The Biden Administration Is Now Embezzling Funds Appropriated for Counter-Terrorism To... Woke Black "Arts" Groups

Unless John Lithgow is commanding a terrorist force to stop people from dancing, then Biden is, once again, violating the law.

James Varney:

Founded in 2020 in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, the Black Legacy Project describes itself as "a musical celebration of black history to advance racial solidarity, equity and belonging." It brings together artists of all backgrounds "to record present day interpretations of songs central to the Black American experience and compose originals relevant to the pressing calls for change of our time."

A similar arts group, Nu Art Education Inc., an offshoot of the NorCal School for the Arts, says it is "following the theory of change that utilizing theater arts" can be "a tool to teach and practice conflict resolution in the classroom."

While both outfits share a mission of using the arts to inspire social change, they have something else in common: counterterrorism. Or rather, both have received taxpayer grants through the Department of Homeland Security's "Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention" (TVTP) program. Together, the two groups have received more than $1.4 million since the Biden administration doubled the program's annual budget, to some $20 million per year.

Grants to arts cooperatives and educational initiatives strike some as odd for a department charged with protecting the United States -- including its southern border, now viewed by many as virtually open to illegal migrants. Against that backdrop, FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned Congress of the heightened threat of terror in the U.S. at a time of wars raging on two continents with America involved on the sidelines.

On Tuesday, Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee the "threat matrix" is "blinking red lights everywhere."

Given such concerns, Andrew Arthur of the Center for Immigration Studies, a critic of Biden policies, said the DHS grants are misplaced. "It's kind of hard to see how all that is going to help stop terrorism," he told RealClearInvestigations.

Well yeah, it is a little hard to see, now that you bring it up.

DHS declined to discuss the TVTP program, or answer questions about how competitive the grant process is or who makes final decisions on where the money will go.

The program has its roots in the Obama administration under the concept of "countering violent extremism" and has drawn criticism ever since from both left and right -- albeit for different reasons. During the Trump administration, the leftist Brennan Center for Justice faulted the "anti-Muslim and xenophobic rhetoric and policies" in such programs, which "also target refugees, asylum seekers, and Black Lives Matter activists."

The Brennan Center said "the reality is that these programs, which are based on junk science, have proven to be ineffective, discriminatory and divisive."

That was then. Now, having doubled the program's budget, the Biden administration is using the money to advance parts of its agenda not directly related to terrorism. Increasingly the DHS grants, like much larger ones at other departments, are part of the administration's "whole of government" effort to promote "diversity, equity and inclusion" and quash what it considers misinformation.<

While proclaiming that that the grants are designed for "local communities across the country to develop targeted violence and terrorism prevention programming in their communities," the Department of Homeland Security also stresses its focus on DEI.

"Ensuring equity is a key priority of the TVTP Grant Program and 41 percent of this year's grant recipients are devoted to underserved populations, compared to 25 percent last year," the DHS website says, noting grants have gone to historically black colleges and universities, seven "Minority Serving Institutions (MSI)," a Native American group and another serving the LGBTQIA+ community.

When Biden lies and says he's increased money to "combat terrorism," and claims Republicans are "pro-terrorist" for objecting to this spending: Remember, Biden considers normal Americans to be terrorists and his "counterrorism" money is just for DEI propaganda.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:30 PM | Comments (449) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Predatory Hosebeast Fani Willis: If You Have a Problem With Me Spending $654,000 to Hire My Current Hookup, Mr. Darrius "Sweetdick" Honeycum, Esq., Then Your Real Problem Is With a Strong Empowered Black Woman Taking Charge Of Her Own Orgasms

You tell 'em, Fani!

You talk that stupid racist talk!

The judge overseeing Fani Willis' political witch-trial has ordered a hearing into the allegations against her.

The Washington Post has a more detailed report explaining that Judge Scott McAfee has ordered Willis to respond in writing to the allegations by Feb. 2, and he has called a hearing about the accusations and scheduled it for Feb. 15.

McAfee is also presiding over the RICO case involving Trump and 18 other co-defendants. Willis is alleged to be in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, an attorney with little experience in corruption cases whom the DA hired to serve as a special counsel in the Trump case.

"Willis has declined to address the accusations directly so far," reports the Washington Post's Amy Gardner and Holly Bailey. "McAfee's order appears to be forcing her to do so in televised court proceedings, a development that could at the least be embarrassing for the district attorney and at worst derail the investigation completely."

And just in the nick of time, the New York Times rushes in to report that this is all just a case of white men not treating black women with "respect" or acknowledging them as equals.

Whew! I was worried that a single black politico would be accused of wrongdoing and would not claim to be exempt from ordinary critique and examination on account of their race.

Now, much of what Fani Willis says is accompanied by palpable subtext. In the below article, I have raised this subtext to the level of text, and added it to the New York Times article where I believe appropriate.

I trust the New York Times, and the sex-swollen brutish man-slammer Fani Willis, will thank me for these emendations to the report.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump, is trying to quash a subpoena seeking her testimony in the divorce proceedings of a special prosecutor she hired to manage the case.

A court filing last week accused Ms. Willis of having a romantic relationship with the prosecutor, Nathan J. Wade, a two-bit man-slut known on the streets as "Turgid Manblossom," "The Booty Vandal," and "Dixon Butts."

The motion containing the accusation was filed by Michael Roman, one of Mr. Trump's 14 co-defendants in the criminal case. The motion argues that the relationship, which it provided no proof of, amounted to a conflict of interest; it seeks to have Mr. Wade, Ms. Willis and her office dismissed from the case.

There's no evidence except that the wife of her Gigolo and co-counsel alleges it in a divorce proceeding.

Oh, and no evidence apart from Fani Willis, Rodsmuggler, admitting it in church, stating that just like Martin Luther King, Jr. -- who had his own adultery scandals -- she too had "stumbled."

No evidence at all!

On Thursday, Ms. Willis responded with a filing stating that she "lacks personal knowledge of any matter that is relevant" to the divorce. She did not directly acknowledge the allegation, but said there was no reason for her to testify because both Mr. Wade and his wife had declared their marriage to be "irretrievably broken."

Now why would a colleague just offer the information that he's not having sex with his wife and considers himself Single, Ready to Mingle, and Thicc in the Dingle?

You know who says that kind of thing? A married guy trying to bang his ladyboss. "We're just like roommates... we barely even talk... spit on it first..."

"It is well-established that when both parties in a divorce proceeding assert that a marriage is irretrievably broken, which is a legal conclusion signifying that there is no hope for reconciliation, there is no genuine issue of fact that remains to be decided concerning the divorce," Cinque Axam, a lawyer for Ms. Willis, wrote in the filing. "And please stop saying mean things about her Sweet Boo."

...

The filing also said that Ms. Wade had acknowledged having an affair with a longtime friend of Mr. Wade's, and that the couple had agreed their marriage was "irretrievably broken" as early as 2017, before Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis had met.

The New York Times wants you to know that there's no evidence -- none-- that Fani Willis is boning Mrs. Wade's husband.

But when Fani Willis somehow conjures up the claim that Mrs. Wade was boning another guy, the New York Times absolutely fails to note that there's "no evidence" for this allegation, either.

It seems some people's allegations require evidence, and some people are so Politically Useful they can enter facts into evidence without any evidence at all.

Ms. Merchant said in a text message, "Ms. Willis alleges that her deposition is being sought in an attempt to harass and damage her professional reputation. Why would her truthful testimony risk damaging her reputation? And would she be able to even answer, what with that Monster Schlong nigh-bursting out of her cheek?"

...

The events of the past 10 days have added an unexpected dimension to a case in which matters of race and gender have also been bubbling to the fore.

Here it comes.

Oh, and the New York Times claims that "matters of race and gender" were already "bubbling to the fore."

No they weren't. They were not an issue at all.

But Fani Willis is about to play the sex and gender cards, and the Times wants to pretend she's only reluctantly playing them in response to others playing them.

In a testy recent email exchange between defense lawyers and prosecutors, Ms. Willis wrote that "some people will never be able to respect African Americans. And some people are just jealous that Mr. Wade hits my absolute bottom when we ridin' dirty." The email exchange, portions of which were obtained by The New York Times, unfolded in the days before and after the filing alleging the romantic relationship.

There is no evidence it's romantic. Far as I can tell, it's just two people going on sexcursions on the public's dime.

In a group email thread that includes prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case, the lead lawyer for Mr. Trump in Georgia, Steven H. Sadow, expressed annoyance with prosecutors for ignoring a request he had made. On Jan. 5, he wrote to prosecutors: "For the life of me, I cannot understand why you refuse to respond to the series of emails below."

Five days later, Daysha Young, an executive district attorney who, like Ms. Willis, is Black, wrote that she and Ms. Willis "are both aware, especially as an African American woman some find it difficult to treat us respectfully. You know who treats us respectfully? Captain Thunderbang, Attorney-at-Cock."

She added, "Over the last month the emails of some of you have been disrespectful and condescending lacking both professionalism and decorum." Ms. Young also said that she did not respond to some emails because they were disrespectful.

Mr. Sadow, who is white, responded with an email in which he said that it was "offensive, uncalled for and untrue" to suggest that racism was at play. He also said that Ms. Young's lack of response to some emails from the defense "suggests a degree of haughtiness."

It's almost as if -- I say almost as if -- you can't question a Strong Empowered Black (Leftwing) Woman at all without being smeared as a racist who Just Doesn't Understand the True Love We Share When We're Gouging The Taxpayer.

Then Ms. Willis weighed in.

"In the legal community (and the world at large) some people will never be able to respect African Americans and/or women as their equal and counterpart," she wrote in a note addressed to Mr. Sadow but sent to all of the defense lawyers, most of whom are white men. "That is a burden you do not experience. Further, some are so used to doing it they are not even aware they are doing it while others are intentional in their continued disrespect. I shall answer no more impertinent questions about the man who tickles my cervix."

Ms. Willis also made a case for her own fortitude. "Now you know, I cannot be bullied," she wrote. "I can be spanked, by the right man, a man with a domineering grin and the soul of a pirate, but I cannot be bullied." She added: "As you are aware, I have now experienced some of the most powerful people in the country call me everything, but a child of God. I have also experienced the power of a veiney python going nine-deep in my dusty old cobwebby mummyc*nt. But, yet here I and my team stand still pursuing justice."

So there you go. She's not denying she hired her gigolo to prosecute Trump, and you're a fucking racist to even ask about it.

Update: Someone challenged my D&D knowledge. Below, the Random Harlot Encounters table from the 1st Edition DMG.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (522) | Trackbacks (Suck)

MORNING RANT - The Rolling Implosion of Higher Education: Men Adapting Just Fine; Will Women Be Hit Hardest?

With universities having evolved into outrageously expensive left-wing indoctrination camps, and with the perceived value of a sheepskin plummeting, college enrollment is declining, driven by a significant decline in young men attending college.

The men will be fine, in fact most will thrive without acquiring tuition debt and exposure to the hateful racial obsession of college life. I’m actually more concerned about the career prospects for women in a post-university future.

First, here is what Pew Research is reporting:

“Fewer young men are in college, especially at 4-year schools” [12/18/2023]

College enrollment among young Americans has been declining gradually over the past decade. In 2022, the total number of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college was down by approximately 1.2 million from its peak in 2011.

Most of the decline is due to fewer young men pursuing college. About 1 million fewer young men are in college but only 0.2 million fewer young women. As a result, men make up 44% of young college students today, down from 47% in 2011, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data.

Today, men represent only 42% of students ages 18 to 24 at four-year schools, down from 47% in 2011.

An interesting point is that the potential pool of 18 to 24 year-old college students has not declined, it’s simply that fewer young men are paying for the privilege of being hated on at an indoctrination camp.

The decline in young college enrollment since 2011 is not driven by a drop in the overall number of 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates. That number has modestly increased since 2011. Instead, the falling share of young high school graduates who are enrolling in college is causing the decline. And the drop has been greater among young men than women.

Today, only 39% of young men who have completed high school are enrolled in college, down from 47% in 2011. The rate at which young female high school graduates enroll has also fallen, but not by nearly as much (from 52% to 48%).

The oft-cited statistics regarding the impact of college degrees on income are an example of conflating correlation with causation. Individuals with initiative, problem solving skills, and leadership ability have historically been pushed into the college track. It’s those characteristics that advanced their careers, not the Business Management class they attended as a hungover 20-year-old college student.

In my family there are several men with those characteristics who never attended college, and who have had incredibly successful careers. One is a man who became a real estate developer. His first job out of high school was food prep in a restaurant’s kitchen, but everywhere he worked he exhibited leadership and a great work ethic, propelling him upward. Another family member started working as a small engine mechanic out of high school. He is now the successful owner of a company doing defense contracting. A college degree was not necessary for these hard-working, motivated men, and it might have held them back if it had steered them into a corporate cubicle.

There is a man I met who owns an appliance repair business, who had a brilliantly simple and well executed plan to become a successful business owner, without incurring debt, all while receiving a paycheck. Through personal experience with a broken appliance, he learned that there was a lengthy wait to get a service call due to a shortage of appliance repairmen in our city. So, he took a position as an apprentice with a local appliance repair business, then soon became a capable tech who was fully in charge of repair visits for his employer. After less time than it takes to get a college degree, and with experience on a wide variety of appliances, he then hung out his own shingle and signed on with a prominent home warranty company as an authorized provider. The home warranty business sent him all the business he could handle, and soon he was hiring techs and training apprentices.

The success of these men is all well and good, but what about women who want careers that don’t require college degrees? While trades are lucrative for men, women are generally not drawn to them, and there don’t seem to be as many high-paying opportunities for women without degrees as there are for men.

As I wrote about a few months ago, fields that women are drawn to such as social work and speech pathology not only require a degree, but they effectively require a Masters Degree.

This is all a racket and a scam that mainly preys on young women and enriches the universities. In fact, every single person I’ve know that has followed these 6 or 7 year degree plans is female. I am not disputing that these are legitimate academic fields and respectable careers (although the radical left’s takeover of their accrediting agencies has certainly tarnished their image in my eyes) but there is no reason that it takes 6 or more years of schooling to become a social worker. If architects and RNs can practice with a bachelor’s degree or less, so can a speech pathologist.

It would be good for some conservative political leaders at the state level to try to bust the alliance between the university cartel and the licensing organizations for these fields. It would also be doing society a favor if women pursuing a career in fields like these didn’t have to be subjected to woke indoctrination to get their licenses.

The rejection of the “the college path” by so many young men is good news for the country. They don’t need a degree, and they will thrive and prosper while starving the beast of tuition money. I also hope that as universities continue to lose power and respectability that more career paths open up for women without degrees.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (334) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Les Petits joueurs de cartes
Le Nain brothers

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (412) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 1/19/24

Good morning, kids. My moods and gut instincts about next November are for sure ephemeral but one thing is for sure. It's going to be lit. 11 months is both an eternity and just around the corner in electoral politics. But as of this moment, Biden or no Biden, and I think Trump or no Trump, there is no way the Democrats are going to win given the situation on the ground. When I say Trump or no Trump, the second part of that means his imprisonment or otherwise punishment via process of multiple kangaroo courts.

The past three years have been so utterly catastrophic in terms of our economy, foreign policy, degeneracy via social/cultural issues, explosion of raw Democrat-centered Jew-hatred, and most of all, the straw that breaks the camel's back the intentional erasure of our border and how that has exacerbated all of the aforementioned.

Let us count the ways. First, this nugget:

As the press and its political allies dismiss opposition to open borders and its inherent 'replacement theory' as little more than 'white supremacy,' something different is happening out in America's inner cities.

Charlamagne Tha G0d (the name he goes by) hosts the nation's top radio program with black audiences, and far from hearing white supremacy talk regarding the border issue, is hearing black voices that have had it up to here with open borders.

"Like, I honestly have never spoken to as many people who are concerned about the migrant issue as I have, you know, over the past year. And, I mean, I've heard everything from, you know, the gang MS13 overrunning neighborhoods . . . what we saw just happened in New York City, where the migrants—they took 2,000 migrants and put them in the school and made the school stay home—made the students stay home and do school via Zoom. And that was a big issue. Like, I mean, people were calling the radio station—that was just this week, you know, really, really, really complaining about that. So I've never seen working-class people who I interact with every day until this past year really, really, really expressed their frustration for the migrants," he continued.

And this, regarding the standing narrative that only Republicans oppose illegal immigration and it was for racist reasons. The radio host referred to the "stunt" of border state governors transferring illegal migrants to sanctuary cities as their mayors and governors screamed, which, he noted, was an "effective" tactic:

"Clearly it was effective because it made a lot of those Democrats start singing a different tune. And, I mean, the voters see that. The voters see that," Charlamagne said. "So what does that look like to the voter? Just on the surface, just on the surface, it looks like Republicans were right about the issue and Democrats got it wrong. And now a lot of Democrats are starting to sound like the Republicans sounded. So it makes a lot of people say, ‘Well, damn, Republicans were actually right on that issue.’ Just on the surface, just plain on the surface, that's how it looks, you know, to the average voter."

The hard reality is that migrants with little education and few skills are most likely to move into neighborhoods of the poorest people, who are black, and bring crime and gangs with them. They also displace black citizens from jobs, by being willing to work for less, making the lot of black people that much harder. The black people see this from the sharp end much more so than the Martha's Vineyard crowd, and as Charlamagne reports, they want something done about it.

The cynic in me would think that the only reason blacks are up in arms is that they see a threat to their governmental welfare state gravy train being taken from them and given to the illegals. Yet, even someone like this Charlamagne character is objecting along lines that are much more in line with middle class attitudes, at least from these snippets.

From the Democrat-Leftist perspective, they are indeed replacing blacks as their new majority bloc because their polices since LBJ have decimated their ranks via abortion and the effects of family dissolution (imprisonment and an early grave) that is leading to their ultimate extinction. To be brutally honest, the Democrats have committed a slow motion genocide against American blacks. Maybe one day soon, Charlamagne Tha G0d and those of his ilk will connect the dots, but by then it might be too late.

Then there's this aspect:

The protest was a display of the failures of the Obama/Biden administration’s immigration policies — policies that have opened our doors to virulently antisemitic immigrants from the Islamic world who have no intention of embracing our freedoms, but instead insist that Americans embrace Islam.

On the March for Gaza website was a list of endorsing organizations, including the Israel/Palestine Network of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), along with a litany of radical Marxist and Islamic Organizations.  In less than an hour, I saw protesters screaming for the annihilation of Israel, other protesters calling for revolution to overthrow the Israeli government for defending their people.  Yet in the midst of all that hatred, not once did I hear anyone say “free the hostages, or “overthrow Hamas.”  The question that lingered in my mind was, “Why would a mainline Christian denomination actively support Marxist and antisemitic organizations that call for genocide and the destruction of our capitalist society?”  The red-green alliance between Western Leftists and Middle Eastern Islamists is alive and well.  

The next morning, I read that, the night before, White House staff had to be moved after pro-Palestinian rioters damaged anti-scale fencing and hurled objects at the police.  This comes just two months after rioters vandalized the White House fence and spraypainted graffiti reading, “Death to Israel” and “Glory to our martyrs” on buildings near the Israeli Embassy.  Yet never once has anyone in the administration said a word about “insurrection.”

While malignancies such as Dearborn and Minneapolis are evident, myriad smaller towns and burgs all over the US are, if not stopped, going to turn at first into no-go zones that are controlled by Sharia police and then sooner or later capture the nation. More or less without firing a shot. By the way, much of the problem didn't begin with Biden. It began with George W. Bush who, after 9/11/01 opened the floodgates for the mass infection of Muslim immigration. Biden just exacerbated it by erasing our borders so that untold hundreds or even thousands of military age males from Islamic countries have entered. Multiply the Boston Marathon bombing by that number and you've got yourself a situation.

But don't worry, sez Democrat Congress-stooge Lou Correa:

Well, think about what’s going on around the world right now. We have two wars. We have fentanyl [on] our doorstep everywhere on Main Street across the country. We have challenges of fentanyl, sad, tragic deaths, parents mourning. And then, of course, we have a worldwide refugee challenge. So, naturally, we want to find out why this is happening. But Alejandro Mayorkas is not the reason. Alejandro’s doing his job. If you think about those two world wars going on in the Middle East and in Europe…what you’re not talking about is the fact that we haven’t had a terrorist attack, thank God, on our soil, the fact that we’ve essentially minimized any attack — cyberattacks on our society. So, Mayorkas is doing a good job."

Thanks for that reassurance that we haven't had a terrorist attack – YET. I'm sure this planarian will crawl under a rock never to be seen when a dirty bomb goes off somewhere, or a Queer for "Palestine" goes really really queer in the head and shoots up a synagogue, or blows up a car bomb in Times Square. Meh, he'll be the first in front of the camera's to blame America, Trump and the culture of Islamophobia. Or the Mossad.

Speaking of Queer Terrorists, we dodged another bullet. Let's see how long it takes for the FBI to turn this creature into a MAGA white supremacist. I guess we should cut them some slack for refusing to cooperate on yet another laptop, Seth Rich's. But I digress.

In a not unrelated incident, in the desperate attempt to shield Mayorkas, Biden and the entire Democrat Party from their treasonous action of destroying our borders (I unequivocally and absolutely mean that word and its ramifications in no uncertain terms), Dan Goldman, scumbag supreme literally berated a woman who's daughter died from a fentanyl overdose for daring to blame Alejandro Mayorkas, essentially equating her to a Republican shill. Blood is boiling now.

Josephine Dunn lost her daughter Ashley to fentanyl at the age of 26 and testified before Congress at a hearing titled “Voices for the Victims: The Heartbreaking Reality of the Mayorkas Border Crisis.” Goldman told her that she was being “used” and was not qualified to be a witness before going back and forth about the border.

“I want to apologize in some ways to you that you are here, really to share your story, but being used as a fact witness for an impeachment investigation,” Goldman told Dunn and another mother who lost her daughter to border-related issues. “And obviously given what your experience has been, you don’t have the background to understand what a high crime and misdemeanor is and how it relates to this. So I hope that you’re handling that okay.”

“You would agree, would you not, that it would help to stop the fentanyl trade and fentanyl trafficking from coming into this country if we had more law enforcement officers at the border and more resources and technology to stop the fentanyl from coming in?” he asked Dunn. “Do you agree with that?”

“I disagree with that, because border patrol is now being used to make sandwiches and to screen people and let them into our country, so I disagree with you,” Dunn responded. “I would like the border patrol to be able to do the job that they were hired to do. Every border patrol officer that I have spoken to has told me that their hands are tied by this administration and mister Mayorkas. I’ve been to the border, sir, have you?”

Goldman did not answer the question.

“Excuse me, I’m asking the questions,” he retorted.

There really isn't a flaming sack of horse manure large, putrid and scorching enough to shove down this bastard's throat. Crime, terrorism, the waste of hundreds of billons of dollars, societal dissolution and every other problem down the line intersects, at least in some way, with the fact the we have no borders and no immigration control. And that has been completely intentional as I have stated over and over again.

We see it, and now so many others see it across perhaps the broadest spectrum of the political, ethnic and socio-economic landscape of the nation. A nation disappearing by the day. As I stated at the top, this above all else is going to destroy the Democrats come November, election rigging or not. Oh, they will be trying to steal it yet again for sure. But this time around, it will have to be so massive and in your face a cheat that everyone will see it. And those who voted, or whose ballots went to Biden one way or another four years ago, are going to be pissed because this time around, it's their election, either in voting Trump or staying home in protest of Biden, that will have been stolen.

The only thing they have left to run on is abortion. And I don't think even this go-round, it's going to trump - heh - the disaster of the open border and Bidenomics. After that, all they can hope for is to trump Trump. Prepare for what's left of your head after Goldman to explode:

[Eric the "Red"] Holder said, “Even with this Supreme Court, with this ultra conservative super majority, there’s not a basis for finding in favor of the assertions he is making. You know, the court’s legitimacy is at stake here in a way that I think really goes to the way in which it will be viewed, that body will be viewed by the American people.”

“To rule for the Trump camp, to say there’s any basis to those five assertions that he has made really puts at risk how the court will be viewed by the American public. There is again no constitutional basis for it, no historical precedent for it. That is not the way in which our nation has been formed or for which the American Revolution was actually conducted. I think that anybody who lines up in support of that really puts at risk our democracy and really puts at risk the notion that we are one person, one vote, that the people decide things, that no one is above the law. puts at risk the whole notion of the rule of law.”

I cannot predict what will happen if Donald Trump is indeed railroaded at least off the ballots and at most imprisoned in the Garland Archipelago. As bad as things are, ordinary, decent real Americans still do not face enough of an existential threat in their daily lives to actually revolt, peacefully or otherwise. At least not yet.

If SCOTUS actually does the right thing and throw these insane charges out, for sure the BLM/Antifa cadres – now "fortified" with hundreds or thousands of military age Muslim males! – are going to react, either at the behest of or independently from Holder's buddies in Kalorama and elsewhere.

See you tomorrow on the hobby thread. Have a good weekend.

PS: My latest essay is now over at Taki Mag. Have a read and comment.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Richard Fernandez: "Has the New World Order already come and gone?"
  The Year the Future Disappeared
  
• "All-American consumerism by a completely peaceful and law-abiding citizen somehow threatens the people running my own country into the ground."
  I Bought a Bible, Slingshot, and Sports Gear. So I’m Probably on a Domestic Terrorist" Watchlist
  
• Margot Cleveland: "Wednesday’s arguments were all about whether the Supreme Court should do away with the unworkable Chevron deference." (She seems to read the tea leaves as 6-3 to overturn, please God - jjs)
  7 Takeaways From Arguments in the SCOTUS Case That Could Slay the Administrative State
  
• "The FBI needs to be abolished, and Trump needs to make that a Day 1 campaign pledge. All of it — gone into the dustbin of history. There is no reason for it to exist. All of its law enforcement activities — to the extent it still engages in legitimate law enforcement activities — could easily be picked up by individual states with much less bureaucratic nonsense and unconstitutional abuse of power." (Amen - jjs)
  FBI Defies Legal Ruling, Refuses to Hand Over Seth Rich Laptop

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 08:02 AM | Comments (320) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 19 January 2023

Top Story

• I'll be working on the comment system this weekend. I don't expect any major interruptions, but if there are any hiccups, that will be the cause.
  
  
  
• Mark Zuckerberg has made it is goal to develop AGI - artificial general intelligence - with Meta now joining OpenAI and Google in the race. (The Verge)
  
  What a shame then that none of those companies are actually working on AGI.
  
  They're all putting a lot of effort into LLMs, but going from that to making actual working artificial intelligence is like trying to build houses by practicing caber tossing. With an enormous amount of effort you might eventually produce something vaguely house shaped that somebody could live in, but it's so obviously stupid that nobody would ever try.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (267) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls, It Tolls For ONT

Howdy horde! How's the weather where you are? It's crazy here. Today was 65 and sunny, just a lovely shorts and t-shirt day. 3 days ago the low was 11. Monday was that rare day I had to run the kerosene heater all day in my office, today I had the door open to enjoy the breeze. So what else is going on in the world today?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (389) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sleddogs Cafe

A rave in the Faroe Islands
by @darylswalker

Wheee!

The cutest little invertebrate.

You point at me, I'm gonna break your finger off and stick it in your eye, bitch!

I do not look like that.

The long way to make dinner.

'75 Lincoln Continental simulator.

Funky skiing style.

Motocross limbo.

Futuristic trike.

Skiing and impossibly steep slope.

While you're back there...

Who's a good boy?!

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:21 PM | Comments (303) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Nibs

Yesterday I wrote that the DOJ knew that Hunter Biden's laptop was real since 2019, but "stayed silent" as their Deep State colleagues ran a disinformation psyop on the American public to rig an election.

I was wrong. The DOJ didn't "stay silent." They actively joined the treasonous disinformation campaign to rig an election.

I forgot all of this. Victoria Taft:

Knowing that the laptop's contents were legitimate, the FBI went to the Aspen Institute in June 2020 to trigger an information operation against the American people using legacy and social media members to convince people before an election that the laptop story was Russian disinformation. This is called a pre-bunk to propagandize the media and public that the Biden laptop was a Russian "hack-and-dump" operation.

The FBI convinced social media to censor the laptop story before the 2020 election. After Donald Trump's loss, approximately 17% of Americans said they would have changed their vote had they known the laptop was real, according to at least one poll.

That Russian disinformation operation was used to censor American media, including the nation's oldest newspaper, the New York Post, which broke the laptop story, and other sites like PJ Media to stop the story from getting out.

The FBI's information operation against the American people censored news to the American people to change or at least tamper with the results of an American election.

...

Marco Polo's report on the Hunter Biden Laptop concludes that the FBI agents tasked with running the information operation against the American people were "the tip of the spear" of the Bureau's information operation against the American people. Whistleblowers have told U.S. senators that "FBI HQ Supervisory Intelligence (SIA) Brian Auten and Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the Washington Field Office (WFO) were the so-called 'tip of the FBI spear' in D.C. handling the Biden Laptop slow-walk operation." Auten "assessed" that the laptop was Russian disinformation and the Justice Department took this guy's word for it.

More at the link.

2023 was the deadliest overdose year on record for the shithole city of San Francisco.

Fentanyl accounted for most of the 806 deaths, followed by meth and cocaine. Thirty-seven people died from Xylazine, an adulterant known as "tranq" that Chinese suppliers sell cheaply by the kilogram in powdered form, and which is commonly mixed with fentanyl, cocaine, and heroin. Its side effects include rotting flesh that could require limb amputations. Forty-two people overdosed on Bromazolam, another increasingly common street drug that causes dizziness, drowsiness and amnesia.

These numbers shatter San Francisco's previous record of 726 deaths in 2020, when the city was shuttered under some of the nation's strictest COVID-19 lockdowns. The spike comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) and Mayor London Breed (D.) made the city's drug crisis a political priority, with Newsom sending in the state's national guard and highway patrol to try to stymie fentanyl trafficking. In October, he announced an anti-opioid task force for San Francisco.

Task forces solve everything.

Biden allowed fake asylum seekers to apply for their fake asylum without having to go to an embassy. It just took a few clicks on a website.

Illegals are ignoring the website because, under Biden, it's easier to get asylum by just walking through the open borders and getting your asylum hearing date (for eight years from now).

"Why wait to be scheduled for an interview to come over when you can immediately cross, surrender to Border Patrol, and get stamped with a court date in the next decade?" a senior Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Free Beacon.

The evil persecution of Hero Marine Daniel Penny continues.

A New York City judge has denied a motion brought forth by attorneys for US Marine veteran Daniel Penny to dismiss the charges against him stemming from an incident on a New York City subway in 2023 in which Penny subdued mentally ill homeless man Jordan Neely, leading to the man's death.

According to NBC 4, The judge ordered Penny to return to court in late March, and his trial is expected to start in the fall.

The 24-year-old has pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

On May 1, 2023, Penny placed Neely in a headlock, with the motion stating that Neely's behavior on the train had been "insanely threatening."

I'm just going to point out that I, along with millions of other men, respond to incentives, and if I'm on a subway and a woman is being raped, I'm letting it happen. I will not put my neck into Alvin Bragg's Racist Guillotine. I have put myself into physical danger to stop a crime before. I will not do so in the shithole cities. If they have decided that crime is legal, I will abide their judgment, as I am a law-abiding citizen.

Your WEF leadership cadre, ladies and gentlemen. All races and cultures are gathered to impose a dehumanizing Marxist monoculture on the world.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:10 PM | Comments (280) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Freed Hostages: Palestinian "Civilians" Participated In Our Kidpapping Every Step of the Way

What is it that Hamas says...? Oh yes: There is no such thing as an Israeli civilian, because they're all (theoretically) subject to in the IDF. Therefore they're all combatants and therefore we can kill them all, men, women, and children.

Well, all Palestinians are Hamas collaborators.

Does the same rule apply?

Former Hamas hostages are now reporting that those poor innocent Palestinian "civilians" were their active kidnappers during their kidnapping.

Andrew Tobin for the Free Beacon:

Israeli women and children have in recent weeks begun speaking publicly about what they experienced during nearly two months in Hamas captivity late last year.

In primetime Hebrew TV interviews,

When the Israelis encountered Gazans on the streets, the results were often terrifying.

The revelations underscore the urgency of Israel's 100-plus-day war to destroy Hamas and bring home the 132 hostages who, officials believe, remain captive in Gaza. At the same time, though, the released hostages' accounts indicate how difficult it could be to extricate either the remaining hostages or Hamas from a radicalized population.

"The main issue is that the organization is very much melted into the social structure of Gaza," Michael Milshtein, a former senior Israeli military intelligence officer and a leading expert on Hamas, told the Washington Free Beacon. "There is no way you can really know who is Hamas. Someone might have a grocery store where he sells tomatoes and water, but he might also have storehouse of weapons and give religious lessons there."

And his wife and kids might be keeping an Israeli hostage at home.

So, by Hamas' logic, there is no such thing as a "Palestinian civilian" and all are valid targets for bombing, right?

Right?

"Hamas is not only a political matter in Gaza. It's a way of life," Milshtein said. "We can and should ruin Hamas militarily and change the political arena in Gaza. But ultimately the Gazan people will have to do some soul searching. And here in the Arab world, not only the Palestinians, soul searching is very rare."

The IDF found the bodies of three hostages in a Hamas terror tunnel.

The three hostages were Sgt. Ron Sherman, Cpl. Nik Beizer and Elia Toledano, according to The Times of Israel. The IDF reportedly struck the tunnel where these hostages were held to target Ahmed Ghandour, Hamas' Northern Gaza Brigade commander. However, the IDF did not know the three Israelis were there, the outlet reported.

Here's a (rhetorical) question: Why are #MeToo feminists, who cancelled people and destroyed lives over hugs, completely silent on Hamas' use of rape and Jack-the-Ripper-like genital mutilation as a terror weapon?

"There has been no prominent rallying cry from our prominent women's organizations," Weiss said, name checking the National Organization for Women as one egregious example. "Instead, there has been silence.

"Silence from the leaders of the MeToo movement," she added, although that group partially dissolved following the news that it consulted with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on allegations he sexually harassed multiple women.

"Silence from the celebrities who spoke at the Women's March and in Time's Up," Weiss said. "Silence from those who denounce pay gaps and Harvey Weinstein and Trump's 'grab them by the p****y comments and rape culture more generally.

"Silence from the people who opposed Brett Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court," she added.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:00 PM | Comments (201) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Surprise! Big Pharma Bankrolled a Disinformation Campaign to Deplatform People Showing Any "Vaccine Hesitancy" Online

Did it seem like Big Pharma had a propaganda campaign ready to execute when they rolled out their non-vaccinating vaccines? That's because they did have a turnkey propaganda campaign ready to deploy.

Finances at the vaccine manufacturer Moderna began to fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as most Americans resisted getting yet another COVID booster shot. The pharmaceutical company, whose pioneering mRNA vaccine had turned it from small startup to biotech giant worth more than $100 billion in just a few years, reported a third-quarter loss last year of $3.6 billion, as most Americans refused to get another COVID booster shot.

In a September call aimed at shoring up investors, Moderna's then-chief commercial officer, Arpa Garay, attributed some of the hesitancy pummeling Moderna's numbers to uninformed vaccine skeptics. "Despite some misinformation," Garay said, COVID-19 still drove significant hospitalizations. "It really is a vaccine that's relevant across all age groups," she insisted.

To get past the "misinformation" and convince the public to take continual booster shots, Garay briefly noted that Moderna was "delving down" on ways to partner "across the ecosystem to make sure consumers are educated on the need for the vaccine."

What Garay hinted at during the call, but didn't disclose, was that Moderna already had a sprawling media operation in place aimed at identifying and responding to critics of vaccine policy and the drug industry. A series of internal company reports and communications reviewed by RealClearInvestigations show that Moderna has worked with former law enforcement and public health officials and a drug industry-funded non-governmental organization called The Public Good Projects (PGP) to confront the "root cause of vaccine hesitancy" by rapidly identifying and "shutting down misinformation."

Part of this effort includes providing talking points to some 45,000 healthcare professionals "on how to respond when vaccine misinformation goes mainstream." PGP and Moderna have created a new partnership, called the "Infodemic Training Program," to prepare health care workers to respond to alleged vaccine-related misinformation.

The company has also used artificial intelligence to monitor millions of global online conversations to shape the contours of vaccine-related discussion. The internal files -- shorthanded here as the Moderna Reports -- show high-profile vaccine critics were closely monitored, particularly skeptics in independent media, including Michael Shellenberger, Russell Brand, and Alex Berenson. PGP, which was funded by a $1,275,000 donation from the Biotechnology and Innovation Organization, a lobby group representing Pfizer and Moderna, has identified alleged vaccine misinformation and helped facilitate the removal of content from Twitter, among other social media platforms, throughout 2021 and 2022.

Emails from that period show that PGP routinely sent Excel lists of accounts to amplify on Twitter and others to de-platform, including populist voices such as ZeroHedge.

The messages also suggested emerging narratives to remove from the platform. "People opposed to vaccines are capitalizing on the NYT [New York Times] article about the CDC withholding vaccine information. The articles do not contain misinformation themselves but are using the news to further prove the CDC is untrustworthy," wrote Savannah Knell, PGP's senior director of partnerships, in an email to a Twitter lobbyist in September 2022. In another email the following month, Kaitlyn Krizanic, PGP's senior program manager, told Twitter to be on the lookout for "reports that Sweden is no longer recommending the vaccine for children." In some cases, conservative accounts expressing outrage at restrictive pandemic policies, such as vaccination passports, were deemed by PGP as "misinformation" that warranted removal.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:50 PM | Comments (332) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Walgreeen's Shuts Down Four Locations in Majority-Black Roxbury, Boston, and Local "Activists" Are Outraged at the "Corporate Greed" of People Not Wanting to be Robbed Blind Every Single Day

As this CBS "journalist" summarizes the issue: "Why do you think Walgreen's is targeting black and brown neighborhoods?"

She refuses to ask anyone about rampant looting putting this store out of business.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:40 PM | Comments (368) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Feds Asked Banks to Conduct Warrantless Searches for Transactions Mentioning "MAGA" or "Trump;" Flagged Religious Texts as "Possible Extremism"

The Ham-and-Eggers at the FBI strike again.

So they're violating the First, Second, and Fourth Amendments.

To Save Democracy.

They're Great Americans.

Federal investigators asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like "MAGA" and "Trump" as part of an investigation into Jan. 6, warning that purchases of "religious texts" could indicate "extremism," the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital has learned the committee also obtained documents that indicate officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops and more.

The House Judiciary Committee and its subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government have been conducting oversight of federal law enforcement's "receipt of information about American citizens without legal process and its engagement with the private sector."

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the documents obtained by the committee indicate that after Jan. 6, 2021, the Treasury Department's Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, distributed materials to financial institutions that outlined "typologies" of "various persons of interest" and provided the banks with "suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement."

The materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like "Trump" and "MAGA" to "search Zelle payment messages" as well as a "prior FinCEN analysis" of "Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators."

"According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of 'extremism' indicators that include 'transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose,' or 'the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views,'" Jordan detailed in a letter to the former director of FinCEN, Noah Bishoff, a career employee.

Just going to go out on a limb here: "Religious texts" stating that Allah is great would not be the sort of texts that the FBI would be allowed to flag for warrantless searches, right?

No, they wouldn't. My friend Rich Higgins talked a lot about the Obama Administration inviting in Muslim Brotherhood members to advise and veto any instruction about what kinds of religious slogans jihadists would use.

That was protected religious expression which is forbidden to be used for investigatory purposes.

But your Gutter Religion, Christians? It's open season on you.

Some people have religious liberty, other people are slaves.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

McConnell and Other Liberal Trash Traitor "Republicans" Are Pressuring Speaker Johnson to Accept Their "Deal" For Protecting Ukraine's Borders While Providing No Protection for America's

Scumbags, sellouts, grifters, foreign agents and criminals.

To hell with the "Biden Republicans."

President Biden and congressional leaders in both parties are ramping up pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to accept an expected deal on Ukraine funding and border security, warning national security is at risk without action by Congress.

Security experts at a White House meeting Wednesday briefed Johnson and other leaders about the dire situation faced by Ukraine. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan were among those in attendance.

The looming package also includes funding for Israel and the Indo-Pacific region, two other hot spots where U.S. concerns are rising.

Lawmakers say the intent was to highlight that Congress is running out of time to pass an emergency supplemental and that the primary intended audience was Johnson, who has pushed back against the emerging Senate border deal amid pressure from conservatives in his own conference.

The White House and congressional leaders, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), are stepping up their engagement with Johnson after he poured water on the border security talks over the weekend.

I can't wait until this monster is gone.

Johnson on Saturday posted a Fox News summary of the deal, which reported it would include an increase in green cards and allow up to 5,000 migrants a day into the United States.

"Absolutely not," Johnson wrote above the news graphic.

The Speaker then doubled down on his criticism Wednesday morning, telling reporters: "I don't think now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform, because we know how complicated that is."

He called for more time for the talks to play out, and made another pitch for H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, which the House passed in May without any Democratic votes.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), however, has called that bill a "non-starter" in the Senate.

Then fuck Ukraine. Let them die.

If you won't defend the US border, then let the Russians stage their own massive unchecked invasion across Ukraine's.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:09 PM | Comments (511) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

I don't care whether "gun violence" increases or decreases when the United State Constitution's Second Amendment is honored rather than eviscerated. In fact, I reject the term "gun violence" as a hyper-emotional misdirection. Guns are inanimate objects and do not operate independently of their users. Violence is violence, and it doesn't really matter what tool the criminal uses, because he is responsible for the violence, and blaming the tool removes agency from the criminal and allows a leftist-dominated law enforcement and judiciary to treat murderers and armed robbers as if they littered or rolled through a stop sign.

What is important is that our natural, God-given rights to self defense and defense against tyranny have been (belatedly) honored. Our founders intended the People to be independent of and superior to the government, and that means responsible for their own defense. But the current incarnation of the police state wants us to be helpless and utterly dependent on them. That is why cops and the growing security establishment want us disarmed. THEY want the power. THEY want the guns.

New study claims permitless carry didn't increase Ohio gun violence, but police argue against it

“It’s hard to say if the fact that crime dropped since the permitless carry bill has been enacted,” Sexton responded. “I do know that we can say that it didn’t make things worse.”

The study results didn’t come as a surprise to Dean Rieck, also with Buckeye Firearms.

“Those who oppose gun rights believe anyone with a gun is a potential murderer,” Rieck said. “But that’s phobia, not fact. The facts show that the vast majority of violent crime is consistently committed by a tiny fraction of the population. Most ordinary people will never commit a crime of any kind.”

That's the kicker! Most ordinary people are not criminals. But here is the mouthpiece for the police state that would make the Stasi proud jabbering non sequiturs and selecting incomplete data to make his point.

But the data doesn’t tell the full story, the Fraternal Order of Police’s Brian Steel said.

“We also had an all-time homicide rate — Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati combined,” Steel said.

Researchers only analyzed data from June 2021 to June 2023.

Pandemic gun violence was unique and peaked like never before, so it is natural for a decrease, Steel explained.

“If crime went down a little bit, I do not classify it as significant,” he said. “I think we have to expand the study a little more, and then see what happens.”

I wonder what the data would show if the "gun violence" were separated into two classes...one in which the shooter had prior arrests or convictions for felonies, and one in which he didn't?

I'll bet there would be a stark and obvious difference. As the state gun organization representative pointed out, most violent crime is perpetrated by a tiny proportion of society.

But...my natural right to self defense against all evil is not dependent on the whims of statistical analysis of violent crime. It is not dependent on government permission. It is not dependent on anything other than my existence as a human being. So any restriction on that right by government is an affront to my humanity, and an intolerable use of government power.

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (258) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

So cold!
Giuseppe De Nittis

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (308) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 1/18/24

Good morning, kids. There are a number of things popping this morning that are each worthy of their own editorial. Alas, the Ace "quick hits" thing is not really my style, so I shall endeavor to hit upon a theme and attempt to weave the other stories in, hopefully in some sort of coherent fashion. Meh. Coherency is overrated, am I right? Here we go:

Right off the bat, while the world is looking at the tension on the Golan Heights between Israel and Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, which means Iran-controlled Lebanon, 2,000 miles to east apparently is where the action is. How many of you had an Iran vs Pakistan war on your bingo cards? Ho Lee Fook:

Pakistan announced early on Thursday morning local time that it had carried out military strikes inside of Iran after Iran killed innocent civilians inside Pakistan earlier this week during military strikes against a Pakistani militant group.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said that the strikes were “highly coordinated” and specifically targeted “terrorist hideouts” in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran. The operation, codenamed Operation Marg Bar Sarmachar, killed numerous terrorists inside Iran, the statement said.

“Over the last several years, in our engagements with Iran, Pakistan has consistently shared its serious concerns about the safe havens and sanctuaries enjoyed by Pakistani origin terrorists calling themselves *Sarmachars* on the ungoverned spaces inside Iran,” the statement said. “Pakistan also shared multiple dossiers with concrete evidence of the presence and activities of these terrorists.” Pakistan said that Iran did not take the information seriously, did not act, and thus those terrorists have killed innocent Pakistanis. . .

. . . The statement took a swipe at Iran, saying that Pakistan “fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Earlier in the week, Pakistan condemned Iran for violating its sovereignty when Iran launched its strikes. The statement took a swipe at Iran, saying that Pakistan “fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Earlier in the week, Pakistan condemned Iran for violating its sovereignty when Iran launched its strikes."

“As a responsible member of the international community, Pakistan upholds the principles and purposes of the UN Charter including territorial integrity and sovereignty of member states,” the statement said. “Guided by these principles, and in exercise of our legitimate rights within international law, Pakistan will never allow its sovereignty and territorial integrity to be challenged, under any pretext or circumstances.”

Funny, that's what Israel said in the wake of 10/7. I'm sure the Pakistani delegation in Turtle Bay will rush to Israel's defense there and at the World Court. If you believe that, I have a 2,000 mile long 30-foot high concrete reinforced steel wall between San Diego and Padre Island I can let you have, cheap (more on that issue in a moment)! As I always say, you can never know the future. The Iran-Pakistan dust-up comes completely out of the blue, and perhaps it's just the distraction Israel needs to finish the job in Gaza and then perhaps roll north to roll over Hezbollah. Certainly removes or seriously hampers the threat from Iran.

That said, it should be noted that Pakistan is a nuclear power. Should this incident roll on with ever-increasing tit for tat strikes resulting in full scale war . . . Oh boy. I'm waiting for Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley to tell us how we must give aid to the Pakistanis and send our armed forces to fight over there. Which would be funny since no doubt Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken would be advising us to fight alongside the Mullahs, even as Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants can't decide if the Houthis are terrorists or not while simultaneously hurling cruise missiles at their empty tents. Empty because his underlings gave them advance warning.

What an abject clusterfuck of incompetence, ideology, ideologically-driven incompetence or just plain old having the intellect of the bastard child of Claudine Gay and Fetterman's goiter. Apologies. John Fetterman may be a Leftist, but for whatever reason he has taken the 100% correct stand regarding the State of Israel.

Unlike Blinken and the Foggy Bottom bottom-dwellers.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that Israel cannot defeat Hamas — that there is no “military solution,” and that Israel will have to accept a "Palestinian" state. Netanyahu reportedly rejected the idea. . .

. . . Blinken faces two obstacles: one, that Israelis believe that they are, in fact, capable of winning the war, and that they are doing so; two, that Palestinians themselves do not want a state more than they want to destroy Israel, meaning a state is doomed to fail.

Many left-wing Israelis who once considered themselves “more 'Palestinian' than the 'Palestinians'” now see all Palestinians as a potential threat.

According to Gallup, nearly two-thirds of Israelis now oppose a Palestinian state, given what Hamas did to them, and to Gaza — and given the pro-terror sympathies of the corrupt Palestinian Authority, which governs most Palestinians in the West Bank. That is a radical reversal from the position of most Israelis just a decade ago, when “twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%).” Hamas’s rocket and terror attacks are responsible for the change.

Blinken and [spurious fraud "president"] Joe Biden are committed to the old, failed model of Middle East peacemaking, in which the Palestinian issue must precede all others. President Donald Trump rejected that idea — and the result was the historic Abraham Accords. Now, Biden and Blinken are trying to make new peace agreements — such as a Saudi-Israeli peace deal — contingent on the creation of a "Palestinian" state. And Blinken is casting Israelis as if they are not ready for peace, in contrast to the Arab world.

That is a total inversion of the truth, according to opinion polls, which suggest that the vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas’s terror attack of October 7. Arab public opinion is similar, though the Abraham Accords have remained intact so far. NBC News also reports that Blinken is pushing a deal in which Saudi Arabia would agree to normalized relations with Israel in return for a "Palestinian" state. Ironically, Saudi Arabia was on the verge of a deal without a "Palestinian" state before October 7.

It was the Biden [junta]. according to one report, that actually stalled that deal by insisting on additional concessions to the "Palestinians" — concessions that the Saudis did not demand and for which the "Palestinians" did not agree to any compromises."

The old adage that "The process is the punishment" applies when it comes to the never-ending Middle East "Peace Process." A two-state solution will result in another Final Solution for Israel. What all this garbage boils down to is that Blinken via Biden via Obama is doing is demanding Israel surrender. And surrender now sooner or later will result in Israel being attacked again as badly or likely worse than on 10/7. Perhaps by an Iranian nuke.

If I were Bibi, in no uncertain terms I'd tell Blinken to relay the message to Obama via Biden to go piss up a rope. Then tell him he has one hour to get his filthy self-gassing cadaver the fuck out of the Holy Land or risk arrest as an enemy agent. Enough. Dayaynu. Genucht. And a hearty vayr ge hargit, paskudnyak momzer, for good measure.

Psaki-psircling back to the border, the gravamen of yesterday's disquisition centered on the standoff between Texas and the DC junta. Evidently, Abbott and Paxton are not flinching.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Army National Guard soldiers remain posted at temporary gates erected at the entrance to a city-owned park along the Rio Grande. The park was seized by order of Texas Governor Greg Abbott and closed off to Border Patrol agents unless their entrance into the area is first coordinated with state law enforcement and the Texas Military Department.

The state appears to be standing firm as a Biden [junta] deadline of “the end of the day” for the state to remove the gates and allow unimpeded access to the Border Patrol approaches. General Counsel Jonathan Meyer, on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, communicated it to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a letter on January 10. . .

. . . In response to the demands made by the Department of Homeland Security in Counsel Meyer’s demand to grant unimpeded access to the Border Patrol, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded in a letter on Wednesday. In his response to DHS, Paxton disputed the arguments made in their cease and desist letter, saying:

Texas allows prompt entry into Shelby Park by any U.S. Border Patrol personnel responding to a medical emergency, and this access is not “limited to use of the boat ramp,” as you say. TMD has ordered its Guardsmen not to impede lifesaving care for aliens who illegally cross the Rio Grande. To that end, TMD has erected gates that allow for rapid admission when federal personnel communicate the existence of some medical exigency.

Paxton went on to say:

[Fake spurious "president"] Biden has been warned in a series of letters, one of them hand-delivered to him in El Paso, that his sustained dereliction of duty in securing the border is illegal. By instructing your agency and others to ignore federal immigration laws, he has breached the guarantee, found in Article IV, § 4 of the U.S. Constitution, that the federal government “shall protect each of [the States] against Invasion.”

. . . Although tensions continue to build between the State of Texas and the Biden [junta] over the use and access of the park by the Border Patrol, the tensions appear to be much less visible at the park itself. Migrant crossings had reduced to a near trickle in the area compared to December when a record-breaking 71,000 migrants crossed the Rio Grande into the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector — most choosing to cross in Eagle Pass.

That means Governor Abbott's defiance and direct action to protect the citizens of Texas, and by extension the real, legal citizens of what's left of the United States, is working. And the Junta cannot abide by that. Funny how scumbags like Brandon Johnson, Eric Adams, Kathy Hochul and every other filthy Democrat bitching about how their sanctuary policies are eating them alive are ripping Abbott for doing what will actually solve their problems: that is sealing the fucking border.

As I stated yesterday and discussed with CBD on the latest episode of the podcast (click here or look in the sidebar). This is arguably not only the winning issue for the GOP and Trump for 2024, but it can be among the issues that can drive a grassroots across the board political sea change that can halt the driving of America off the cliff. With that said, here's something to kick us in the nuts and then stomp on our heads:

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has locked arms with President Joe Biden in calling for a deal to surrender to unlimited migration that would include tens of billions in foreign aid to Ukraine.

The retreat would hand the White House a key election year win and surrender the best leverage Republicans have had in decades to make substantive changes in border policies that could alleviate one of the American people’s greatest concerns potentially for generations.

Senate negotiators have led efforts for months to pair some sort of border security package with billions of supplemental funding, primarily to advance Ukraine’s floundering war efforts against Russia. The war has been deadlocked for almost a year, with untold hundreds of billions spent and countless lives lost.

Yet hesitancy for more foreign aid and demands for a truly substantive border package from Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) Republican House led to the search for a compromise on the two issues. Leaked details of the deal, which essentially amount to a surrender at the border, have received widespread condemnation, with Johnson indicating he will not move that bill through the House.

On Wednesday, Biden is hosting Congressional leaders at the White House to flex his muscles and pressure Johnson to surrender. Thune’s latest position appears supportive of Biden’s tactics, insisting that the leaked deal is worth supporting. . .

. . . within days, Thune apparently had reversed his position, saying “there isn’t anything that has been settled” when it comes to the idea of tying Ukraine assistance to specific border benchmarks. “There is a concern — and a valid one — that anything we pass won’t be enforced by this administration,” he said. “And if you don’t have some appropriate metrics and consequences, you can put all the best policy out there but they’ll just ignore it.”

Those comments contradict Thune’s latest position, echoing his ally, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), that progress on the border in a future Trump administration would be impossible.

If anyone insists on labeling the GOP the stupid party please leave the room. They are not stupid. They are complicit in our destruction. Thune is likely McYertle's successor. He won't let go of the reins until he's embalmed, but that's another sordid tale emblematic of the corrupt whorehouse that is our government.

Bargaining for wasting blood and treasure to preserve the most corrupt kleptocracy on the planet and continue to piss off nuclear-armed Putin in exchange for the Wimpy Tuesday hamburger promise of "just the tip" in Gang of 8 Amnesty Rape 2: Simpson-Mazzoli Psyche! Boogaloo, is insane.

To hell with Ukrainian territorial integrity when we have erased our own and allowed an invasion of millions who will one day soon completely subsume what's left of our culture and heritage in exchange for being Democrat-Leftist serfs. The only thing that our leaders, that is if we really had any, should say is No. Hell no. And we demand a sealed border and the immediate ramping up deportations of everyone here illegally. As for Thune, I'd like to rip McConnell's arms from their sockets and beat Thune to death with them. Rhetorically speaking, of course.

About the only person on our side who even comes close to taking this stand (that last sentence notwithstanding) is, you guessed it, Donald J.Trump. In fairness to DeSantis, he has also sent the illegals up north as has Abbott. Nikki Haley is John Thune with a slightly less sagging ass.

That said, (singing) "Mister we could use a man like Javier Millei again!. . . " Actually, in perpetuity.

“I am here today to tell you that the West is in danger. It is in danger because those who are supposed to uphold the values of the West find themselves co-opted by a worldview that inexorably leads to socialism, and consequently, to poverty,” Milei said in the opening of his speech.

The Argentine president lamented that world leaders have abandoned the ideas of freedom, embracing instead several versions of leftism which he categorized as being versions of the same ideology of “collectivism.”

. . . “We are here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world but, on the contrary, they are their cause,” Milei said. “Believe me, there is no one better than us Argentines to bear witness to these two issues.” Milei continued by recounting how Argentina, after having become a world power in 1860, had seen itself become impoverished over the past 100 years by embracing collectivist ideas.

“They say that capitalism is bad because it is individualistic and that collectivism is good because it is altruistic, and consequently they strive for ‘social justice.’ Milei said. “But this concept, which in the first world has become fashionable in the last decade, has been a constant in my country’s political discourse for more than 80 years.” . . . The problem is that social justice is not only not fair, but also does not contribute to the general welfare. On the contrary, it is an intrinsically unjust idea, because it is violent. It is unjust because the state is financed by taxes and taxes are levied coercively — or can any of us choose not to pay taxes? Which means that the state is financed through coercion, and the greater the tax burden, the greater the coercion.”

. . . The essential problem of the West today is that we must not only confront those who, even after the fall of the [Berlin] wall and the overwhelming empirical evidence, continue to strive for impoverishing socialism, but also our own leaders, thinkers and academics who, under a mistaken theoretical framework, undermine the foundations of the system that has given us the greatest expansion of wealth and prosperity in our history. . .

. . . “Do not let yourselves be intimidated, do not surrender to a political class that only wants to remain in power,” Milei said. “You are social benefactors, you are heroes, you are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity that we have ever experienced. Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral.”

Milei concluded his speech with his now widely famous catchphrase: “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” which roughly translates to “Long live liberty, damn it!”

Abso-fucking-lutely goddam right.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Margot Cleveland: "While you may not care about fisheries, you should care about Chevron deference, which gives too much power to unelected bureaucrats."
  How Disgruntled Fishermen Could Prompt SCOTUS to Capsize the Administrative State
  
• "This case will have a huge and lasting ripple effect on future taxation."
  Moore v. US: Income Tax’s Roe v. Wade
  
• "This family did not deserve what the CHOA and child welfare have done to them. They deserved a basic standard of care at a hospital that has sworn to heal and not harm. . . If hospitals continue to behave this way in bad faith and treat parents as criminals, what parent in their right mind would bring a child to the ER? And what are we supposed to do instead? This is an outrageous and unacceptable situation that cannot continue."
  Medical Kidnap in Georgia? Another Children's Hospital and Child Welfare Embroiled in Controversy
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: "To enact its unpopular agendas, the progressive movement must scare the people silly and gin up chaos to destroy its perceived enemies—any crisis it can." (An otherwise good essay marred by a horribly misleading title - jjs)
  The Hysterical Style in American Politics

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:56 AM | Comments (297) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 18 January 2024

Top Story

• Can special lightbulbs end the next pandemic before it starts? (Vox)
  
  1. It's Vox.
  2. Betteridge's Law.
  3. Uh, maybe?
  
  They're talking about zapping rooms with far-UV light when they're not in use, which basically, uh, works. Far-UV is not particularly friendly to your skin or eyes, so there certainly safety considerations. And installing it is not particularly cheap.
  
  But between the disease and the response the US lost about $14 trillion to COVID, so it sounds like it's worth a shot.
  
  Just try to keep it away from idiots. (MSNBC)
  
  
  
• Or you could go outdoors, where the UV light is free, and you can't sue anyone.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (278) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (1/17/24)

***

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

"Tianeptine is an emerging threat," Kaitlyn Brown, the clinical managing director of America's Poison Centers

Quote II

"I don't like how Trump said things, but he wasn't wrong about those critical issues. That's why they're voting for him. People should be more respectful of our fellow citizens," Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO

Quote III

Davos is a gathering of wealthy tyrants.......
A bigger collection of people who should be smarter can't be found anywhere. These pinheads think that the world's ugliest trophy wife — John Kerry — is relevant. Stephen Kruiser

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM | Comments (341) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Spiderbike Cafe

Yosemite National Park
That might be El Capitan but I dunno
Wait, have I been swindled by AI?
Don't yell at me
via @ryanresatka at IG

By the way, did you see The Dawn Wall? Incredible. Incredible! It starts off with the subjects being captured by terrorists and using their superior climbing skills to escape, and that's just the preamble to catch you up with what's going on before the documentary proper starts.

The rest of the documentary is fantastic, but I was like: "Why are you rushing over this real-life Cliffhanger movie? Do a documentary just on this!" It's like if you're watching a documentary about Michael Phelps and they go, "before he began swimming competitively, Michael trained as a ninja for fifteen years and was crowned champion at the secret worldwide underground fighting contest called the Kumitae. That out of the way, let's go on his swimming record in middle school. He always had big feet -- that helps in the pool."

Anyway, big recommendation.

Wait: I might have meant Free Solo. They're both great, and feature some of the same people. I forget which one starts with the guy being captured by terrorists while mountain climbing in Algeria (or somewhere like that).

Watch them both, just to make sure. Update: Alabama says I had it right the first time. But both are really good.

Some of you were talking about clearing your driveways. Next time, try gasoline.

AI is getting scary.

Passengers on the left side of the airplane will see a Falcon Heavy Rocket lifting off...

Swinger's pad.

The Canyon of the Crescent Moon...! By the way, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, they briefly stop in the Republic of Hatay, for some vehicles (and tanks!). I always assumed that was a made-up name. It's not.

Landslide in Japan.

Monkey yoga.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (241) | Trackbacks (Suck)