Trump Plans to Suspend Federal Gas Tax During Iran Squeeze

The disgraceful Washington Post:

President Donald Trump has proposed pausing the federal gas tax as a form of relief for American consumers as energy prices soar as a result of the war in Iran.

The move -- which requires congressional approval to pass -- would mark the latest in a string of government interventions to address fallout from the war, which is weighing on Trump's popularity.

Since the war began in late February, the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, an international benchmark, has skyrocketed from about $70 to more than $107. U.S. gas prices -- now an average of $4.50 a gallon -- have reached levels not seen since 2022 and contributed to Trump's falling approval ratings ahead of the November midterms.

Oh gas prices have risen to Biden levels? Weird because you insisted at the time that gas prices weren't that bad and might even be a good thing because high gas prices discourages driving and reduces the emission of CO2, The Invisible Killer.

But now gas prices are bad. I wonder what might have flipped this particular switch.

Congress is warming to the proposal.

With the average price for regular gasoline topping $4.50 per gallon -- up by more than $1 compared to a year ago -- officials and lawmakers are turning bullish on an idea many have been cool on.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced plans to introduce a bill on social media Monday. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) followed up with her own message soon after.

"American families need this relief on gas prices. My office will be working directly with President Trump to ensure we deliver this win for the American people," Luna wrote on X.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) has opposed suspending the 18 cent gasoline tax, which helps fund highways. Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who has jurisdiction over the issue, said recently he wasn't considering it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has been similarly skeptical. "I don't know that the federal gas tax is going to lower [gas prices] by a lot," Thune said earlier this year.

Of course Thune's against it.

But momentum appears to be shifting in favor of the idea. The question is whether pressure from the White House will be enough to convince lawmakers to join the push.

They should consider the example Trump made of the Indiana RINOs.

Trump has other plans to rein in oil prices -- the DOE will begin "loaning out" barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which will be repaid later with more barrels.

This should result in a short-term amelioration of the price of oil, plus a slight rebuilding of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve later.

And note this isn't a Biden Election Year Lie where no oil will actually be returned to the SPR, because the loaned oil must be repaid in oil, plus "interest rate" oil on top of that.

The Trump administration announced Monday it would loan out 53.3 million barrels of oil from the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to energy companies -- an attempt to bring down skyrocketing oil prices as a result of the U.S. war with Iran.

In March, the U.S. agreed to release 172 million barrels from the SPR as part of an internationally coordinated release of 400 million barrels in a similar attempt to lower the high oil prices that have been passed along to consumers in the forms of high gas prices and home heating costs.

Nine companies, including Exxon and Marathon Petroleum Company borrowed 58% of the 92.5 million barrels of the 92.5 million barrels the Department of Energy had offered to loan out of the nation's stockpiles, Reuters reported.

Oil exchanges, as they are called, allow the DOE to loan out oil to companies who later pay back to the oil with extra barrels, which functions like interest on a loan.

Of the 172 million barrels of oil slated for release from the SPR, the DOE had previously loaned out 80 million barrels. The U.S. petroleum stockpiles are stored in 62 salt caverns located at four sites on the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. These caverns are 200 feet wide and over 2,500 feet deep in the ground. The caverns are known within the industry as "Kamala Harris's Rotten Vagina."

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (250) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Democrat Whistleblower Claims that Adam Schiff Ordered His Staff to Illegally Leak Classified Information In Order to Rig an Indictment Against Trump

Adam Schiff, I assume, has been quizzed about this before.

And I assume he lied to federal investigators when he was asked.

That's obstruction of justice.

Tony Seruga
@TonySeruga

3h

🚨 ADAM SCHIFF'S FELONY CONFESSED BY HIS OWN DEMOCRATIC STAFF: Leaked Classified Secrets to Frame Trump -- 10+ Years in Prison or Just Another Swamp Pass?

Declassified FBI 302s -- released by Director Kash Patel -- expose a Democratic whistleblower (a 10+ year House Intelligence Committee veteran) who warned agents in 2017 and 2023: then-Rep. Schiff convened staff and explicitly authorized leaks of classified intelligence derogatory to President Trump. The explicit aim? To manufacture material "to indict" a sitting President during the now-discredited Russiagate probe.

This was no rogue staffer. It was the ranking member -- later chairman -- of the very committee entrusted with our nation's most sensitive secrets, plotting in open conference to weaponize them against the Executive Branch. A fellow Democrat called it "illegal, unethical, and treasonous."

Professor Jonathan Turley captured the constitutional horror: "a truly chilling account... perfectly moronic to commit such a felony with a planning conference meeting with staff." Under 18 U.S.C. § 798, unauthorized disclosure of classified information carries up to 10 years or more per count. "Someone," Turley rightly declared, "is a felon."

The Framers designed the Intelligence Committee to defend the Republic from foreign threats and domestic overreach -- not to serve as a partisan Star Chamber. Schiff's alleged scheme was not oversight; it was subversion, the precise factional cancer the Constitution was written to excise. While he sermonized about "threats to democracy," he allegedly orchestrated one from within its most sensitive chamber.

President Trump has torn back the curtain. The rule of law is not optional. Equal justice is not partisan. The same statutes that bind the rest of us must now bind the self-anointed high priest of the Russia hoax.

America is watching. History is recording. Accountability cannot wait.

This researcher says that Eric Swalwell was part of the illegal leaking conspiracy as well:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (206) | Trackbacks (Suck)

South Carolina's Legislature Will Delete C***s***er Jim Clyburn's Seat Tomorrow; Alabama Now Free to Eliminate One of Its Two Democrat Districts

Alabama has two majority-minority districts due to unconstitutional racist and Democrat Protection Racket mandates.

The Supreme Court just vacated a lower court ruling mandating the racially rigged districts, and Alabama will swiftly move to eliminate one of them.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Alabama to implement a new race-neutral congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms on Monday.

In a 6-3 order, the high court vacated a series of lower court rulings that effectively resulted in the state's use of a congressional map that includes two majority-minority districts. As The Federalist reported, such affirmative action districts were historically carved out under past interpretations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to Democrats' benefit.

...

Responding to Monday's decision, Allen said in a statement that Alabama's May 19 primary election "will proceed as scheduled," and that his office "will remain in close contact with the Governor's Office and the Attorney General's Office as this situation continues developing."

...

Writing for the dissent, Sotomayor argued that "[t]here is no reason" for the Supreme Court to vacate the district court's order and remand the matter "for reconsideration in light of the Court's new interpretation of §2 of the Voting Rights Act" in Callais. She contended that the lower court's "finding of intentional discrimination" in the battle over Alabama's 2023 proposed map "is independent of, and unaffected by, any of the legal issues discussed in Callais."

With that lawless lower court ruling vacated, the maps Alabama actually drew in 2023 should now back in effect.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday set the stage for Alabama to eliminate one of two largely Black congressional districts before this year's midterm elections, creating an opening for Republicans to gain an additional U.S. House seat in a partisan battle for control of the closely divided chamber.

...

Alabama officials had pointed to the Louisiana case as reason for the Supreme Court to end a judicial order to use a court-imposed House map until after the 2030 census. The high court on Monday overturned that order and directed a lower court to reconsider the case in light of the Louisiana decision. That could free the state to instead use a map approved in 2023 by the Republican-led legislature that includes only one district where Black residents comprise a majority.

Anticipating a court reversal, Alabama officials recently enacted a law allowing it to void the results of a May 19 primary for some congressional districts and instead hold a new primary under the revised district boundaries. Alabama had asked for an expedited decision ahead of the primary.

I don't know how long the lower court will take to issue a ruling, though. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded -- the latter word meaning "sent back to the lower court for reconsideration of its decision, now informed by the Supreme Court's new ruling and instruction." I guess the lower court could once again attempt to impose the old map, making new claims.

Shipwreckedcrew, a former federal prosecutor, thinks it's unlikely the lower court can attempt to re-impose the court-mandated map without the unconstitutional command to gerrymander as many majority-minority districts as possible:

Shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrew

14h

Alabama didn't make the same argument that the petitioners did in Louisiana. It did not argue that the race-consicous remedy was a 14th Amendment violation that was only available in very narrow circumstances.

The plaintiffs in the Alabama case can challenge the old map again, but they aren't entitled to "majority-minority" districts ordered by a court as the remedy. Alabama may be forced to draw new maps that explicitly rely on partisanship and not race, but the end result is going to be the same.

But this could take time. I don't know which maps will be in effect if the lower Hawaiian judge drags this out.

Meanwhile, South Carolina will eliminate race hustler Jim Clyburn's seat tomorrow.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (310) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: AI-Driven Redistricting?

Gee, has anyone noticed that federal legislative districts are in the news? Well, we have been screwing with them for the last 184 years, when The Apportionment Act of 1842 was passed. Some states were still electing at-large representatives, some states had multiple member districts, and it was a bit of a mess. Some states continued their wayward ways and there were other apportionment acts passed.

Oh...wait! Elbridge Gerry (of Gerrymander fame!) was screwing with them in 1812, and I am sure there were manipulations before then. The real issue is that there are no laws governing the creation of legislative districts that can rein in the base instincts of politicians. Partisan manipulation of districts has been found by the courts to be permissible, and that has overwhelmed the demands of "compactness," and maintaining political subdivisions like counties, cities, and neighborhoods within rational districts.

"Compactness?" That's a joke. Look at dozens of districts across America and the contortions the mapmakers went through to create, preserve, or destroy particular districts for partisan gain. Hell, the entirety of New England has zero members of the House of Representatives. That is insulting to our republican form of government, and even to our nonexistent but sound-bite-creating "democracy!"

So how can it be fixed, and what would it look like if it were?

Enter AI, which makes the creation of legislative maps a relatively easy process. It is by no means perfect, because the various systems are nowhere near intelligent enough to do what is requested. For instance, it took several iterations to explain to ChatGPT that Wyoming has only one legislative district, it is Republican, and Colorado doesn't get to snake one of theirs into Wyoming! It's actually an excellent way to see the many shortcomings of AI, and how far it needs to go. To be fair, my version of ChatGPT does not have access to the some of the data, like census blocks, and some of the more sophisticated GIS.

Here is a map that has some interesting restrictions. I began with rules that districts must emanate from the center of major cities, must respect "compactness," and city and county borders. I continued to tweak it, reminding the AI over and over that it must obey the specified rules. Some of the mistakes were marvelous! Pittsburgh was solidly Republican for a few iterations, and the Florida panhandle was Democrat. Yeah...AI is not smart.

This was based on 2024 voting patterns, and is probably a bit optimistic, but it shows a solid Republican majority, even with what seems to be under-representation in the major cities. The breakdown by state is illuminating, in part because smaller states are difficult to balance politically, but the larger states are also hamstrung by their large Democrat majorities in the cities.

This is an intellectual exercise, and will never be enacted by any state legislature. There is simply too much at stake. But it does expose the difficulties of creating reasonable legislative districts that represent the people, rather than the entrenched interests in the various statehouses.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

Posted by: CBD at 10:58 AM | Comments (288) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The Davicos (Portrait of the Davico Sisters)
Donald M. Mattison

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (317) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 5/ 12/26

Good morning kids. They're evil, and they're dangerous.

Democrat House leader Hakeem Jeffries and potentially the next Speaker, is the nephew of militant racist Leonard Jeffries.

Before his July 20, 1991 speech, Dr. Leonard Jeffries was already known for his teaching that blacks are racially superior to whites because blacks, whom he calls “sun people,” have more melanin in their skin than whites, whom he calls “ice people.”

“Let me clarify my views,” Dr. Jeffries said, after a long exegesis on the role of Jews in the African slave trade, “if they say we are destroying Western civilization with our proposals, then I say let it happen quickly, because Western civilization is nothing more than an institutionalized, sophisticated form of barbarism.”

. . .Now that’s important because when these people talk about “white supremacists”, they don’t mean the KKK, they mean Americans in general and all who aren’t on board with their black supremacist agenda.

Now let’s meet Hakeem’s brother in the present day.
Hasan Kwame Jeffries tweeted that, “John Brown understood that only way to free America from the scourge of white supremacy was to get rid of white supremacists by any means necessary. He was right THEN. He is right now.”
Whom does the possible future Speaker’s brother consider needs killing? Is Trump on the list?

His current timeline is full of rants about “white people” and claims that Republicans are the new ‘Jim Crow’

I suppose the only question left to ask is whether Hakeem agrees with his brother the way he did with his uncle.

You can bet your life he does. And with that as the set-up we have this twisted article of faith of Leftism.

Black conservatives perennially face the slur that they’re “not really black” if they aren’t on the Left. Not only that, they are tools of white racists if they dissent from the NAACP hard line.

When the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn a racially gerrymandered congressional district in Louisiana, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) was outraged by the local Deseret News in Salt Lake City prominently featuring an Associated Press photo of a lone black protester in front of the court holding a sign that said, “Thurgood is watching you, Clarence.” That implied Thurgood Marshall was disappointed in Clarence Thomas.

Lee tweeted: “They’re going after Justice Thomas for being conservative while Black...

So being black has nothing to do with melanin but political persuasion. Ditto sex, sexual orientation and heritage. The long and short of it is being good means Leftist, and being evil is anything other than that. And from there, you have the absolute moral authority to do anything to gain and maintain power because democracy, freedom and the planet demand it! And those who protest or accuse them of hypocrisy have no right because after all America itself, along with western civilization and Judeo/Christianity are collectively all to be blamed. And as this essay alludes, being a "white supremacist" merely means being white. This is where melanin or lack thereof is all that is needed to define people, unlike the reverse vis a vis Clarence Thomas and others like him.

Yes, the Democrat/Left are evil and dangerous and they're at their most evil and dangerous when they're cornered like rats and sense that the political winds are blowing in the opposite direction to where they want to take us.

With the Virginia Supreme Court rejecting the naked power grab of Spanberger and her cohorts in the attempted gerrymandering and complete disenfranchising of non-leftist Virginians, the reaction was almost worse than their attempted power grab: the sacking of their State's Supreme Court and replacement with Leftist lackies. If they succeed, God-forbid, it might be lights out for America before too long.

If at first you don’t succeed, throw out the rules and rig the game in your favor.

That’s the strategy Democrats are looking to embrace after the Virginia Supreme Court slapped down their illegal efforts to gerrymander the commonwealth in their favor ahead of the 2026 midterms. The state’s high court found (4-3) that the Democrat-run General Assembly violated the Virginia Constitution by bypassing procedural requirements necessary for the redistricting amendment to appear on the state’s April ballot. . . Not content with accepting defeat, Democrats are exploring ways to resurrect their failed gerrymandering gambit ahead of the 2026 elections, The New York Times reported over the weekend. Democrats’ brainstorming session included one “audacious” and “possibly far-fetched” idea that involves packing the Virginia Supreme Court with new Democrat appointees. Floated on a purported phone call between U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Virginia Democrat House leaders, the proposal involves the Virginia General Assembly and Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger approving legislation that would lower the retirement age for state Supreme Court justices.

Dangerous times, my friends, as if we weren't painfully aware of that by now...

America is not yet at the stage reached by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920s or among Japan’s military rulers in the 1930s, in which the assassination of politicians became almost routine, a means to remove talented individuals from power and to discourage opposing views from being voiced.

But when putatively respectable individuals and institutions on one side of the political spectrum give voice to approval of violence and murder, the Weimar experience comes into view. When one side’s leaders’ rhetoric constantly portrays the opposition leader as another Hitler, it’s not surprising that some of its followers take it on themselves to kill him.

The assassinations and attempts might not be coming fast and furious, to coin a phrase, but the deplatforming, debanking, censorship, intimidation and other tactics surely have the same chilling effect on any voices of dissent wherever they come from. From the halls of Congress to the boardroom, to Main Street and Wall Street, to school boards and right down to the schoolyard itself!

Well, Weimar is as Weimar does. And with that...

Have a good day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• So what do you want to do while we wait to get the all-clear on the Americans involved? I’ve got an idea. How about we contemplate exactly what the left is doing right now in its sick and twisted war rooms?  You guessed it: If someone dies, it will give the left a new narrative to use to bash the Trump administration in the run-up to the midterms.
  The Sick and Twisted Political Opportunity Democrats May Be Waiting For
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: Demographic change, DEI ideology, anti-Israel radicalism, and political cowardice have mainstreamed hostility toward Jews.
  The Four Horsemen of the New Antisemitism

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:28 AM | Comments (329) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 12 May 2026

Top Story

• Digg is back - again - this time as an AI news aggregator. (Tech Crunch)
  
  That is, the content is about AI, but it seems to be ranked by human readers.
  
  I'm not sure why just AI - though that is a hot topic at the moment - but Digg was originally a news aggregator just like this.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (82) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Overnight Open Thread (5/11/26)

[Delightful Mountain Stream 18" x 24" acrylic-Mis Hum]

*****

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

“Because race has always been identified as a political consideration, not only as it relates to the constitution of the United States but also how it is implemented at the state level. That’s why these districts were always drawn so that they took race into consideration.” Donna Brazile

Quote II

"My child did not go to school and say anything harmful or bad," Little said. "They could have simply explained to him, 'Hey, we cannot build things that we think are a weapon or look like a gun.'" Chanti Little

Sounds like a school district that discriminates against black autistic children. Guess who else at that school district never learned to think outside the box? And further more I would bet a Benjamin that the decision was made by a woman.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:04 PM | Comments (430) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Someone's Got a Case of the Mondays Cafe

by Mo Hushi (mo_ayra)/@mohushii

The woman who turned her dog-walking business into a dog adventure bus business.

The historical-- and religious -- inspirations for Tolkein's lembas bread/"waybread." If you don't have the time, it's based partly on the holy communion wafer, which is said to provide spiritual sustenance, just as the lembas bread, Merry says, gives "heart." It's also based on stuff like WWI era hard-tack.

Interesting: He claims that the first waffles were created as people were experimenting with the grills that made communion wafers, and claims that "waffles" is related to "wafers." I don't know if that's true, but the words "wafer" and "waffle" do seem related.

Kitten plays with girl's hair, alarmingly.

Watching Star Wars in Sensurround.

Cat gets tired of being herded.

Jelly bird. (I've linked videos like this one but I think this one is new.)

Foxes and their kits.

Floating bridge. This is in Iceland, where the ice-melt in spring floods valleys that are otherwise dry for most of the year, so no permanent bridge is needed. I just totally made that up but it's probably something like that.

Baby donkey is rambunctous.

It's not the weinerdog in the race, it's the race in the weinerdog.

Happy belated Mothers Day!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:10 PM | Comments (229) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Hits

Culture, Enriched.

The former mayor of Arcadia resigned after admitting to acting as an illegal foreign agent of China in a federal plea deal unsealed on Monday.

Eileen Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the People's Republic of China to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to Arcadia City Council in November 2022. The city is within LA County.

Wang pled guilty to the federal charge at her arraignment in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon. She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.

LA's top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli said this is not the first time China has been caught trying to exert its influence in the United States.

"Ms. Wang is just the latest to act as an agent for the PRC and it should terrify Americans that she was able to rise to the highest levels of local office in her city," Essayli said.

According to court documents, Wang worked with her then fiancé, Yaoning "Mike" Sun, on a web site called "U.S. News Center," which claimed to be news source for Chinese Americans.

But in reality the pair were carrying out Beijing's orders through the site, and sharing data on how many people had viewed the story with Chinese officials.

Wang and Sun "executed directives" from the Chinese government, posting propaganda designed to help China and reporting back to their masters with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the plea agreement.

In one case, Wang's spymaster ordered her to post a PRC-authored essay denying the existence of genocide and forced labor in the Xinjiang region, according to the document.

"There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as 'forced labor' in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor is to defame China, destroy Xinjiang's safety and stability," wrote Wang's master, according to the plea agreement.

Paul Sperry
@paulsperry_

2h

BREAKING: Just-released DOJ and FBI records reveal the agencies possessed significant evidence of potential Mann Act prostitution violations committed by Hunter Biden as early as October 2020, the eve of the presidential election, yet did not pursue charges for the potential crimes

Libs of TikTok
@libsoftiktok

BREAKING: Walgreens reveals the Chicago South Side store they are shuttering after 20 years, lost $1 million mainly due to theft last year, which is 4x the company average, while they spent $400k a year on security and employees still got assaulted.

Paul A. Szypula
@Bubblebathgirl

Mayor Brandon Johnson is facing outrage from Chicago residents over Walgreens store closures, particularly on the South Side.

Walgreens is closing its longtime Chatham store on June 4 after $1 million in losses in 2025 and high theft rates.

The store had been there more than 20 years. Walgreens said theft at that location was four times the company average.

Walgreens spent $400,000 a year on security officers in addition to other measures, but that wasn't enough.

Thieves would break through the defenses and rob the store anyway.

Johnson needs to seriously address the crime that's making businesses leave Chicago.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:47 PM | Comments (345) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Washington Post: 42% of Democrats Think the Butler PA Assassination Attempt that Killed One Man Was "Staged"

Gee it's funny, I remember Jake Tapper devoting his show to rebutting "conspiracy theories" for years.

And now he's silent as a dummy. I wonder why.

The Washington Post
@washingtonpost

About 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents' dinner was staged according to a new survey.

Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans.

Yeah I don't believe 1 in 8 Republicans said that. A lot of Democrats know how crazy they sound and are claiming to be "Republicans" who believe Trump had one of his supporters murdered as a sympathy play.

Full article:

Many Americans think Trump assassination attempts were fake, survey finds

About 1 in 4 say the correspondents' dinner shooting was staged, the poll found, including roughly a third of Democrats, as conspiracy theories spread widely online.

I remember when it was revealed that "Palestinian" leader Mahmoud Abbas was a Holocaust denier.

His defenders said -- and this is probably accurate -- Holocaust denial brands a "moderate."

Because the harder-core don't deny the Holocaust -- they celebrate it.

Similarly, it's the "moderate" Democrats who claim the many assassination attempts on Trump by their political allies were "staged."

The harder Democrat position is that the assassins were just bad shots, and they need to recruit better ones.

I mean, literally thousands of accounts on TikTok say exactly that.

About 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents' dinner was staged, with a marked partisan divide, according to a survey published Monday.

Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans, according to a survey published Monday by NewsGuard, a company that rates the reliability of online news outlets. Respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were also more likely than older people to think the incident was staged, according to the report.

Fake Jake, you want to get in on this or are you all good?

Last week, a federal grand jury in D.C. indicted the alleged gunman, charging Cole Tomas Allen with four felonies, including the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump. Soon after the incident that led to his arrest at the Washington Hilton, conspiracy theories began to spread online that falsely claim the Trump administration staged the incident in an effort to manufacture support for the president, the Republican Party and his planned White House ballroom.

The NewsGuard survey found that 24 percent of U.S. adults believe the incident at the Washington Hilton was fake, compared with 45 percent who believed it was legitimate. An additional 32 percent said they were unsure. The survey of 1,000 American adults was conducted by YouGov from April 28 to May 4.

"It's very striking," said Sofia Rubinson, an editor at NewsGuard. The results underscore broader skepticism that Americans feel toward the government and the press, she said. "Increasingly, people on all sides of the political spectrum are distrustful of both this administration and also the media," she said, but willing to trust unverified information they see online.

The White House rejected the conspiracy theories in a statement provided after publication. "Anyone who thinks President Trump staged his own assassination attempts is a complete moron," spokesman Davis Ingle said.

Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who researches media manipulation, said the results are an indicator of the role of showmanship in Trump's presidency. "It just seems incredibly Hollywood to imagine that this is staged," Donovan said of the correspondents' dinner shooting. "The entire apparatus of the government has been turned into a reality TV show."

Oh I get it, the psychotic breakdown of Democrats is Trump's fault. Of course. Of course.

It can be natural of people to fall for conspiracy theories when they're trying to make sense of complicated events, Donovan said.

"Unfortunately, when governments or institutions are hiding the truth about what they're up to or they're playing fast and loose with certain regulations or they're not imposing certain laws on different people," Donovan said, "it is much easier to believe in a conspiracy against oneself than it is to believe that the system has become rotted."

This is the "expert" the Post called to get context for the left's psychotic break with reality. There were no other experts available.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:34 PM | Comments (283) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Unfunny Anti-Childbirth Hag Chelsea Handler Gets Destroyed at Netflix Roast of Kevin Hart

Ooof. "Speaking of dead kids, she's a big fan of abortions. She's been scraped more times than the grill at Benihana's."

These don't all seem in good fun.

Lizzo also get some abuse from Tony Hinchcliffe. She seems to roll with the punches pretty well. Though that might mostly be due to physiognomy.

Content warning, particularly for the Tony Hinchcliffe.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:40 PM | Comments (222) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Keir Starmer Vows to Remain in Office for Ten Years, Double Downs on Endless Illegal Immigration, Calls Immigration Reformers "Dangerous" and Warns They Are Taking the UK Down a "Dark Path"

Is he insane?

Keir Starmer: I want 10 years in No 10 and will fight my challengers

The prime minister sets out his project of 'renewal', which includes a scheme to open up Europe for young people, admits Labour needs to act on its election drubbing, and questions donations to Reform and Nigel Farage

Keir Starmer has said he wants a decade in Downing Street and will fight anyone who challenges him for the Labour leadership.

The prime minister described his government as a "10-year project of renewal". Asked whether he would definitely lead his party into the next general election and serve a full second term, he said: "Yes, I will."

...

In his interview, Starmer also pledged to put Europe at the heart of his premiership.

He revealed that the government is close to agreeing the terms of a youth mobility scheme with the European Union.

Oh great, more Migrant Youths. Just what the UK voters were hoping for!

Under the plan, which is expected to be up and running by 2027, Britons under 30 will be able to live or work in the EU. Young Europeans will also be allowed to come to the UK, with the number capped at "tens of thousands" a year. The new "youth experience visa" is set to give 18 to 30-year-olds the right to base themselves abroad for two to three years.

...

But the prime minister said a deal would be unveiled before the summer. "Brexit has held back our young people," he said. "They should be free to work, study, travel in European countries, just as I was able to when I was growing up. That has been snatched away from young people because of Brexit. I'm not going to let Brexit stand in the way of their opportunities."

Note that Queer Starmer pretended to favor Brexit in order to Con the Conservative Rubes -- pissed off by the "Conservatives'" unwillingness to ever honor the "exit" part of Brexit -- into voting for him.

Three Labour MPs have resigned and 55 Labour MPs have called for Starmer's resignation or at least a timeline for his departure.

He's refusing.

..

But the Labour leader was defiant in response to calls for him to quit and made clear he would not stand aside if MPs triggered a leadership contest. "I'm not going to walk away from the job I was elected to do in July 2024," he said. "I'm not going to plunge the country into chaos."

Starmer is also vowing that the Fake Conservative Party plunged the UK into "chaos" by repeatedly tossing out unpopular PMs, and says that Labour must not do that.

That is, Labour must keep him and his Sketch Foreign Male Model Entaglements at No. 10 Dowining Street.

Ministerial aides are resigning to pressure him to resign:

That was followed by a near constant soundtrack of Labour MPs, one after another, publicly calling for him to go, sooner or later.

And by teatime, the most significant of those - the resignation of ministerial aides, from the lowest rung of the government - saying they too had lost faith in their leader.

One of them, Joe Morris, was the parliamentary private secretary to Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary not short of prime ministerial ambition. What might Streeting do next?

...

Naushabah Khan says she has resigned as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the Cabinet Office as she calls for new Labour leadership.

Khan, who is MP for Gillingham and Rainham, says she has always put her constituents interests first, and that is why she has made the "difficult decision to resign".

"We need a clear change of direction now and no game playing," she says, adding that a Labour government "can and will rise to meet the moment if we act now".

"I am calling for new leadership, so that we can rebuild trust and deliver the better future that the British people voted for," she writes.
Starmer 'no longer has trust of the public,' says ministerial aide Joe

...

As Labour MPs call for Starmer to go, there is a feeling of momentum that the pace is quickening, that more and more names are being made public.

There is plenty of talk here tonight that there is plenty more to follow.

So, 55 Labour MPs and counting saying the prime minister should go or set a timetable to go.

If that number continues to remorselessly tick up, as it has been doing in the last few minutes and hours, it won't be sustainable in all likelihood.

There will be demands for the prime minister to say something, do something and respond to a party that increasingly is in open revolt.

Starmer insists he must remain PM to safeguard the "diverse" country Labour (and the treacherous Tories) have created, against the wishes of native Britons.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:28 PM | Comments (363) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Virginia Democrats Seethe and Scheme to Mass-Fire All Seven Supreme Court Justices to Replace Them With Compliant Communist Operatives, but Senate Leader Says It's No-Go

Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley

May 10

The gut-and-pack scheme is brutally cynical. The Virginia Supreme Court described the earlier gambit as "a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail." Now, Democrats would just shoot the dog and adopt a politically modified dog bred to serve.

They're all about Saving Democracy. Didn't you know that, racists?

RedState reported Sunday on the sheer desperation that has set in among Democrats at the state and congressional levels after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the process state Democrats used to put their gerrymander referendum on the ballot was a violation of Virginia's Constitution.

...

Perhaps the most extreme of the measures that, per The New York Times, were being considered during a meeting Saturday that included House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-0, was to have "Democrats in Richmond lower the mandatory retirement age for state Supreme Court justices... from 75 to 54," a plan that, if seen through, would force out every justice currently sitting on the state Supreme Court. Afterwards, they conceivably would use their power to "then fill vacancies on the court with sympathetic Democratic lawyers."

Let us violate the clear wording of our state constitution or else we will take the also-unconstitutional step of declaring 54-year-olds to be too elderly to work.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the brakes have been slammed on the various plots they were cooking up by none other than Virginia State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax), according to reporting from the Virginia Scope's Brandon Jarvis:

It is not happening

Surovell, the top Democrat in the state Senate, told Virginia Scope Monday morning that these drastic measures will not be taken.

Surovell said that the time restrictions at the Department of Elections make the notion impractical.

He also said forcing the retirement of Supreme Court justices would be extreme, and he wants to work within the existing legal system when fighting against Republicans.

Speaker of the House Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, has not responded to a request for comment.

The timing issue is that all changes to congressional voting must be finalized by May 12 -- tomorrow. So they would have to implement this unconstitutional mass-firing, stock the court with seven compliant communists, reconsider the previous ruling, and issue a new communist ruling in 24 hours.

Even attempting to fire the judges by this method seems to violate the constitution:

Ed Whelan
@EdWhelanEPPC

The Virginia constitution provides one means for removing judges: impeachment by the House of Delegates, followed by conviction by 2/3 of the Senate. The idea that the Virginia legislature could remove state supreme court justices by lowering the mandatory retirement age and applying that lower retirement age to *existing* justices is bonkers. And a majority (perhaps all) of the Virginia supreme court justices would rule that such a measure violates the state constitution.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (351) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Be Back Soon

I'm at the doctor's. Not fun!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (333) | Trackbacks (Suck)

MORNING RANT - The War on Labor Expense: There Never Was a Truck Driver Shortage

Those who seek to flood this country with inexpensive, non-citizen labor like to claim that this is necessary due to a shortage of Americans that can or will do the job here in the United States. This has certainly been the case regarding truck drivers.

But there never actually was a truck driver shortage. There has been a shortage of professional truck drivers who will work for the compensation of unskilled labor. Bringing in foreign indentured servants as truck drivers was an awful way to avoid paying market wages for skilled labor.

It somehow became an accepted fact in the business community that one of the industries suffering from a labor shortage was truck driving. This was puzzling, because driving a truck has always been a great opportunity for Americans to earn a middle-class wage and provide for their families, without needing to pursue the college route or go to a highly technical trade school. But that is not to minimize the professional skill and training necessary to be an over-the-road truck driver. It requires its own schooling, technical skills, and a professional demeanor to handle the various challenges of a job that is often very stressful. It is the farthest thing from an entry-level job or a position that requires unskilled labor.

Unfortunately, there is a growing intolerance of any labor expense in some business circles, which makes cheap foreign labor look attractive. In one of those bizarre, horseshoe-shaped political alliances, the American left is in alignment with those who seek to eliminate career-wage, blue-collar jobs in this country. For the left, it’s due to their animus toward heritage Americans, especially those of the “deplorable” working class.

In recent years, while some of us were barely paying attention, our highways suddenly became overrun with untrained, non-English-speaking foreigners who were effectively the property of the Asian “body shops” and the European crime gangs that were trafficking them into the U.S.

Fortunately, the Trump administration is cleaning up this mess and targeting non-qualified and non-domiciled CDLs (commercial drivers licenses), as well as the companies that employ and control them. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is doing great work.

Paying the market wage for skilled labor among a nation’s citizens is not antithetical to capitalism. Just the opposite. It is a fundamental input into the pricing of goods in a free market. Adam Smith, the “Father of Capitalism” was unambiguous in his contempt for the evil institution of slavery as a means to avoid paying for labor. He also understood the futility of expecting the same labor quality from human chattel compared to the quality of work from free people who willingly trade their labor for compensation in a competitive labor market. The chaos and carnage on our nation’s highways from foreign truck drivers has borne this out.

Rather than a shortage of American truck drivers, there will be an abundance of them once the invisible hand of the free market is no longer distorted by the injection of unqualified, foreign labor trafficked into the cabs of America’s big rigs.

There is a shortage of professional truck drivers who will work for the compensation of unskilled labor. Bringing in foreign, chattel-labor as truck drivers was an awful workaround to try to undercut the market price of skilled labor.

— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) April 27, 2026

*****

Jeffrey Carter Has My Endorsement for Nevada Treasurer

A reminder to readers/voters in Nevada, a friend of the blog, Jeffrey Carter, is running for state Treasurer in the Republican primary. He has my endorsement and he deserves your vote. Early voting starts on May 23 for the June 9 primary.

There are a great many reasons to vote for Jeff, including his financial acumen. But the thing to know is that he is one of us, an out and proud, Trump-supporting conservative who was reading Ace of Spades long before he thought about running for office. He cut his teeth in the Chicago Commodities Exchange, and then ventured into the world of venture capital, never apologizing for or hiding his conservatism nor his support for Donald Trump. (Carter writes the widely linked political site “Points & Figures.”

While I would endorse Jeffrey Carter, who is a friend of mine, irrespective of the quality of his opponent, Jeff is the clear choice in this race. His opponent, Drew Johnson, is a serial candidate who has name recognition from the races he has lost. The Carter campaign has a link discussing various ethical imbroglios involving Mr. Johnson, but all I need to know is that Drew Johnson is a fringe libertarian who admires Thomas Massie. When Mr. Johnson ran for Congress (a race he lost) he promised to provide Massie a 2nd Republican vote when Massie is working to undermine President Trump.

This is from the Nevada Independent, after Drew Johnson unexpectedly won the 2024 GOP nomination for a Nevada congressional seat:

True to libertarian form, [Drew Johnson] said the current members of Congress who impress him the most are Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), two libertarians who frequently find themselves as the lone "no" vote on bills that every other member supports,

That skepticism of his own party has frequently extended to Trump. In posts from his now locked personal account on X, Johnson called Trump a "socialist" during the 2016 race, called his presidency an "embarrassment" in 2020 over a federal execution during the lame-duck period and said Joe Biden's 2020 victory was "an endorsement of humanity, restraint & kindness."

For Nevadans, Jeffrey Carter is the best candidate to be Nevada’s next Treasurer.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (254) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Young Girl Bathing
Auguste Renoir

I love the colors, but the subject is odd, and on the edge of being faintly disturbing.

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (314) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 5/ 11/26

Good morning kids. While no doubt President Trump and Israeli PM Netanyahu do not view the situation with Iran as such, it certainly seems by all outward appearances that for sure these "negotiations" with the Mullahs or whoever the Mullah du Jour may be, resemble Kabuki theatrics. Despite the absolute necessity of denying and depriving the Armageddon-seeking Dark Age death cult of Islamic controlled Iran of acquiring nuclear weapons as well as exporting terrorism around the globe and brutalizing their own citizenry, what is the end game here, or what acceptable end game can we expect? With the divisions at home not only from the usual America and Trump-haters on the Left but popping up from the right, the battered regime in Tehran may actually survive an onslaught that we had expected and hoped should or would have crushed them. Echoes perhaps of the 1968 Tet Offensive...

Where foreign policy issues are concerned, such as with Iran, a sign of political division always creates a weakness for diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict. This has been underscored not only by Kimmel’s jokes but by the comments of various leaders of the Democrat party, like those of Senator Mark Kelly and former Vice President Kamala Harris. The latter, as a presidential candidate in 2024, said all options were on the table to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear armed—only now to criticize the option Trump selected. Ultimately, it was political division and an uninformed anti-war movement that forced an end to the Vietnam war, leaving millions of Vietnamese subject to communism.

And yet, President Trump remains adamant. . .

President Trump on Sunday appeared to reject Iran’s latest proposal in ongoing negotiations over a peace deal, calling the Islamic republic’s offer “totally unacceptable.”

“I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives.’ I don’t like it — TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The president also warned the country against “playing games” after Tehran refused to discuss its nuclear program in its latest response to America’s peace proposal through Pakistani mediators.

Trump slammed the rogue Mideast country for delaying negotiations historically, ranting on the social platform.

“Iran has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World, for 47 years (DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Yet between his mixed signals as well as the treasonous behavior of the Left and their media/culture allies, the Mullahs perceive, and perhaps not mistakenly, that time is on their side. Especially with a crucial midterm election approaching and the final months of President Trump's term that could see his political will and power on the wane as he departs office, with no guarantee that a successor will carry on his agenda should whoever the GOP candidate is come out on top in 2028.

If only the President and really the GOP were to treat the Democrat Left and its record of political and physical terrorism against the American people as “totally unacceptable.”

Because that is what the Democrats look upon America as founded as well as any setback they endure in the quest for absolute power as.

As night follows day, progressives’ response to the Virginia Supreme Court’s tossing of Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s outrageous gerrymander is to demand an instant court-packing move to undo it.
To lefties driving today’s Democratic Party, it’s not “democracy” unless it’s hard-wired to let them run roughshod — and when their power-grab schemes run afoul of the rule of law, their only answer is a fresh scheme.
Specifically, progs want to ram through a law instantly dropping the retirement age for the Virginia court to 54, which would allow the legislature to replace enough justices to restore the gerrymander.
Spanberger’s already caved to the left in pushing an outrage she’d promised to oppose; will she find the spine to say no now?
Wiser minds would call off the madness — but then again wiser minds would’ve avoided this mess in the first place. ..
Nationwide, even moderate Dems are now talking about seizing their next available chance to pack the US Supreme Court, grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico simply to gain them four safe Senate seats and abolish the Senate filibuster — and so lock in progressive power forever.
Anyone paying attention should realize these lunatics need to be kept out of power until the party comes to its senses.

The Democrat party will never "come to its senses." This is akin to expecting Islam to have a reformation wherein it rejects its goal of the domination of humanity for all time.

Have a good day!

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• Roger Kimball: Failed regimes are faltering while political and military reality is asserting itself with unmistakable force.
  No News Is Good News—Except When It Isn’t: Labour’s Rout, MAGA’s Surge, and Iran’s Slow Surrender

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 06:55 AM | Comments (311) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 11 May 2026

Top Story

• Valve's Steam Machine - the GabeCube - appears to be on its way. (Notebook Check)
  
  It's not going to be cheap thanks to the RAMpocalypse, but shipping manifests show that Valve has collected 50 tons of something in a warehouse, and the latest update to Steam includes four new product codes and a reservation queue that again appear to correspond to the new device.
  
  I'm not sure I'll get one - it's a low-end console replacement and I have multiple systems more powerful - but it's good to see signs of life.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (105) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - May 10, 2026 [Doof]

From Earthglory

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT. A whelming place to end your weekend. Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (425) | Trackbacks (Suck)