November 17, 2025
Soros Donated to Group Determined to Censor Conservatives (and Group Determined to Justify the Islamic Conquest of Israel)
Soros is also bankrolling an anti-Israel propaganda group.
That George Soros just never stops attempting to destroy western civilization.
EXCLUSIVE: George Soros Gave $250K to British Group Working To Censor Conservative News Sites and 'Kill Musk's Twitter'
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which does not disclose its donors, has lobbied US lawmakers to create a 'digital regulator'
Chuck Ross
November 17, 2025 The left-wing philanthropy funded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations (OSF), bankrolls a British nonprofit that works to censor conservative news websites and social media companies, including through a plot to "kill" Elon Musk's X by pressuring advertisers and investors to boycott the company. OSF gave $250,000 last year to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) for "general support," according to the Soros charity's grant database. The CCDH, under the guise of stopping "the spread of online hate and disinformation," has pressured social media companies' investors and advertisers to censor supposed "disinformation" or other content it deems to be offensive. The organization, founded by former Labour Party operative Imran Ahmed in 2018, has also pressured tech companies to pull advertisements from the conservative websites the Federalist and the Daily Wire over allegedly racist content. The grant, which has not been reported, could resurrect a longstanding battle that Musk has waged with both the CCDH and Soros. Musk has accused Soros of "crimes against humanity" and funding groups involved in violent protests across the country this year. And he has called the CCDH a "criminal organization" and said he was "going after" the group's donors over its efforts to harm X's finances. Last year, the CCDH quietly organized a campaign to "kill Musk's Twitter" by pressuring advertisers to cut ties with the company, according to memos published by Racket News. The CCDH, which the watchdog group Capital Research Center calls a "UK-based censorship advocacy group," met with 16 congressional offices to discuss Musk's lawsuit against the organization, and held "policy engagement" meetings with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.). The nonprofit also lobbied American policymakers toward the creation of an "independent digital regulator," according to Racket News. ... The CCDH does not voluntarily disclose its donors. But some organizations have revealed contributions to the nonprofit... The grant revelation comes as the Trump administration sets its sights on the Soros operation and the CCDH. President Donald Trump called over the summer for Soros and his son Alex, the chairman of OSF, to be investigated for allegedly funding violent riots across the country. The Soroses have denied the allegation.
Soros is also bankrolling an anti-Israel propaganda group.
Oh? It was just a policy choice with both pros and cons, eh?
The left-wing philanthropy funded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations, gave $250,000 to establish a Middle East desk at Drop Site News, an anti-Israel news startup that touts itself as a "reader-supported" purveyor of "completely independent" journalism. Open Society Foundations said the grant, awarded last year, would help "bridge a crucial information gap in independent journalism" in the Middle East, according to its spending database. Drop Site, founded by veteran left-wing journalists Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill in July 2024, has filled that purported gap with a steady stream of anti-Israel coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Its first major story was a series of interviews that Scahill conducted with Hamas leaders aimed at providing the "public deeper insight into [Hamas's] decision to launch the October 7 attacks in Israel."
"The past nine months of Israel's genocidal war in Gaza have spurred an unprecedented global awakening to the plight of the Palestinian people," reads the opening line of Scahill's story. Drop Site has not disclosed funding from the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros's son Alex took control in 2022.... The Open Society Foundations funneled its contribution to Drop Site through the Social Security Works Education Fund, earmarked "to support establishing a Drop Site News MENA desk to to [sic] bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism." Drop Site has provided little coverage of Social Security, or any other domestic entitlement programs. Instead, its bread-and-butter has been coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, from a decidedly anti-Israel viewpoint.While Soros funds anti-Israel propaganda sites that justify the slaughter of 10/7, he also activates his many paid agents in the media to brand any criticism of him -- any criticism -- as "antisemitic hatred." I've been on the wrong side of that disgusting game myself.
Posted by: Ace at 06:10 PM | Comments (220) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Lowly Federal Magistrate Orders Comey Prosecutor to Turn Over all Grand Jury Materials, Claiming a "Disturbing Pattern" of Prosecuting a Democrat
Actually the magistrate claimed a disturbing pattern of misleading claims, but I think my translation is more accurate.
This corrupt operator is looking to disqualify the prosecutor, believing that if she is eliminated, no one at the DOJ will be willing to prosecute the Deep State Fixer James Comey.A federal magistrate judge has ordered the Justice Department to turn over grand jury materials to former FBI Director James Comey as he fights criminal charges, pointing to possible government misconduct as reason to grant the unusual relief. Judge William Fitzpatrick referenced several apparent missteps by Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney hand-picked by President Trump to pursue charges against his foe, that may have threatened the proceeding's fairness. He said that Comey's right to due process outweighs the typical secrecy afforded to grand jury proceedings, directing prosecutors to hand over the materials by the end of Monday.It's always Democrats who are discovered to have stronger rights than the ordinary citizen. A phantasmal "intent" requirement was falsely read into the Espionage law to save Hillary Clinton -- by James Comey, of course.
We never grant these motions, but a key Democrat Deep State operative is making it now, soooo.
"The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted," Fitzpatrick said. "However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding."
... Though Fitzpatrick did not name Halligan, a different federal judge confirmed at a hearing last week that Halligan was the only prosecutor to present evidence against Comey to the grand jury. Fitzpatrick also said that just one prosecutor was present. The judge wrote that "the prosecutor" made at least two statements to grand jurors that seemed to be "fundamental misstatements of the law." The remarks themselves were redacted in the court filing. But Fitzpatrick said they came in response to grand jurors' questions and were directly related to communications involving Comey. One of the remarks, the judge said, implied that Comey does not have a Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify at trial, which may have led grand jurors to believe that it is Comey's burden, not the government's, to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That statement was made in response to "challenging questions" from grand jurors, Fitzpatrick continued, suggesting grand jurors may have believed that even if Halligan could not answer their questions, Comey would later have to. The other remark "clearly suggested" to grand jurors that they did not have to rely on the record before them and could be assured that the government had more, and possibly better, evidence that would be presented at trial, the judge said. Fitzpatrick also raised concern about the actual indictment returned. Halligan initially sought to charge Comey with three counts, but a grand jury rejected one of those charges. The top prosecutor prepared a second indictment, removing that count, which was accepted by a magistrate judge. But Fitzpatrick said the record seems to indicate that the grand jury did not review the actual indictment that was ultimately returned, throwing the case into "uncharted legal territory."
Posted by: Ace at 05:00 PM | Comments (207) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Malls Are Dying. Hollywood Is Dying.
Is America Dying?
Young people used to love going out just to look for attractive members of the opposite sex. I remember when I used to be a young person, before I turned 29 this past November 13th. Oh, how we young people loved to show off our new "BUM" sweatshirts, our exciting and classy Swatches, our Flock of Seagalls haircuts, and our Frankie Says Don't novelty-t shirts. This wasn't just about these wonderful pieces of eternal fashion. It was about hooking up. All young people think about, or used to think about, was attracting a mate. So even if we could just sit home and watch a movie with our parents, we'd go out to the theaters to see if we'd run into any classmates. Or go to the mall for the same reason. Maybe we'd run into someone attractive while waiting for the Cinnabon sous-chef to finish ladling on the frosting. Have young people stopped caring about sex? Are they just homebound? Or to coin a term: phonebound? Or, alternately: Do young people no longer need to cruise the Main Drag at the wall to have a chance at romantic or sexual stimulation? Do they now just arrange hook-ups on the phone? Is this the biggest reason why Hollywood, and the mall, are taking? Half of kids are incels and the other half are just having random sex with Tinder strangers, so why bother going out either way?
Older people have also become more homebound and phonebound but the economic impact isn't as great because older people are settled, usually, and don't go out as much. The post-29 crowd (which I will be joining myself in several years; I plan to remain 29 throughout the 2020s) is mostly married and thus do not gain the extra benefit of seeing potential mates when they go out. I really don't know what the hell is even going to happen when young people no longer seem particularly interested in finding mates. Related: Billionaire investor tries to help young people actually make contact with the opposite sex by offering a pick-up line. Or rather: An ice-breaker, as we never called it when I was young but they did call it that in the 70s at the Regal Beagle.
Is America Dying?
A formerly profitable mall, once worth $1.2 billion has just closed in San Francisco and was sold for, essentially, scrap.
An iconic mall in San Francisco foreclosed for a fraction of the billion-dollar valuation it once commanded as Covid shutdowns and out-of-control crime left the seven-story behemoth a shell of its former self. Valued at $1.2 billion nearly a decade ago, the San Francisco Centre Mall, previously known as the Westfield Emporium, was sold at an auction on Wednesday to lenders Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the mall served as a shopping hub in San Francisco, with residents and tourists flocking to its vibrant energy and big-name brands. As consumers turned away from the city's sketchy downtown and toward online shopping, however, the mall's value declined drastically. An appraisal at the end of 2022 valued the property at only $290 million, a 76 percent drop from its height before the pandemic. But lenders purchased the property for even less than appraisals, with the final sticker price for the sprawling 1.5 million square-foot mall only $133 million - or just 11 percent of its top valuation.Beyond the matters of covid getting people out of the habit of going outdoors for shopping -- or eating, or anything else -- the other big contributor to the end of the mall is blue-city tolerance of hypercriminality.
Meanwhile, even the NY Times reports that its communist allies in Hollywood are in a Biden-steep decline, with October ticket sales are the lowest in history, adjusting for inflation. Note that the entertainment media never adjusts for inflation, because they're industry shills and always want to claim that we're breaking records which we're definitely not even close to breaking. But October's takings were so puny that the Times realized it had a story if it for once adjusted for inflation, so they bothered to do the very simple math.
At the time, Westfield blamed 'unsafe conditions' and 'lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity' for the mall's decline.
... Since then, the number of retail stores has declined rapidly. The mall's flagship store, Nordstrom, shuttered its doors the same year. Bloomingdale's soon followed suit, and the mall's movie theater later shut down. The mall currently has only leased 9 percent of its storefronts, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. One visitor from Los Angeles described the mall as 'eerie' during a recent interview with CBS News. 'Coming in, you're expecting so many stores, you know, like a typical mall but it's not that at all,' Romel Pacheco told the publication. ... San Francisco isn't the only city facing a drastically changing retail climate. According to data compiled by Capital One, an average of 1,170 shopping malls closed every year between 2017 and 2022. Projections indicate that the trend is expected to continue, with estimates revealing that up to 87 percent of large shopping malls may close over the next decade.
Theaters in the United States and Canada collected $445 million across all titles in October, the lowest total on record, after adjusting for inflation and excluding 2020, when the pandemic darkened screens. For context, October ticket sales in 2019 totaled an adjusted $1 billion, according to Comscore.Christian Toto writes:
Why? How much time do you have? It's easy to point to the obvious causes: The rise of streaming competitionThat's all true, but I have a darker idea. I wouldn't say it's a theory, because I don't have much faith in it. It's more just a speculation of a possibility. Malls and movie theaters are -- or used to be -- the favored hangouts of bored teenagers.
The shrinking window for films hitting VOD platforms
The rise of consequential video game titles
Social media
Shrinking attention spans in Gen Z
The pandemic fallout And the ones media outlets won't go near. Stars made themselves toxic to half the country with their political views
Stars are, for the most part, over-exposed
The movies just aren't very good, in toto
The Woke Mind Virus still infects the industry
Hollywood has lost touch with the common man
Young people used to love going out just to look for attractive members of the opposite sex. I remember when I used to be a young person, before I turned 29 this past November 13th. Oh, how we young people loved to show off our new "BUM" sweatshirts, our exciting and classy Swatches, our Flock of Seagalls haircuts, and our Frankie Says Don't novelty-t shirts. This wasn't just about these wonderful pieces of eternal fashion. It was about hooking up. All young people think about, or used to think about, was attracting a mate. So even if we could just sit home and watch a movie with our parents, we'd go out to the theaters to see if we'd run into any classmates. Or go to the mall for the same reason. Maybe we'd run into someone attractive while waiting for the Cinnabon sous-chef to finish ladling on the frosting. Have young people stopped caring about sex? Are they just homebound? Or to coin a term: phonebound? Or, alternately: Do young people no longer need to cruise the Main Drag at the wall to have a chance at romantic or sexual stimulation? Do they now just arrange hook-ups on the phone? Is this the biggest reason why Hollywood, and the mall, are taking? Half of kids are incels and the other half are just having random sex with Tinder strangers, so why bother going out either way?
Older people have also become more homebound and phonebound but the economic impact isn't as great because older people are settled, usually, and don't go out as much. The post-29 crowd (which I will be joining myself in several years; I plan to remain 29 throughout the 2020s) is mostly married and thus do not gain the extra benefit of seeing potential mates when they go out. I really don't know what the hell is even going to happen when young people no longer seem particularly interested in finding mates. Related: Billionaire investor tries to help young people actually make contact with the opposite sex by offering a pick-up line. Or rather: An ice-breaker, as we never called it when I was young but they did call it that in the 70s at the Regal Beagle.
Ackman -- who is now worth $9.3 billion, according to Forbes -- claimed the pick-up line "almost never got a No" in his younger days, adding that "the combination of proper grammar and politeness was the key to its effectiveness." "Just two cents from an older happily married guy concerned about our next generation's happiness and population replacement rates."I don't think it's a good line but I like what he's trying to do. The question is, at least, polite, which is a plus, and also attempts to express an interest in the other person. I think that last part is key. I think women would be actually happy to have someone show an actual interest in meeting them, rather than the usual super-casual, we-can-talk-if-you-want-to method of "showing interest" while actually hiding all interest because anyone who shows interest is uncool and needy and desperate. (Or so the thinking goes.) Related: It was simpler when I was young. Way back when, pickin' up chicks was as easy as getting in your Chevy Chevette, cranking up Def Leppard, and driving to the nearest roller-disco.
Perhaps also helping Ackman's early romantic life -- having married his first wife, Karen Herskovitz, in 1994 -- was his investment firm Gotham Partners, which he co-founded in 1992. It had grown to more than $500 million in assets just a few years later. Users online quickly turned the dating advice into a meme, jabbing at the pick-up line's apparent success rate -- or lack thereof -- in dozens of posts.
Posted by: Ace at 03:50 PM | Comments (592) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Surprise: Trump's Would-Be Assassin in Butler, PA Was Interested in Gay Furry Porn
How very unexpected.
Breitbart:That report relies on Miranda Divine of the NY Post.
The individual who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, had an interest in "furries," according to reports. Thomas Crooks allegedly tried to take Trump's life July 13, 2024, as a bullet struck his ear. Crooks allegedly killed Corey Comperatore, 50, and seriously injured two others who were at the Butler rally. There are still more questions than answers, despite the back and forth on Crooks' ideology. He seemed to be pro-Trump before taking a dramatic switch in the other direction, as the New York Post detailed:The source uncovered Crooks' various accounts on platforms including YouTube, Snapchat, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Quora, and more and concluded that this individual "was not simply some unknowable lone actor" but someone who clearly left a "digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence." Crooks' anti-Trump rhetoric took off in 2020, deeming Trump's followers sheep and Trump himself racist. In one post in August, Crooks wrote, "IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them." ... Beyond that, it seems Crooks had a fetish with furries, per the Post:
Thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks' hidden digital footprint, we can see that Abbate [former FBI Deputy Director] misled Congress by omission, because he left out an entire section of Crooks' online interactions from January to August 2020 when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump and then went dark, never seeming to post again.Notably, this coincides with reports describing the alleged assassin who murdered 31-year-old Charlie Kirk -- Tyler Robinson. He, too, appeared to have an obsession with disturbing furry subculture, playing pornographic video games and watching content from a user known for "furry porn," who has also depicted pedophilia.
He described himself with the pronouns "they/them" on the platform DeviantArt, which is one of the biggest online hubs for "furry" art and the "furry" community. (A furry is someone who has an interest in anthropomorphized animal characters, often as a sexual fetish.) Two accounts linked to Crooks' primary email were found on DeviantArt, under usernames "epicmicrowave" and "theepicmicrowave." The account suggests he had an obsession with scantily clad cartoon characters sporting muscle-bound male bodies and female heads.
Then-FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress after the July 13, 2024, attack that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks' online history that pointed to a motive or political ideology. A week later, Wray's deputy Paul Abbate told Congress that comments posted on one of Crooks' social media accounts "appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature." Then-FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress after the July 13, 2024, attack that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks' online history that pointed to a motive or political ideology. Thanks to an enterprising source who uncovered Crooks' hidden digital footprint, we can see that Abbate misled Congress by omission, because he left out an entire section of Crooks' online interactions from January to August 2020 when he did an ideological backflip and went from rabidly pro-Trump to rabidly anti-Trump and then went dark, never seeming to post again. Among the 17 accounts uncovered by our source were ones on YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com and Quora. The online interactions from when Crooks was ages 15 to 17 give us a better understanding of his evolution into an assassin, and invite more questions about what -- or who -- reversed his ideology. "The danger Crooks posed was visible for years in public online spaces," says the source. "His radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name. The threat wasn't hidden." The official narrative claimed he acted alone and without a clear motive, ideology or digital footprint. Yet the source found reams of information that shows Crooks "was not simply some unknowable lone actor ... He left a digital trail of violent threats, extremist ideology and admiration for mass violence. He spoke openly of political assassination, posted under his real name and was even flagged by other users who mentioned law enforcement in their replies. Despite this, his account remained active for more than five years -- and was only removed the day after the shooting. "None of this online activity was referenced in the final congressional report released in December 2024, making this even more troubling," the source said. ... Crooks' trajectory from pro- to anti-Trump is evident. He referred to Trump as "the literal definition of Patriotism" in a comment at 1:17 a.m. July 20, 2019. He also issued several targeted threats against the Democratic congressional representatives in "the Squad." "I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don't deserve anything this country [sic] has given them," he wrote at 8:18 a.m. July 20, 2019. "MURDER THE DEMOCRATS," he wrote in all caps on Dec. 12, 2019. But in early 2020, Crooks' online behavior flipped 180 degrees and he became very critical of Trump, Fox News and Republican complaints about mail-in voting.One of the screennames this gay furry porn addict used was "Rod Swanson," the name of the lead FBI investigator in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. (About which people continue to have questions.) Swanson was contacted for the story. He is retired and has no idea who this gay furry killer is. But he does say that the FBI would have been aware of his violent rhetoric.
The first time he criticized Trump was on Jan. 23, 2020, when he commented on a video of law professor Jonathan Turley talking about Trump's first impeachment. "Keep in mind the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump's stupidity," Crooks wrote. He started describing Trump supporters as a cult: "How can you people call others sheep, but you are do [too] brainwashed to realize how dumb you are," he wrote on Feb. 26, 2020. "I mean literally you guys sound like a cult at times." The same day he described Trump as "racist." ... On Aug. 5, 2020, Crooks wrote: "IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them. "Any sort of head-to-head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren't going to end well. A large portion of the war will also be propaganda/information wars -- both sides will want people to join them, and a big deciding factor in wars is often which side has more popular support for them," he wrote.
When told of Crooks' online threats, he said there was no way the FBI would not be aware of the teenager. "No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it's COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody's door," Swanson said. "If they investigated that kid there's a record of it and there's an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else." He also said that "if the FBI had that information [about his name on the PayPal account], I can't even imagine they would not have reached out to me right away." ... One of the people Crooks interacted with online was "Willy Tepes," a member of Norwegian neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement, which has since been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department. Tepes encouraged violence and Crooks' extremism, using a Maoist phrase, "Political power comes from the barrel of a gun," which Crooks repeated several times. "People who ask you to contact them when they just as easily could contact you, are Feds. This is how they avoid entrapment. Both American and Russian intelligence does this. I have chatted to both," he claimed. Shortly after his interactions with Tepes, Crooks disappeared offline. Did his brush with the Norwegian and his own violent rhetoric win him a visit from the FBI or the Secret Service?Former Deputy Director Abbate told Congress that the killer's politics included "antisemitism" and "anti-immigrant" views, leaning but failed to mention his sharp turn to the left or his interest in gay furry pornography. The criminal Christopher Wray insisted upon this narrative. If the FBI just doesn't want to name any ideological motive if there is ambiguity about it, why did Abbate claim that Crooks only offered views associated with the "extreme" right?
Posted by: Ace at 02:41 PM | Comments (378) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Nigh-Infinite Racial Grievance of Michelle Hussein Obama
The Diabolic Ms. (?) M. is on a grievance tour to promote her... let's see, what's the absurdly overcompensated, unearned, grift she's peddling now?
Oh right it's her little-viewed podcast. She needs a podcast because the $500 million Netfilx deal, granted to the Obamas to do what they have always done for this ludicrous compensation, which is nothing, just doesn't afford her a grand enough platform upon which to preach about the oppression and marginalization she suffers on the daily. As you probably know, the decidedly unbeautiful sour-faced troll Michelle Obama has been going around saying insane things, like that she's so beautiful that her beauty "worthy of demanding respect" and is "worthy of a conversation." Incidentally, despite permanently looking like she just watched The Ring video and her seven days are up, she's been on the covers of fashion magazines like Vogue and Cosmopolitan about 38,000 times. In May, she complained about how "expensive" it is to live at the White House mansion rent-free, because, while she does allow that she did not have to pay for rent or for "staff" -- meaning, of course, the small army of butlers, cooks, personal assistants, chauffeurs and 24-7 personal security -- she did have to pay for, get this, all the food that she and her children ate, as well as paying for travel when she doesn't travel with her husband. (Which was, admittedly, most of the time, because they're reputedly a gay beard couple who can barely stand to be in the same house as each other.) One, all people have to pay for the food they and their children eat -- and need to pay their rent (or mortgage) and butlers as well -- and two, you didn't pay for your travel. You were forced to pay the lowest possible price for a commercial coach ticket despite the government then flying you around on the Mansion in the Sky Air Force One or some other government luxury Cloud-Yacht. Ask JackStraw about luxury Cloud-Yachts. And you would only have to pay that if you didn't think of some horse-shit "official" reason for the travel -- like doing a quick meet-and-greet with the mayor of Ibiza or something -- that would get the whole thing covered by taxpayers. And, PS: Other people have to pay their own vacation travel costs, too. And they cannot afford the luxury of his-and-her separate vacations, because vacation travel is expensive and most people are not in gay beard relationships where they wish to escape the oppression of their opposite-sex spouse. She has also claimed that, far from being the most feted and overpraised do-nothing layabouts in human history, who were effusively praised for simply existing, she could not "afford any mistakes" and was under a "particularly white hot glare." She claimed she didn't receive the "grace" other presidential families did. In the world's most egregious case of projection, Michelle Obama then insisted it is whites who spend far, far too much time thinking about blacks and blamed white people for forcing her to straighten her hair because we all apparently give a shit how this ugly sow wears her hair. As a bonus, she claimed that black people don't learn how to swim because... I'm not clear on this, I guess because black people are afraid that water will bead in their naturally curly hair, and this will cause Venomous White Tongues to wag? This is projection. She thinks all day about white people, directing hatred at them -- she wrote her college "thesis" about her deep-seeded racial hate -- and so assumes that white people must be thinking about her all the time too, and we must think even worse of her, thus justifying her angry, bitter obsession with white people. Now she also complains bitterly that young black people are under increased vigilance when they enter stores -- I'm sure there's no FBI crime statistics that could possibly explain that increased vigilance -- and that white people routinely kill black people if they don't carry the right designer hand-bags.Posted by: Ace at 01:37 PM | Comments (453) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Washington Post: Democrat Delegate from Epstein Island, the Insanely Vicious and Corrupt Partisan Stacey Plaskett, Asked Anti-Trump Questions at a Congressional Hearing As Instructed to Do by Her Political Financier Jeffrey Epstein
Even the Washington Post is dog-piling on this dog.
Stacey Plaskett is a corrupt and ugly Virgin Islands delegate to Congress, which means she cannot vote for bills but definitely can ask questions in Congress. Including those prompted by convicted pedophiles who financed his run for the position of delegate in the first place.Gunther EaglemanNot only did she take Epstein's money for years -- which she lied about -- but she also worked for Epstein's "shadowy tax and political influence fixer" before she used Epstein's money to buy a position.
@GuntherEagleman Jul 7 If you wondered how seriously our government takes Epstein's crimes, consider this: Rep. Stacey Plaskett, currently serving on three congressional committees (Budget, Ways and Means, Intelligence), solicited donations from Jeffrey Epstein in 2018, a decade after his 2008 s*x offender conviction. She faced no actual repercussions. Six women sued Plaskett and other Virgin Islands officials in 2023, alleging they enabled Epstei''s trafficking by making the territory a safe haven. As of March 2025, Plaskett is the only defendant remaining in the case. Why hasn't Congress held her accountable for her ties to Epstein?
Lee FangShe is a major defender of censorship by the government, and claims that Elon Musk is taking away her free speech by... critiquing her. She goes on to claim that Musk, by criticizing her, is acting like the apartheid-era South African government. It's just always the same sour song, isn't it? She is the corrupt and ugly hack who called Matt Taibbi a "so-called journalist" for exposing Biden's pressure to censor conservatives and smeared him and other "Twitter Files" journalists.
@lhfang Jun 27, 2023 New court filings show Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-VI, one the most popular Democrats on MSNBC, not only lied about her years-long fundraising from Jeffrey Epstein... she also literally worked for Epstein's shadowy tax and political influence fixer before entering public office.
Now the Delegate from Epstein Island is exposed for taking texts from her patron Jeffrey Epstein during congressional testimony aimed at getting Epstein's hated enemy Trump -- and asking the questions he told her to ask, like a pedophile's ventriloquist dummy which he uses to seduce children. This is now confirmed by all of the left-wing propaganda media, including the Washington Post, NY Times, and even CNN.
Wall Street Apes
@WallStreetApes
In the 20,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents released it shows Democrat Stacey Plaskett was being personally text by Jeffrey Epstein during an Oversight Hearing while she questioned Trump's former attorney He was feeding her what to say Plaskett took money from Epstein "Epstein messaged Delegate Stacey Plaskett while she questioned Michael Cohen. She was actively texting with Epstein during a 2019 House Oversight Committee hearing. While Plaskett grilled President Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, Epstein appeared to be providing real-time coaching, with time stamps matching her questions and his messages. Newly released estate texts are part of oversight committee pages. They come from the Oversight Committee, 20,000 pages released from the Epstein files. They show Epstein sending short notes to Democrat Delegate Stacey Plaskett -- Records also show past donations from Epstein. She was actively being coached and paid by Epstein after he was convicted of sexual trafficking."
Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat who represents the US Virgin Islands in Congress as a non-voting delegate, exchanged texts with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing, the delegate's office confirmed to CNN. "During the hearing, Congresswoman Plaskett received texts from staff, constituents and the public at large offering advice, support and in some cases partisan vitriol, including from Epstein," Plaskett's spokesperson, Angeline Jabbar, said in a statement to CNN. ... The texts, first reported by the Washington Post, were released Wednesday as part of roughly 20,000 pages of documents made public by the House Oversight Committee. The released text messages redact the name of the person Epstein was texting with on February 27, 2019 -- the day former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen testified to the House Oversight Committee about the president's conflicts of interests, business practices and payments to Trump's alleged mistresses to silence their stories before the 2016 elections. The Washington Post analyzed the text messages and compared them to footage of the hearing to report Plaskett was texting Epstein. At the time, Epstein had already been convicted of two state prostitution charges, which he served 13 months for. A few months after the text exchange took place, he would be charged with sex trafficking minors. Epstein had ties to the US territory because he maintained a home on Little St. James in the Virgin Islands, which he acquired in 1998, and purchased nearby Great St. James in 2016, according to a lawsuit filed in 2020. According to the Post, Epstein seemed to have been watching the hearing and his texts to Plaskett appeared to influence what the delegate asked Cohen. In one exchange, Epstein texted Plaskett: "Cohen brought up RONA - keeper of the secrets," referring to -- and misspelling the first name of -- Rhona Graff, a longtime Trump assistant. Plaskett responded: "RONA??" She added at 2:25 p.m, "Quick I'm up next is that an acronym," suggesting that she would be questioning Cohen soon. Epstein responded: "Thats his assistant." At 2:28 p.m., Plaskett began questioning Cohen and asked about Graff, along with other Trump associates he had mentioned, according to the Post. In another text, Epstein told Plaskett "Good work" at 2:34 p.m. -- a minute after Plaskett wrapped up her questioning, the Post reported.Good dog. You can see Stacey Plaskett reading Epstein's texts and then asking the questions he prompts her to ask below. The texts are time dated, so we know exactly when they came in, and can sync them up perfectly to Plaskett's eyes going down to read them, and then asking the question the pedophile financier ordered her to ask.
Posted by: Ace at 12:16 PM | Comments (470) | Trackbacks (Suck)
THE MORNING RANT: Beware the Concern Trolls Advising Trump to Abandon His Agenda Because of the Economy
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
We’re hearing that phrase a lot recently, especially after Democrats just won elections in three deep blue states that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. Illogically, three blue states continuing to vote blue is being used as an excuse by “concerned” pundits to call for President Trump to surrender the MAGA agenda and return to the destructive policies of the Biden-era. Despite the drumbeat of “It’s the economy, stupid,” it’s not just the economy that matters. “It’s” also the mess from Biden’s open border, and it’s the woke propaganda mills that don’t teach our children, and it’s the chemical warfare that is being inflicted on our shores via imported fentanyl, and it’s the threat of jihadi violence, and it’s the invasion of women’s spaces by cross-dressing men, etc. Not only can President Trump fight all those battles simultaneously, he must fight all those battles. That’s what we elected him to do. But there is suddenly a chorus of people demanding that Trump pivot to the economy and only the economy. Coincidentally, this chorus is heavily represented by the permanent Never-Trump pundit class from whom any political prescription should be considered a poison pill. Those demanding that Trump abandon all his successful endeavors to focus on the economy are setting him up for failure. Deliberately. There is also incredible dishonesty in the efforts of false-flag conservatives to blame high-prices on President Trump. Overall prices haven’t deflated from the Biden-era inflation crisis, and these subversive “conservatives” are now trying to blame Trump for prices elevated by Biden economic policies. They worshipfully remember Ronald Reagan stopping Carter-era inflation, but they know darn well that prices didn’t deflate once Reagan’s policies took hold. It’s no different now. Or they’ll get cute and claim that cutting inflation from 9.0% to 3.1% isn’t fast enough improvement, because inflation really needs to be 2.9%. They don’t actually care about prices or inflation, they care about damaging Trump’s ability to govern. Above all else, these concern trolls want the outsourcing of jobs to resume, and they desperately want the tariffs benefiting American labor to be removed. These people despise the thought of an American-citizen doing a job that could otherwise be outsourced to unregulated, inexpensive foreign labor. For those jobs that can’t be offshored, they are also despondent that Trump has dried up the pipeline of off-the-books, illegal labor by gaining control of the border. Here is but a small sample from last week of Never Trumpers offering some America-last economic advice to Mr. Trump: “Gaslighting Americans on inflation is a bad idea” [Washington Examiner – David Harsanyi – 11/13/2025]Hitting consumers with billions in sales tax increases in the guise of tariffs over the last year isn't a much better strategy for Trump. Most economists predicted that tariffs would contribute to price hikes, and yet Trump's love of protectionism trumped pragmatism.“Trump Dismisses Economic Anxiety at His Own Peril” [National Review - Charles C.W. Cooke – 11/12/2025]
Irrespective of one’s view of the merits of tariffs per se, it ought to have been thoroughly obvious to President Trump that the imposition of a slew of draconian import taxes would make his goal of lower costs that much harder.While Never Trumpers are going to Never Trump, what most concerns me is that I am seeing some good, solid, MAGA conservatives taking the bait and offering up their own “It’s the economy, stupid” columns / social media posts. It’s a trap. Can you imagine the MAGA backlash if Trump announced that he was opening up the border again to lower prices via cheap, illegal labor. Or what if Trump announced that foreign fentanyl boats are welcome to resume trafficking fentanyl to our shores without fear of military attack, because the Trump administration is focusing exclusively on the economy. Those actions are actually what the Never Trump concern trolls are trying to bring about via a groundswell of “It’s the economy, stupid” advocacy from actual conservatives. The economy matters, and so do all the other issues that resulted in Donald Trump’s election. Just as it took a few years for Ronald Reagan to undo the stagflation of the Nixon-Carter years, it will take President Trump a few years to undo the damage of the America-last economic agenda of the Bush-Obama-Biden years. Not fixing all that damage in just a few months won’t hurt President Trump near as much as if he backtracks on his signature accomplishments and does nothing but react to day-to-day economic headlines.
I’ve noticed that the globalist, legacy-conservative adversaries of Trump who have opposed Trump’s America-first agenda are now squawking in unison, “It’s the economy, stupid” in a false flag attempt to get him to reopen the border, stop tariffs, and outsource American jobs.
— Buck Throckmorton (@BuckThrockmort) November 13, 2025
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (337) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
Hans von Aachen
Hans von Aachen
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (190) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report — 11/17/25
And so, despite Sowell's observations about socialism and the "rich" this kind of stands out like a sore thumb.
Dissonance, or are Bass and Newsom merely placating a larger, younger, more hardcore leftist base because of national ambitions, especially by Newsom? It also brings to mind this piece which we recently highlighted a week or so ago.
Gates' sudden epiphany is completely mercenary. Gates knows that he cannot fuel – pun intended – his AI ambitions without massive amounts of energy. And that requires Fossil Fuels. There will never be enough wind, solar or unicorn flatus in a billion billion years to realize his AI ambitions, and he knows it. Gates is still a megalomaniac who, like Bass and Newsom, considers himself to be an Ubermenschen who has the moral right to steer and mold humanity and society as he sees fit. No doubt AI will be used by him and his ilk for that purpose. And anyone who objects will find themselves in a mass grave or in the next iteration of Birkenau's lake of ashes. Of that I have no doubt. Have a good day.
Although socialism has long claimed to be for the poor, it has probably done more damage, on net balance, to the poor than to the rich. After all, the rich have enough money to leave the country if they think the socialists are going to do them any serious harm. . . The rich have learned to adapt socialist policies to their own benefit. For example, the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, is planning to demolish a working class neighborhood under its power of eminent domain, in order to prepare the way for a marina for yachts, luxury condominiums and an upscale shopping district. What will the city of Riviera Beach get out of all this? More taxes from higher-income people, enabling local politicians to spend more money on programs to attract votes. Meanwhile, the rich get rid of lower-income folks without having to pay them the value of their homes and businesses that will be demolished. As in so many other cases, eminent domain is socialism for the rich. Theoretically, those whose homes and businesses are demolished will get the "just compensation" to which the Constitution says they are entitled. In reality, just announcing plans to demolish the homes in an area will immediately demolish part of their market value. Even if homeowners are compensated for whatever value remains when their homes are actually demolished — which can be years later — they have still been had.How different our society and world would be if the writings of individuals like Sowell, Milton Friedman, Eric Hoffer and Karl Popper were central to the curricula of the last three generations of American students. considering the nature of who has been running our schools during that time an up until the present day, it's no wonder that despite the death, destruction, waste and misery left in the wake of socialism wherever it has and continues to exist, there is this headlong rush to embrace it and condemn free market capitalism, not only the greatest driver but indeed the ONLY driver of freedom, prosperity and societal advancement in all of human history, by the younger generations of Americans.
And so, despite Sowell's observations about socialism and the "rich" this kind of stands out like a sore thumb.
The Los Angeles area is still struggling to recover from the January blazes. Six months after the fires began, it i being reported only 68 rebuilding permits have been issued for the hard-hit area if Pacific Palisades…where over 6800 structures were destroyed.Of course there were very credible reports that both Bass and Newsom were planning on transforming the once upscale neighborhood into what would have amounted to Watts on the Pacific as one huge low income housing development.
Dissonance, or are Bass and Newsom merely placating a larger, younger, more hardcore leftist base because of national ambitions, especially by Newsom? It also brings to mind this piece which we recently highlighted a week or so ago.
Bill Gates Gets Mugged by Reality . . . Inconvenient truths about climate change and energy.Well, as CBD, Buck Throckmorton and I discussed on the latest episode of the podcast (linked here and on the outlets listed below)
Gates' sudden epiphany is completely mercenary. Gates knows that he cannot fuel – pun intended – his AI ambitions without massive amounts of energy. And that requires Fossil Fuels. There will never be enough wind, solar or unicorn flatus in a billion billion years to realize his AI ambitions, and he knows it. Gates is still a megalomaniac who, like Bass and Newsom, considers himself to be an Ubermenschen who has the moral right to steer and mold humanity and society as he sees fit. No doubt AI will be used by him and his ilk for that purpose. And anyone who objects will find themselves in a mass grave or in the next iteration of Birkenau's lake of ashes. Of that I have no doubt. Have a good day.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
- The rich have learned to adapt socialist policies to their own benefit.
THOMAS SOWELL: Wealthy Americans use socialism to their own benefit while the poor suffer
- Victor Davis Hanson: The climate creed that once ruled unquestioned is cracking as energy needs, geopolitical reality, and basic science force the West to admit carbon isn’t dying anytime soon.
Reality Caught Up to ‘Climate Change’
Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:39 AM | Comments (387) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 17 November 2025
Top Story
- The world's first microprocessor wasn't Intel's 4004, but the 20-bit MP944 control system built for the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. (Tom's Hardware)
Which I already knew, because while it was classified information in 1970 when it first launched - literally - it was declassified in the late 90s. (And because a while back I was doing a search for computer hardware with unusual word sizes, and 20 bits qualified.)
It's also not true.
- The first true microprocessor was probably the AL1 from Four-Phase Systems. (Wikipedia)
It was an 8-bit device, but it was what was known as a "bit slice" design: You could simply chain multiple units together to create a larger word size. The AL1 was never sold by itself, but the company did sell the System IV/70, a video terminal controller, that used three such chips to create a 24-bit CPU.
It was announced and in use two months before the first working samples of the MP944, and a year before Intel's 4004.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (203) | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 16, 2025
Sunday Overnight Open Thread - November 16, 2025 [Doof]
Wow - a whole year already?!?
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT! In case you were wondering, and I know you ALL were - tonight marks the one year anniversary of my first ONT post. Exactly 52 weeks ago tonight, I dipped my toes into the ONT hosting pool for the first time. Little did I know then that I'd become the regular Sunday night host, I'd incrementally add a 2nd and 3rd night, and I'd co-host the (as of then non-existent) Saturday night Club ONT. You folks put up with me FOUR nights a week! How do you do it?!?! Anyway, I was planning to merely mention this 1-year anniversary just briefly. Then I saw the Wednesday night ONT from T Rex, and a bar was set. Naturally, I had to try to outdo my good friend and colleague - the short armed one. So what's say we step inside and see what I was able to come up with?
Wow - a whole year already?!?
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Sunday night ONT! In case you were wondering, and I know you ALL were - tonight marks the one year anniversary of my first ONT post. Exactly 52 weeks ago tonight, I dipped my toes into the ONT hosting pool for the first time. Little did I know then that I'd become the regular Sunday night host, I'd incrementally add a 2nd and 3rd night, and I'd co-host the (as of then non-existent) Saturday night Club ONT. You folks put up with me FOUR nights a week! How do you do it?!?! Anyway, I was planning to merely mention this 1-year anniversary just briefly. Then I saw the Wednesday night ONT from T Rex, and a bar was set. Naturally, I had to try to outdo my good friend and colleague - the short armed one. So what's say we step inside and see what I was able to come up with?
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (392) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Gun Thread: Third November Edition!
Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (321) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Food Thread: Duck...Duck...Dalit!
Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (287) | Trackbacks (Suck)
First-World Problems...
***
And below the fold is a carefully considered rebuttal to my coffee-cup missive from last week.
And below the fold is a carefully considered rebuttal to my coffee-cup missive from last week.
Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (197) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Taxpayer-Funded Universities Are Training Foreigners To Take Our Jobs. H1Bs And OPTs Make It Even Worse!
Congress must act, and act quickly to repair the damage that generations of globalists and bean counters have done to American employment. In fact, a major overhaul would be quite simple. End H1B visas. End the OPT program. Evaluate foreign worker entry into the American job market on a case-by-case basis. And if it takes three years to get a $75,000/year Indian programmer, then so be it. Absent a clearly demonstrated lack of domestic labor supply, the answer should always be "no." Will that injure American technological progress? Perhaps, although I doubt it very much. The intellectual pipeline flows mostly one way, and that direction is out of America to the rest of the world. Certainly the panicked CEOs of many corporations will trot out examples -- real or imagined -- where their businesses will be injured by shutting down the supply of foreign labor, but each of those CEOs should be invited to fund American training systems that will generate domestic labor supply. That's what they should have been doing a long time ago. The function of government is not to protect the profits of corporations. It is to protect the well being of the people. We are long past the time when American business leaders should be taken seriously when they whine about global competitiveness and allowing capital to flow to the most efficient places. The Trump administration has a year to get this correct...the 2026 mid-term elections are a great unknown, but history suggests a malign result. Do it now, and the American people will thank President Trump, the Republican Party, and the pro-American legislators who pushed back against the globalists!
Our universities eagerly accept foreigners because they pay full tuition, and in many cases additional fees...never mind that they are taking spots that have been funded by American taxpayers for American students. The universities also have greater control over foreign students because of their student visas...they will do pretty much what they are told, including teaching undergraduates for very little or no compensation. Of course, many of them don't speak English well enough to be effective instructors, but the universities certainly don't care. They long ago ceased being educators of American youth and have become propagandists for their peculiar ignorant leftism. But that may be a secondary function....most are fanatically fixated on growing their institutions and their endowments, and be damned with the idea of educating Americans!
And our horrid anti-American corporations take advantage of every single employment regulation to maximize their profitability at the expense of the American taxpayer. Should they be allowed to use the law to their advantage? Absolutely! Should our lawmakers change the law so that the employment of Americans is the only goal of the law? Absolutely! Yes, I despise most of our corporations because they have lost sight of even the most basic pro-American sensibilities. That's why JP Morgan's announcement a few weeks ago of a significant pro-American financial initiative was so welcome, and so surprising. Hopefully it will be the impetus for other American banks and other companies to invest in America and Americans. Job Prospects for 2026 College Grads to Hit 5-Year Low While Employers Eye AI, Foreign LaborIn 2024 alone, the Biden administration approved work permits for approximately 400,000 foreign college graduates through the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program — a 45 percent increase from 2020 levels under President Trump. Former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joe Edlow and other Trump administration officials have warned that programs like OPT are depressing wages and displacing American graduates, particularly in high-demand STEM and business fields. The pipeline from foreign student to U.S. worker also begins at the admissions level. Breitbart News opinion contributor Rich Kaye questioned why taxpayer-funded public universities are increasingly filling seats with international students who later convert F-1 student visas into work permits. “When a public university replaces a Georgia student with an F‑1 student in a high‑demand field,” Kaye wrote, “it increases the pipeline pressure tomorrow for H‑1B allocations in exactly the sectors where Americans could be trained to fill roles.”
Congress must act, and act quickly to repair the damage that generations of globalists and bean counters have done to American employment. In fact, a major overhaul would be quite simple. End H1B visas. End the OPT program. Evaluate foreign worker entry into the American job market on a case-by-case basis. And if it takes three years to get a $75,000/year Indian programmer, then so be it. Absent a clearly demonstrated lack of domestic labor supply, the answer should always be "no." Will that injure American technological progress? Perhaps, although I doubt it very much. The intellectual pipeline flows mostly one way, and that direction is out of America to the rest of the world. Certainly the panicked CEOs of many corporations will trot out examples -- real or imagined -- where their businesses will be injured by shutting down the supply of foreign labor, but each of those CEOs should be invited to fund American training systems that will generate domestic labor supply. That's what they should have been doing a long time ago. The function of government is not to protect the profits of corporations. It is to protect the well being of the people. We are long past the time when American business leaders should be taken seriously when they whine about global competitiveness and allowing capital to flow to the most efficient places. The Trump administration has a year to get this correct...the 2026 mid-term elections are a great unknown, but history suggests a malign result. Do it now, and the American people will thank President Trump, the Republican Party, and the pro-American legislators who pushed back against the globalists!
Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (296) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-16-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
(HT: sharon (willow's apprentice))
(HT: sharon (willow's apprentice))
Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (Kaboom!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(cosmic power not included)
So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (287) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 16 November 2025
Top Story
- The jury in a federal court case has sided with medical equipment manufacturer Masimo and awarded them $643 million in their lawsuit against Apple over patent infringement in the Apple Watch. (Tech Crunch)
The patent applies to blood oxygen monitoring, which is a little curious since such devices are now everywhere.
Also - according to Apple - this applies to a single very specific patent that expired in 2022.
Of course, Apple would say that. But it also doesn't mean it's not true.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (240) | Trackbacks (Suck)
November 15, 2025
Saturday Night "Club ONT" November 15, 2025 [The 3 Ds]
*****
Fall is upon us. Button up your insulated flannel, grab a table by the fire, find some cider or your drink of choice, and pretend you love pumpkin spice.
Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (344) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Saturday Evening Movie Post [moviegique]: The Best Years Of Our Lives
Hoagy Carmichael in the back, and from left-to-right: Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic March
Since my last missive, I saw no fewer than thirteen movies in the theater. And I've been trying to get back into reviewing them all as I go, a habit that got broke during Covid and never really came back, probably due at least as much to my writing novels as anything else.
There was the delightful documentary Rebel With A Clause where a lady and her husband go around to various American cities and set up a "Grammar Table" where she answered people's nagging grammar questions, took complaints and collected regional novelties. There was del Toro's Frankenstein that does to that story what he did for Pinocchio—i.e., twist it to serve his own hobby horses so much that it completely inverts the original story and renders it incoherent. (It does, at least, feature a Frankenhole!) Then I jetted off to the Texas theater for a night of shenanigans with Joe Bob Briggs where we watched: The Tinger, Trick Or Treat, Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park, Halloween 3, Phantom of the Paradise and "Garfield's Halloween Adventure". After a paucity of interesting movies in October, four were released in just the last few weeks: the psychological thriller If I Had Legs, the 30th anniversary of Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou, Persian guerilla filmmaker Jafar Panahi's gripping It Was Just An Accident, and Yorgos Lanthimos' latest adventure in hating humanity Bugonia. Did I mention the Estonian horror musical Chainsaws Were Singing? Because I should totally mention the Estonian horror musical Chainsaws Were Singing. I liked all of them to varying degrees, but none of them seem very Thanksgiving-y—except "Rebel Without A Clause," which is chock full of Americana and gratitude. But I haven't written the review for that yet, so I'm going with a classic from Thanksgiving 20201: The Best Years of Our Lives. Enjoy! --- When I was a boy, the greatest of the secular holidays--if you'll forgive the oxymoron--was Thanksgiving. It sat defiantly on a Thursday and, fortified by the mythology of America, simultaneously closed the stores and clogged the airports and the bus stations. Gourmandizing aside, it was--and still is--a holiday that defied commercialization because its elemental substance was gratitude. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, encroached on one side by the increasingly commercialized Christmas and on the other by a Halloween metastasized from ever -expanding childhoods, Thanksgiving has not been a font of pop culture. Or, as Loudon Wainwright III put it:Suddenly, it's Christmas right after Halloween(Wainwright's thoughts on Thanksgiving can be found here.) Up until a few years ago, when John Hughes' Planes, Trains and Automobiles emerged from the cinematic soup of the '80s as a modern Thanksgiving classic (and setting aside the second best Peanuts special), the film I most associated with Thanksgiving was The Best Years of Our Lives. So ingrained was this in my head, I was rather surprised on a recent viewing to discover Thanksgiving makes no appearance in the film whatsoever--though it was released one week before Thanksgiving in 1946. No Thanksgiving, but a whole lot of giving thanks.
Forget about Thanksgiving, it's just a buffet in-between
Hoagy Carmichael in the back, and from left-to-right: Harold Russell, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, Myrna Loy, Frederic MarchPosted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (321) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Hobby Thread - November 15, 2025 [Mobile Rex]
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. A spin of the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) landed on RV life.
Are you thinking "I don't like the great outdoors and I don't have an RV, but I am curious how others do it. I'm eager to learn more. I can't wait to get into the content!" I knew it. Enjoy. [Top photo: Yosemite Falls from tankascribe ]Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (220) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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