1954...2024: The Left Wants The Good Old Days Of Segregation!

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was an important Supreme Court case that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. There is nothing remotely disturbing about that, and the outrageous and unintended consequences of that holding are more a function of our dysfunctional political system -- and its misuse by the left -- than any reflection on the Constitution.

It's simple. Government racial discrimination is illegal.

Except when it is in service to the post-modern drive to create irreconcilable gulfs between people...whether by class (Marxism) or race/ethnicity/religion/sexuality (post-modern progressivism).

Then it is perfectly okay, and in fact should be celebrated!

Yippee! Segregation's back!

Another University Held Segregated Graduation Celebrations

The University of Nevada was added to the list of universities who offered segregated graduation ceremonies this year.

According to Campus Reform, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas hosted five “affinity” celebrations.
Advertisement

From May 7 to May 10, the Office of Student Diversity Programs (SDP) reportedly organized graduation celebrations for Asian and Pacific American, “LatinX”, Native American, African American, and LGBTQ+ students. The goal was to celebrate students with diverse backgrounds and recognize their achievements.

“We strive to serve a diverse student population, elevating and affirming their identities through an intersectional framework that champions student success,” the SDP said in their mission statement.

Let's not elevate their accomplishments, because these sad sack poster children for discrimination have done nothing to deserve the accolades being heaped upon them. Because those accolades are as a result of the genetics of skin color or the coincidence of geography.

Oh...wait! Sexuality is the outlier here! So being a furry or a homosexual or a pan-gendered non-binary goat-f*cker makes you special, and deserving of government sanctioned elevation to some special rank within the unfathomable hierarchy of current cultural fashion?

Public discrimination is vile. Government has no right to make these choices, because they are using our tax money to fund their racialist insanity. How this differs from the universally reviled apartheid of South Africa is a question for those who love to discuss how many angels are dancing on the head of a pin. There is no substantive difference, and it is a vast crime and profound rejection of everything we as a country have strived for...fought for...died for.

What are the social and economic consequences of recognizing (mostly) immutable characteristics as somehow deserving of praise? A truly egalitarian society recognizes accomplishments, success, and the hard work that came before!

Please show me the labor, the long hours in the lab and library, the hundreds of hours of late-night reading, the agonizing problem sets, that buttressed (hah) the honor of a special LGBTQBBQ graduation ceremony.

I'll wait.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (242) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 06-02-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

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...(for a limited time only, now with extra syrup!)

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 (360) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 2 June 2024

Top Story

• The first launch of the Boeing Starliner has been scrubbed - again - this time due to a computer problem. (CBS)
  
  The launch is controlled by three independent computers that for safety reasons have to agree at all times. Four minutes before launch one appears to have gotten into an argument with the other two and decided it wasn't going to talk to them until they apologised.
  
  Engineers on site seem to be resigned. "I'm married with four kids", said one. "This might take a while."
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (261) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (6/1/24)

*****

The Saturday Night Joke



At the end of the sermon, the pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express a praise for an answered prayer. Suzie stood and walked to the podium.

She said, "I have a praise. Two months ago, my husband, Frank, had a terrible bicycle accident and his scrotum was completely crushed.

"The pain was excruciating, and the doctors didn't know if they could help him."

You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Frank must have experienced.

“Frank was unable to hold me or the children," she went on, "and every move caused him terrible pain." We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Frank's scrotum and wrap fine wire around it to hold it in place with metal staples.”

Again, the men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Frank.

“Now," she announced in a quivering voice, "thank the Lord, Frank is out of the hospital and the doctors say that with time, his scrotum should recover completely.”

All the men sighed with unified relief. The pastor rose and tentatively asked if anyone else had something to say.

A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium. He said, "I'm Frank." The entire congregation held its breath.

“I just want to tell my wife that the word is sternum.”

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:30 PM | Comments (428) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread: Road Trip!

One of the joys of driving long distances is the opportunity to dip into one's music stash and listen to the stuff that is old and dusty and stuck in the corner of the collection.

Of course the biggest joy of long distance driving is flexing our muscles as red-blooded Americans. It's what we do, and we are the best in the world at it. It's in our DNA!

I enjoy long drives, and some of that is the leisurely stroll through my music. And not just the on-line stuff. I have a lot of music stored on my phone...stuff from my youth...so it is always fun to listen to something and think either, "wow; those guys are good," or, "what the hell was I thinking?"

I also enjoy long drives for the challenge of beating whatever mapping program I am using. Six hours and 12 minutes? Screw you Google! I'm breaking Six!

And speeding. I love driving fast, and consider it a contest that I must win. Yes, I am playing against the local cops and state police. I'm not sure I understand what I win, but I sure do know what I lose!

***
Anyway, below the fold are a bunch of traveling songs, in no particular order, and in no particular connection to travel.

There's also a song that I saved a few weeks back when Ace was talking about French folk songs (I think). No idea how the topic came up, but I thought of one, so tell me what you think!

Posted by: CBD at 07:30 PM | Comments (415) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Weekend Hobby Thread

*****

No, not really. I'm here and not out fishing. Haven't been feeling well most of the week, so you get a short hobby adventure. Feel free to discuss hobbies and projects.

Please leave the politics and current events outside the front door.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 05:30 PM | Comments (127) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, June 1

* * *

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 03:29 PM | Comments (64) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, June 1

Don in Kansas has posted many more great photos already this year than we have been able to even hint at, but I thought that today, we might review a few, going back a few months. There are more at the link above, plus good growing tips and notes, if you want a break from the craziness in the world:

February 20:

Posted by: K.T. at 01:24 PM | Comments (59) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Are intellectual discussions possible in the public square now?

Translation: "Pull My Finger, Comrade!"

The graphic above is from a ten year old post by OregonMuse. Miss him.

Feeling Intellectual? Or Not?

I passed my "can't you see how stupid this is?" limit this week. It's not just that stupid things are happening, it's that people are responding to them in such stupid ways.

I thought that maybe I would try to find some more intelligible reading for the weekend, perhaps with less focus on the here and now. I found that stupid things have been happening in a number of places over a long period of time. Even in ancient Greece!

I checked out the New Criterion online, and their front page featured:

Lenin everlasting
On the totalitarian's continued relevance.

It's by the editors. They must think it's important. I was surprised to learn how short, yet how destructive, Lenin's time in power was.

It is worth pausing to remember the hideous legacy of that ice-cold totalitarian. What we have in mind is not so much Lenin's butcher's bill as his more general modus operandi. Estimates of the number of people Lenin had tortured, maimed, and murdered vary, but are always well into the millions. But what may be just as creepy is his model of government.

We were reminded of this when, late last year, Miguel Cardona, President Biden's secretary of education, gave a talk to explain education-department priorities. Promoting a kinder, friendlier department, he said, "I think it was President Reagan [who] said, 'We're from the government. We're here to help.'"

We suppose that was intended to be reassuring. What Reagan actually said, however, as was pointed out about ten thousand times on social media, was the opposite. "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.' "

At the center of the totalitarian impulse is the belief that ultimately freedom belongs only to the state, that the individual should not be treated as a free actor but rather, as Lenin put it, " 'a cog and a screw' of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism." Of course, few canny bureaucrats quote Lenin today, his association with tyranny having knocked him out of the great game of political PR.

But is he completely gone? One of the most depressing recent spectacles has been the rehabilitation of people and movements that, just a few years back, seemed safely consigned to the underworld. But watching Eloi-like college students praising Hamas, chanting genocidal formulae such as "From the river to the sea," even excusing the incontinent maunderings of Osama bin Laden, makes us wonder whether any enormity is sufficiently grave to overcome the moral anesthesia of the entitled class. Someone once described the on-again, off-again socialist Philip Rahv as a "born-again Leninist" -- their number, it turns out, is legion.

Which is why we predict an effort, perhaps sotto voce at first, to rehabilitate Lenin. After all, he articulated exactly the desire of everyone, from the creepy Doyen of Davos, Klaus Schwab, on down, who tells you that he's from the global government and he's here to help. . .

We do not need to resurrect Lenin from his glass coffin.

* * * * *

The New Criterion has a blog.

This is from the entry for the May 31, 2024 Week in Review by Luke Lyman. There's a variety of things to think about which don't have a lot to do with the New York Times:

On Alcibiades, Solzhenitsyn & King Charles's portrait.

Ancient Greece

The wisest man in all of ancient Athens -- Socrates, namely -- met Alcibiades as a young man. After their encounter, the philosopher is said to have proclaimed that the boy would grow into either a great man or a singular force of destruction. In the end, he became a little bit of both.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:09 AM | Comments (363) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

******

Good morning Horde. Happy June. Hope you are all well on this morning. Before we get into the Prayer Revival there are a few housekeeping matters (Rulz for those of you in Wrightstown).

1). This an open thread, feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate away.
2). Be kind to one another or at least don't leave marks
3) No running with sharp objects unless you are in the highway showing off.
4) Have a nice weekend.

*****

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:27 AM | Comments (377) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 1 June 2024

Top Story

• Xbox is was down. (Reddit)
  
  Pixy, your Xbox and Xbox 360 are sitting in a box in the garage, and your Xbox Series X is sitting in its original box in the closet because you still haven't opened it. What do you care?
  
  I can't log in to Minecraft.
  
  I have Minecraft installed. I have my own server. I can't play it because a service I don't use and don't care about is down.

  You may not be able to sign-in to your Xbox profile, may be disconnected while signed in, or have other related problems. Features that require sign-in like most games, apps and social activity won't be available.

  This apparently includes offline single-player games that you have already installed on your console. And Minecraft.
  
  
  
• Live Nation has confirmed earlier reports of a data breach. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The company itself wasn't hacked, but:

  A spokesperson for Ticketmaster, who would not provide their name but responded from the company's media email address, told TechCrunch that its stolen database was hosted on Snowflake, a Boston-based cloud storage and analytics company.

  I hate cloud storage.

  Snowflake said in a post on Friday that it had informed a "limited number of customers who we believe may have been impacted" by attacks "targeting some of our customers' accounts." Snowflake did not describe the nature of the attacks, or if data had been stolen from customer accounts.

  The problem there is that when Snowflake says "a limited number of customers", they mean "a handful of the largest corporations in America", not "a small number of individual people".
  
  And just one of Snowflake's customers had half a billion customers of its own.
  
  As always with security, it's only as strong as the Post-it note on the intern's desk at your cloud storage provider.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (259) | Trackbacks (Suck)

It Is Well That The ONT Is So Terrible. We Should Grow Too Fond Of It

Hello to all the Morons out there! Welcome to the weekend, time to put on the feedbag and crack open a couple of cold ones.

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:12 PM | Comments (474) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Rubber Wombat Buggy Bumpers Cafe

Kauai, Hawaii
by @ryanresatka

Sun buddies.

Cat is not a fan of owner's new tattoo.

Little dog says Get out of here, Moose Punk! I'll nibble your hooves off!

Just one of those days.

Little octopus is out for a quick jog.

"Baby" wombat.

Elephants napping.

Racing through a narrow trail.

Peak peek-a-boo match going on here.

Cute pupper wants to play peek-a-boo too.

Some very violent self-defense clips from Steve Inman. I usually don't link deaths but these clips have people getting gunned down.

Community policing.

Lunatic threatening woman with a pair of scissors gets a Mostly Peaceful shovel to the dome.

Very violent community policing in Brazil.

Also violent: Thug from NYC gets warm, red welcome from local muscle.

Compilation of street justice clips.

A couple of cute ones:

Dog with a wiffle-ball bat shows why they call dogs with wiffle-ball bats apex predators.

Spy vs. Spy.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (437) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Biden Uses Taxpayer Money to Turn Out the Criminal Vote
Meanwhile: Trump Says, "This Is Bigger Than Me"

Buying the votes of criminals to save Muh Precious Democracy.

Felons cleared to vote (and some not cleared) have long been a reliable bloc of voters for Democrats. A 2019 study by Ragnar Research Partners found that in Florida, for instance, "Currently incarcerated felons are more than three times as likely to be registered Democrats ... or unaffiliated ... than Republicans. Ex-felons are four times as likely to be Democrats ... or unaffiliated." In the swing states expected to determine the outcome of the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, getting felons and those facing felony charges to the polls could mean the difference between the left and the right guiding U.S. policy for the next four years.

Perhaps then it comes as little surprise that incumbent President Joe Biden is using his constitutionally suspect Executive Order 14019 to turn out the felon vote, using the full force of the federal government to do so. And the well-funded leftist groups working behind the scenes to register felons and would-be felons appear to be assisting in the effort to win an election for Biden and his soft-on-crime political allies in Congress, state legislatures, and prosecutor offices around the country.

"The left caters to the criminal caucus," said Parker Thayer, investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based charity and activist tracker that operates the InfluenceWatch database. "That was the purpose of the 'reforms' we saw in 2020. They have a voting base there."

...

As the Daily Signal reported earlier this year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is partnering with the League of Women Voters, the ACLU, the Campaign Legal Center, the Washington Lawyers' Committee, and other far-left groups to bolster felon voting this election year.

Prison officials did not return The Federalist's request for comment, but the the FBP's Emery Nelson did tell the Daily Signal that the agency "meets quarterly" with the leftist nonprofits as well as the Sentencing Project and Disability Rights D.C.

The partnerships are the outgrowth of Biden's fiat, Executive Order 14019, which deputizes federal agencies to work with states and administration-approved nonprofits to register voters -- especially dependable Democrats and traditionally left-leaning populations. A group of Pennsylvania lawmakers has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its lawsuit, which asserts Biden's executive order unconstitutionally uses the federal government to usurp the responsibility of the state legislative branch. The lawsuit also argues that Congress never approved funding for the Biden administration's unprecedented -- and costly -- GOTV campaign.

Read the whole thing.

As Biden schemes to turn out criminal hordes to vote (or "vote") for him, he meanwhile conspires to have his chief rival convicted as a fake criminal:

Trump responds to unprecedented conviction with Trump Tower speech: "This is bigger than me"

Former President Donald Trump, in a historic response following his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, delivered a speech at Trump Tower, stating, "This is bigger than me." The speech, which touched on various themes from his campaign rallies, included critiques of his general election opponent and the judge presiding over his case.

...

Trump's speech at Trump Tower was a condensed version of his traditional rally speeches, with the former president launching into a critique of President Biden and the judge who presided over his case. He accused Biden and his supporters of failing to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and blamed Judge Merchan for a "nasty gag order" that prevented him from publicly criticizing witnesses and others affiliated with his case.

Trump also deviated from his vow to appeal the verdict, characterizing the trial as a "scam" and repeatedly criticizing Biden for failures on border security.

Despite the conviction, Trump maintains a strong base of support, raising $39 million in a 10-hour period following the verdict announcement. He thanked the "big crowd of people outside" Trump Tower for their support, stating, "The level of support has been incredible."

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (220) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sad! Vox Whines That Corporations Are Abandoning Woke Propaganda

Oh no!

And apparently-- Dylan Mulvaney is responsible for this change.

Well done, Dylan! "For he's a jolly good fellow/for he's a jolly good fellow..."

For most of advertising history, "red" or "blue" as partisan loyalty signaled more your taste for Coke or Pepsi than your identity as Republican or Democrat. Mass markets, by definition, necessitated selling to both sides of the aisle.

As with so much else, the presidency of Donald Trump -- built upon a self-conceived human brand -- radically upended those norms.

Post-2016 election, one Adweek column thundered, "Brands cannot expect to play Switzerland as the rest of the world picks a side." Consumer culture suddenly became the vehicle for political expression, with Madison Avenue giving voice to countless causes. The staid "corporate social responsibility" morphed into the more muscular "brand purpose," which beget impassioned activism. Social justice became "trendy;" politics, the means to signal commercial "integrity."

Today, just as during the Trump presidency, controversial issues abound, protesters convulse public spaces, and a divisive election looms. The world is picking sides -- on abortion and Gaza and Trump's trials. And from brand-land? By and large, the sound of silence.

That's because, despite prior pretense, advertising follows, not leads; it needs markets, not morality. That silence, therefore, says much about our sociopolitical moment: As culture warriors find themselves on the defensive, brands, wary from the backlash against Bud Light's use of a trans influencer, no longer show interest in advancing their causes.

Indeed, today's primary "cause" -- and, arguably, election issue -- is lower on the hierarchy of needs: cost of living. That makes for a more practical, less symbolic battleground for commercial content.

In 2024, whatever else might happen, the revolution will not be advertised.

...

Previously, we thought, "If I'm going to buy paper towels, are they useful? Are they inexpensive?" one marketing executive explained to me. By 2020, "societal issues [had] become brand attributes ... in terms of product purchases." The question became: How "woke" are your paper towels?

If the ads of the 2010s felt like they were talking back to Trump, you're not mistaken. Like other domains of cultural production -- journalism, the popular arts, academia -- brand-land leans left. For many such news topics invoked commercially -- race, guns, the environment -- creative professionals couldn't conceive of there being "two sides" to the story.

And the sheer variety of issues that brands subsequently embraced could crowd K Street. Levi's and Delta demanded gun control. Nike amplified Colin Kaepernick's Black Lives Matter kneel, as did some $50 billion in corporate pledges toward racial equality. Patagonia rejected Trump's signature legislation -- an "irresponsible tax cut," its CEO accused -- by giving its $10 million in corporate windfall to environmental groups.

...

The personal has, of course, long been political, but during the 45th presidency, the civic became commercial as never before. Then, just as quickly as it had stormed the barricades, Madison Avenue abandoned them.

...

Again, commercial communication follows, not leads. Advertising's activist retreat mirrors a reversal in public sentiment, perhaps a post-pandemic fatigue. One poll finds just 20 percent of Americans are now interested in corporations taking a stand on political issues or current events, and fewer than 30 percent want to hear brands opine on international conflict.

Curiously, among the least supported issues (for brand engagement, at least) are many that defined the commercial battlegrounds of the Trump years: police reform, immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and abortion.

Former country music star Tim McGraw announced his partnership with Men in Girls Lockerrooms Gromer Gym Planet Fitness -- and then deleted it when he got pushback.

He also blocked Chaya Raichik for asking about it. He's still pimping the Groomer Underage Mixer Gym on Instagram.

In more Woke News:

Oh no -- the leftwing dark money slushfund, the Tides Foundation, is in a dispute with the Heroes of Black Lives Matter over a missing $8.7 million.

The left-wing dark money giant Tides Foundation raised more than $33 million on behalf of the national Black Lives Matter group during the George Floyd riots in 2020. Now, Black Lives Matter is suing Tides over its refusal to hand the funds back. There's just one problem--nearly $9 million of those funds have seemingly disappeared.
FreeBeacon

From 2020 through 2022, Tides transferred $8.7 million from the fund to Black Lives Matter Grassroots, an offshoot of the national Black Lives Matter group led by Melina Abdullah, a longtime activist and professor. But Black Lives Matter Grassroots reported to the IRS that it never received that money, and no one involved in the transactions will say what became of the funds. These discrepancies have left charity watchdogs mystified, while legal experts say they could lead to massive fines and penalties.

This story is based on interviews with Black Lives Matter activists and internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Together, they expose how the movement's mismanagement of its 2020 windfall was aided and abetted by a left-wing dark money machine, and went far beyond the purchase of swanky mansions and massive distributions to associates of its co-founder, Patrisse Cullors.

As the remnants of Black Lives Matter's windfall rapidly diminish, two factions have emerged seeking to establish control over the movement's remaining finances. On one side of the power struggle is Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the charity commonly referred to as the national Black Lives Matter group, which was responsible for purchasing a $6 million Los Angeles mansion in 2020 and granting $8 million to purchase a Canadian mansion in 2021. The Global Network Foundation received the bulk of the Black Lives Matter windfall in 2020--nearly $80 million. By June 2023, that endowment had been reduced to $29 million, according to tax documents released last week.

At the other end of the conflict is Black Lives Matter Grassroots, an offshoot of the Global Network Foundation that tried and failed to sue its progenitor for $10 million and allegedly abused its own charitable resources to finance overseas vacations for Abdullah, its director. Black Lives Matter Grassroots' finances are a complete mystery. There is no indication the charity has filed a public financial disclosure with the IRS, though it was due to file one by November 2023 at the latest.

In the middle of the struggle is the Tides Foundation, the left-wing dark money giant that raised more than $33 million on behalf of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and now refuses to give what remains to either group.

The Global Network Foundation sued Tides in May over its refusal to relinquish the funds, arguing they were raised on its behalf. But behind the scenes, from 2020 through 2022, Abdullah led a committee of seven Black Lives Matter activists that convinced Tides to divert $8.7 million from the fund to Black Lives Matter Grassroots.

Whatever became of those millions is unclear. On paper, they seemingly disappeared.

See the article for the financial shenanigans.

This certainly makes it all sound ship-shape and on the level:

Black Lives Matter sources said Abdullah shielded Black Lives Matter Grassroots' finances from the public at the same time the Global Network Foundation was facing intense public scrutiny over its own finances. The Global Network Foundation secretly purchased a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles in 2020, which Black Lives Matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors later used to film a video of herself and Abdullah drinking wine and reflecting on the George Floyd riots.

In that video, which was filmed in June 2021, Abdullah railed against disgruntled activists and the press for demanding transparency of Black Lives Matter's finances.

"Who the fuck are you? You ain't done shit," Abdullah said while sipping on white wine and snacking on strawberries. "And you ain't doing no fucking work. You do no work. You're on Twitter. You have no following. And you're trying to gain a following by talking shit."

Around the time that video was filmed, Abdullah allegedly dipped into Black Lives Matter Grassroots' accounts to fund a personal vacation to Jamaica.

"Some members of the Grassroots team secretly took a book-writing retreat trip to Jamaica without notifying the entirety of the team, or without approving a budgetary expenditure," former Black Lives Matter Grassroots co-director Sandra Hudson wrote in a January 2022 memo to Tides. Hudson's leadership position with the group was terminated just weeks after she sent the memo, the activist said in a sworn declaration as part of Black Lives Matter Grassroots' failed lawsuit against the Global Network Foundation.

Abdullah described her Jamaica trip as a "vacation" during a private conversation with another Black Lives Matter activist in 2021.

"She mentioned that she had just come back from Jamaica for vacation and she went with some people with Grassroots," that Black Lives Matter activist told the Free Beacon. "She said Grassroots was writing a book or something. But she also mentioned to me that it was important that I not say anything to anyone because it was really just a vacation."

As of the publication of this article, neither Black Lives Matter Grassroots nor Abdullah have published a book.

I hope this doesn't come to blows or bullets!

It's so weird how these black grifter groups, like the one fronted by skinny slippery-ass bitch Ibrahim X. Khendi (real name Henry Rogers or something) which similarly took in millions and produced nothing.

How the once-edgy and anti-establishment Vice went woke and went broke. As told by a former Vice reporter who was there for the downfall.

The beginning of the end came in 2017.

After a New York Times report exposed the supposedly sexually charged "boys' club" atmosphere at Vice--a magazine started by three boys in 1994--a clutch of employees publicly condemned their employer for its past and demanded that the company that paid their salaries start acting like an entirely different company.

Vice co-founder and CEO Shane Smith, once a frequent presence in the New York office, retreated to his $50 million L.A. mansion and transferred control of the company to a female CEO, former A&E Networks head Nancy Dubuc. A staff-wide email from Smith and fellow Vice co-founder Suroosh Alvi, sent hours before the Times story dropped, offered an expression of "extreme regret for our role in perpetuating sexism in the media industry and society in general," which rather overestimated the company's influence and overstated their sense of contrition.

After all, Vice's top leadership, in private, was far less acquiescent, bitterly arguing that the Times story was a conclusion in search of supporting anecdotes, with complicating facts ignored to sustain a predetermined narrative. Regardless, profuse apologies were demanded and frequently repeated. But they weren't enough.

One complaint was that the photos of the magazine's covers on the company's walls were offensive. Which ones?

Take your pick. Or all of them. Just take them down.

We order you to take them down.

...

The covers were swiftly removed, now sequestered in co-founder Suroosh Alvi's basement office, where a number of longtime Vice employees gathered to express a collective incredulity. "The resistance starts now," one of them said hopefully. But we all saw it for what it was: a surrender.

It was the first in a cascading series of I told you so moments. In a building full of poorly paid, expensively educated young journalists, laboring on behalf of lavishly paid, expensively educated executives, it was inevitable, in an age of perpetual offense, that Vice Media would soon be consumed by controversies about its past, providing excuses to reshape its future. But if you're endlessly apologizing for the very content that created all of these jobs, as I told one executive at the time, it will end up destroying the company.

...

All of this airbrushing of the past for the sake of psychological safety in the present was a harbinger of the grimness to come, partly because it provoked no audible internal dissent and went unnoticed by the outside world. As one former executive recently told me, it was then that leadership should have reckoned with the disheartening reality that "our workforce hated our brand."

This is obvious, but maybe it needs to be said anyway: The whole doctrine of Marxist critique, as explicitly stated by Marx himself, was that the revolutionary cadres should do nothing but critique, "denounce," and anathematize any institution they didn't like until that institution attempted to buy peace by making concession after concession to the Marxists.

And the Marxists did not intend reform of the institutions; they were revolutionaries. Although sometimes they tactically adjust their rhetoric to make it sound like they're asking for reforms, they're not: the end goal is the destruction of the institutions, a razing of them all to the ground, to establish a New World Order starting at Year Zero.

They say this. They make no secret of this.

But every time they do the same fucking thing, a bunch of dumbases and cucks picking the lint out of their assholes say the same thing: "Well maybe if we just meet them halfway we can buy them off."

Antifa routinely threatens to physically attack "journalists" if they film their faces, so these Brave Firefighters of course meekly comply.

They also routinely block camera shots of their public demonstrations.

But Jake Tapper says nothing. He knows who the Bad Guys are.

If you thought the Trump political persecution couldn't get more disgusting, have I got some bad news for you.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:20 PM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Four-Hour Long Viral Video Exposes the Colossal, Cheap-Out Failure of Disney's $3,000+ Per Night Star Wars Hotel

One of Bob Iger's biggest failures -- the list is crowded -- is getting fresh attention thanks to a four hour long deep dive viral video.

Disney's Star Wars hotel, a half-billion dollar failure written off completely for a $300 million tax break in 2023 after operating for a little over a year, is back on everyone's radar again.

The video by snarky nerd Jenny Nicholson has gotten over five million views. She was one of the few people who actually went to the $6,000+ for one room for two nights boondoggle, and describes it as a cashgrabby-yet-cheapskate failure in almost every single vector.

She's a big fan of expensive theme hotels but says this piece of crap was worth no more than 40% of what Disney was charging, at most.

Her latest video, her first in a year, is a four-hour achingly precise dissection of Star Wars Galactic Cruiser, an immersive role-playing experience that was nicknamed the Star Wars hotel. Galactic Starcruiser was a two-night event where guests paid a high four figures to board a fake spaceship and live as though they were part of a story set in the Star Wars galaxy. It opened on March 1, 2022, and closed on September 30, 2023, which should give you an indication of how popular it was. Eight months after its closure, Nicholson detailed her experience visiting the resort. She paid over $6,000 for her two-night stay and broke down with laser-like focus why her experience was so underwhelming. It's a great piece of work and a curiously tragic video, one where an enthusiast who was the target demographic for this ultimately niche attraction found herself left underwhelmed by a poorly executed corporate folly. It's 100% worth four hours of your time.

The internet agreed, and as of the writing of this piece, Nicholson's video has earned over 5 million views in one week. It's gone wildly viral beyond Nicholson's own niche, where she's already a big deal.

The Disney shills, including Screen Rant, are out with their typical Disney-approved talking points.

But it's hard to argue with Nicholson -- not only did Disney itself determine the $500 million hotel was a total loss, but they pulled the plug on it after a year. They didn't even try to save it -- they knew it was doomed.

But the Disney shills in the media say it was totally awesome.

The unexpected side of this is how it seems to have made a lot of people freak out.

Screen Rant, a content mill I used to write for, published a curiously defensive piece on the attraction, written by a former employee who seemed aggrieved with points that Nicholson never actually made in her video. While it doesn't name Nicholson or directly reference her video, it's obvious that the piece is a response to her work. Largely, it's SEO bait from a site that is ruthlessly efficient at creating it. They saw Nicholson's video doing well, wanted to cash in on it, but also wanted to stay on the good side of Disney.

The defensiveness over an attraction that, may I remind you, has shuttered is curious, to say the least. It's also evident that neither the writer nor their editors watched Nicholson's video (or at least the entire thing) because Nicholson rails against the ways that the attraction was dominated by corporate marketing lingo that depersonalized the experience, and the article is full of the exact same rhetoric. It reads like a press release hyping up something that no longer exists, damage control to poorly balance out the sheer number of mainstream media headlines Nicholson got for her video going viral. Nobody bought it.

It wasn't just them, though. Many Disney fans and content creators seemed truly furious with Nicholson for vlogging about her visit to an attraction she paid real money to attend. They mocked her for taking the attraction too seriously despite the fact that it was sold as an immersive experience where people were encouraged to roleplay.

The "immersive experience" cost $6,000 to $12,000 for a single room for two days.

Was she supposed to treat it as a blow-off?

Screen Rant's Disney Corporate Client Service article is here.

Nichoslon roasted the Disfluencers in her video, pointing out that many of the "influencers" pushing the hotel from the start were compensated and given free passes to the "experience."

Sort of. They were given a free four-our mini-"experience" and told what would be happening during the other 20 hours of the "experience." But many of them lied and just said they saw the entire two-day "show."

She was accused of somehow being both anti-Disney and a corporate shill. They said she was overtly critical and trying to take down the good people at the House of Mouse.

As she herself is, she's is the perfect target audience for this sort of thing. She did a two hour (positive) deep dive on Disney's Avatar attraction. And she's a huge Disney and Star Wars fan and a progressive.

Viewers of the video might wonder why she keeps calling an R2-D2-like droid "them;" I assume it's because she doesn't know the droid's chosen pronouns. (Or Disney specified that it was a they/them in marketing material -- I wouldn't put it past them.)

So she's no conservative. She's evaluating Disney objectively, and the shills will not have that.

The video is here. I hate to admit I watched the whole thing over Memorial Day weekend.

Is it worth it? Well I watched at 1.5x speed so it was "only" two and a half hours for me, and of course this subject is very interesting to me, so it was worth it for me. I think most of you may find this a little excessive.

It is very thorough, though. She points out how incredibly small the rooms at this "luxurious" hotel are. She also points out that on a real cruise ship, where space (and weight) are limited, the rooms are actually much bigger than at the landlocked fake "cruise" hotel that Disney tried to peddle for $6,000 to $12,000 per room for a two day "experience."

Why so small? You have all the space you want out in that Florida swamp.

Because Disney thinks it can constantly escalate its prices and parents will keep on coming to please their children, she concludes.

I think the tide is turning on that calculation.

Nicholson deploys an interesting comparison. She compares Spirit Airlines to luxury cruises. Now, Spirit Air offers you a rockbottom low price for a ticket -- but then they nickel-and-dime you and charge you for each bag you bring on board, including even a purse, and for every mini-can of Coke or bag of peanuts.

Luxury cruises, on the other hand, charge a huge upfront cost -- but then almost everything is free for the actual cruise.

Disney has created a hybrid model in its parks, she argues, not just with the Star Wars hotel but with all of its theme parks, in which they charge ludicrously high upfront costs -- but then also nickel-and-dime you for every possible incidental amenity.

The Spirit Air model works. The all-in all-inclusive luxury model works.

The Disney model which blends the worst aspects of both pricing models does not work.

There is evidence for that: Publicly-available information for wait times at Disney rides reveals that very few people were in the park on Memorial Day, one of the biggest amusement park days of the year. In this clip, they discuss rides that often have waits of an hour or more having barely any wait time at all -- sometimes no more than it physically takes to walk from an attraction's entrance to the actual attraction.

Beyond Disney's woes, Hollywood is experiencing a "full-scale depression." I mentioned this article before, but just to refresh your recollection:

Hollywood Contraction Hits Entertainment Executive Jobs: "This Is A Full-Scale Depression"

LinkedIn is usually used by professionals for networking with people in their field, posting updates when they get a new job or congratulating friends on their promotions.

These days, as one former industry type put it, "it's become a therapy site for unemployed entertainment executives" who share their frustrations over the lack of opportunities in Hollywood amid a major contraction.

"I've seen lots of downturns, lots of job losses but I've never seen anything like this," one veteran top TV executive said. "This is a full-scale depression for the entertainment industry."

Over the past year, there have been waves of layoffs at Disney, Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Amazon MGM Studios, Lionsgate (which acquired eOne), Netflix, Sony, Fifth Season and most talent agencies including CAA and UTA.

The dire situation, "bordering on worst-case scenario," the seasoned TV executive said, was created by a perfect storm of Covid, strikes and "poor management decisions coming home to roost" driven by short-sighted moves by media companies aimed at goosing their quarterly reports to appease Wall Street.

Those venting about their experiences on LinkedIn say that they have sent hundreds of job applications and never got a response to the majority of them, not even from HR. Some have been on the sidelines for more than a year while trying to pick up consulting and other part-time gigs to pay the bills.

The more senior executives turn to headhunters.

"I have certainly an influx of executives that reach out and say, they're looking for their next [job]," said top Hollywood executive recruiter Jamie Waldron, Senior Partner, Global Head of Sports, Media + Entertainment, at Modern Executive Solutions. His "conservative estimate" is that "a good 20%" of the VP-and-above executive workforce in media and entertainment is out of work from a year ago.

Based on his observations, legal and marketing executives have been heavily impacted, followed closely by development execs.

"There is no doubt a contraction," Waldron added. "It just makes it tough in the short term I feel like, with a lot of good executives. I can't meet everybody that wants to meet to talk about that they're about to be unemployed or this layoffs now happening."

For many newly unemployed execs it's been a major adjustment, losing a lofty salary with bonuses and stock but also perks such as company cars and expense accounts.

Most of those that have met with Waldron have put on a brave face, saying they feel great about taking a break and are happy to spend time with their kids. "And some are honest, 'No, I'm scared,' " he said.

During the strikes, Waldron, whose father, 91, is a former writer and still a WGA member, said he was "looking at the fear and listening to all the stories of the writers and actors that are losing their houses."

"What was kind of lost in the story was executives were doing the same thing, executives that were laid off were losing their houses and the private school tuition for their kids, and those jobs didn't come back because either the contraction of the industry, or they're waiting for them to come back," he said.

Hollywood often turns to cheap low-budget, non-union reality TV when times are tough. (Or when strikes have delayed normal scripted shows.)

But now reality TV is in a recession, too.

Many veteran unscripted producers and sellers, who asked to remain anonymous in a bid to protect future sales, say the downturn is mirroring what's happening in the scripted TV space as budgets there, too, are being squeezed across the board, and especially on broadcast. Unscripted shows, which historically have been cheaper to make and faster to produce, are feeling the same fiscal pinch as their scripted counterparts as media companies right-size their slates and spending. "It's the same problem as scripted, and it's really depressing," says one veteran reality executive.

The overall contraction and M&A have also meant fewer buyers for unscripted fare. Max, for example, no longer has its own unscripted department after incorporating Discovery's vast portfolio of programming into the streamer. "At the legacy companies, you have massive fiscal pressure going on -- just look at the stock prices. Those are the traditional buyers. It's the same reasons you've seen in scripted, just leading to unscripted as well," says one longtime seller.

Budgets for the shows that are being greenlit, meanwhile, are getting slashed, which is trickling down to affect the salaries that are being offered, according to sources. Some particularly noteworthy examples have made the rounds in online reality communities: One longtime reality producer, who says seasoned story producers used to be able to make $2,800 a week, shares a job posting starting May 31 and offering $350 to $450 a day, which amounts to $1,750 to $2,250 a week; a story producer sends a screenshot of a job starting in January that offered $1,800 to $2,200 a week for the same role. "Unfortunately, there's a lot more supply than demand right now" when it comes to available workers, adds the veteran reality TV producer. As a result, "Everybody's Scrooge McDucking it."

Oh well!

This industry -- and many others -- has been at hostile, nasty hot war with half of its former customer base since 2015. (It was in a cold war with half the population before that.)

Did they think that would never cost them their jobs?

Related: California has a big problem with thieves stealing catalytic converters, for the precious metals it's made of. They have this problem because they don't punish thieves.

California Democrats, on the other hand, say that California has this problem because car manufacturers make it too easy to steal these parts. The part is underneath the car in about the center of the car's body and is welded to the frame. You know, easy-peasy to just take on an impulse.

Even Ana Kasparian has wised up to the lunacy of blaming car makers for car theft. California legislators say they don't want the "easy" solution of sending thieves to jail. They want to instead confront the "root causes" of the crime, which is that car makers are building cars with these devices. (Which the government mandates them to install, of course.)

Not only does Nitya Ramen not want to punish thieves -- she even voted against a provision that would require proof-of-lawful-purchase for anyone attempting to sell a used catalytic converter. She is affirmatively fighting to keep this crime viable.

Promoting thievery and criminality has consequences.

Over the weekend, an actor appearing on General Hospital saw some Gentle Giants Who Were Starting Their Rap Careers screwing with his car.

When he intervened, they murdered him.

A nationwide crime trend plaguing car owners has gained renewed focus amid the unsolved killing of "General Hospital" actor Johnny Wactor who was gunned down when he caught thieves in Los Angeles ripping off the catalytic converter of his Toyota Prius.

The automotive part meant to reduce smog caused by combustion engines has become a preferred target for criminals as the prices of the precious metals inside the component -- rhodium, platinum and palladium -- have skyrocketed in recent years.

Rhodium, for instance, currently goes for $4,750 a troy ounce, the measurement for precious metals, or about twice the cost of gold, according to Trading Economics, a website that tracks economic indicators. Platinum is currently priced at $1,046 per troy ounce, while palladium is going for $957.

According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, a stolen catalytic converter can fetch between $20 and $350 on the black market.

Jim McDonnell, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff, told ABC News the quick money thieves are getting on the black market for the part outweighs the risk of getting caught because penalties have been historically low and the priority law enforcement agencies place on such crimes takes a back seat to violent crime.

But let's get at the "root causes" of this murder -- a law-abiding citizen attempting to stop thieves from robbing him.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:26 PM | Comments (353) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Parents Posting Intimate Details About Their Children Online to Collect Praise for Themselves Are Narcissists, Experts Say

What would we do without experts?

Health experts are warning parents not to excessively share details about their children on social media, cautioning that doing so can have long-lasting effects on their mental health.

According to an article by the Cleveland Clinic, "sharenting" refers to "the act of digital oversharing, of excessively posting information, pictures, stories or updates about your child's life."

Examples of sharenting include publicizing private milestones in a child's life, such as finishing potty training or a girl's first period. Posting about a mistake a child made or an injury could also be humiliating for children.

Even more innocent posts like sharing a child's positive report card can hurt self-esteem, Cleveland Clinic psychologist Dr. Susan Albers said.

"Sometimes, parents unknowingly create pressure on their kids by crafting an idealized image online of who their child is," she explained. "That can lead to dips in self-esteem and self-worth."

Albers added that even if a parent's post has positive intentions, the act of oversharing details about a child's life "comes with a lot of gray areas."

"Sharenting comes with lots of gray areas regarding a child's privacy, autonomy, protection and right to informed consent," Albers said. "Some countries have put regulations in place to ensure parents are sharing safely.

"But we don't have many laws in the U.S. that protect children online. Everyone has to figure out for themselves when their social media use crosses a line."

The full effects of sharenting have yet to be seen, but experts caution that the mental health issues it causes have begun to be observed in teenagers. Albers cited her teenage patients mentioning their parents' digital behavior in counseling sessions.
Young mother and toddler daughter laughing while taking a selfie at home"Sharenting" can increase anxiety in young girls. Getty Images/iStockphoto

"Teenagers, in particular, bring it up because their parents are sharing information they're uncomfortable with," she said.

"We need to understand the long-term emotional impact sharenting may have on children -- impacts that we cannot see or fathom yet because they haven't been researched," she added.
What do you think? Be the first to comment.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel echoed Albers' concerns in an interview Wednesday. He said sharenting can emerge when parents "obsess" over their social media engagement and try posting more and more personal information to get a reaction.

"Keep in mind that kids are already subject to ostracization, marginalization and feelings of loneliness and isolation because of how they are treated or bullied on social media," he explained. "Multiple studies have shown that this leads to worsening anxiety, low self-esteem, depression and even suicidal thoughts in a majority of teen girls.

"The last thing our kids need is their parents throwing gasoline on the flames through what is essentially exploitative treatment of their kids, whether it is intended or not."

I wonder what these experts will discover when they begin examining whether or not it's a great idea to take an 11-year-old's TikTok delusion that she's a transgender cat as an authoritative medical diagnosis.

England has bothered to commission an expert review of the evidence, while the craven, murderous American medical establishment continues lying children into amputations for fear of being cancelled by lunatics on Twitter.

England has halted the use of puberty blockers for "transgender youth."

That headline rather assumes facts not in evidence, no?

England's National Health Service has banned the use of puberty blockers for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence in transgender minors.

The NHS has not stated it will restrict puberty blockers for non-transgender children and young people.

An NHS spokesperson told ABC News the agency hopes to have a study into the use of puberty blockers in place by December of this year, with eligibility criteria yet to be decided.

The agency said it made the move after considering an evidence review conducted by England's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

John Sexton says this is actually new news; while it was already reported that the NHS would suspend gender mutilation "therapies," the new ban applies to private gender-blender doctors as well.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Denver Doubles Down on Welfare for "Newcomers Program," Increasing Benefits for Illegals While Cutting Spending on City Services for Citzens

All they do is double down.

For now.

We'll see if their increasingly insane gambles pay off in the end.

The Denver City Council is doubling down on policies that offer free shelter and food to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally, which officials in west Texas say have been the primary draw to Colorado's most populous city.

In an overview Tuesday of the city's response to the crisis -- the so-called "Newcomer Program" -- councilmembers learned that the immigrants will receive, at taxpayers' expense, six months of rental, food and utility assistance, a computer, prepaid cell phone and metro bus passes.

In other words: We're paying them a salary for breaking our laws.

"We designed this program to be holistic," said Sarah Plastino, who is in charge of the city's response.

Whenever someone starts using the word "holistic," hold on to your wallets and try to cling to your sanity, because it's going to get stupid fast.

...

About 760 immigrants -- Plastino told councilmembers in attendance -- are enrolled in the extended assistance program. Her office hopes to increase that number to 800 in the coming weeks, she said.

This first cohort is expected to "graduate" from the program in December or January, Plastino said.

It's all part of a new strategy that pivots away from an emergency response to a long-term plan, a move that came on the heels of Mayor Mike Johnston trying to rein in spending and find the $90 million cost to pay for the immigrant response.

Over the past 17 months, Denver had received nearly 42,000 immigrants.

That is roughly the size of Brighton, which is located about 20 miles northeast of downtown Denver and is the county seat of neighboring Adams County.

Not all have stayed.

But plane, train and bus tickets purchased for immigrants to travel to their final U.S. destination suggest about half may have.

Their arrival has pushed the city's finances to a breaking point. To finance its response, the city had cut some services, frozen hiring and decided against planting flowers to save money.

...

To date, Denver's response has cost taxpayers about $70 million -- and counting.

Early in the crisis, city leaders decided that Denver taxpayers would assume the cost to temporarily feed, shelter and transport immigrants to their final destination.

While Denver officials long speculated that the city's proximity to the U.S. border, its transportation hub, which connects to major cities across the country, and status as a "sanctuary city" were the draw for immigrants, El Paso officials in west Texas point to something else: free shelter and tickets for onward travel.

So many racist black people objecting to social services being diverted to non-citizen "newcomers."

Do you think Jake Tapper will pontificate about how racist he thinks black people are?

What about the Hispanics who want illegal immigration stopped, Fake Jake? Are they racist against Brown People (TM) too?

Invasionary armies are getting tired of waiting for Border Patrol coming to pick them up to bring them into the country illegally, so they've resorted to self-help.

Illegal immigrants crossing into the United States at the southern border were spotted calling for rides from Lyft as they grew tired of waiting for Border Patrol agents to come pick them up.

Fox News was on the ground in Jacumba, California, observing migrants who had come in across the southern border, and were waiting for several hours to be picked up and processed by Border Patrol agents.

Some Colombians got sick of waiting for the feds to come pick them up, so they called a ride on the ride-sharing app and hopped in the car when it arrived.

It was not clear if the driver knew that they were picking up illegal immigrants.

The moment is a glimpse of how overwhelmed Border Patrol agents have been as they continue to deal with high numbers in the San Diego sector.

Fox witnessed groups of illegal immigrants from Pakistan, China, India and Turkey wandering. There was little aid for Border Patrol from the liberal state of California, in stark contrast to Texas, which has launched its own operation to build infrastructure and block illegal immigrants from entering the U.S.

The lack of security shocked even some illegal immigrants. One Turkish migrant, who told Fox he had paid around $10,000 to a cartel, said that Americans should be concerned by what he had seen.

"In fact, American people is right, completely true. Who comes into this country? They don't know. OK, I'm good. But how if they're not good? How if they're killers, psychopath, else? No guarantee of that."

"Like, no security, no security check, no background check," the migrant said, referring to his crossing into the United States.

He said he worried about who is crossing the border, because "people are not normal."

Secretary of Population Replacement Mayorkas says he's doing an "extraordinary" job waving in the invaders.

During an interview with CBS News Immigration and Politics Reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez, portions of which were released on Tuesday, Mayorkas claimed that the Biden administration has "done an extraordinary job to deal with an unprecedented level of migration," and that the unprecedented levels of "migration" are due to other factors. No doubt "other factors" include Donald Trump. Right, Alejandro?

I'm not sure if Mayorkas is "just" a compulsive liar or a full-blown pathological liar.

Update: The illegal population in the US -- not the rate of illegal immigration, but the total number of illegal aliens in the country -- has doubled over the past three years.

Must have been due to the 9% inflation-of-the-illegal-alien-population Biden inherited from Trump.

Thanks to Village Idiot's Apprentice.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:20 PM | Comments (398) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Surprise! GDP is UNEXPECTEDLY Revised Downward

Via Beege Wellborn, the government "revised" its previous estimate of last quarter's growth.

You will not be surprised that the Bureau of Economic Analysts once again over-estimated the growth of the economy under a Democrat president.

It was projected to be low at 1.6%. Now it's even worse at 1.3%.

As Biden babbles and lies that you've never had it better, and that your delusionary belief that prices are higher and your income is lower is all due to "corporate greed" and "sizeflation," the grim reality is that Americans have lost $1.3 TRILLION in disposable income since Biden was installed-through-"fortification" into office.

More at the link. Manufacturing has tipped into recession territory, too.

VodkaPundit: The recession's back on, Jack!

The bad news the media and Regime have been hiding for so long is now trickling out.

Yahoo Finance: US economy grew at a slower pace than initially thought in Q1. "The update to the first quarter growth metric 'primarily reflected a downward revision to consumer spending,' per the BEA. Personal consumption in the first quarter grew at 2%, down from a prior reading of 2.5%."

...

NAR: Pending Home Sales Slumped 7.7% in April. "The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI)* -- a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings -- decreased to 72.3 in April. Year over year, pending transactions were down 7.4%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001."

People buying homes generate all kinds of positive downstream effects as they fill those homes with new furniture and appliances. Plus, real estate agent's livelihoods depend on sales commissions. When home sales dry up, so do the downstream benefits.

CNN: Why the Dow has fallen 1,000 points in the last three days. "New economic data on Thursday showed that US gross domestic product in the first quarter was revised lower (1.3% from 1.6%) and that personal consumption is slowing. That's a sign that economic expansion is cooling."

But how robust is that economic expansion, truly? Despite the low unemployment rate and big population growth fueled by massive illegal immigration, there are still fewer full-time jobs than there were before the COVID lockdowns. If you subtract Biden's massive deficit spending -- inflationary funny money printed up to goose growth -- we've been in a recession for almost his entire administration.

I don't care how "robust" anybody tries to tell me the economy is when I read headlines like this one from KABC: Nearly 80% of Americans now see fast food as a 'luxury,' survey says.

I have always considered fast food to be a luxury. I guess I'm just Streets Ahead of the Trend.

Tell your friends and loved ones-- My boy Ace, he's Streets Ahead of the Trend.

Billionaires are defecting to Trump.

A flood of elite GOP donors and Trump-curious tycoons have come off the sidelines in recent weeks in support of the former president, who is rapidly closing his fundraising gap with President Biden.

The big picture: Trump's mega-donors defected in droves after Jan. 6 and Republicans' abysmal performance in the 2022 midterms. After flirting with alternate candidates in the GOP primary, many are getting back behind Trump.

The latest is casino billionaire Miriam Adelson, who plans to pour millions into reviving the pro-Trump super PAC Preserve America, Politico reported Thursday.

...

Driving the news: Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who has crusaded against DEI policies and antisemitism on college campuses, is likely to endorse Trump as well, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman told Axios last week that he would support and donate to Trump after previously calling for "a new generation of leaders."

Activist investor Nelson Peltz, who said he regretted voting for Trump after the Capitol attack, hosted the former president at his Florida mansion in March.

Elon Musk, who met with Trump at Peltz's home, now speaks to the former president multiple times per month and is organizing dinner parties to whip elite opposition against Biden.

David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, tech investors and hosts of the popular "All In" podcast, are hosting a Silicon Valley fundraiser for Trump on June 6.

Between the lines: Trump, who spent much of the primary season drowning in legal bills, has ramped up his fundraising appeals with audacious promises to top donors, the Washington Post reports.

"Audacious promises." Nothing like Biden tyrannically ordering billions of dollars of wealth transfers from Trump voters to Biden voters!

Unrelated: A snap poll finds that Trump gained favorability since the verdict.

I got this from Ed Morrissey, who says snap polls are usually unreliable. I have no idea either way about snap polls specifically, but take a grain of salt.

But take that grain of salt later, after you've allowed yourself to gloat about this for an hour or so.

Donald Trump gets a SIX-POINT bump in approval after being found guilty on 34 counts according to snap Daily Mail poll: 'I think it was a waste of taxpayer money'

JL Partners used a panel of 403 likely voters to asses the impact of guilty verdict

The results showed an improvement in Trump's favorability ratings

Read more: The blunders that undermined Trump's defense in hush money case

Teflon Don rides again, according to an exclusive snap poll for DailyMail.com which found that the guilty verdict in Manhattan only improved the former president's standing with likely voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Of those who said the 34 guilty counts had changed their view of Donald Trump, 22 percent said they now had a more favorable rating compared with 16 percent who said they viewed him more negatively.

That six-point net positive result is another sign of the way the businessman-turned-politician seems able to ride out crises that would sink anyone else.
The video player is currently playing an ad.

In a tight election, it could be enough to get him across the finish line.

'I think it was a waste of taxpayer money and will help propel Trump to a victory,' said a 42-year-old hip hop DJ from Illinois, who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.
J.L. Partners polled 403 likely voters immediately after Thursday's guilty verdict to assess its impact on the November election. The results suggest a slight bump for Trump

J.L. Partners polled 403 likely voters immediately after Thursday's guilty verdict to assess its impact on the November election. The results suggest a slight bump for Trump.

In particular, the numbers show a four-point net positive impact among independent voters, the group that could decide who is the next president in November.

At the same time, the Trump campaign said it had enjoyed a fundraising bonanza in the hours after the verdict, bringing in $34.8 million from small dollar donors--nearly double its record daily haul.

Our poll was conducted in the hours after a jury foreman at Manhattan criminal court announced 34 guilty verdicts.

J.L. Partners used an online panel of 400 likely voters to assess the impact on the election.

Respondents were asked to explain their opinion.

Not surprisingly, many Trump fans denounced the trial as a 'sham' or a 'witch hunt,' using the candidate's own language.

This doesn't sound credible to me:

But plenty of people who voted for him in 2020 said they were horrified by what it said about the man.

'For a Republican like myself it's all very embarrassing,' said a retired electrician in North Carolina, one of the battleground states. 'It's like finding out your sister is a prostitute.'

Republican and former voter, you say?

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (465) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Powerline: Republican AGs Need to Start Arresting and Jailing Democrat Officials, Including Those from Out of State

And prosecute Mark Cuban while you're at it.

Is it just like me or does he have a face that says "uncharged sexual assaults"?

A grotesquely biased jury of Trump-haters, led by a judge who put service to his party above his judicial responsibilities, has returned guilty verdicts against Donald Trump on all 34 counts with which he was--absurdly--charged.

What this shows is that the most important variable in any case is who decides it. Here, the Democrats knew that they could impanel a rabidly anti-Trump jury in Manhattan, so they did so. It is very much like the lawsuit that Michael Mann brought against Mark Steyn and others, of which I observed some of the latter stages. The defendants were properly happy about how the trial had gone, but the facts didn't matter. The Democrats had chosen the right venue, Washington, D.C., and a biased jury found for Mann. Same thing here.

What to do now? First, it is now absolutely essential that Trump be elected president. The Democrats cannot be allowed to get away with this effort to turn America into a banana republic.

Second, the Democrats understand nothing except the raw exercise of power. Therefore, Republican attorneys general and district attorneys should bring criminal charges against Democratic officeholders wherever possible. No Democratic officeholder should be allowed to retire, in any jurisdiction with Republican law enforcement, without facing criminal charges. There can't be a single Democratic official in America against whom a criminal case can't be brought that is better than this case against Trump. It should be open season on Democrats in the criminal courts.

Third, the criminal prosecutions should begin with Joe Biden. Unlike Trump, Biden is actually a criminal. He is already known to be guilty under the federal bribery statute. If Trump wins in November, his Department of Justice should immediately indict Biden, and Biden should be hounded until the day he dies or goes to prison, whichever happens first.

That's a good start. He notes that some, like Biden, will have to be prosecuted on "their home turf," in a blue city like DC.

But why? Republicans need to get serious about passing a law guaranteeing both defendants and prosecutors the right to seek removal to a neutral jurisdiction in politically-charged cases. We cannot continue being hounded in blue city courts while serial Democratic lawbreakers are not even charged because Democratic juries would view them as "a well-meaning old man with memory issues."

He does suggest that Red States begin scanning their laws to see if any bribery cases against Joe or Hunter Biden (or Jim Biden, or the nieces and granddaughters) can be prosecuted in red state courts.

Sean Davis agrees -- and wants the GOP to stop scheming to give tax breaks to the corporations who have gladly enlisted in the Democrats' war on normal citizens:

Sean Davis
@seanmdav

If you're a Republican running for office, you can just go ahead and throw away all of your elegant little policy proposals for this or that corporate exclusion or tax subsidy. Give me a list of which Democrat officials you're going to put in prison, or get lost.

There's only one way to deal with nuclear war, which is what Democrats have unleashed, and that is mutually assured destruction. Democrats declared war on our entire system of justice and the rule of law, and our only options are victory or defeat. I intend to win. Do you?

Enough of the compromised fake Republicans at National Review and Commentary. Man up or get out.

One of my former law partners, a world class trial lawyer, when faced with an adversary who wanted to engage in unprofessional "hardball" litigation tactics would say, "I can play the game; just tell me the rules." The Democrats have made the rules, and their opponents will have little choice but to play the game.

This is not a game that can or will be played by one side only. The rules are now set. When Republicans have the chance, they will play the game. Many, perhaps most, will think that a response is mandatory and that "taking the high road" is no longer an option. Instead, it would be regarded by the "progressive" left -- that is to say those now in charge of the Democratic party -- as weakness if they roll over and fail to respond. This is an existential threat to the stability of our political system and nation. That risk makes this the most dangerous day in the history of the Country, at least in our lifetimes.

Henceforth, weaponization of the justice system against a political opponent will be the norm. Political grudges will be resolved by political opponents in cherry-picked courtrooms where conviction is most likely. All this confirms that when controlled by scoundrels, our judicial system is becoming more like what we expect in places like China, Cuba or Venezuela, where political opponents are routinely imprisoned or worse.

Meanwhile, polling doesn't look good for Biden.

Political Polls
@Politics_Polls

#NEW @CookPolitical
Swing State Poll:

NEVADA
Trump 49% (+9)
Biden 40%
.
PENNSYLVANIA
Trump 48% (+3)
Biden 45%
.
MICHIGAN
Trump 47% (+2)
Biden 45%
.
NORTH CAROLINA
Trump 48% (+7)
Biden 41%
.
WISCONSIN
Biden 45%
Trump 45%
.
GEORGIA
Trump 47% (+3)
Biden 44%
.
ARIZONA
Trump 45% (+1)
Biden 44%

BSG/GS Strategy Group, 3,969 LV, 5/6-13

Biden is ahead in New York.. by single digits.

litical Polls
@Politics_Polls
2024 New York GE:

Biden 48% (+7)
Trump 41%
.
Biden 44% (+6)
Trump 38%
Kennedy 6%
West 2%
Stein 1%

We'll see if that changes. There's a poll that says that if Trump is convicted, Trump will lose a critical amount of support. Biden won't gain any support, but Trump will fall below Biden:

That's been a worry that some of us have had for a long time. We'll see if people really change their votes based on this evil political prosecution.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (448) | Trackbacks (Suck)