With Two Republicans Leading the California Gubernatorial Primary, Democrats Plot to Change the Rules Mid-Election So That a Democrat Will Be in the Runoff

Wall Street Apes
@WallStreetApes

May 17

HERE WE GO 🚨 California Democrats are making a move to rig the Governor's race

Democrats are putting forth a new ballot initiative to repeal the "Top 2" candidate rule that takes the 2 leading candidates, because the 2 leading candidates are Republicans

"A new ballot initiative has been filed to repeal the state's top-two primary and return it to a party-based primary where voters like you would only vote for candidates in your own registered party"

The man behind this is Steve Maviglio, he's the former communications director for Governor Gray Davis

He's not some random nobody. Steve Maviglio a longtime Democratic insider, he's a top Democrat operative

He filed paperwork with the state to change the rules of the game now that Democrats are losing

Keep in mind, this "Top 2" system is the same system that locked out Republicans for 15 years

But now that it's going to lock Democrats out they're turning to their rigged elections to maintain power and change the rules

Woke_Resistance
@tyranny_stop

May 17

🚨California Democrats are advancing a ballot initiative to repeal the Top Two primary system...now that Republicans lead in the Governor's race.

The same rule they long endorsed to sideline conservatives is suddenly unacceptable when it risks their hold on power. Their repeated claims of 'saving democracy' ring hollow. This is a blatant rule change to preserve dominance, nothing more.

A rule thats lasted over 15 years...disgusting hypocrisy exposed.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (237) | Trackbacks (Suck)

"Feeding Our Future" Looting Mastermind Aimee Bock: "I Struggle to See How" Ilhan "Omar" Wouldn't Have Known About the Pillaging of the American Taxpayer

The Party of Looters & Shoters, continued.

I suppose this could just be a convict attempting to get a deal in exchange for her testimony.

But she's not really offering testimony. She doesn't claim that she knows Ilhan Omar was involved in the plot. She's speculating that Ilhan Omar must have known, which is not witness testimony, just speculation and kibbitzing.

And of course: she's right. It beggars belief that Ilhan "Omar" wasn't part of this.

The Minnesota "mastermind" of the state's massive COVID meal fraud claims "Squad" Rep. Ilhan Omar was in on the $250 million scam.

Aimee Bock, founder of nonprofit Feeding Our Future, was convicted in March 2025 of conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud for allegedly helping restaurant owners file fake or inflated claims during the pandemic to steal millions in child nutrition funds from the government.

She spoke to The Post by video call this week from Sherburne County Jail, where she is awaiting sentencing.

"I struggle to believe that she wouldn't have known," Bock said of Omar.

Dozens of members of Minnesota's Somali community have been convicted of fraudulently billing the state's Department of Education for millions of meals they claimed they served to low-income children during the COVID outbreak -- while pocketing much of the money.

Ilhan Omar's name came up six times in $250M fraud case -- after she loosened oversight of fed funded food programs

Bock has consistently denied knowingly participating in the fraud and insisted she tried to warn state officials. Her group would review the reimbursement paperwork sent by the local restaurants supposed to provide meals, send them out and then distribute the federal funds to them.

"The notion that I'm personally responsible for all of it . . . is so frustrating. I'm the only white person out of 80 or 90 individuals [charged in the fraud]. I'm the only one that doesn't speak the language," she added.

This comes close to testimony that could actually be introduced at court: She says that Ilhan "Omar" secured the waivers that allowed the fraud to continue with no oversight, verification, or inspection, and that every time one of those short-term waivers was about to expire -- which would allow inspectors to check up on the fraudster -- "Omar" intervened to protect the fraudsters.

But then, this is all public record.

Omar was instrumental in loosening the laws that set the stage for the scheme -- first by introducing the MEALS Act to Congress in March 2020, which allowed the US Department of Agriculture to issue waivers of school-meal requirements during the pandemic.

The waivers dramatically eased oversight of the federal programs by allowing restaurants to participate without any of the usual site inspections.

Omar would personally step in whenever those waivers ran out, allowing the rampant fraud to continue, Bock alleged.

"There had been a couple times early on that there were some gaps -- a waiver would be set to expire on maybe the 15th of a month, and then the renewal didn't kick in until the 1st," Bock claimed. "Because of course this was supposed to be a short-term thing . . . we were supposed to be home for two weeks."

Omar has been under fire since her wealth mysteriously jumped from almost nothing to up to $30 million in 2024, a windfall she tried to chalk up to an accounting error.

Hello! Happy New Week!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:20 PM | Comments (192) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Arrogant Smug Liberal RINO Bill Cassidy Not Only Loses Primary, But Loses It to Two Different Candidates, Getting Shut Out of the Run-Off

Mitt Romney
@MittRomney

The Senate to now lose an exceptionally brilliant and creative mind, an MD who chairs healthcare, and a person of character. Bill Cassidy's departure is a loss for the country.

If it makes this smug Elmer Gantry pissant cry, it must make the angels smile.

Bill Cassidy was a frequent guest on Jake Tapper's unwatched "show," of course. He was usually brought on to, get this, support the Democrats' attacks on Trump.

CNN copes and seethes and attempts to defend the Democrats' mole.

Trump sent a message by targeting Bill Cassidy. In defeat, Cassidy delivered one back

Oh it's a moral victory. Awesome.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy wanted his reelection campaign to be about the "present and the future." President Donald Trump had other plans.

Oh he was fighting for the future while Trump only cared about the past. Awesome.

Cassidy offers two contradictory claims, both which, get this, attack Trump and elevate Cassidy's ego.

First, he says that the honorable thing to do after a loss is to just accept it and not whine and make excuses and attack one's opponents as dirty schemers.

"You don't pout, you don't whine, you don't claim that the election was stolen ... you don't manufacture some excuse," Cassidy said. "You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege. And that's what I'm doing right now."

Okay I get it, you are better than Trump. Awesome.

But then Cassidy immediately... bitches and whines and claims that Trump is a schemer who unconstitutionally used "the levers of power" to defeat a political opponent.

"Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution," Cassidy said. "And if someone doesn't understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they're about serving themselves. They're not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader."

Which is what politics is, defeating political opponents.

Isn't it, Bill? You sure thought so when you attempted to boot Trump out of the White House.

He's a loser and always has been and I hope his defeat sends a message to the other arrogant, egotistical Fussy losers.

...

Cassidy became the first GOP senator to lose renomination in close to a decade, a remarkable downfall that shows again how Trump dominates the party.

Cassidy refused to answer questions about whether he'd vote again to convict, now knowing that the entire impeachment case as an op and a frame-up. He's just too egotistical (unwarrantedly so) to ever admit error.

He dodges those question by saying he doesn't want to talk about the past, only the future, in a line cribbed from noted moral stateswoman Hillary Clinton.

Trump wasn't buying it. And he's now saying: ON TO MASSIE!

"His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it's nice to see that his political career is OVER!" Trump wrote Saturday night on social media.

In backing Letlow against Cassidy, Trump achieved something he has not done yet in his extraordinary political career: defeat a senator from his own party in a primary. It came as he looks to unseat one of the biggest GOP mavericks in Congress -- Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie -- in a House primary Tuesday.

Trump was quick to draw a connection between Cassidy and Massie. In a Truth Social post early Sunday morning, Trump said Massie "is an even bigger insult to our Nation than" Cassidy and reiterated support for Massie's primary challenger, Ed Gallrein.

Cassidy, who pats himself on the back for not whining and making excuses, whined some more and made some more excuses by complaining about people "attacking me on the internet," which is totally the sort of thing that a forward-thinking future-focused statesman should spend his nights obsessing over.

"Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity," Cassidy said. "I find that people of character and integrity don't spend their time attacking people on the internet."

Bill Cassidy's wife's dance card is going to be so filled this weekend you guys.

Don't imagine that Bill Cassidy is some kind of rock-ribbed True Conservative who only voted to convict Trump because Sacred Honor Compelled Him and He Could Not Do Otherwise.

He's a filthy liberal RINO like the rest of the grifter losers:

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Saturday expressed concern about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) reputation following another fatal shooting in Minnesota.

"The events in Minneapolis are incredibly disturbing. The credibility of ICE and DHS are at stake. There must be a full joint federal and state investigation. We can trust the American people with the truth," Cassidy said Saturday in a post on the social platform X.

He has thwarted the MAHA agenda, insisting that every single one of the 70 vaccines a kid gets in the first months of his life are all 100% necessary and that any questioning of this Religious Command from the Gods of The Science (TM) is blasphemy.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his followers scored a big win Saturday when Kennedy's nemesis, Sen. Bill Cassidy, went down in his Louisiana primary.

The cherry on top for Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement would be if another Republican doctor in the Senate, Kansas' Roger Marshall, replaces Cassidy next year as chair of the Health Committee.

Marshall, unlike Cassidy, is a big Kennedy fan, having founded a MAHA caucus to promote Kennedy's push to combat chronic disease.

Whereas Cassidy in confirmation hearings last year grilled Kennedy on his longstanding skepticism of vaccines and has given him a hard time about vaccine policy ever since, Marshall asked God to bless Kennedy and said he'd "never seen a person whose words, written and spoken, have been so misattributed, exaggerated, sensationalized and taken out of context."

Three people familiar with Marshall's plans, granted anonymity to discuss his thinking before Cassidy lost his primary, told POLITICO he's been angling for the Health Committee chair for months.

An OB/GYN before he got into politics, Marshall has criticized vaccine mandates and supported nutrition-forward health reforms, including a focus on chronic disease prevention.

At a Senate Finance Committee hearing in September, Marshall endorsed Kennedy's view that the hepatitis B vaccine is given to babies who don't need it because their mothers don't have the disease. "It makes no sense to me. I've only delivered five thousand babies, but we do a hepatitis test on every mom," he said.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (382) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Supreme Court Rules that Freight Brokers Can Be Sued for Hiring Negligent Trucking Companies; Shady Foreign Carriers Hardest Hit?

There was a blockbuster 9-0 Supreme Court ruling last week that may cause a major shakeout in the trucking and logistics industries. It should also help in further ridding our roadways of unqualified foreign drivers.

As a result of this unanimous ruling, if trucking brokers* don’t perform some “reasonable” level of due diligence on the safety of the carriers they hire, those brokers can be held liable for damages caused by the trucking companies whom they have contracted.

(*The role of a trucking broker is to match those who are shipping goods with freight haulers who have available capacity. The broker’s cut is the difference between the amount paid by the shipper and the amount accepted by the freight carrier.)

With the complicity of blue states that have pretty much been granting CDLs (commercial driver’s licenses) to any foreign national requesting a license, our highways have been overrun with unsafe rigs driven by non-citizens. Many of these drivers can’t even read English road signs, and many clearly don’t know how to operate the trucks they’re driving. The highway carnage has forced President Trump’s Transportation Department to aggressively push back against this foreign invasion.

The SCOTUS ruling is certainly going to help, as it will disincentivize brokers from hiring the “chameleon carriers” that keep springing up whenever a shady operation is shut down. The way the system had been operating is that if a high-risk carrier using an unqualified driver was in a bad wreck, the operation would technically go out of business, but it would immediately re-brand with the same drivers and equipment as a new legal entity with no operating history.

The lack of an operating history should now be a non-starter for those brokers who might hire these chameleon trucking companies.

Wrecks have always happened and always will. There are typically several hundred thousand accidents of some sort each year involving large trucks, and several thousand deaths. A broker should not be held liable for occurrences that are statistically guaranteed to happen. But some carriers have much worse records than others. A broker can and should be held liable for disregarding a poor safety record. As Justice Kavanaugh noted, “they [brokers] have a strong incentive to do business only with safe and reliable motor carriers.”

As documented at Freightwaves:

The question a jury will now be permitted to ask in every state in America is whether the broker exercised reasonable care in selecting the carrier. That means: Did you check the carrier’s safety record? Was the carrier’s FMCSA data available to you? Did the data show elevated crash rates, conditional safety ratings, high out-of-service percentages, or prior enforcement history? Did you have a documented process for evaluating carrier safety? Or did you book the cheapest truck and move on?

----------

If a broker has no documented carrier vetting process, that absence is itself evidence.

----------

The Supreme Court told the freight industry something today that it should have already known. If you pick the carrier, you own the choice. Document it. Defend it. Or answer for it.

There is going to be a great deal of confusion in the short term. There is concern that legitimate small carriers will have difficulty booking loads if brokers are scared of not hiring highly-vetted, large-scale carriers. Meanwhile, brokers have generally only had nominal amounts of liability insurance, so they’ll be scrambling in coming weeks to obtain new liability coverage from insurance providers who will also need to sort out just what it is they’ll be insuring.

Amidst all this chaos I see a great opportunity for some entity to create a ratings agency for trucking companies. I’ve spent much of my career looking at business reports from Dunn & Bradstreet and credit ratings from Moody’s and the like. If I were an executive at one of those companies, I’d already be organizing a team to create a trucking carrier credit rating system. It would be a one-stop website where trucking companies could upload their organizational and operating histories, and where brokers could subscribe to verify that a carrier meets the broker’s risk appetite. If the big credit agencies aren’t going to create such a clearinghouse, there is an entrepreneurial opportunity waiting there for some tech bro (or gal) with an understanding of the trucking business.

Despite the short-term upheaval, this Supreme Court ruling is welcome, since the old system had incentivized the explosion of illegitimate trucking companies using unqualified foreign drivers.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (243) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Self-Portrait
Vincent van Gogh

I found this self-portrait to be interesting because of the slightly atypical colors.

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (254) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 5/ 18/26

Good morning kids. As Bugs Bunny imitating Jerry Colonna might intone "Ahh, something new has been added!" Well, not really, as the age old theme of what's old is new again is in operation today. Last week it was Hantavirus, and now we have this crap raising its head again:

If Americans won’t have the meekness to get sick enough ahead of the midterm elections to justify lockdowns and all mail-in ballots, it seems globalists might be willing to manufacture another “global health emergency.” Hopefully Donald Trump and We the People are too smart to fall for that destructive nonsense twice.

Well, I fear that that might be putting hope over experience. I'd like to think the sentiment of "We won't get fooled again!" is indeed our collective watchword. Well, we shall certainly see, although color me skeptical, and yet maybe just maybe?

Dr. Anthony Fauci deserves to be indicted — but he probably won’t be, because his role in the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic that he fought so hard to cover up opens up a can of worms that nobody wants to confront.
He has his great patron Joe Biden’s blanket preemptive pardon to keep him safe from federal charges. But the recent indictment of his former factotum, David Morens, on federal charges of conspiracy and record-destruction for scheming to cover up Fauci’s role in funding the risky gain-of-function research on bat viruses at the notorious Wuhan lab in China, where the COVID-19 outbreak almost certainly began, has raised hopes that Fauci is still in the crosshairs of the DOJ.
President Trump has declared Biden’s last-minute autopen pardon of Fauci invalid, which would make it possible that he could be prosecuted for perjury over his 2024 testimony to Congress.Fauci’s boss, Francis Collins, didn’t receive an autopen pardon, so he also is fair game.
Then there is the bombshell testimony last week from CIA whistleblower James Erdman, who alleged a multi-agency coverup involving Fauci, who was then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Dr. Fauci’s role in the coverup was intentional,” Erdman testified, alleging that Fauci inserted himself into CIA deliberations about the origins of the virus — once on Feb. 3, 2020, and again on June 4, 2021 — to try to influence the analysis away from the lab-leak hypothesis most CIA analysts were leaning toward and instead persuade them to accept the farcical “natural origins” narrative, in which the virus bubbled up from an animal in a wet market fully adapted to infect humans.
According to Erdman, Fauci provided the Intelligence Community with “a conflicted list of curated subject matter experts, public health officials and scientists,” several of whom were involved in publishing the notorious discredited Nature Medicine paper, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” which dismissed the accidental lab leak theory.

Well, as fictional lawman William Munny would coldly state "Deserves got nothing to do with it!" Our all too real corrupted justice system will shield Fauci until the day he draws his last breath likely a free man and rolling in ill-gotten wealth from a career of inflicting, pain, misery and death on countless innocent people.

And also in the justice delayed is justice denied category we have the second worst crime of the century that goes hand-in-hand with COVID since the latter was the cover that enabled this in the first place:

During this week’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche discussed the Department of Justice’s ongoing efforts to uncover evidence that the 2020 election was “rigged.”

The acting AG vowed to make public his agency’s findings.. . “And the reality of the answer to that is because it takes a lot of work to uncover what happened in 2020,” he continued. “It takes a lot of old, good old-fashioned law enforcement, police work, which is what we’re doing. And we have great prosecutors working on it as well. And I expect that — and I assure you, I assure the American people that as soon as we have something to say for it, whether it’s charges, whether it’s a report, whether it’s the results of an investigation, the American people will learn about what we uncovered.”

Let 's assume for argument's sake that the evidence is indeed released what justice/restitution is there for President Trump and the American people? The only thing we can hope for is that it has a salutary effect going forward. But considering the cancer that is Leftism and the Democrat Party will require the equivalent of a radioactive stake through its black heart for anything resembling justice and the prevention of 2020 ever repeating.

So, "By any means necessary" means what exactly?

The same people tagging their social media with ‘8647’ as they fume from their Northern Virginia bedroom communities over federal government reforms can hardly claim that they don’t want Trump dead. It’s as implausible as their companion claim that Iran’s chant of ‘Death to America’ is a metaphor for geopolitical change and not a call for war and destruction. They’d like us to believe that they want Trump dead badly enough to buy a $12.95 ‘Made in China’ sign wishing for that happy outcome, but that they don’t actually want to see it happen.

They’re not denying the three official Trump assassination attempts by their own faction (not counting the Iranian ones) because they don’t want Trump dead, but because they don’t want their side to suffer the political fallout and they don’t want Trump to pick up political sympathy.

It’s not the murder they object to, it’s taking the blame for it, and the victim becoming a martyr.

As if they really care at this point?!

And so New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) quite correctly observed that “Democrats have declared the entire electoral process illegitimate because they sometimes lose elections. They are prepared to torch the entire country in order ‘neutralize red states’. This is the language of civil war.” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch noted thatTop of FormBottom of Form “@KamalaHarris doesn’t think it is a ‘bad idea’ to destroy our constitutional republic.”

Indeed. That is exactly the case. And it’s not just Harris alone. The Democrats in general have now refined their hatred of America’s Founding Fathers to include a determination to destroy the system they built. They constructed a vehicle for limited and responsible government. But for Harris and the left, it’s all about raw power: getting it, and keeping it. Forever.

Because they will never just leave us alone to live our lives in peace, It's us or them. Either we submit or die. And neither of those options are acceptable to me. So unless there is a massive sea change in their worldview an stranglehold on the cultural/educational system as well as preventing them from attaining any position of political power, from president all the way down to town dog-catcher, for at least a generation, we face an existential threat, my friends.

Have a good day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• If Americans won’t have the meekness to get sick enough ahead of the midterm elections to justify lockdowns and all mail-in ballots, it seems globalists might be willing to manufacture another “global health emergency.” Hopefully Donald Trump and We the People are too smart to fall for that destructive nonsense twice. (sadly, IMHO that is TBD! - jjs)
  Here We Go Again: WHO Says Ebola Is Global Emergency as U.S. Virologist Smuggles in Pathogens

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:10 AM | Comments (312) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 18 May 2026

Top Story

• Agent harnesses like OpenClaw are changing how we build and run AI models. (The Register)
  
  Oh, are they?
  
  
  
• The creator of OpenClaw burned through $1.3 million in OpenAI usage in a single month. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Yes, that would certainly be a change. But I like not living under a bridge.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (102) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - May 17, 2026 [Doof]

From Nature Pictures

Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT. You made a great choice for how to end your weekend. Open thread, as always. Fashion and music, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:10 PM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Third May Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the Third May Edition?

Programming Note: I'll be in and out (mostly out) of the comments tonight, so pease don't burn the place down. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (178) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Raw Tuna? Better Than NYC Salsa!

I went to my local (and fantastic) fish store for a piece of tuna to grill, because it was a beautiful day that would soon melt into a gorgeous evening. Along with the excellent tuna steaks they had just cut, they had trimmed out a piece of the belly from the loin, and had put it in the display case for a few intrepid souls, one of whom was me!

I guess that is the equivalent of Wagyu beef, and it is every bit as rich. I ate it as sashimi...sliced thin and served with a bit of soy sauce and some Japanese horseradish. The fancy stuff at sushi restaurants is cut perfectly and often frozen for perfect texture. This was fresh, and surprisingly firm, but still absolutely delicious!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (264) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

We have a twofer today!

Well...I guess it still works...a bit. That's a finishing nail punch that has seen barely 20 years of use. I am offended by the shoddy craftsmanship and substandard metallurgy!

Harrumph!

This isn't really a problem. In fact, I had exactly the correct two sizes of Allen wrench I needed to remove a fixture. Sadly, it was a German engineered and manufactured shower head, so the coupling between the shower head and the water line is impossibly complicated and would need to be cut off. You know..unique attaching systems are always cool! I am sure the engineer who designed it is pleased with himself.

It really is a pleasure having the correct tools, even when the end result is bitter disappointment.

Does anyone need a nice new shower head?

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (112) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Allies Are To Be Cherished, Not Sidelined And Treated Like Enemies!

There is a vast difference between our allies in Eastern Europe, and the apathetic, post-modern, welfare-addicted haters of Western Europe.

According to NATO, Poland spent 4.5% of GDP on defense in 2025, while the UK spent 2.3%, France spent 2.1%, Germany spent 2.0% and Spain spent 2.1%.

That is huge gap, and signals a clear dedication to the defense of the West on the part of Poland, and a mealy-mouthed, backstabbing, weaselly political game on the part of the nations of western Europe.

Poland has announced plans to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP. And while the rest of NATO is mouthing platitudes and spouting grandiose plans about increasing defense spending to NATO's long-term plan of 3.5%, the reality is that it is just words. They have been shirking their responsibilities for 80 years, so why would now be any different?

So why send a message that Poland is to be lumped in with all of the rest of the malingering welfare queens of Western Europe?

Bipartisan Backlash Over Move to Pull Brigade From Poland

The Trump administration is facing criticism from lawmakers in both parties after the Pentagon canceled the deployment of an armored brigade of 4,000 troops to Poland, a move lawmakers said caught them and U.S. allies by surprise.

The administration has long signaled it wants European nations to take greater responsibility for their own defense and that the U.S. will reduce its military presence on the continent.

Yes, and Poland is doing exactly that! And their stance on Ukraine is perfectly understandable if one simply glances at a map. Poland is square in the path between Russia and the soft, squishy underbelly of Europe. Will Russia pivot and invade? No...almost certainly not, but Poland has some unpleasant history with Russia, and would rather be in the position to deal with them effectively. And one way to do that is to support Ukraine. Any differences compared to the Trump administration's stance on the Ukraine-Russia border war is easily understood.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retired Air Force brigadier general, said the decision was "reprehensible" and an "embarrassment to our country." He said Polish officials told him Thursday they were "blindsided" by the decision.

Of course Mr. Bacon's hysteria is counter-productive, and a bit embarrassing. It is not an existential shift, and it can be remedied quickly and effectively, so Mr. Bacon... calm down.

There is a difference between expecting Europe to be the primary defender of itself, and America withdrawing completely from the continent. I am 100% in support of drawing down our troops and spending in France, UK, Spain, Germany, and any other European country that does not take seriously its own defense, and does not support the American effort in Iran and elsewhere. But isolationism is not the answer, and Having a military presence in Europe that rewards our stalwart allies is smart, both militarily and politically.

Poland will remain an an ally, and this mistake will be forgotten, but it is important to keep sight of the larger game, which is the defense of America AND the West, because we are inseparable.

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (213) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-17-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Biden's Dog)

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants... (goblin status--FOUND!)

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

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (287) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 17 May 2026

Top Story

• If you're looking for an inexpensive CPU to soothe the bite of memory and storage prices, should you choose AMD's 7600X3D, or Intel's new 250K? (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Both have six full-speed cores and the AMD chip has an extra 64MB of cache, making it 10% faster for games.
  
  However, the Intel chip is 28% faster for single-threaded productivity tasks, which don't often take great advantage of the larger cache.
  
  And for multi-threaded tasks the Intel chip is 114% faster.
  
  On the fourth hand, AMD's socket AM5 platform currently supports Zen 4 and 5, and will see Zen 6 and probably Zen 7 in the future, so you have a plenty of upgrade options if you start with the 7600X3D. Intel's Socket 1851 ends with the 250K and 270K, there's a new socket and chipset out later this year.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (167) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night Club ONT - May 16, 2026 [D & D]

Welcome to Club ONT - a collaboration of The Disco and The Dino. Come in in, grab a drink or 3.

Did you have any action on today's Preakness Stakes? If you won anything, please consider buying a round for your fellow Hordelings!

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (457) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread: Culture Club? Seriously?

Boy George and Culture Club were not on my playlists when they were big, and they aren't now. Except...politics has destroyed my naiveté when it comes to entertainers, so I am in the unpleasant position of minimizing my consumption of certain people's work if they are vociferous in shoving their personal politics in my face. And the converse applies too.

Here is Boy George talking about Jews and Jewish friends. Is he a deep thinker? Uh...no. Clearly not. But he is clear in his rejection of antisemitism, and for that I respect him, and will consume his musical product. Just a little bit though; I am not going to become a born-again 1980s British (or any other) Pop Music aficionado. But I will put him on a playlist or two, and toss him a few cents pence.

Posted by: CBD at 07:30 PM | Comments (219) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - May 16, 2026 [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. For this week, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) decided on a church theme for this Hobby Thread.

A church theme? What does that mean? Going to church is a "hobby"? The ways of the Wheel are strange and mysterious but there is a method to the madness.

[Top Photo: Wayfarers Chapel, Palos Verdes, California]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (172) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, May 16

* * *

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 03:21 PM | Comments (95) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Garden, Home and Nature Thread, May 16

Iris 'Broadway Lights'

Isn't the iris above from badgerwx gorgeous? I was finishing a spring update from her, and somehow the entire thing was deleted. Drat! Even from the HTML translator! As she noted, gardening always comes with surprises! Next week, I hope! Here's another of her irises:

Posted by: K.T. at 01:42 PM | Comments (43) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Artificial Intelligence vs. Woke?

Joanna Maciejewska @AuthorJMac

Where are we gonna go with AI?

Posted by: K.T. at 11:12 AM | Comments (244) | Trackbacks (Suck)