The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Iran is the primary driver of unrest in the Middle East, and has been since the Mad Mullahs took over in 1979. And they like mucking around far from their turf...they actively try to assassinate Iranians and others across the world who are anti-Mad-Mullah. They use their terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah to conduct terrorist attacks, all funded and aided by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is an official part of the Iranian government.

There is no distinction between the government of Iran and terrorism. Except of course if you are a part of the Biden/Obama junta, which is desperately trying to revitalize Iran, ease its path to nuclear weapons, and prop it up as a counterweight to Israel's influence.

They want a fourth front opened against Israel (Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the PA in Judea and Samaria) across the Jordan river, and if that means attacking a sovereign nation? Well, they are happy to do it!

Jordanian Regime Furious With Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood: They Are Acting To Foment Chaos In Kingdom In Service Of Iran

Jordan, it appears, perceives that Hamas' and the MB's incitement is carried out in the service of Iran, which seeks to overthrow the Jordanian regime and open up another front against Israel in Jordan. In the recent months there have been growing concerns in Jordan regarding subversive Iranian action within the kingdom, amid increasing attempts by elements controlled by Iran to smuggle drugs and arms into Jordan over the Syrian border. The January 28 drone attack carried out by Iran-backed militias in Iraq against a U.S. logistics support base in Jordan, in which three U.S. troops were killed, intensified these fears even further. Moreover, on April 2, Abu Ali Al-Askari, an official of the Iraqi Hizbullah Brigades, revealed operative plans to establish a Jordanian militia with 12,000 armed members that would be subordinate to the Iran-led resistance axis. In response, Jordanian government spokesman Al-Mubaidin said that "Jordan is not interested in responding to militias whose hands are stained with blood and which are one of the reasons for the instability in the region," but that the Jordanian authorities are following this matter with concern. Former information minister Al-Ma'aita, for his part, said that Jordan realizes that these militias are subordinate to Iran, which has been trying to infiltrate Jordan for 40 years, but clarified that Jordan has an army to defend it.

And the apocalyptic retards in our government are aiding the effort to overthrow Jordan! They simply have no idea what the consequences of their support for Iranian expansion will be, because they have carefully ignored the plain language that Iran uses to describe their goals.

Those consequences are horrid. A regional nuclear exchange. Israel has lots of nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them. What do the half-wits in Kalorama think Israel will do if Iran attacks Israel with a nuclear device? The destruction of a large part of Tel Aviv or Haifa or Jerusalem is exactly the circumstance that would force Israel to retaliate in kind.

Or if Iran succeeds in Jordan, there will be large-scale attacks across the Jordan river, and Israel will respond in force.

It's called "war," and support for Iran, no matter how benign sounding, is support for the death and destruction that comes with it. Money is fungible, so "humanitarian aid" is simply freeing up cash to fund terrorists. Relaxing embargoes on industrial equipment allows Iran to purchase the technology it needs to improve its nuclear weapons program.

And the unbelievable stupidity of the idea that Iran can be moderated by more contact with the West can be seen as a total and complete failure with the smaller example of Gaza and Hamas. Israel tried that, and it was a catastrophe.

There is only one answer to the problem of Iran. Regime change. The West must support every anti-Mullah group inside and outside of Iran, while simultaneously shutting down the flow of cash into the country. The Mullahs will fall, and my guess is that it will happen quickly.

But we do not have the intestinal fortitude to do it. Sadly, we are moving in the opposite direction.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (221) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Sunset, Winter
Louis Rémy Mignot

[Hat Tip: "The Dink"]

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (313) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report (4/9/24)

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 05:30 AM | Comments (421) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 9 April 2024

Top Story

• TSMC is to receive $6.6 billion in direct funding and $5 billion in loans under the CHIPS Act. (AnandTech)
  
  In return, the company will be constructing a leading-edge 2nm fab in Arizona and increasing its total US fab investments to $65 billion.
  
  So... Eh. Almost everything the government could do with your money, short of not taking it from you in the first place, would be worse.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:26 AM | Comments (46) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Overnight Open Thread (4/8/24) Shrinkflation Edition

*****

We interrupt your regularly scheduled ONT for the following news. You still have time to celebrate It's April 8th - Let's Celebrate Dog Farting Awareness Day!

You're welcome. Carry on..........

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:59 PM | Comments (433) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Space Jellyfish Cafe

Caption:

MT Haven one of the most spectacular wrecks I ever dove. 50m (165 feet) tall underwater with the wreck starting around 32m (105 feet) and the keel rests at 80m (260 feet) the ship was close to 335m (1100 feet) long before she sank in a wild fire in 1991 during a visit in the port of Genoa, Italy. The wreck is a short boat ride from Arenzano and is perfect for any wreck enthusiast and technical diver. There can be ripping currents near the surface so it's not always an easy dive. In this image my buddy @vrakdykaren is scootering next to the 25m (80 feet) high chimney. This image was awarded "highly commended" in the wreck category in UPY2022 finals. So far I have only visited this wreck one trip but I hope I can make it back there very soon again.

by alex_dawson_photography

Out for a nice jog.

Underwater icicle.

Massive supercells with lots of lightning.

Here's how they make garret's crocs.

Video of the eclipse (brought to you by climate change, opines Sonny Hostin rockin' her 81 IQ).

Another view of the carbon-dioxide-mediated eclipse.

Wolves burrow through deep snow.

Koala and cub.

It's like herding cats.

Dog enjoying the water.

Dog enjoying the country.

Cat doesn't like line-cutters.

Mondays amirite

No seriously Mondays!

Bear cubs snuggling.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:33 PM | Comments (173) | Trackbacks (Suck)

News Blips

Donald Trump released an amusing ad in time with the eclipse. It's funny, it's self-effacing by being ironically grandiose.

Of course the left has employed its favorite mode of expression -- Feigned Autism --to claim they don't understand the "bizarre" ad. They claim they don't understand that the ad is intended to be silly.

From TIME's report:

In a new and bizarre campaign ad, Donald Trump's head takes the place of the moon and blocks out the sun in a nod to Monday's solar eclipse.

After getting the talking points/marching orders, The Independent joined the pile-on and also used "bizarre" to describe the ad:

On Sunday night, Mr Trump posted a bizarre campaign ad on Truth Social where his own head takes on the role of the moon -- blocking out the sun and plunging America into total darkness.

[...]

Some social media users were somewhat baffled by the message in the campaign ad: that Mr Trump will block out the sun and plunge the entire Earth into darkness.

I'm so, so sick of the Tactical Autism. If you really don't understand basic things, what the f*** are you doing working for a media which claims to be able to understand complicated thinks and to be able to explain these things to an audience?

Now passing from Feigned Autism to Genuine Mental Stuntedness, Sunny Hostin claims that the recent 4.8 earthquake that gently roused New York and the eclipse were caused by, you guessed it, climate change.

Hostin's unhinged conspiracy theories may have been the wildest, but they were not the first during the episode. Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin rhetorically scoffed at the idea that the Friday earthquake in New Jersey was a sign that Jesus was returning, but suggested former President Trump's gold club had something to do with it:

So, what's kind of crazy is with the earthquake on Friday and then the eclipse today, people are having all sorts of conspiracies about the end of the world. And then I read online that the earthquake epicenter was actually at Bedminster in New Jersey. Fun fact. So it originated with Trump.

Hostin, a self-proclaimed devout Catholic, laughed about how their studio makeup artist "put on her coat" and "ran down the hallway" during the earthquake saying "Jesus is coming" and "the rapture is here."

She also bloviated about how it was the first time in 100 years that two different cicada broods were emerging for their mating seasons at the same time.

Apparently, all the pieces were on the table and only Hostin was smart enough to put them together, and "climate change" was the answer. "All those things together would maybe lead one to believe that either climate change exists, or something is really going on," she proclaimed.

You knew things were bad when Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg were the voices of reason.

"Except earthquakes are not at the mercy of climate change. It's underground. It can't," Behar pushed back. But Hostin wouldn't listen to reason. "How about the warming of the planet?" she huffed in what she seemingly thought was a checkmate, without evidence of how it would cause earthquakes miles below the earth's surface.

"No, it happens. And the eclipse, they've known about the eclipse coming because eclipses happen and they actually can say when these things are going to happen," Goldberg argued.

Global warming made the moon blot out the sun, and made the sky to appear as sack-cloth.

But boy! Those religious maniacs who thought that an earthquake was a sign of the first trumpet! What idiots!

Video at the link.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:20 PM | Comments (182) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Shock Study Reveals That Puberty Blockers Are Not "Temporary" But Can Cause "Withering Testicles" and Permanent Sterility; Meanwhile, a Study Shows That Almost All "Gender-Discontented" Kids Will Grow Out of It In Just a Few Years

So quick! We need to chop these kids' tits and dicks off before they change their minds!

The Mayo Clinic rejects the Dangerous Medical Disinformation that puberty blockers are just a "pause" on puberty that can be easily reversed.

Mayo Clinic experts say puberty blockers can lead to withering testicles, fertility problems and even cancer among the trans kids who take them, in the latest study to raise alarm about transgender medicine.

The findings cast doubt on the 'reversibility' of puberty blockers -- a key claim of the trans activists who promote the drugs, saying they only 'pause' puberty and buy time for trans kids to make decisions about their gender.

Instead, researchers say puberty blockers hurt the development of testicles and sperm production in ways that are not fully reversible and could affect users' ability to have children when they grow up.

'At the tissue level, we report mild-to-severe sex gland atrophy in puberty blocker-treated children,' the geneticist Nagarajan Kannan and others wrote in the 33-page study.

They also stop your penis from growing. If you need to know how sad that can be, ask Jonah Goldberg's wife.

'We provide unprecedented histological evidence revealing detrimental pediatric testicular sex gland responses' to the drugs.

The study has not yet been peer-reviewed, but has been endorsed by Genspect, a global advocacy group against medical transitions, 'Harry Potter' author J K Rowling, Benjamin Ryan, a prominent science writer, and others.

...

'Whistleblowers have been saying this for ages: puberty blockers are not a pause button!' Genspect posted about the research.

The study 'reveals potential irreversible harm to the fertility of patients on these drugs,' added the group.

For their study, Mayo researchers looked at one of the largest collections of testicular samples for patients aged 0-17 years, including those with gender dysphoria who both did and did not take puberty blockers.

They focussed on 87 children, including 16 boys aged 10-16 who identified as girls.

Notice, once again, that girls are now the most likely to declare themselves trangender. Before the viral contagion, 95% of transgenders were males. (Males are much more likely to be outliers and be found on either extreme of a bell curve in most ways.)

...

Nearly 60 percent of [one child's] sex glands had 'fully atrophied,' they said.

There was also an 'appearance of microlithiasis,' or small clusters of calcium that are linked to testicular cancer.

In a 14-year-old patient who had been on puberty blockers for four years, they found his sperm production cells were stunted.

What is the cost of waiting?

The main cost is that the transgender extremists, who seek to normalize their choices by recruiting as many vulnerable children into a extremely bad medical choice as possible, thus getting those kids and all of their parents aligned with the extremists' agenda, will just grow out of their "gender discontedness" if allowed to have a non-medicalized puberty.

Most children suffering from gender dysphoria grow out of it, 15-year study concludes

A major study carried out in the Netherlands over a 15-year period has found that the majority of children who experience gender dysphoria grow out of it by the time they are adults.

The study saw researchers in the Netherlands track more than 2,700 children aged 11 to their mid-twenties, asking them every three years about the feelings they had towards their gender, and whether they were gender-content or gender non-content. The children were part of the Tracking Adolescents Individual Lives Survey.

...

Authors from the University of Groningen reported that gender non-contentedness was most prevalent between the ages of 10 and 12, and that the prevalence decreased with age. They also noted that the prevalence was "significantly higher" in girls than boys at ages 13 and 16. The long-term study showed at the start of the research that roughly one in ten children (11 per cent) expressed "gender non-contentedness" to varying degrees.

Authors found that a relatively large percentage (19 per cent) of young adolescents reported gender non-contentedness in adolescence, but not in early adulthood. By the age of 25, just one-in-25 (4 percent) said they 'often' or 'sometimes' were discontent with their gender.

The study found that those expressing "gender-discontedness" had more "global" discontedness in most aspects of their lives. Gender butchers are quick to claim that all of these mental illnesses are caused by "being in the wrong body." They refuse to even consider the possibility that it's all of these mental illnesses causing the claim of being gender confused. (Particularly since Gender Evangelists are always enlisting children into their cult by telling them that all problems -- depression, feeling different, not liking your body or the way you look -- can all be cured with puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones.)

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:21 PM | Comments (228) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A New York Court Rejects the Paperwork From the Insurer Backing Trump's Bond, As Leftwingers Salivate Over "Tish" James Seizing Trump's Property

They're now claiming that the insurer backing Trump's bond just isn't good enough for New York.

An insurance company will not be permitted to post a $175 million bond for Donald Trump while he appeals a fraud judgment, a former federal prosecutor has said.

Eric Lisann was reacting to a separate comment by another lawyer, Dave Kingman, who wrote that Knight Specialty Insurance will not be able to post the bond for Trump.

Kingman wrote that, as a result, New York Attorney General Letitia James will be able to begin enforcement proceedings on Donald Trump's properties.

A New York court has rejected Knight Specialty's paperwork and said it wanted to see more information on its financial backing. The company filed new paperwork on April 4.

...

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, one-time federal prosecutor Lisann wrote that Knight Speciality might not be able to post the bond for Trump and will be liable for the full amount because it had given a guarantee to the court.

"Looks like there is a real possibility that this Don Hankey-owned Knight Specialty Insurance does not itself have liquidity, and did not get from Trump collateral, sufficient to provide legally cognizable assurance that it can pay $175 million on demand in the event of a judgment-affirming appeal," he said.

A court must intervene and pull this prosecutor and this judge off this case.

Meanwhile, Trump is daring the liberal Democrat New York judge who slapped an (unconstitutional) gag order on him to throw him in jail.

Indeed. Trump needs to escalate this to get responsible courts to act quickly.

Former President Donald Trump dared the New York judge overseeing his criminal trial in Manhattan to throw him in jail and compared himself to the deceased, former South African leader Nelson Mandela over the gag order in the case.

New York Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order against Trump last week to prevent the former president from publicly discussing jurors, court staffers, attorneys and their families connected to the criminal hush money case.

"If this Partisan Hack wants to put me in the 'clink' for speaking the open and obvious TRUTH, I will gladly become a Modern Day Nelson Mandela - It will be my GREAT HONOR," Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social about Merchan's gag order. Trump is still able to comment on Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, just not their families under the order.

"We have to Save our Country from these Political Operatives masquerading as Prosecutors and Judges, and I am willing to sacrifice my Freedom for that worthy cause," Trump also wrote.

Relatedly: A DC judge attacks Trump publicly while, at the same time, whining that Trump is attacking liberal judges.

They're always like this -- special rules for the Politically Elect.

But even worse: This judge granted the DOJ carte blanch to spy on January 6th dissidents, granting search warrants for their computers.

We had to destroy the democracy in order to save it.

D.C. Circuit Judge Reggie Walton recently caused a stir in Washington after doing an interview with CNN in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump for his criticism of judges and their family members. Now, Judge Walton has been criticized by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a surveillance order of the computer of a January 6th defendant to detect any spreading of "disinformation" or "misinformation."

Critics charged that Walton's interview with CNN ran afoul of Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states: "A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court."

The issue of these public statements by Trump is currently pending before both state and federal courts, including proceedings in the District of Columbia. At a minimum, Judge Walton's interview showed poor judicial judgment and only reaffirmed the distrust and suspicion of many over the independence of the court system in addressing these controversial cases.

Judge Walton previously called Trump a "charlatan," and said that "I don't think he cares about democracy, only power."

I have previously criticized Trump for public comments against judges and believe that such matters should be primarily raised in court filings. Nevertheless, I have serious objections to the scope of these gag orders on free speech grounds, particularly before an election that could turn in large part on allegations of the weaponization of the legal system. Moreover, we now have a judge who feels the same license to make such criticisms in the media despite the ongoing litigation of these matters.

That alleged transgression, however, pales in comparison to a failure to protect the rights of this defendant from the abusive or unsupported surveillance of the government.

The order reflects the utter impunity shown by the Justice Department in its pursuit of January 6th defendants. Justice Department official Michael Sherwin proudly declared in a television interview that "our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe ... it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they're, like, 'If we go there, we're gonna get charged.' ... We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did."

Sherwin was celebrated for his pledge to use such draconian means to send a message to others in the country. (Sherwin has left the Justice Department and is now a partner at Kobre & Kim).

The surveillance of the computer shows that the Justice Department continues to act with a sense of utter impunity, particularly when judges are willing to blithely sign off on such orders.

The case involved Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas, who pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. That is a relatively minor offense but Walton imposed a 60-day jail sentence in June 2023.

Walton reportedly noted that Goodwyn spread "disinformation" during a broadcast of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on March 14, 2023 and ordered that Mr. Goodwyn's computer be subject to "monitoring and inspection" by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.

As a condition for supervised release, the Justice Department was reportedly seeking evidence on the defendant's political opinions and Walton felt that that was fine. The appellate judges (Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Bradley Garcia) did not: "The district court plainly erred in imposing the computer-monitoring condition without considering whether it was 'reasonably related' to the relevant sentencing factors and involved 'no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary' to achieve the purposes behind the sentencing."

Also relatedly: Fani Willis and her blown-out busted-up scamper have raised $80,000 since she hit Trump with a PMS indictment.

feelin' blue, gonna indict the president

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:22 PM | Comments (206) | Trackbacks (Suck)

VEINS: In Massachusetts, a Growing War Between Trans-Crazy Wealthy White Liberals and the Black and Brown Students Who Bully Them

The best story you'll read all day, from John Sexton.

He quotes from this New Yorker article.

I'll quote about half of it. To read more, go to Sexton's recap, or go to the New Yorker for the full article.

This week the New Yorker published a lengthy story about the meltdown taking place at a Middle School in Amherst, Massachusetts. Amherst is described as a town where there are more BLM signs than there are black people. The city is 70% white and about 12% black and Hispanic, but the public schools have a higher percentage of minorities because many well off white and Asian families send their kids to private schools.

Ben Herrington, a former member of the school committee at Amherst Regional Middle School (ARMS) said of Amherst, "Amherst is a town that loves to bill itself as being a woketopia. We have this Berkeley East persona that we put out. We aren't really like that, though."

Actually, it sounds to me like they are really like that, at least many of the white people in town are. But the black and Hispanic kids and adults seem to be part of an earlier edition of progressivism, one in which black people were considered the most oppressed group and therefore at the top of the invisible but widely understood pyramid of oppression.

Under the new rules, trans kids (most of whom are white) are claiming space as the most oppressed group and that sets up a conflict which can't easily be solved. The problems seem to have started when the black superintendent took over and created a new DEI assistant job....

Some of the people who were hired were allegedly relatives of Cunningham. She hired two school counselors, Dykes and Santos, who were later accused of bringing religion into the school and of being hostile to trans students.

Many people I spoke to alleged that both Dykes and Santos brought religion into the school. Dykes told colleagues and students that she would pray for them or, if they were facing some dilemma, ask if they had prayed on it. According to the Title IX investigation, Santos brought up the Bible and Jesus when speaking with students...Often, the counsellors did not call gender-nonconforming students by their preferred pronouns...

Uh-oh.

Dykes's sincerity in trying to "get it right" on behalf of trans kids would ultimately come into serious doubt. But there were other regrettable incidents in which the culprit may have been simple human error and the ordinary bureaucratic disarray of any sizable public school. Jo changed their name twice in middle school, and the district was slow to correct their name in its databases. As a result, Jo's mother said, Jo "spent most class periods that had substitute teachers in the Student Support Center, because they could not deal with the constant misgendering and deadnaming."

So some of this sounds like a case of trans students being special snowflakes who expect the entire world to jump every time they create a new identity for themselves. On the other hand, no one should have to put up with bullying at school and some of that was happening. But here again there was a problem for woketopia. Most of the bullies were minority kids.

Jo and their mother continued to report incidents of alleged bullying and harassment to various staffers at ARMS. Although one boy received a suspension, Jo and their mother were dismayed that the school did not mete out more consequences. Like many other progressive school districts, Amherst uses restorative-justice practices, which prioritize mediation and reconciliation over punishment, as part of an effort to redress racial disparities in the disciplinary process. "What's unique about Amherst is that there are racial and class dynamics that layer on top of the gender dynamics, and those have certain demographic tendencies," a longtime administrator in Amherst told me. Jo and Casey are white; the boys accused of bullying them and other trans students at arms were mostly Black and Latino...

So there are white, well off trans kids being bullied by less well-off black and brown kids. Thanks to the adoption of restorative justice policies, these kids are supposed to meet face to face to work out their differences. But what actually happened is one Latino boy told Jo he believed there were only two genders. Jo's father responded by suggesting the boy should be removed from the school or even sent "to Mars."

So good. So good.

Now, how this will be portrayed by the television media is with a lot of video of white kids, which will be suggested to be the bullies, and no mention of race.

They do this with every story involving Villains with Inconvenient Skin Colors -- they whitewash the situation they're crying about.

As they did with mostly black and some hispanic thugs playing the knockout game with Jews in New York. Somehow this transformed into a lecture to white MAGA people living in the suburbs and country.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (377) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Judge Rips DOJ for Blocking Testimony of Lawyers Who Allowed Hunter Biden Charges to Lapse; Points Out They're Jailing Peter Navarro for Defying a Subpoena While Doing the Same

Jonathan Turley:

"Are you kidding me?"

Those are four words that no lawyer wants to hear from a judge in a hearing. But that was not the least of it for Justice Department lawyers fighting House subpoenas into the Biden corruption scandal.

US District Judge Ana Reyes slammed the DOJ for stonewalling Congress on the subpoenas while imprisoning figures like former Trump adviser Peter Navarro for doing the same thing.

The Biden administration has blocked the testimony of prosecutors Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, who were involved in an inexplicable decision of the Justice Department to allow major felonies against Hunter Biden to lapse.

In prior hearings, IRS whistleblowers testified that they had an agreement on the table to extend the statute of limitations on the crimes, but special counsel David Weiss allowed the period to lapse without any explanation. Since the DOJ was in the midst of plea negotiations, it made no sense that the DOJ would simply kill potential charges.

It makes perfect sense when you realize these are corrupt will-to-power fascists who will break every rule and violate every trust to advance the communist cause.

The House Impeachment Committee subpoenaed these men because the whistleblowers directly implicated them in arranging for the charges against Hunter Biden to lapse without action.

...

Reyes noted the obvious: "There's a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena." The DOJ demanded six months in prison. Navarro is serving a four-month sentence.
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, leaving a House Oversight Committee meeting at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC on January 10, 2024The Justice Department has been accused of shielding Biden from prosecution. Getty Images

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon also received a four-month sentence.

Reyes noted, "I think it's quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up ... And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. ... And you don't have to show up?"

Reyes noted that the DOJ lawyers were "making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant ... I imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense attorneys ... who would be happy to hear that DOJ's position is, if you don't agree with a subpoena, if you believe it's unconstitutional or unlawful, you can unilaterally not show up."

The Justice Department insisted that it is different when its own prosecutors refuse to testify and noted that the House had also refused a demand to have other Justice Department lawyers present for the depositions. They then stressed that the decision to defy the subpoena came after lengthy deliberations "at a high level."

Reyes then asked if the DOJ would drop its opposition if it were allowed to have DOJ lawyers in the room for the questioning. When the lawyers said they could not answer that question at this time, Reyes exclaimed, "Are you kidding me?"

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (278) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Muslim Michigan Jihadists Chant "Death to America," "Death to Israel" on Last Day of Ramadan

Now before any shitlibs tells me "They're not jihadists!," let me remind the shitlibs what they say every time a Muslim endorses jihad: "A jihad isn't just terrorism or war, you uncultured buffoon, a jihad embraces any struggle, including the internal one."

These, then, are jihadists by your apologism.

And they hate America, and wish it "death."

And we just keep importing these immoral monsters and potential terrorists because the Democrats have a blueprint to fill the country with third-world transplants they believe will support their communist dreams.

Protesters in Dearborn, Michigan, shouted "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" during an International Al-Quds Day rally held in the town.

"Imam Khomeini, who declared the International Al-Quds Day, this is why he would say to pour all of your chants and all of your shouts upon the head of America," Tarek Bazzi, a Michigan-based activist associated with the Hadi institute, said in a video from the rally that was shared by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Bazzi's comments were followed by crowds chanting "Death to America!" in the background.

Bazzi reasoned that the rallies held on the day "are so anti-America," instead of a focus on Israel, because "it's the United States government that provides the funds for all of the atrocities," pointing to Israel's continued siege of Gaza as an example.

The activist went on to quote Malcom X, who said the U.S. is "one of the rottenest countries that has ever existed on this Earth," while arguing to eliminate the entire American "system."

"It's not just Genocide Joe that has to go," Bazzi said, referring to President Biden. "It is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to happen and would support it -- such a system does not deserve to exist on God's Earth."

Bazzi then turned his attention to Israel, telling the audience that when "fools" ask them "if Israel has the right to exist," the chant "Death to Israel" is "the most logical chant shouted across the world today."

...

International Al-Quds Day, an annual pro-Palestinian event that is held on the last Friday of Ramadan, enjoys significant support in Dearborn, which has the highest proportion of Muslim residents in the country.

Celebrations of the day have been controversial throughout the world, even drawing a ban by German authorities in Berlin on multiple occasions.

...

Republican state Rep. Phil Green told Fox News Digital that he agrees with assessments of a growing problem in Dearborn and around the country, arguing that it saddens him to see "the world's problems coming to our doorstep."

"This type of extremism, this type of rhetoric, this type of division ... threats of violence was a Middle East thing, it seems like a lot of that was limited to the Middle East, and now it's come to our doorstep," Green said.

...

"I am not saying that everyone in Dearborn is a terrorist, but there is a large amount of support for jihadi groups there," [MEMRI Executive Director Steven] Stalinsky said.

Hamas says that all of their women captives are animals "to be ridden."

And they don't mean like in a backyard pool chickenfight.

The Hamas terrorists behind the Oct. 7, 2023, jihadist raid literally view their female Israeli captives as horses and other animals -- to be "ridden."

During a recent press conference, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari stressed that Hamas members could be heard in their own (now captured) recordings referring to their female captives as sabi (or sabiya), an Arabic word that in Islamic jurisprudence refers to non-Muslim female slaves, whom Muslim men could freely copulate with -- in a word, concubines (see here for more on sabis).
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Sex slavery is not only an ironclad aspect of Islam; it is a reflection of "piety," as well captured by a 2015 report [from the New York Times]:

In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old [non-Muslim] girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her -- it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

"He said that by raping me," recalled the 12-year-old, "he is drawing closer to God."

"Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray," explained another girl, aged 15. "He said that raping me is his prayer to God. I said to him, 'What you're doing to me is wrong, and it will not bring you closer to God.' And he said, 'No, it's allowed. It's halal.'"

How far will Biden go to win over Michigan's jihadists? Will he endorse the Islamist idea that rape is a sacrament?

If his polling falls any further, he just might!

And NeverTrump nods.

In Britain, almost half -- 46% -- of "British" Muslims support the terrorist group Hamas.

Dearborn's got that beat, easy.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (355) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Elon Musk Goes to War With Brazil Communists Demanding Censorship of Accounts Critical of the Regime

They don't demand much -- just the total control of your speech and thoughts 24 hours per day, every single day.

Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes initiated an investigation of tech magnate Elon Musk on Sunday, the billionaire owner and CTO of social network X (formerly Twitter). The probe concerns possible obstruction of justice by Musk who said, over the weekend, he would defy the court's orders to restrict or suspend some popular accounts on its platform.

Moraes also ordered the inclusion of Musk in a broader inquiry into so-called "digital militias," a term applied to people accused of spreading misinformation online to attack democratic institutions in Brazil.

The orders follow threats of open defiance posted by Musk to his account on X, where he now has 180.2 million listed followers.

A defiant Musk wrote on Saturday in response to earlier court orders: "We are lifting all restrictions. This judge has applied massive fines, threatened to arrest our employees and cut off access to in Brazil. As a result, we will probably lose all revenue in Brazil and have to shut down our office there. But principles matter more than profit."

By Sunday, Musk was further provoking the Brazilian Supreme Court calling for the resignation or impeachment of the justice who decided on the orders, Moraes. Musk also made unsupported claims that the judge had broken the law in Brazil.

This is CNBC. They claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian op and Trump was controlled by the Kremlin.

But Elon Musk's claims are "unsupported."

Musk says he has information this judge is a "traitor," and he's going to publish it:

On Sunday, the tech billionaire also threatened to publish information from inside X that would paint Moraes as a traitor to his own country.

He wrote, "Coming shortly, will publish everything demanded by [Alexandre de Moraes] and how those requests violate Brazilian law. This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached. Shame [Alexandre de Moraes], shame."

Moraes has long supported regulations to rein in harmful content and misinformation online in Brazil. He has faced pushback from a range of entities including tech companies, far-right officials in the country, and former President Bolsonaro.

Of course.

I love how the left attempts to legitimize state censorship of negative information about the state by claiming that these attempts have deep historical roots -- "Moraes has long supported regulations to rein in harmful content."

And by "long supported" attempts to stop "misinformation," remember that this burst of fascist zeal for thought control actually dates all the way back to... 2016.

"Long supported."

If he was supporting crackdowns on speech before then, he wasn't fighting against "misinformation." He was always just an anti-freedom fascist.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Buck Shots – 4/08/2024

I’ve been traveling and haven’t had access to my normal resources, so I’m just going to throw out a few other items that I’ve been thinking about…

*****

The Problem That Cannot Be Discussed

Marc Andreesen is credited with the following line:

The most serious problem in any organization is the one that cannot be discussed.

I think about this quote and how applicable it is in various aspects of life, be it personal, professional, or political. One example that is gnawing at me is the ad campaigns I am seeing imploring people to “stand up to” anti-Jewish hatred and anti-Asian hatred, but lacking is a concomitant acknowledgement of who is doing the hating and discriminating. It is implied that the problem is people like “Roscoe in Arkansas,” when in real life the problem is Ivy League administrators, elected Democrats, and a diverse coalition of bigots who are very unlike Roscoe. (Roscoe in Arkansas is a hypothetical rural conservative who was offered up by polite conservatives a few months ago as being the problematic right-wing equivalent of all the anti-semites that are part of the mainstream left.)

How are we supposed to “stand up to” these ethnic hatreds if we cannot discuss who the haters are that we’re standing up to? Roscoe is a strawman, and if he is the only one that we’re allowed to “stand up to,” then we are not actually interested in standing up to these ethnic hatreds at all.

*****

Wishing for a “Weekend At Bernie’s” President Controlled by Hard Core Conservatives

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we on the right could have a “Weekend at Bernie’s” type President like the Democrats have in Biden, especially if the marionettists pulling the strings were unaccountable movement conservatives?

In 2020 and again in 2024, the Democrats have effectively run “Generic Democrat” as their candidate, since Biden doesn’t – and can’t - campaign. But “Generic Democrat” is not who is running the country, it is his communist handlers who are in charge, using Biden’s fading corpus as cover for their assault on everything that made this country great.

We on the right should get our equal and opposite chance. Can you imagine if we had someone like Jesse Kelly in full control of the Executive Branch and granting Executive Orders from behind the scenes?

Who would you want to see in that role?

Which Republican fossil could we politically capture to someday serve in the role of our Biden-Bernie?

*****

The Oxford Comma, Alec Baldwin, and His Brother Dee Snyder

I use the oxford comma in my writing, simply because I prefer it when I’m reading. But I am also a connoisseur of writing that takes on an entirely different meaning when oxford commas are not used.

(Example: “My childhood heroes were my parents, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.” An oxford comma inserted after “Reagan” would have made clear that my parents are not actually Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.)

I stumbled upon a wonderfully similar example in the New York Post last week, in a story about the sale of Jerry Seinfeld’s childhood home in Massapequa, NY.

Seinfeld isn’t the only celeb who grew up in Massapequa back in the day. It’s also home to Alec Baldwin and his brothers, Ron Kovic of “Born on the Fourth of July” and Twisted Sister’s Dee Snyder.

How many Baldwin brothers are there? Considering the ugly news that Alec Baldwin keeps making, I don’t blame his brothers Ron Kovic and Dee Snyder for pursuing their careers using different last names.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (333) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

La Rue de Nevers
Alfred Russell

That's solid abstract expressionism, a movement that is usually passingly amusing and almost instantly forgotten.

But why have you never heard of the artist? Because the art world of the 1950s rejected him for his anti-Semitism.

Of course today, I can go to any one of 50 galleries in lower Manhattan and see artists clad in keffiyahs, spouting "anti-Zionist" drivel as the chattering classes nod approvingly.

Funny how things have changed.

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (385) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report (4/8/24)

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:05 AM | Comments (456) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 8 April 2024

Top Story

• All AIs are racist, but some are more racist than others. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Microsoft's Copilot gives you racial stereotypes in cartoons, which... They're cartoons, people. Though the Jewish boss with the bagel hat is certainly something.
  
  Anyway, it gives you racial stereotypes if you specify a race when you're generating a cartoon, so maybe that's your problem.
  
  Midjourney presents us not so much with racial stereotypes as temporal ones; I don't think it's been outside since 1952.
  
  ChatGPT just says fuck you and rewrites your request with a bunch of WASPs plus a token Asian chick.
  
  Meta AI actually does okay with this. It pushes too hard on the diversity-at-any-cost side, but it also produced a sample image of a Jewish woman that is 100% believable without a single specific marker. (The picture actually looks like someone I know.)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:22 AM | Comments (97) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread (4/7/24)

*****

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

“We are deeply concerned about the potential for customer confusion and disservice that could result from this proposed renaming,” San Francisco International Airport’s director, Ivar Satero

Quote II

“Just like we organized against No Labels, we’re going to organize against [Kennedy]. His run, like No Labels, is nothing more than a spoiler.”
Rahna Epting, the executive director of MoveOn

Quote III

“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up [but then order your own employees to also not show up]. You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant,” Judge Ana Reyes

*****

Yours truly chose to eliminate Comments of The Week last Sunday. The regular feature was missed. So without further fanfare, ado & trumpets blasting the best comments on the web are back.

The Comments of The Week

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM | Comments (310) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Wacky Solar Eclipse 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 Flaming Ecliptic Shitballs! Are you going to watch the solar eclipse tomorrow? Will you be near home or are you traveling to see it? Perhaps most importantly, is it simply a celestial event or rather an evil omen bringing death, destruction and disasters? Should the eclipse in fact portend great misery and suffering, what precautions are you taking??

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 (405) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: I'll Gladly Give You A Slice Of Beef For Your Vote On Tuesday!

Passover is coming soon, and because of a confluence of events I will have just a short time to prepare for a dozen people's holiday dinner.

So how to plan something delicious and festive while keeping the prep to a minimum?

What I do is think through the steps for each dish, and if there are too many, then I swap it out. And if it requires a bunch of utensils and dishes and bowls and pans...I swap it out.

Cooking time isn't a big deal. I can be doing something else while the Matzoh Balls cook. Besides, I'll make those the previous day, and that makes it smoother on the big day! Of course making stuff in advance is a huge time-saver and is probably the best way to streamline a big dinner, so choosing foods that can be made the day before or at least prepped in advance is a very big deal.

Sometimes money fixes these problems, but I just feel funny about buying premade stuff. Part of the joy of holidays is the careful preparation, and Passover is no different.

Yeah...that is a Pistachio and Parmesan Crusted Tenderloin. I spoil my damned guests! I think I will make that for the Seder meal but extract a promise of a vote for Trump before anyone gets a slice.

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