"I'm Not Done:" Kamala Harris Threatens to Run for President Again

I've said a bunch of times that I don't think she really wants to run for office again.

I think the play here is extortion: Give me my own Harris-branded Clinton Global Initiative grift and I'll go away. If not, I'm running.

Speaking as a black and queer woman, I say, You go girl. You secure that bag.

Kamala Harris suggested this weekend that she isn't done with politics and could mount another bid for the presidency in 2028. Speaking to the BBC's "Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg," the former vice president said her career in public service is far from over. "I am not done. I have lived my entire career as a life of service, and it's in my bones," Harris told the program. She brushed aside polls showing her trailing fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom, saying, "If I listened to polls, I would have not run for my first office, or my second office -- and I certainly wouldn't be sitting here."

Her remarks come as new polling continues to show Harris among the least popular national Democrats. Political analyst Lakshya Jain reported last week that 54 percent of Americans hold a somewhat or very unfavorable view of her -- one of the highest negatives in the party. Despite the numbers, Harris used the interview to reprise her failed 2024 campaign message, painting President Donald Trump as an authoritarian and accusing his administration of "weaponizing" federal agencies against political opponents. She even claimed, without evidence, that Trump was involved in ABC's suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after the network confirmed the comedian fabricated facts about Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination.

"You look at what has happened in terms of how he has weaponized, for example, federal agencies going around after political satirists," Harris said. "His skin is so thin he couldn't endure criticism from a joke, and attempted to shut down an entire media organization in the process." She also accused Trump of turning the Department of Justice into a political tool, declaring, "He said he would weaponize the Department of Justice -- and he has done exactly that."

Speaking as a black woman and member of the LGBT community: The absolute gall.

.

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (308) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mamdani Holds Rally With AOC in "Show of Force"

The end of New York City.

And, speaking as a black lesbian of color, good riddance.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Zohran Mamdani in Queens on Sunday for a campaign rally that doubled as a show of strength for the Democrat Party's ascendant left. The congresswoman urged supporters to reject critics who call their movement "crazy" or "outlandish," framing New York's immigrant story as the moral foundation of their cause.

"This city was built by the Irish escaping famine, Italians fleeing fascism, Jews escaping the Holocaust, Black Americans fleeing slavery and Jim Crow," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Latinos seeking a better life, Native people standing for themselves, Asian Americans coming together -- all to build the freest, toughest, and greatest city on earth."

The event capped a weekend of endorsements for Mamdani, a state assemblyman and member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has rapidly become one of the country's most polarizing political figures. On Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries offered a formal endorsement, calling Mamdani "a mayor for all New Yorkers," joining Sen. Bernie Sanders, who earlier praised him as "the best choice for NYC mayor."

Ocasio-Cortez, one of Mamdani's earliest allies, told the crowd their movement was misunderstood, not misguided. "We must remember in a time such as this, we are not the crazy ones, New York City," she said. "They want us to think we are crazy. We are sane."

...

A September survey funded by the DSA found that 74 percent of Democrats now say "democratic socialism" best represents their views. That shift has given Mamdani an opening few candidates on the city's left have ever enjoyed.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (423) | Trackbacks (Suck)

On Fat Generals and Admirals [Diogenes]

About a month ago the Secretary of War (I just love that!) laid down the law about being overweight and out of shape. No more fat generals and admirals. “It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading Commands around the country and the world. It is not who we are.”

He is absolutely right.

Some thoughts:

First and foremost, fat soldiers do not survive on the battlefield. Multiple studies were done back in the late 80’s about the success of Units going through a “Training Rotation” at the National Training Center at Ft Irwin CA. A Rotation was a 30 day exercise at Ft Irwin doing a variety of battlefield tasks (attack, defend, movement to contact, etc.) This was, and remains, the single best test of a Unit’s warfighting capability. Using lasers and computers, it is as realistic as it can be. Tactics are tested and the Units fight against a real Opposing Force (OPFOR) unit that is stationed there full time. The Rotations are hard, and they are meant to be. The studies measured the ability of a Unit to “win” (survive and defeat the OPFOR) against the Unit’s overall scores on the Physical Training Test (PT Test…push-ups, sit-ups and a 2 mile run). The results showed a direct correlation. The better the score, the more likely they were to defeat the OPFOR. This study covered dozens of Battalion-sized units over several years.

The bottom line: fit soldiers and leaders did better. They could operate longer without sleep; leaders made better and faster decisions; they could read the battlefield better and outmaneuver the OPFOR to defeat them. And I saw this in fact during Desert Storm.

The Army leadership noticed. The emphasis on PT has always been there, but standards were examined and changed.

The Secretary’s point about standards is correct. Not male or female per se, but a single set of standards. If you can meet the standard for a particular job, then you can enlist for that job. Artillery shells can weigh up to 100 pounds. In combat the loaders on an artillery piece may have to lift hundreds of shells over a period of hours. On tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, it is common to see one “throw” a track. It is up to the crew to repair it and track pads weigh between 45-60 pounds each. The whole set can run over 5 tons. Not an easy job and no standing around. Get it done!

It is the same for the rest of the Army. If attacked, can you fight back? Can you carry boxes of ammo to a fighting position? Or carry a buddy back to an aide station? We are all in it. Army…Marines…Air Force…Coasties. We fight as a Team.

I could go on.

The point of Secretary Hegseth’s talk was to set a standard for the Leadership. If the troops must be fit, they needed to be fit as well. I think everyone recognizes that a man or woman at 52 years of age isn’t the same as when they were 32. But they can still be fit and meet a standard.

Lastly, and this is important. The Secretary’s speech was not aimed at just the Pentagon. It was a message to the American people, our Allies, and our future adversaries. America’s military will be fit to fight.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 11:00 AM | Comments (364) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Naissance
Le Corbusier

[Hat Tip: J.J. Sefton]

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (475) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 10/28/25

Good morning kids. Ah yes, Death's Head deadhead Democrat Graham Platner has been shown to have planted his hobnailed jackboot in his throat. Or given that he has the magical "D" designator after his name, at the end of the day, will it really matter? Just axing the question, folks.

Democrat Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner defended a 2013 Reddit post asking “why black people don’t tip,” telling Pod Save America last week that he was “legitimately curious” and did not mean it “in any malicious way.”

So far no comment from the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of CHEAP People!

And while we're on the subject of axing questions, here's one that seems to be more and more relevant day after day now:

License To Kill: What Turns Normal People To Political Violence? . . . How did we reach such a point where assassination is not only excused but openly applauded? And where will this path of legitimized violence take us next? We, two immigrants from China, have seen this descent before. And tragically, we know all too well where it leads.

I suppose this is a good follow up to yesterday's editorial in which I disagreed with Victor Davis Hanson's observation on a cycle of political violence from both sides, insofar as all the political violence is coming from one side, the Democrat/Socialist/Left and inflicted on us. In China, as the authors know all too well, the State and the Communist Party under Mao slaughtered 16 million or more of its citizens and outlawed and erased thousands of years of Chinese history and culture as well as late 20th century modernity that conflicted with the Communist dogma that put the CCP and kept them in power.

The parallels to wokism/Leftism and Democrat policy are truly frightening. The only difference is unlike the Chinese peasantry and sane/moral intelligentsia, those who are viewed by the Democrat anti-AMerican Left as their enemies are armed to the teeth.

The only unknown is, what will it take (and I cannot stress this enough) GOD-FORBID for those weapons to actually be wielded.

On that note, there's this item:

The suspect, identified as Tyler Maxon Avalos, allegedly posted an image of Bondi with a caption that read “WANTED: Pam Bondi — REWARD: $45,000 — DEAD OR ALIVE (Preferably Dead),” Fox News reported Monday. . . The Fox report said Avalos has a long criminal history that includes convictions for stalking and domestic violence.

A big part of the problem is not only those willing to commit acts of political terrorism, but a political and judicial system that gives it more than a mere nod-and-a-wink okay to pull the trigger, if you will. But the full power of the state to protect those who actually do it snd ind in doing so aids and abets in the terrorism acting as a sort of de facto state sponsor, if you will, of terrorism.

The defendant’s attorneys had asked the judge’s permission for Robinson to wear civilian clothing and appear unshackled in court, arguing that appearing like a prisoner would bias a jury’s perception. The defense team made special mention of the amount of attention the case has received. The judge appeared swayed by the defense team’s argument, though Graf’s sympathy was limited. The judge said that the request to appear in civilian clothes would cause only “minimal inconvenience” to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office when compared to Robinson’s interest in a fair trial.

Big deal or no? But then there's this:

For months, Antifa and its communist "comrades" have taken control of areas around the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland. It literally has been an Antifa No-Go zone: If they say "no," you can't go.

Since June, whenever Antifa members wanted to, they could, without any pushback from police, take over the street in front of the facility and leave motorists skedaddling to find another way home. Portland Police Bureau officers have been fine with allowing the Antifa takeover of this area since the violent domestic terror group started its occupation of the area. In fact, police have protected the terror organization's takeover by keeping drivers away from their pet protesters and ordering them to go home another way. Drivers have been threatened with arrest if they attempt to drive slowly through the crowd illegally blocking the road. 

In addition to access to an organized safe house in a nearby apartment so they can potty, eat, and, rest to refresh themselves before starting their next shift of vandalism and violence, Antifa has taken over swaths of sidewalks around the facility. The group operates out of a collection of pop-up tents that I've personally seen and have described as grimy and disgusting. Independent journalist Nick Shirley said it looked as if hoarders lived there. How right we are. So in addition to being a health hazard, these various encampments prevent residents from freedom of movement. 

I cannot even imagine where we'd be had Chlamydia Harris won the last election. Well, much of this would not be happening since ICE would have been abolished and a couple more million illegal aliens would have crossed the RIO Grande, the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans and spread out across the nation like the plague.

But of course, if Lord forbid they do seize the reins of power in the midterms and again in '28, We are in for a wave of terror that I don't even want to think about.

Have a good day!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know. 

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• While some are trying to frame this move as xenophobia or Islamophobia, it’s a logical move based on his statements and affiliations.
  Where Is Trump’s DoJ On Denaturalizing Zohran Mamdani?

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:20 AM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 28 October 2025

Top Story

• The Department of Energy has signed a $1 billion deal - of some sort - with AMD to build two new supercomputers for energy and medical research. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The systems - one to be delivered early next year, the second in 2028 - use AMD's Epyc CPUs and Instinct accelerator cards. Instinct is marketed mostly towards AI now, because that's where the money is, but it's a general purpose card for crunching lots of numbers very quickly and makes a fine building block for a supercomputer.
  
  
  
• Qualcomm meanwhile is chasing the trillion dollar bubble with its AI200 and AI250 accelerator cards. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The two cards are expected to arrive next year and 2027 respectively. Since these are new devices and don't have the track record of Nvidia or AMD (or even Intel) it's hard to know how well they will compete, but Qualcomm did announce that the cards will have 768GB of LPDDR memory each.
  
  These are strongly oriented towards low-precision calculations and would not be as useful for a non-AI supercomputer, or for playing Minecraft.
  
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (124) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Monday Overnight Open Thread (10/27/25)

*****

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

"We've had a tremendous amount of interest since we announced that we were exploring the pro league earlier this year. I think that really just shows the strong belief in, and the demand for, a professional flag league for both women and men."Stephanie Kwok, the NFL's vice president and head of NFL Flag

Quote II

‘Don’t have them in your home. Take every precaution you can. Listen to your gut. I never thought it would happen to my child.’ Clare Gillespie

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:03 PM | Comments (384) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fall Has Fallen Cafe

The most adorable little bandits.

FAFO, Feline Edition.

Cow zoomies.

Treat peek-a-boo.

Little dog has a natural advantage in hide and seek.

Polar bears are deadly, but also cute.

Nancy Pelosi and her dog.

Fuzzy fitness trainer.

I don't even understand how he got into this position.

Turn in your Dog Card. You shame your species.

Now this is one of those perverted furpiles.

A short but satisfying pet mystery movie.

Hands-In, Bird Edition.

Big dog needs a hug.

Dog wants more of a hands-on role in caring for the baby.

Posted by: Ace at 07:20 PM | Comments (270) | Trackbacks (Suck)

After Years of Attacking Their Enemies as Nazis and Urging Violence Against Them, the Democrats Celebrate Their New Fake Working-Class Nazi Because He's Also a Communist and "Antifa Supersoldier"

If you're an-Nazi and you don't see a path for redemption, I've got great news for you: It's super-easy, barely an inconvenience.

Just declare yourself a communist and train your "socialist resistance" militia members in how to murder cops and government officials.

According to a new poll, a majority of young Democrats still back Maine Democratic Senate hopeful Graham Platner following fallout over his chest tattoo.

...

Platner is a first-time political candidate, veteran, and oyster farmer, who has positioned himself as critical of the Democratic establishment, describes himself as a "foe of the oligarchy," on social media, and has been endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party.

...

The recent poll comes from a SoCal Strategies Survey of the Democratic Primary for Senate in Maine. It found that initially, Mills held a 5-point lead over Platner (41 percent to 36 percent), with a fifth of respondents saying they were undecided.

When voters were informed of the scandal surrounding Platner's tattoo, Mills' lead increased 30 points (59 percent to 29 percent).

Despite this general shift, Platner's lead with young people has stayed strong. Among voters aged between 18 and 29, Platner had a lead (56 percent to 17 percent) against Mills. Support among these voters continued when they were informed of Platner's tattoo scandal, with the demographic favoring him (52 percent to 31 percent.)

This primary doesn't go off until next year. I don't see Platner bowing out, given that he's so far ahead, which means the Democrats are all-in on the Nazi Antifa Supersoldier.

Note that he's not just training Antifa in how to shoot guns for sport. He specifically says that semiautomatic rifles, so despised by the left when in the hands of law-abiding citizens, may be necessary to "fight fascism."

From The Atlantic's Alice-in-Wonderland piece pondering the Democrats' new "tolerance" for once-#cancellable speech, like declaring yourself a Nazi.

Last week, though, CNN released a report revealing Platner's Reddit history under the username "P-Hustle." In 2021, he referred to himself as "a communist," and said that all cops are bastards. Other news outlets soon found additional posts: Platner suggested in 2018 that semiautomatic rifles are necessary to "fight fascism," and in various posts from 2013, made insensitive remarks about sexual assault and asked, "Why don't black people tip?"

The article notes that the Punch-a-Nazi Democrats are suddenly pro-Nazi. Nazism, they say, is a youthful indiscretion.

But for now, at least, the Democratic party is not calling on Platner to step down. Ken Martin, the head of the DNC, said that Platner's online comments were "hurtful" but not "disqualifying," and that the choice is up to primary voters. Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who is neutral in the race, said, "Everyone has a right to grow and grow out of their stupidity." Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said, "Graham has made a lot of mistakes in his life. He's had a very long journey to the place where he is today, but he's owned those mistakes, owned up to them, and he's evolved." Khanna called the tattoo "horrendous," but said: "Do we want our political governing class to be like the classmates I had at Yale Law School, some of them who dreamed of being president of the United States from the age of twelve?" He continued, "Or do we want normal people also having a chance at these offices?" Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said, "He went through a dark period. He's not the only one in America who has gone through a dark period." He continued, "I'm confident that he's going to run a great campaign and that he's going to win." A poll released yesterday, conducted as the news about Platner's past was breaking, found him leading his Democratic primary opponent Maine governor Janet Mills by 34 points.

And then the article discovers The Real Villain Here. Can you guess who?

Democrats' apparent willingness to stick with Platner may be an acknowledgment that the question of which behavior is disqualifying to voters is more uncertain now than it used to be. Where is the line on internet speech and basic decency, for example, when the White House conducts politics by meme, and the governor of California's X account has resorted to open trolling?

Oh well that's the same as literally branding yourself with Nazi symbols. We were all young and irresponsible and interested in theories of a mystical Aryan race and Aryan supremacy, right?

Even some Democrats notice the shift from "Punch a Nazi" to "Vote for a Nazi."

Many of his supporters, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are standing by him for now. And recent polling has suggested Platner is far more popular than Gov. Janet Mills, his top Democratic rival, raising the question of whether voters will overlook his baggage as the party seeks a new generation of leaders who could appeal to a broader demographic.

"I think Donald Trump has changed our politics for a long time, some for the good and some for the bad," Rocha told The Hill. "One thing for the good, in my opinion, he's done is proven that folks don't have to be perfect. They can have some rough edges and that America is pretty forgiving."

But other Democrats say they're not willing to be forgiving of Platner.

"I do not understand how we can go from having a subset of the party that is obsessed with calling Donald Trump a Nazi to then going to vast lengths to excuse a Nazi tattoo," said one unnamed Democratic strategist.

Platner's allies say it's not fair to compare his tattoo to what they argue is Trump's authoritarian style of governing.

"There is a huge difference between a Republican that supports Trump's gestapo-like tactics, sweeping people off the street with no due process and shipping them to El Salvador, and who has a Nazi symbol associated with themselves," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. gr

"One is somebody confirming a whole ideology that they actually believe in, and in Graham Platner's case, it's an unfortunate bump in the road," he added.

Last week, CNN's K-File reviewed posts that Platner once wrote on Reddit in 2020 and 2021 in which he criticized police officers, showed frustration and disillusionment about his time serving in the military and spoke about being a "communist" and a "socialist."

And earlier this week, the LGBTQ news magazine The Advocate published past Reddit posts from Platner, which he originally posted under the handle P-Hustle, from 2016-21, in which he used vulgar, antigay slurs and used the word "gay" as an insult.

When I -- and commenters -- use "gay" as an insult, the site gets blocked from every workplace as a "hate site" and subjected to a worldwide corporate advertising embargo.

When the Nazi uses "gay" as an insult, he gets praised for being (fake) "working class" and "blue collar."

Meanwhile, Chris Murphy has been branding everyone supporting Trump as a Nazi for years.

And now? Second look at Naziism.

Posted by: Ace at 06:22 PM | Comments (199) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Quick Hits

Three years after the 9/11 attacks that so inconvenienced his aunt in her commutes from Tanzania, Zohran Mamdani's father Mahmood (of course) argued that we must not view suicide bombers are barbaric terrorists, but as soldiers honorably fighting their enemies.

Andy Ngo
@MrAndyNgo

Portland (Oct. 26) -- In a final move to argue the city doesn't need the National Guard to maintain order, @PortlandPolice and state troopers dismantle & confiscate leftover Antifa riot camp supplies. Why didn't they do this months ago?

Video here.

It's almost as if the state and city government are in league with a terrorist street army and will only act against them if the federal government threatens an invasion.

Are they going to shut down the Antifa safe house just feet from the ICE facility or nah?

The left continues embracing and promoting assassination culture.

An anarchist with a lengthy rap sheet has been arrested for allegedly putting a $45,000 hit out on US Attorney General Pam Bondi on TikTok, according to the feds.

Tyler Maxon Avalos, 29, was nabbed on Oct. 16 after a tipster alerted the FBI to the alleged murder-for-hire plot the suspect had blasted out on social media earlier this month.

The chilling post included a photo of Bondi with a "sniper-scope red dot" on her forehead with the caption: "WANTED: Pam Bondi / REWARD: 45,000 ' DEAD OR ALIVE / (PREFERABLY DEAD)," court documents charge.

Underneath the photo, Avalos allegedly added: "Cough cough. When they don't serve us, then what?"

The feds allege Avalos, who has a prior history of convictions, has anarchist ties and noted that his TikTok username was "Wacko" -- an apparent anarchy symbol.

His profile also brandished a link to "An Anarchist FAQ book," according to court filings.

Avalos has a lengthy criminal history, including prior raps for stalking and domestic assault, records show.

Taylor Lorenz wants to date him.

Speaking of Bondi: She's putting Pelosi on notice about her incitement against ICE agents.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a blunt warning late Thursday to top Democrat leaders threatening Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, saying anyone who targets federal officers enforcing deportation laws could face arrest. The warning came after reports that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and other Democrat leaders were exploring ways to arrest or expose ICE agents operating in their jurisdictions.

"You cannot disclose the identity of a federal agent, where they live, or anything that can harm them," Bondi said during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters. She confirmed that Pelosi and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins had each received formal letters from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche cautioning them against interfering with ICE operations.

During the interview, Bondi revealed that she had ordered Pelosi to preserve her emails in connection with an ongoing investigation. "You are impeding an investigation, and we will charge you. If they think I won't, they have not met me," she said. The exchange quickly drew national attention after Watters shared the clip on X, noting Bondi's warning came after Pelosi "ordered ICE to be arrested."

John Brennan is claiming that he's innocent and that Trump is just out for revenge.

Trouble is, John Brennan is incandescently guilty of everything he's charged with.

HOW JOHN BRENNAN LIED TO CONGRESS. The Justice Department is evaluating a criminal referral accusing former CIA Director John Brennan of lying to Congress. In the referral, Republican members of the House allege that Brennan lied to investigators trying to figure out what the nation's intelligence agencies did in their pursuit of President Donald Trump over the Russia collusion matter. The case is a strong one.

It started back in 2017. Congressional Republicans were trying to trace the FBI, CIA, and other agencies' activities in what is often known as the "Russia hoax." One central focus was the Steele dossier, the collection of false and salacious accusations that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
Recommended Stories

The dossier, as everyone knows today, was a political oppo research job. It was put together by a former British spy who was hired and paid by operatives working on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign. As an investigative document, it was 100% BS.

That, of course, did not stop the FBI from embracing it. The bureau accepted the dossier as a legitimate source. The FBI included material from the dossier in a secret court application to wiretap a former low-level Trump campaign aide named Carter Page. And it even briefly hired the dossier's fabricator, Christopher Steele.
Here was where things did not add up for Hill investigators. Given what the FBI was doing, one might have expected that the CIA would also have played some role in the whole dossier saga. But John Brennan, then the head of the CIA, swore under oath that the CIA had nothing to do with the dossier.

A lot of the Republicans' questions had to do with what was called the Intelligence Community Assessment, the document produced by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies describing their investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The assessment had famously -- and controversially -- concluded that Vladimir Putin "developed a clear preference" for candidate Donald Trump and "aspired" to help Trump win the election.

GOP investigators wanted to know: Was that conclusion based on the dossier?

Republicans knew the FBI wanted to include the dossier's allegations in the Intelligence Community Assessment. But what about the CIA? Did Brennan's agency support including the dossier in the assessment? In testimony on May 23, 2017, Brennan said absolutely not, that the dossier played no role in the CIA's work. Brennan told lawmakers the dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment."

Six years later, on May 11, 2023, Brennan again found himself answering questions from Hill Republicans, and he again denied CIA involvement with the dossier. "I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all," Brennan said. "I said the first time I actually saw it, it was after the election. And the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier. ... It was [the FBI's] purview, their area, not ours at all." Brennan also reiterated earlier testimony when he said, "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment."

Now it appears that what Brennan told congressional investigators was false. The current CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who used to be one of the House investigators looking into the Russia matter, has declassified documents from Brennan's time at the agency which show that, far from keeping the dossier at arm's reach, Brennan actually forced CIA analysts to use it and overruled the analysts who wanted to leave the dossier out of the Intelligence Community Assessment.

Ratcliffe asked the CIA's Directorate of Analysis (DA) to review the tradecraft used in producing the assessment. First of all, the DA found what it called "multiple procedural anomalies" in the CIA's preparation of the assessment... Together, all of the "anomalies" "impeded efforts to apply rigorous tradecraft," the DA concluded.

There was no doubt the FBI wanted to include the dossier in the Intelligence

Community Assessment; the CIA self-investigation found that "FBI leadership made it clear that their participation in the assessment hinged on the dossier's inclusion." FBI officials "repeatedly pushed" to include the dossier in the assessment.

But career CIA analysts did not want to include the dossier. The CIA's deputy director for analysis sent Brennan an email saying that including the dossier's information in any form would threaten "the credibility of the entire document." That was when Brennan made the decision to overrule his experts. From the CIA's Directorate of Analysis:

Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness. When confronted with specific flaws in the dossier by the two mission center leaders -- one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background -- he appeared more swayed by the dossier's general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns. Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that "my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report."

...

Taken together, these passages show that significant portions of Brennan's congressional testimony about the dossier and the Intelligence Community Assessment were untrue. When he said the dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment" -- that was untrue. When he said "I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all" -- that was untrue. When he said "the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier" -- that was untrue. When he said "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment" -- that was untrue.

Here's the bottom line, which Republicans have believed for a long time. In the politically supercharged atmosphere of late 2016 and early 2017, the FBI and CIA both knew the dossier was BS. They knew they had no business including it in their assessment of Russia's 2016 activities. But they included it anyway because it told them what they wanted to hear -- that Donald Trump had colluded with Russia. And then, under oath before Congress, John Brennan lied about it.

Cracker Barrel's Woke Girlboss Failure of a CEO is claiming her repudiation of the brand's identity wasn't ideological at all.

Cracker Barrel's top executive on Tuesday said the folksy restaurant chain's disastrous logo change wasn't about politics -- instead claiming the switch was made for the sake of highway visibility, according to a report.

Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino was forced to defend the headline-grabbing bungle at the 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit in New York on Tuesday as the company faces stepped-up heat from an activist investor.

The embattled restaurant boss -- who has faced accusations of having a "woke" agenda as she stripped the chain's beloved "Uncle Herschel" mascot from the chain's logo -- instead insisted that the redesign was meant to make the sign easier to read for drivers speeding past interstate exits.
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino defended the restaurant chain's brief and costly logo experiment. 4
Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino defended the restaurant chain's brief and costly logo experiment. REUTERS

"Part of this transformation is setting up success for the long term," Masino said at the conference. Her comments were reported by the Wall Street Journal.

In August, Cracker Barrel 's stock tanked when the Tennessee-based chain replaced its classic image of a man in overalls leaning against a wooden barrel with a minimalist design that read only "Cracker Barrel."

The new look was rolled out alongside a slate of modern store remodels and a marketing overhaul led by the consulting firm Prophet -- all part of a $700 million rebranding plan aimed at drawing younger diners.

Ah, the elusive Modern Audience. As for her claim: Companies have different variations of their logo for just this sort of reason. A simplified logo for a highway sign makes sense -- but she changed the store's main logo. This wasn't about the sign being more visible on the highway. This was about her showing off to her AWFL sorority sisters.

She's lying because she's being challenged and the board may just fire her.

Trump is blocking leftwing gun control groups from receiving federal money earmarked at reducing gun violence.

The Trump administration has released solicitations for a grant program meant to stop gun violence in underserved communities. But this year, the non-profits the grant was built around are disqualified from applying, according to an application notice released by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in September.

The Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI), was created in 2022, to support groups working in rural and urban communities struggling to address violence and fund research studying the programs' efficacy.

The pioneering program was born out of a recognition by the Biden administration that such community-centered programs were among the most successful tools in combating the US' deep-rooted gun violence problem, and had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities.

Before Trump's inauguration, community-based organizations, non-profits and local and state governments were eligible to apply for the grant. Now, only city, county and tribal governments are allowed. And the stated goal of the program has been changed from "comprehensive, community-based prevention" to "supports law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and improve police-community relations".

Since 2022, the federal government has awarded more than $300m to over 120 non-profits, city and county governments and research institutions through the initiative, according to an archived list of grant recipients.

I assume the gun control groups were just using them money for political agitation against lawful gun ownership. But I'm not sure.

Posted by: Ace at 05:08 PM | Comments (270) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Escape from New York: Over 25% of City Ready to Flee Communist Rule

According to a schmoll.

The survey from Victory Insights found that 26.5% of city residents are considering moving out of New York if the democratic socialist lawmaker wins -- a startling sign of anxiety over what many see as a radical shift for the city's future. The poll of 500 likely voters, conducted October 22--24, shows Mamdani dominating every potential matchup, leading former Gov. Andrew Cuomo by nearly 20 points, 46.7% to 28.6%, with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa trailing far behind at 16.2%. Roughly 8.5% of voters remain undecided.

Nearly 40% of respondents said they believe a Mamdani administration would be a "threat to the future of the city," including about one-third of Democrats. "It would come as a major surprise if anyone other than Mamdani is elected mayor of New York City," Victory Insights said in its analysis. "However, many voters are extremely concerned about that outcome." The pollster noted that Cuomo and Sliwa supporters were the most likely to say they'd consider leaving the city if Mamdani wins, warning that "New York City seems to be nearing an inflection point -- one that could reshape the city for years to come." Early voting begins Saturday, with Election Day set for November 4.

Open, overt Democrat support for socialism and communism is the new normal. (At least until Mamdani destroys NYC.) Democrats have always supported socialism, though they lied like Satan and claimed they didn't.

They have been unmasking themselves since 2010. This is all well-reported; the media has just been covering up the Democrats' open embrace of socialism and communism for more than a decade, if you can believe the media would lie to help the Democrats.

The country now only feels favorably towards capitalism at 54%, and meanwhile feels favorably towards socialism at 39%.

All of the shift is coming from the Democrats, beginning during the totally-not-a-communist Obama's first term. 67% of Democrats now support socialism -- meaning that only socialists will win blue cities, blue districts, and blue states in the future.

Stability in U.S. adults' opinions of socialism obscures Democrats' more positive views of it over time, from 50% rating it positively in the initial 2010 reading to roughly two-thirds in three readings since 2019. Those increases have been mostly offset by declines in positive ratings of socialism among Republicans. Independents' ratings of socialism have generally been steady.

Democrats are the only partisan group of the three that views socialism more positively than capitalism -- 66% to 42%, respectively. Independents are modestly more pro-capitalism than pro-socialism (51% vs. 38%), while Republicans are overwhelmingly so (74% vs. 14%).

From the house organ of the Democrat establishment, Politico, in mid-September:

The socialist brand is on the rise, according to recent polling, fueling the left flank of the Democratic Party to argue its ideology is becoming more mainstream.

Shortly after Gallup released data showing Democrats and independents are cooling toward capitalism, a progressive organization is out with a poll finding that more than half of likely Democratic voters prefer socialist-aligned figures like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani to establishment politicians like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefrries and Nancy Pelosi.

Democratic voters also view elected officials who describe themselves as democratic socialists about as positively as those who identify as Democrats, and they prefer democratic socialism to capitalism when written definitions of each are read aloud to them, according to the poll conducted by Data for Progress and shared first with POLITICO.

"What the mainstream of the party wants is both democratic socialism as a value system and democratic socialist politicians," said Gabe Tobias, executive director of the Democratic Socialists of America Fund, a political nonprofit organization that funded the survey with the magazine Jacobin and the Berlin-based democratic socialist group Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Though Democratic voters are warming to socialism, the ideology is toxic to most Republicans and many independents, making it difficult for socialists to win in battlegrounds.

That point about the Democrats now officially being the party of socialism and communism, and boohoo whinin' and cryin' about capitalism, via Black Conservative Perspective.

Posted by: Ace at 04:10 PM | Comments (333) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Two Suspects Arrested for Louvre Robbery

Hmm.

Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris' Louvre museum, justice and police officials said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt.

The Paris prosecutor said that investigators made arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

A police official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, told The Associated Press that two men in their 30s, both known to police, were taken into custody. He said one suspect was arrested as he attempted to board a plane bound for Algeria. The official added that one of the suspects was identified through DNA traces. Beccuau said earlier this week that forensics experts were analyzing 150 samples at the scene.

...

Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) from the world's most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre's façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum's director called the incident a "terrible failure."

Per Le Figaro, one of the two thieves was captured as he was preparing to take a flight to Algeria. The other was arrested in the banlieu of Seine-Saint-Denis, a so-called "no-go zone" where cars are frequently incinerated during riots.

I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying, when they don't release the perps' names, there's a very high probability the names are Amish.

Posted by: Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (307) | Trackbacks (Suck)

A New Ballroom Was Absolutely Needed at the White House, Admits... The Washington Post

When the White House attempts to hold events, like state dinners, they are forced to erect outdoor tents -- which can be shot through by snipers, of course -- and visiting dignitaries need to use the undignified means of waste elimination known as Port-a-Potties.

In other words: Yes, the White House needs a larger space for entertaining guests.

This is obvious. But it shocking that the Washington Post is even capable of acknowledging the obvious, writes David Strom.

Months ago, Jeff Bezos made clear that he wanted to clean out the most insane Opinion Page columnists and restore some sanity to the Washington Post's Opinion/Editorial Page.
Advertisement

And there was quite the exodus as the Augean Stables were cleaned out. David Shipley, the editorial page editor, resigned. Ruth Marcus, out. Karen Attiah, out. Philip Bump, out. Jonathan Capehart, out. We all laughed and toasted Jen Rubin's departure, of course.

But even with the massive turnover in personnel, how many of us expected the Post to do more than make a nod to sanity as it continued on much the same course?

Yet, here we are. Hell has, indeed, frozen over.

Check the link for actual quotes from the Post. Not only does the Post admit the need for a larger space for entertaining guests, but it also admits that the amount of red tape that usually blocks necessary renovations in all government projects is insane -- simple projects take 21 years to complete, if they're ever completed -- and that Trump's roughshod bulldozing over Established Normzzz is actually necessary here.

This is a one-two punch of an editorial, not because it will move the needle in any significant way or because the Post is suddenly going to become a Trump outlet. The ballroom issue is, in itself, minor. It is a manufactured controversy.

What the editorial does is calmly point out that 1) Trump is right in what he is doing, and 2) that he is having to "subvert norms" because the norms are insane and destructive.

Something needed to be done. The existing "norms" (not rules, because the White House is mostly exempt) and red tape make doing anything nearly impossible, so Trump cut the Gordian Knot. He saw a need and filled it.

At the Free Beacon, Andrew Stiles rounded up some of the most insane leftwing responses in this "manufactured controversy."

You know who else built buildings in his capital city, don't you?

Here's a particularly insane example: Tara Setmayer, a former Lincoln Project senior adviser, wrote that watching Trump renovate the White House made her feel "almost the same as when I saw the Pentagon damage on 9/11." Though most probably wouldn't compare it to 9/11 in a public forum, Setmayer was expressing a sentiment widely shared by her fellow Trump-obsessed liberal activists. In their humble (and definitely not crazy) opinion, this was one of the worst attacks on the American homeland in our country's history.

Note: I wrongly said this asshole was part of the Bulwark grifter network. In fact, she's a former Lincoln Project grifter. I forgot which segment of the grifter human centipede she belongs to.

...

The Post also published a scathing column by its art and architecture critic, who cited a Columbia professor who argued Trump's architectural model of the ballroom was haunted by a "darker history in fascist and totalitarian politics."

...

Stephen Colbert, the former comedian, said watching the East Wing being demolished was like having electrodes attached to his nipples. "That is so deeply upsetting," he said, fighting back tears. Colbert's former colleague Jon Stewart UNLOADED on Trump for ignoring the preservationists. The left-wing website Talking Points Memo suggested Trump's preference for "classical architecture" was a "dog whistle for white nationalists." The reaction from journalists, observed journalist Ryan Cooper at the American Prospect, has been "surprisingly visceral" because "this is what dictatorship feels like."

More at the link.

And in case you didn't see Trump's trollish Timeline of Major Events...

The timeline notes that there was no Oval Office in the White House until 1909, when "President William Howard Taft remodeled and expanded the West Wing, which included construction of the first Oval Office." That's a more consequential change than a ballroom in the East Wing, the sacred and unchangeable part of the White House that Trump is now daring to make the site of his ballroom. The East Wing itself, by the way, did not exist until 1942, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt "constructed the East Wing for additional staff and wartime security, including a bomb shelter."

That's all very interesting, and in itself destroys the Democrat hysteria over Trump's ballroom, but the timeline gets really interesting in its entries covering more recent White House history. One of them involves Bill Clinton's use of William Howard Taft's Oval Office: "Bill Clinton Scandal: President Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky was exposed, leading to White House perjury investigations. The Oval Office trysts fueled impeachment for obstruction."

Then there's "Muslim Brotherhood Visit: Obama hosts members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that promotes Islamist extremism and has ties to Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is a designated terrorist organization by nearly a dozen nations." That one comes complete with a photo of Barack Obama trying on a full outfit of traditional Arab garb.

Look at this absolute hot mess:

Posted by: Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (385) | Trackbacks (Suck)

With Massive Assist from Trump, Argeninian President and "Afuerza!" Enthusiast Javier Milei Defies Expectations and Stomps the Parliamentary Mid-Term Elections

This video explains the trouble Milei was in, and how Trump got him out of it.

Basically, no one believed that Millei's reforms would stick. People did not want to invest in Argentina's economy because they were pretty sure another leftist would just defeat him at the next elections and return the country to basket-case socialist rule.

The only way to get people to invest would be to convince them that Millei was popular and that he'd be around to make sure the reforms stuck. But people didn't believe this, and the Argentinian peso continued to decline in value.

This is when Trump intervened. He declared the US dollar would trade at a fixed rate against the Argentinian peso, thus effectively setting a floor for the peso's value. He also spent billions of America dollars buying up the Argentinian peso, buttressing its value.

But that's not all he did. Trump declared that America's support for the Argentinan peso was conditioned absolutely on the Argentines voting in favor of Milei's party at the mid-terms. If the public turned on Milei, Trump would end all support for the country.

He said that if the Argentines chose basket-case socialism again, America would bail out of bailing out Argentina, as Argentina would just be a "waste of our time."

Posted by: Ace at 01:10 PM | Comments (335) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Rubio Deports Muslim Brotherhood Operative Who Worked Hard to Cancel Anyone Questioning the Eternal Jihad

Buh-bye.

A suspected Muslim Brotherhood operative has been taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is being deported under the direction of President Trump's national security team. The foreign national, identified as Sami Hamdi, was apprehended at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday following what officials described as an intelligence-led operation targeting individuals with extremist ties.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Hamdi's visa had been revoked and thanked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and federal law enforcement for executing the removal. "Thanks to the work of @Sec_Noem and @SecRubio and the men and women of law enforcement, this individual's visa was revoked and he is in ICE custody pending removal," McLaughlin wrote on X. "Under President Trump, those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country."

Hamdi's arrest followed reports that he was traveling across the United States organizing events and training sessions linked to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated networks. Investigative reporter Laura Loomer said DHS sources confirmed that Hamdi was en route to Tampa, Florida, to headline "an event for a jihadist, pro-Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood 501(c)(3) group." Conservative journalist Amy Mek separately detailed Hamdi's long record of activity of "training U.S. Muslims in digital agitation, electoral sabotage, and political warfare in alignment with the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine." Mek added that Hamdi "is not a commentator passing through America -- he is a deployed actor from an overseas cadre system that grooms Western Muslims for on-shore mobilization."

Despite his alleged extremist ties, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) rushed to Hamdi's defense, issuing a statement denouncing his arrest as "an injustice." The group demanded his release and accused the administration of following "an Israel First policy, not an America First policy."

Federal officials have rejected those claims, insisting the deportation is a straightforward national security matter. DHS sources say Hamdi's activities violated the terms of his visa and posed a potential threat to U.S. interests. The move reflects the Trump administration's zero-tolerance approach to foreign nationals who associate with terrorist-linked organizations -- a sharp contrast to the lax immigration enforcement of prior administrations.

Amy Mek says this is a big deal.

Amy Mek
@AmyMek

🚨 BREAKING -- WE DID IT AMERICA!

SAMI HAMDI - HAS BEEN ARRESTED AND WILL BE DEPORTED!

Sami Hamdi -- a foreign national who repeatedly used U.S. stages to legitimize and normalize jihadi networks -- has reportedly been detained by ICE in San Francisco and is slated for deportation.

This is a major victory for America and a MAJOR Blow to the Jihadi network in America!

I've been fighting this relentlessly -- and this morning, the system moved.

This is not a pundit. This is not a mere commentator. This is an operative embedded in transnational extremist networks who used U.S. soil as a staging ground.

Let this be a warning to every Brotherhood front, every jihadist operative, and every Marxist collaborator who treats America as a platform: exposure without pressure achieves nothing.

When we apply relentless pressure, the machine moves. THANK YOU FOR RAISING YOUR VOICES!

My goals remain the same and non-negotiable:

• Formal designation and ban of the Muslim Brotherhood's operational arms in the U.S.
• Dismantling of any U.S.-based fronts that facilitate extremist influence.
• Removal of foreign operatives exploiting our system.

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (293) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: Kooks, Fringe Ideas, and Media Misclassification of Actual Scandals as “Conspiracy Theories”

We have a problem. There are delusional people pushing preposterous stories, which we used to label “conspiracy theories.” There are also partisan journalists, joined by liberal politicians, who label inconvenient scandals that harm the left’s agenda as being “conspiracy theories.”

So, I have two theses to posit today:

1) Because of the left’s misuse of the term “conspiracy theory,” there is a need for a new term for actual kookie theories.

2) It has become difficult to dismiss actual kookie “conspiracy theories,” because the left applied that term to so many truths that it sought to delegitimize. Quite simply, it is not outrageous to assume that anything the left calls a “conspiracy theory” is actually true.

The term “conspiracy theory” has been defanged because it is as ridiculously misused and overused as “racist,” “Nazi,” “fascist,” and “white supremacist.” Just like those other terms, conservatives now joke about being a “conspiracy theorist” because so many stories in the past decade that were framed as “conspiracies” have turned out to be true. We even joke, “What is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth?” Answer: “About six months.”

There are abundant examples of this, including discussions about the provenance of the Covid virus. In the early 2020s, arguing that the virus originated in the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology was a forbidden “conspiracy theory” that would get a person deplatformed from social media, but it is now accepted as the almost certain source of the virus. Similarly, arguing that Covid “vaccines” did not prevent the contraction or transmission of the virus was also a deplatformable “conspiracy theory” that proved to be true.

The New York Post was deplatformed from Twitter for its reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, while Facebook throttled posts that linked to that “conspiracy theory,” which of course was not a conspiracy theory at all. It was the truth, and those in government coordinating with media to bury the story knew it was true, which was an actual conspiracy.

Following Hurricane Helene’s flooding in North Carolina, there were allegations that FEMA employees in the field were withholding aid to those storm victims who were visibly Trump supporters. Government-funded PBS sought to quash those verifiably true allegations by calling them “conspiracy theories.”

“Disinformation and Conspiracy Theories Cloud Helene Recovery Efforts in Hard-hit Areas” [PBS – 10/05/2024]

The facts emerging from Hurricane Helene’s destruction are heartrending: Businesses and homes destroyed, whole communities nearly wiped out, hundreds of lives lost, hundreds of people missing. Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government’s response. According to former President Donald Trump, the federal government is intentionally withholding aid to Republican disaster victims.

Now that Donald Trump is President and FEMA is answerable to him, the truth has come out. As reported by Matt Taibi at Racket News, ““Politicized distribution of hurricane aid money before the 2024 election was no ‘isolated incident,’ a Homeland Security follow-up report sadly concludes.”

But there are still fringe theories being promoted. Several conservative pundits whom I used to respect have gone off the deep end, including Candace Owens, who is now insinuating that Donald Trump was involved in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

“Candace Owens Hits a New Low, and Accuses Trump of Assassinating Charlie Kirk” [Townhall – 10/23/2025]

Mark Pulliam of Misrule of Law shared a recent piece of his about a candidate running for Tennessee State Senate, Gary Humble, who has some rather exotic views. Mr. Humble has been quoted as saying:

Do I believe that factions of our government coordinated with other foreign entities to attack Americans on 9/11? Yes.

Do I believe the CIA was involved? Yes.

Do I believe Bush knew about 9/11 before it happened? Yes.

Do I believe that the towers coming straight down in a straight line fashion was not the work of planes crashing into the buildings but a controlled demolition? Yes.

Do I believe that building 7, just next door, also fell during a controlled demolition, while the other two buildings purportedly fell because of airliners? Yes.

I believe those things, unequivocally.

In our correspondence, I expressed to Mark my frustration that it is hard for conservatives to find the words to write about fringe candidates who promote what we used to call “conspiracy theories” because of how the left has misused that term to slander any conservative who isn’t a RINO or controlled opposition.

What are your thoughts? What term do you use?

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (341) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Frau mit Eisbecher
Dieter Asmus

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (410) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 10/27/25

Good morning kids. I think I speak for the vast majority if not all of you good people when I say that I am huge fan of the work of Prof. Victor Davis Hanson. Not just because he is a confirmed lurker and devotee of Ace's brand of cruelty, but the breadth and depth of his knowledge of history and his personal experience as an educator and a farmer, especially during the past several decades of the Leftist/Democrat destruction of the once great state of California.

To say that VDH knows what he's talking about is a vast understatement.

In the late 1850s, “Bleeding Kansas” was the term used to describe the escalating cycle of violence, when surrogates for the Union and soon-to-be Confederacy fought each other over whether Kansas would be admitted as a free or slave-owning state.

As the assaults and killings increased, radicals set the agenda. The logical next step was the nightmares of Fort Sumter and Bull Run.

Those calling for restraint and peaceful resolutions were considered weak and traitorous. The thuggish and violent, instead, were praised as the true idealists and patriots, the real “base” of their respective parties. We have witnessed a growing wave of left-wing assassins and would-be assassins in the last few years: James Hodgkinson, Luigi Mangione, James Crooks, Ryan Routh, Elias Rodriguez, and Tyler Robinson, who have targeted Republican House leaders, CEOs, Donald Trump, Jews, and Charlie Kirk. For months, leftists vandalized or torched anything to do with the Tesla brand, and with virtual impunity, they sometimes went after individual Tesla owners. Jews walked in the shadows on campuses, where mobs cheered Hamas killers.

Despite my effusive and well-deserved praise of Prof Hanson, as you perhaps have surmised, now comes the very big BUT and it's right in the lede of this otherwise well-written, as per usual, essay

America again flirts with its own “Bleeding Kansas”—a cycle of partisan violence and defiance where lawless zealots are hailed as patriots and the rule of law bleeds away.

Where pray tell is this "cycle of violence." All I have seen, not just since President Trump descended the escalator of Trump tower just over 10 years ago now, but since I was a child in the 1960s are acts of political incitement and terrorism committed solely by Leftists, Democrats and those who seek the destruction of the American republic and the acquisition of absolute power in service of that end.

Can anyone name for me any organization of the size, breadth and depth of Antifa, BLM, the Weathermen, Earth Liberation Front, CAIR, La Raza, or any other group that neither the illegitimate and discredited SPLC, ADL or every other phony watchdog group refuses to name, that is their equivalent that exists on our end of the political/societal/cutural spectrum.

So, with all due respect to Prof Hanson, if there was a cycle of violence it would only last for exactly 1 RPM. The bodies of the Antifans and BLMsters would've been stacked like cordwood long ago and the Democrat Party dissolved, as it should've been in 1865.

not too long ago, the [so-called quote-unquote] president of the United States and his number one law enforcement agent publicly denied the existence of a group of violent commie anarchist yobbos who exist to tear down the country. Why would Biden and Wray do such a thing? Because the Democrat Party is in cahoots with Antifa and shares their goal of toppling the U.S. government. . .

Flashback to the 2020 debates: Trump warned that Antifa was a radical Left-wing militant group, and Joe Biden claimed Antifa was not a real organization, it was just “an idea”.The Dems knowingly tried to cover up their brown shirts. The Dems and Antifa are the same entity.

That last sentence = Bingo. The question is, do the Democrats really think that fomenting and directly or indirectly funding and even planning/directing the attacks themselves are going to terrorize the vast majority of Americans shift their support from conservatism or at the least normalcy to their party and their repulsive, amoral, perverted criminal anti-civilization agenda. They sure seem to be banking on it.

What they are hoping for is an equal and opposite reaction against some Democrat politician, media/entertainment personality or institution that they can then use as their cassus belli to go after us should God forbid come the day (as it likely will unfortunately) when they once again control all the branches of elected government to go along with their stranglehold on the corrupt judiciary and the still extant bureaucracy that President Trump and team are working to completely destroy or at a minimum seriously defang.

And so this happened

Security officers opened fire on a U-Haul truck that accelerated toward them outside the U.S. Coast Guard base in Alameda, California, during an anti-ICE protest, in a dramatic incident caught on video. The events unfolded near the end of a day-long demonstration against federal immigration enforcement operations staged at the base.The truck reversed quickly toward officers guarding the bridge to Coast Guard Island, despite instructions to stop, resulting in a volley of gunfire. The truck then began accelerating forward.

Photographer Rick Villaroman, who was at the scene, said, “He just hit the gas and sped towards them. And that’s when they opened fire. About 20 to 30 rounds.”Witnesses said the vehicle struck two bystanders before the masked driver stopped briefly, appeared to check his phone, and then drove off. According to Villaroman, the driver abandoned the truck nearby after it had been parked outside the base for most of the day.

The Coast Guard said the vehicle’s actions posed a direct threat to security personnel. Notably, U-Haul trucks have been used in multiple terror attacks and attempted terror attacks in the U.S. and Canada in recent years. Most notably, an Islamic State jihadist admitted to the U.S. from Uzbekistan on a Diversity Immigrant Visa, used a U-Haul to murder eight people on a crowded bike path in Lower Manhattan in 2017.

We cannot go on like this, We must break the back of the (anti-)American Left and its epicenter in the Democrat Party. And as we have noted many many times, it all starts in the schools where Democrat terrporists are made. Unless and until the brainwashing mills from Pre-K through Post-Grad are dismantled and remade in our image, we will face an indenting string of terrorists of both the James Comey and Luigi Mangione variety forever, until either they or we and our progeny are defeated. It really is us or them. A time for choosing, indeed.

On an altogether different note, is there some massive extraterrestrial object lurking behind the Sun?

Paging Roy Thinnes! Report to the Doppelgänger! For those not of a certain age, click here for the reference,

Have a good day!

And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY LINKS
• Victor Davis Hanson: America again flirts with its own “Bleeding Kansas”—a cycle of partisan violence and defiance where lawless zealots are hailed as patriots and the rule of law bleeds away.
  The Left is ‘Bleeding Kansas’
  
• Why would Biden and Wray do such a thing? Because the Democrat Party is in cahoots with Antifa and shares their goal of toppling the U.S. government

  "Flashback to the 2020 debates: Trump warned that Antifa was a radical Left-wing militant group, and Joe Biden claimed Antifa was not a real organization, it was just “an idea”. The Dems knowingly tried to cover up their brown shirts. The Dems and Antifa are the same entity.

  Why Are the Mental Bellyflops Denying Antifa's Existence Again? This Might Be Why...

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:28 AM | Comments (383) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 27 October 2025

Top Story

• Why open source may not survive the rise of generative AI. (ZDNet)
  
  Actually a real concern.
  
  Open source depends on copyright. If you write something - software, here, but anything - it is your creating and you have the right to sell it, or to give it away, on terms you decide. Large open source projects need to get permission from all their contributors to include their code in their project.
  
  Generative AI trashes all of that. The products of generative AI are not generally copyrightable, and they don't keep track of where things came from either. A piece of code from AI could be nominally original, or it could be adapted from an open source project, or it could be copied verbatim from a copyrighted source that the AI might not even have had legal access to (Anthropic had to pay out $1.5 billion over similar problems with its training data).
  
  And you can't tell.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (208) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread - October 26, 2025 [Doof]

The Sunday night ONT is here. So are you. Lurkers welcomed, regulars tolerated. Open thread, as always.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:01 PM | Comments (413) | Trackbacks (Suck)