asking this obvious, important question that could lead to fewer children being murdered by testosterone-drunk trans "boys."

Posted by: Ace at 04:22 PM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

New Propaganda Drops: Akshually Biden Arrested More Border Crossers Than Trump Did, MAGats!!!

Amazing.

Posted by: Ace at 03:22 PM | Comments (241) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Shock of Shocks: Liberal Women Are the Loneliest Women in the World

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

Liberal women are the least likely to report being fully satisfied with their lives and are far more likely to report feeling lonely often, according to analysis from a recently published poll.

The 2024 American Family Survey reportedly found that 37% of conservative women and 28% of moderate women, between the ages of 18-40, reported being "completely satisfied" with their lives, but just 12% of liberal women in the same age group said the same.

Liberal women were also nearly three times more likely than conservative women to say they experienced loneliness at least a few times a week.

Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and fellow at the Institute for Family Studies who analyzed the survey's data, said he believes there are a couple of reasons why conservative young women are more likely to be happier than their liberal counterparts.

"We've seen in the research that conservative women tend to be more likely to embrace a sense of agency and to have the sense that they are not, in any way, the victim of larger structural realities or forces," he told Fox News Digital.

"They're also less likely to catastrophize about public events and concerns," and "more likely to think of themselves as captains of their own fate," Wilcox added.

...

Wilcox also broke down the poll by the relationship status of the women surveyed.

According to his analysis, 40% of liberal women reported being single, while 31% said they were married.

For conservative women, 33% reported being single and 51% were married.

The 2024 poll was released in early February 2025, and conducted Aug. 22-29, 2024, by YouGov for Deseret News and the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University.

On the other hand: if I can speak broadly for a moment, while acknowledging this rule is not absolute and there is a lot of variability in women, women tend to more influenced by groupthink and collective "norms" then men. When a social convention is established by "authorities," whoever that may be, women tend to follow those conventions.

Men tend to be more inclined to rebel.

Liberal women are, of course, the biggest group-thinkers of all women.

My point is: Most liberal women didn't entirely choose an ideology that makes them alone and unloved and bitter. There is a cadre of tastemakers and culture warriors (much of those being liberal women in positions of power and influence) who have declared venomous Eternal Sex War Politics to be virtuous and beyond debate. Most liberal women didn't really choose this; they choose only to be conventional, and the women and gay dudes who determine what feminine culture are have set this as their conventions.

On the other hand, women, and even liberal women, shouldn't be infantalized. They make their own decision. They continue choosing extremely stupid, toxic, and self-defeating "norms" to believe in and champion with the zealotry of a jihadist.

That's on them. No one can be cured of ignorance by someone else. It's up to everyone to cure his or her own ignorance.

Posted by: Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (416) | Trackbacks (Suck)

JD Vance Shocks Munich, Rocks Europe With Speech Decrying Europe's Determined Slouch Into Tyranny and Madness

Ann Coulter
@AnnCoulter

JD Vance is giving a knockout speech in Munich right now. CNN and MSNBC pulled away a few minutes in. Only BBC and Fox still showing it. THAT'S how good it it.

MUST WATCH.

Tyrants have held on to power, despite the public hating most things they do, but declaring all criticism to be illegitimate and forbidden.

This works... until it doesn't. It worked in the US from 2008 to 2023.

And then it stopped working.

At some point, people have had enough toxic bullshit shoveled into their faces.

Vance has now given permission to millions and millions of Europeans to find their voice. Will they seize the opportunity? Or will they continue to meekly bend the knee to the tyrannical overclass?

JD Vance just called out the Davos-controled governments of Europe and attacked them for resorting to Soviet Union tactics -- jailing dissidents, ignoring the will of the people, even cancelling elections entirely -- in order, they claim, to "save democracy."

A lot of that going 'round!

We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security... [T]he threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them. Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the cold war positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not.

And thank God they lost the cold war. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, invent, to build. As it turns out, you can't mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can't force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe. And we believe those things are certainly connected. And unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the cold war's winners.

I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they've judged to be "hateful content," or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of "combating misogyny" on the internet.

I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend's murder. And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden's laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant -- and I'm quoting -- a "free pass" to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith Conner, a fifty-one-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing fifty meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son.

He and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now the officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government's new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalizes silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person's decision within 200 meters of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.

Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no. This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth. I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation, like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaped from leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.

So I come here today not just with an with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump's leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer in the public square. Agree or disagree? Now, we're at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I'd ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it's wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn't very strong to begin with.

Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.

And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. Which, of course, brings us back to Munich, where the organizers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the left and the right from participating in these conversations. Now, again, we don't have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.

Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.

Posted by: Ace at 01:09 PM | Comments (514) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Terrorist-Friendly Propaganda Aggregator Reuters Took $9 Million from Biden's DoD For... "Large Scale Social Deception" and "Active Social Engineering"

Happy Friday, and Happy Valentine's Day.

I would guess that this money was granted not to do these things, but to stop "Right Wing Russian Extremists" from doing them.

But of course, the left has justified its government-sponsored censorship and propaganda on the claim that Right Wing Russian Extremists are A Threat So Threatening that the Constitution is basically repealed until the emergency is over, which is never, because tyrants never declare an emergency over.

So we're paying foreign leftwing propaganda networks to censor the American citizenry.

Again.

The news that Reuters had a multimillion-dollar contract with the Defense Department for "large scale social deception" has reignited concerns about government influence over media organizations. The contract, covering a period from 2018 to 2022, was uncovered through a purchase order posted by Elon Musk, raising eyebrows over the scope and purpose of the arrangement.

When asked about the contract, Reuters did not directly respond to whether the federal government routinely collaborates with the organization to deceive the public. Steve Rubley, CEO of Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS), claimed that TRSS is a "separate U.S. legal entity" from Reuters News and operates independently. However, this explanation has not quelled skepticism, particularly given longstanding allegations that Reuters has worked to advance government narratives in the past.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the controversy, calling for Reuters to "GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!" He pointed to the contract as further proof of left-wing media's entanglement with government interests. Musk, who has been outspoken against corruption and misinformation, called the revelation "a total scam" and vowed to investigate Reuters' financial ties with the government.

Reuters has long promoted itself as a neutral and ethical news agency, claiming to uphold "the values of integrity and freedom." However, this contract raises significant concerns about whether its coverage has been influenced by financial ties to government agencies. Journalist Carl Bernstein has previously reported on Reuters' alleged links to intelligence operations, further fueling doubts about its independence.

Posted by: Ace at 12:09 PM | Comments (366) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: In Response to Rogue Judiciary, Perhaps Trump Should Expand Executive Branch Purview and Start Firing Federal Judges

There has been a great deal of discussion in recent days about rogue federal judges unconstitutionally inserting themselves into the administration of Executive Branch departments. Federal judge Paul Engelmayer of New York decreed that only career bureaucrats in the Treasury Department can have access to the department’s payment system, but that the boss, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (who was appointed by Donald Trump), was barred from all access. Similarly, federal judge John Bates just unconstitutionally inserted himself into the administration of several federal health agencies by reversing President Trump’s executive order that removed sex change propaganda from the heath agencies’ websites. Judge Bates demanded that the various gender and sexual lifestyle links be re-instated.

The idea that an unelected district court judge can block the Secretary of Treasury (appointed by the elected president, confirmed by the elected Senate) from accessing Treasury's data is outrageous.

It's counter to our entire system of government. https://t.co/PsHcPW3E3a

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) February 11, 2025

So how should the Trump administration respond? Here’s an idea:

President Trump should fire these rogue federal judges and instruct all Executive Branch employees to ignore any rulings that come from federal judges that he has fired.

Some people might argue that Trump has no constitutional authority to fire federal judges. They’d be right. But those rogue federal judges also have no constitutional authority to insert themselves into the administration of the Executive Branch departments.

By the current playbook, if a rogue judge unlawfully issues an injunction to impede or change the workings of the Executive Branch, the President must abide with the ruling. The only recourse is to appeal to an appellate judge or court to seek a reversal of the ruling, with a likely escalation of appeals and counter-reversals that will take an extended period of time.

So, if the President declares that a federal judge has been terminated of his job, shouldn’t that judge have to stand down until the appeals process plays out too? If not, why not? If the judiciary can interfere with the administration of the Executive Branch, why can’t the Executive Branch reciprocate?

Obviously, the judiciary has no constitutional reason to consent to the President firing federal judges, and it is free to ignore such a request. Likewise, the President has no obligation to acknowledge or respect a clearly unconstitutional intrusion into its affairs by the judiciary. Forcing the judiciary to refuse Executive Branch intrusion into its turf would be extremely helpful.

And clearly, the notion of the President firing federal judges is preposterous, but it is no less preposterous than what the judiciary is doing. If a federal judge ruled that the President must re-segregate the government in the manner of Woodrow Wilson’s policies, would the President have to engage in those actions until the appeals process played out? Of course not. But allowing a federal judge to demand that sex-change information be put on government websites is happening right now, and it’s just as outrageous.

In our Constitutional system of “checks and balances,” Congress has the authority to impeach judges and abolish courts, but it has proved that it won’t do so. There is no defined Executive Branch mechanism to check the judiciary, however, and unchecked power leads to abuses. We now have hundreds of federal judges who have the unchecked power to unilaterally veto any legislation, reverse any Executive Order, and implement regulatory whims.

Politely asking the judiciary to stay in its lane has been futile. There needs to be consequences or it will never stop.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (321) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Portrait of Constantijn Huygens and His (?) Clerk
Thomas de Keyser

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (371) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 2/14 /25

Good morning kids. And a happy Valentine's Day. In my mind, I'm picturing the scene from the Roger Corman classic The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and imagining Musk and Trump, mowing down the Deep State with "Chicago Typewriters," figuratively speaking nudge*nudge wink*wink!

Meanwhile, in the wake (no pun) of last week's DC airliner crash after colliding with a Blackhawk chopper, this late breaking story is raising my eyebrow:

According to an Associated Press report, an "official" said that the plane's mechanical issue "had to do with the cockpit windshield on the C-32, a converted Boeing 757," and it "occurred about 90 minutes after the flight took off from Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington." Axios global affairs correspondent Barak Ravid is reporting similar information. 
Rubio's Plane Forced to Turn Around En Route to Europe

Was the plane properly deiced or was it DEI-Iced as in sabotage? Given who and what we and Team Trump are up against on every level, to simply shrug this off as a freak incident without even considering the possibility of intentional sabotage or even unintentional incompetence, which these days is primarily driven by ideology and DEI.

On other fronts, as the resistance to Team Trump''s legitimate authority to weed out waste, corruption, fraud and at some point insubordination to the point of actual treasonous behavior, it's bound to get violent given politically motivated violence has not only never been disavowed by the Democrat-Left but indeed is embraced by it as a legitimate tactic to get what they want. By any means necessary is not merely what you find written on a note in a fortune cookie.

And as you scan the links especially in the Domestic Affairs and Immigration sections, you will see numerous examples of both rank insubordination and thinly veiled as well as open threats of violence in response to DOGE and the absolutely necessary roundup and deportation of as many illegal alien invaders as can be achieved.

So from Dallas police officers who are openly declaring their refusal to do their duty in assisting ICE agents in detaining illegal aliens to DEI and other Leftist Gold bricks who are changing their names to avoid dismissal, they must be dismissed and their pension funds frozen or seized outright. If for no other reason than pour encourager les autres.

We also have terrorist and terorist adjacent scum in and out of government encouraging resistance by any means necessary to Mustk Trump and ICE. Time for some Bondi and Discipline in cracking down on these homegrown terrorist organizations, and not merely the know foreign groups that are streaming across our borders. While we're at it, time to look into cancerous fistulas like Bloomberg and Soros. Shutting down their phianthropic front groups and mass asset seizures are in order considering who and what they are funding. That is, the destruction of our society.

Bloomberg is directly working to undermine the national security of us and our allies

Among the "advisors" listed on the sleepy website of something known as the Belt and Road International Green Development Coalition (BRIGC) is a senior official at Michael Bloomberg's eponymous philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies. The official, Antha Williams, the head of Bloomberg Philanthropies' environmental programs, serves as an adviser to the co-chairs of the organization, who include a Chinese Communist Party official responsible for the country's Ministry of Ecology and the Environment.

And that''s just the tip of the Thunberg.

OF course the showdown with the rogue judiciary must be won by Trump. And that means being absolutely merciless and ruthless with all the hacks in black by ignoring their blatantly anti-constitutional rulings. That opens up all kinds of cans of worms but there's no going back now.

By the way, be sure to catch the latest podcast (here and in the sidebar) with our good friend the erudite Michael Walsh. as we talk extensively on the qualities of leadership (vis a vis Trump) in context of Michael's wonderful new book about battles that shaped history and the victors who won them.

Have a great Weekend!.

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
• According to an Associated Press report, an "official" said that the plane's mechanical issue "had to do with the cockpit windshield on the C-32, a converted Boeing 757," and it "occurred about 90 minutes after the flight took off from Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington." Axios global affairs correspondent Barak Ravid is reporting similar information. 
  Rubio's Plane Forced to Turn Around En Route to Europe

• All four of the biggest scandals in U.S. history have happened in just the past few years.
  We’re Living through the Biggest Scandal of All Time
  
• The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has become one of Washington’s most powerful—and least accountable—agencies. Created under Dodd-Frank in 2010, it was Elizabeth Warren’s pet project, a progressive financial watchdog designed to operate beyond the reach of voters and elected officials. Unlike most agencies, the CFPB isn’t funded by Congress but instead pulls money directly from the Federal Reserve, shielding it from normal budgetary oversight. For years, it was led by a single director who could not even be removed by the president—a blatantly unconstitutional structure that the Supreme Court struck down in 2020.
  Trump Moves to Rein in the Rogue CFPB (Fuck that Noise, it should be abolished by EO and let the Dems squeal. And Repeal Dodd-Fagg!!!- jjs)

Bonus Valentine's Day Def Dedication, ABC with Poison Arrow from 1982!

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:35 AM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)