Leaked Emails: Epstein Despised Trump (But Had Warm Relations With Democrats!)

—Ace

The media is running cover, of course.

Democrats started this mess by releasing select emails they thought would damage Trump, but those cherry-picked messages turned out to be nothing burgers. House Republicans responded by releasing more than 20,000 emails, and the damaging information that emerged pointed right back at Democrats.

The emails revealed that Epstein really disliked Trump, telling former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in February 2017 that he had "met some very bad people," but "none as bad as trump." In other messages with Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama, Epstein described Trump as "worse in real life and upclose" after Ruemmler sent him a message calling Trump "so gross." So much for the narrative that Trump and Epstein were close pals.

The emails also revealed that Epstein discussed blackmailing Trump with anti-Trump author Michael Wolff.

Byron York writes about the Democrats' complete lack of interest in Democrats who visited Epstein's Pedo Island, while screaming about Trump, who never visited the island.

He recaps an old article by the blackmail enthusiast Michael Wolff, noting all the names of Democrats who did not break with Epstein even after his conviction for trafficking.

Foremost not among them: Donald Trump.

The article is a long list of people who hung around with post-prison Epstein. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, "for whom Epstein has become a key adviser," was helping Epstein deal with his image problems. Mort Zuckerman, "the real estate billionaire and owner of the Daily News." PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University. Ehud Barak, the former prime minister of Israel. Then-Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim. The lawyer Reid Weingarten. Thorbjørn Jagland, then-head of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Nathan Myhrvold, a former top executive at Microsoft. Harvard professor Martin Nowak. Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize winner. Investment fund manager Ron Baron. Josh Harris, owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils. And then: "A high ranking official from the Obama White House, whose name I am asked not to use."

They all came to Epstein's house in New York. "These meetings, and this lifestyle, have somehow stayed private or secret -- or apart -- not out of any formal or stated restrictions, but because, in some sense, it would be very hard to explain just what you're doing there with a brazen sex offender in a guffaw-inducing home flaunting all moderation," Wolff wrote. "And yet, defying disgrace, and tolerating his tone deafness -- or mocking attitude toward the zeitgeist -- so many come. Gladly. Willingly. Feeling that his invitation is quite an extraordinary privilege."

He could also have named Katie Couric and George Sloppadopoulos, but I guess he thinks he can still break into real media and wants to protect his leftwing media fellow travelers.

..

Given today's political situation and the things Wolff has been saying recently, here is something interesting. Out of all the names dropped, one is conspicuously absent: Donald Trump. The billionaire developer, reality TV star, and future president, who had a falling out with Epstein around 2004, did not even merit mention as a former friend. Wolff saw fit to name former President Bill Clinton as absent, but Trump, who at that point had not yet entered national politics, was just not there. Some years later, of course, after Trump became president, his adversaries saw Epstein, like they once saw Russia, as an opportunity to bring him down, and the Epstein story became all about Trump. But in 2014, when Epstein was alive and active and Wolff wrote the profile, Trump wasn't part of the picture.

Maybe that tells you something is wrong with the way the story is being reported today. Whenever new information is released, such as the thousands of documents recently made public by the House GOP, and when that new information contains nothing to incriminate Trump, the usual suspects loudly proclaim that more new information is still being hidden that will incriminate Trump. It must all be released! One prominent Democratic senator, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, literally said recently, "Clearly, Donald Trump was at the center of a child sex ring. That is heartbreaking that the President of the United States was involved in that kind of gross, craven immorality."

That is a positively surrealistic read on what we know about Epstein so far -- and we know a lot.

Of course, the Epstein emails do contain frequent mentions of Trump -- as his mortal enemy, who he believed was behind his arrest for trafficking.

York again:

"Your world does not understand how dumb [Trump] really is," Epstein wrote to former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Lawrence Summers in May 2017, Trump's fourth month in office. When, in July 2017, former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler wrote, "Trump is truly stupid," Epstein replied with a one-word answer: "Duh."

In an exchange with New York Times reporter Landon Thomas, Epstein wrote that Trump was "evil beyond belief," and that he, Epstein, had tried to warn the world about his former friend. "I told everyone from day one," Epstein wrote.

"I know how dirty Donald is," Epstein wrote to Ruemmler in August 2018. "My guess is that non-lawyers, NY biz people have no idea." Then Epstein boasted to an unknown recipient in December 2018: "I am the one able to take him down." Meanwhile, Epstein exchanged long emails with adviser Michael Wolff in which Wolff offered Epstein counsel on trying to damage Trump, blackmail Trump, and possibly run him out of office.

It would be an understatement to note that Trump was living rent-free in Epstein's head. "The emails suggest that Trump remained a fixation for Epstein," CNN wrote, "as he's frequently mentioned numerous times over a span of nearly a decade -- including long after their friendship ended."

By the way, remember when Elon Musk, breaking with Trump, breathlessly announced that Trump was "in the Epstein files"? Of course Trump is in the Epstein files; he's all over this set of Epstein files because he was so deeply in Epstein's head. Trump will be in other Epstein files, too, because Epstein apparently could not stop thinking and talking about him.

Finally, one problem with reading the Epstein emails today is that Epstein was, in the words of one recent assessment in the Atlantic, a "notorious liar." It is reasonable to take Epstein's statements of opinion at face value -- he appeared to really think Trump was dumb -- but not his statements of fact.

So when Epstein says that victim Virginia Giuffre "spent hours at my house with [Trump]," there's no compelling reason to believe him. Giuffre, now dead, wrote a book that said no such thing about Trump and also testified under oath that Trump "didn't partake in any sex with us ... [and] never flirted with me." Giuffre said she never saw Trump and Epstein together. She was asked, "Did you ever see Donald Trump at Jeffrey's home?" and answered, "Not that I remember." In addition, she said she did not remember seeing Trump at Epstein's island, or his house in New Mexico, or his house in New York.

The Democrat-Media Party has a Hot Take on Epstein's hatred of-- not friendship with, hatred of -- Trump.

That take? "If even Jeffrey Epstein (the notorious liar, note) says that Trump is bad, then Trump must be very, very bad."

They seem incapable of understanding that if Epstein hated Trump, and considered him the worst man on the planet, and also had information about Trump engaging in criminal activity with underaged women, then of course he would have leaked that information.

Therefore: Epstein had no such information about Trump.

The media which thinks it is so smart that it is the only institution in the world capable of reading information and drawing conclusions for it still can't wrap its stunted little brain around that conclusion.

Instead, we get this: "Leave aside" the question of whether there's any evidence Trump was a client of Epstein. Just look at how many times he's "in" Epstein's emails!

As York points out: Yes, he's mentioned by Epstein, as an enemy.

But unlike dozens of Democrats, there are no emails in which Trump speaks with Epstein.

We have proof that Epstein was using his paid operative Stacey Plaskett to get anti-Trump testimony into the congressional record.

You might think, "Gee willickers, if the media is this interested in Trump-Epstein stories, surely they must all be seizing and pouncing on this one!"

You might think that, but you'd be wrong. Again.

One would expect that such a story would dominate the headlines and the talk shows, especially given the Democrats' months-long, full-court press on the Epstein Files. The Protection Racket Media has other ideas about what makes news in the Epstein case, as [Newsubsters'] Jorge Bonilla discovered watching the Sunday news shows:

The Plaskett story early enough for pre-production of This Week, and yet there was no mention whatsoever of what would otherwise be a scandal. There was likewise no mention of Plaskett on NBC's Meet the Press, CBS's Face the Nation, or CNN's State of the Union.

As is the case with "news" in the Trump Era, the durability of a story is directly proportional to its ability to (a) cast aspersions on Donald Trump, and/or (b) cover up some other, more nefarious scandal. ...

Epstein coaching a Member of Congress as to what questions to ask of a committee witness isn't notable? Does this not warrant prominence on the Sunday shows? For an Elitist Media intent on mining the "Epstein Files" for revelations, this is a huge omission. But not surprising, because this does not directly implicate President Donald Trump in any crime.

The wagons didn't just circle around Plaskett on television. Straight Arrow News did some research on the coverage of the story, and found that -- with a handful of exceptions -- the Protection Racket Media did its best to shut the story down...

The media is asking Plaskett zero questions, but one citizen got through on the CSPAN lines and did ask about her servicing her pedophile patron:

MAZE @mazemoore

In 2023 Stacey Plaskett was taking calls on C-SPAN and a caller asked her about her relationship with Epstein.

Plaskett: "He wanted to make contributions to the Democrat party."

She left out that she personally asked him for money and texted him during hearings on what to say.

Informed citizens, doing the job that the "American" media refuses to do.

Illegal Alien Helped by Left-Wing Judge to Escape ICE Has Now Been Deported

—Ace

Adios.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deported an illegal alien whom Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Judge Hannah Dugan is charged with trying to help evade arrest by federal agents.

Over the weekend, ICE agents deported illegal alien Eduardo Flores-Ruiz of Mexico. Flores-Ruiz crossed the southern border in 2013 and was apprehended by Border Patrol agents in Nogales, Arizona. He was swiftly deported to Mexico, but illegally crossed the border again, a felony.

Flores-Ruiz also faced charges for strangulation and suffocation, battery, and domestic abuse.

This is what I call a "full-spectrum cultural enricher."

In April, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Dugan for allegedly helping Flores-Ruiz evade arrest by ICE agents by purposefully misdirecting agents from Ruiz inside a Wisconsin courthouse.

...

A month after her arrest, surveillance footage from inside the courthouse showed Dugan seemingly pointing ICE agents in the wrong direction on purpose so that Flores-Ruiz could avoid arrest.

Video of that below the fold. If it actually posts. Cloudflare is causing all sorts of outages.

I never mentioned it, but back in late August a federal judge denied Dugan's motion to dismiss on grounds that as a judge she can do wha'ever she want.

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan in the immigration enforcement-related case that has drawn national attention as an example of the Trump Administration's effort to punish judges it sees as antagonistic to its increased deportation efforts.

No bias detected.

Hint: She wasn't arrested for "being antatgonistic to increased deportation efforts."

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman issued a 27-page order denying Dugan's motion. Dugan's attorneys had filed to dismiss the case earlier this summer, arguing that the prosecution violated judicial immunity and represented extreme federal overreach into the operations of the state court system.

Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury, Harvard Professor Larry Summers, "Steps Back from Public Life" After Revelation He Sought Jeffrey Epstein to be His "Wingman" In His Seduction of the Daughter of a Red Chinese Banking Executive

—Ace

This is somehow connected to Drumpf, I just know it!!!

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in a statement Monday said he would be stepping back from public life and expressed deep regret for past messages with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the wake of new revelations about the extent of their relationship.

"I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused," he told POLITICO. "I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me."

Emails revealed that Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and a top adviser to President Barack Obama, repeatedly sought advice from Epstein on romantically pursuing a woman he referred to as his mentee. Epstein in one message referred to himself as the prominent economist's "wing man." Summers in another exchange suggested women in aggregate have a lower IQ than men.

Summers' comment comes after a senior Trump administration official and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) each called on institutions to sever ties with Summers.

The statement leaves question marks hanging over the fate of several positions Summers occupies, which include a board seat at OpenAI, a tenured position at Harvard, an unpaid nonresident fellow position at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank and a paid contributor role at Bloomberg News. A Summers spokesperson declined to answer a direct question about those roles.

Politico refuses to name the woman he was trying to seduce. It was Jin Keyu, a professor in China, and daughter of a major figure in Chinese banking.

Matt Stoller @matthewstoller

Nov 17

There's an interesting angle about the CCP in the story of Larry Summers trying to seduce someone he was mentoring. Her father is a Chinese official running part of the Belt and Road initiative, and she explicitly thanked Summers for supporting her Dad

Matt Stoller @matthewstoller

Nov 1
It's very awkward that Larry Summers was manipulating Chinese and U.S. politics as a means of seducing a Chinese economist he was mentoring.

Is it "awkward"? Some might call it efficient.

Flashback to a Charlie Kirk tweet from July 25: Trump tells a reporter, "You ought to be talking about Larry Summers.... or Bill Clinton, who went to the island 28 times. I never went to the island."

Trump said yesterday: "We have NOTHING to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton. They went to his island ALL THE TIME. All Democrats."

But asking Bill and Hillary Clinton about their repeated trips to Pedo Island will be difficult: They're refusing to testify.

They cite no justification for doing so, they're just refusing.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna @RepLuna

Bill and Hillary Clinton are refusing to appear before House Oversight for their depositions regarding Jeffrey Epstein. Notice how House Democrats suddenly have nothing to say about it.

Remember when Peter Navarro refused to testify and Joe Biden sent him to prison?

Drew Holden @DrewHolden360

Peter Navarro went to prison for what the Clintons are currently doing on the Epstein hearings.

The House is voting soon to release all the secret Epstein grand jury materials. The flake traitor "libertarian" Tom Massie is outgassing right now.

Trump asked the House to vote in favor of the release.

I'll be posting more about the Epstein disclosures -- and the media's refusal to cover them -- later today.

Judge Stays "Insane" Magistrate's Defense of James Comey

—Ace

Yesterday I reported that a lowly magistrate -- a helper judge that hears motions on behalf of the judge -- made a "rare" grant of a motion to turn over all grand jury evidence to James Comey's team of angry Democrat lawyers. He claimed that despite such orders almost never being granted -- he admitted it was "rare" -- he felt that James Comey's rights "outweighed" the standard guarantee of grand jury secrecy.

This lowly Democrat magistrate searched desperately for some kind of infraction on the part of the prosecutor that he could claim was serious enough to justify this "rare" step. This partisan magistrate claimed there were "misstatements of law" in the grand jury case, which is common, which is why it is "rare" to invade grand jury secrecy, even on behalf of a politically-connected, Deep State protected accused.

But ah, how that changes when James "No Intent/8647" Comey is in the dock.

Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew

Nov 17

Generally not a ground to invalidate an indictment.

Misstatements of law by prosecutors in front of the the GJ is a subject that has a LOOOOONG history of litigation.

Not a new topic and defendants rarely win on it.

Bear in mind, grand juries are entirely one-sided, prosecutor-controlled affairs, with no opposing counsel or judge to bring up misstatements as they occur, so these are common and usually not something judges -- or even lowly magistrates -- pitch a fit about.

Mike Davis @mrddmia

Nonsense.

Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick--appointed by partisan DC-area Democrat judges in 2022--is going out of his way to carry water for James Comey.

Fitzpatrick--through his highly irregular ruling--is grasping at straws to make his findings that Lindsey Halligan (somehow) did something wrong.

She did not.

Fitzpatrick is even pretending there is missing evidence.

Is there any basis for his conspiracy theory?

They know the evidence against Comey is damning.

He lied to Congress to coverup his clear corruption in politicizing and weaponizing intel agencies and law enforcement to take out political enemies--the biggest scandal in American history.

So they are doing everything they can to stop Lindsey Halligan.

Lindsey Halligan is clearly over the target.

The Justice Department must appeal this fact-free and lawless ruling by Fitzpatrick.

The Deep State protects its own.

Halligan filed for an emergency stay, which was granted.

This doesn't mean the matter is settled, just that the government is now afforded the opportunity, which the lowly magistrate didn't think they should have, to rebut the insane claims of the defense.

And an actual judge will take a look at the lowly bureaucrat-magistrate's shoddy work.

Mike Davis 🇺🇸 @mrddmia 🚨

Trump U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan wins temporary stay of (insane) order of U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick (illegally) carrying the water for James Comey

Am I late? I blame the Cloudflare outage.

FearBuck @FearedBuck

Cloudflare went down early this morning, causing half the internet to go offline.

Major platforms like Twitter/X, ChatGPT (OpenAI), Spotify, Facebook, Telegram, League of Legends, Letterboxd, and others were affected.

Thankfully this site runs on state-of-the-art (circa 2002) technology which makes it more reliable.

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

—CBD

In a perfect world, Russia would have respected Ukraine's borders (whatever those are!), and Ukraine would not have poked the Russian Bear. James Baker and George Bush the elder would not have "guaranteed" Ukraine's safety in exchange for relinquishing their nuclear arsenal. NATO would not have expanded far to the east after the USSR collapsed, instead remaining roughly in Western Europe. The United States would not have used corrupt Ukraine as a base for its monstrous money-laundering schemes. Russia would have elected modestly benevolent leaders instead of the corruptocratic, expansionist savage that they chose. Western European nations would have maintained their armies.

But the world isn't perfect, and none of those things happened. The reality is that a large regional power decided that the tit-for-tat of their border disagreement needed to end, and the Western powers that would normally prevent such expansionist tendencies were in a state of weak chaos, thanks to the election of a series of weak leaders.

Fast forward three and a half years, and the border war is a horrid slog that is chewing up Ukraine -- slowly, inexorably -- and absent the entry of America into a ground operation, will end in Russian consolidation of its captured territory.

Orban: Risking 'World War III' to Support Ukraine When It Has 'No Chance' to Win Is 'Crazy.'

We have burned already €185 billion, and... our intention is to burn even more. So we finance a country which has no chance to win the war[...]

He is also correct in his analysis of the current situation in Ukraine. And as an additional bona fide, Muslims make up about 0.1% of the population of Hungary. So what does that say about Orban's analysis of geopolitical events?

The most ridiculous aspect of this entire pathetic repudiation of the Globalist, United Nations, NATO narrative is that the West is very willing to sacrifice Ukrainian youth in the meat grinder of this war, spend their American-financed peace dividend on arms for Ukraine, but would never dream of sending a single soldier to fight. That's for filthy Slavs to do! And also because their fighting-age men are effete, despise any martial spirit, and simply don't care enough about anything to fight for it! Including of course fighting the Muslim hordes raping their women!

Orban is correct. This will end in a Russian victory of sorts, and throwing good money into the quagmire of Eastern Ukraine is laughable, if it weren't also deadly and destructive. The West should push hard for some sort of ceasefire, but expanding the war by sending American offensive weapons to Ukraine is insanity. Yes, that will put pressure on Moscow, but is it the kind of pressure that ends wars? No.

The real question is: What does Europe get for its €185 billion? The continuation of the obscene corruption in Ukraine? That speaks ill of the morality of the Western elites. They are willing to sacrifice Ukrainian and Russian youth to keep the graft flowing.

[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Femme à l'écharpe
René Lelong

The Morning Report — 11/18/25

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Continuing from where we left off yesterday, our dear friend the VP and Director of Communications at the invaluable Heartland Institute, Jim Lakely, has dropped yet another poll that does not bode well for the restoration of our republic let alone for its survival.

42% of likely voters aged 18-39 who identify as conservative want Democratic Socialist to win presidency, Parents and online videos or podcasts are most likely to influence young Americans to support democratic socialism, 52% said their teachers or professors favored democratic socialism when they attended school

I don't even want to imagine what the respondents who identified as liberal wanted. Way back in the 1960s, the lower end of the aforementioned cohort had the battle cry Never Trust Anyone Over 30 Bitterly ironic and catastrophic is how many of them reached that age to become academics, the very ones they railed against trusting.

Had they only met the same fate as their contemporaries Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, or blew themselves up in Greenwich Village townhouses making pipe bombs as their expression of universal love and brotherhood. How much better off we'd all be. Alas, the Communist myth of utopianism and self-hatred is a hell of a drug. So we're primed to get Mamdani'd right in the neck. Or are we?

Decades in the making, Western civilization faces a profound crisis in its political leadership. The problem the West confronts is clear: for too long, Western leaders in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. willfully abandoned the core principles of Western Civilization. They adopted policies that were both foreign and antithetical to the historical civilization of their countries and the societies that their fathers and mothers knew, which had, in fact, nurtured the very leaders who then labored to destroy it. These policies, including multiculturalism and progressivism, were anchored in Marxist-Leninist thought. Their impact has been catastrophic. Their consequence is that the future of Western Civilization is now in the balance. This was done deliberately.

The policies had the effect of weakening the Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment core principles of the West. These included intentional and sustained efforts to evict these principles from the public space while opening their borders to mass immigration from non-Western peoples. This has been done so massively and so quickly that most Western European states, including Ireland, France, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, are at great risk of destabilization. Importantly, those states that rejected mass immigration, Hungary and Poland, are not. .. The West is thus in the curious position of permitting its statues to be toppled and its civilization destroyed by those who have the freedom to hold the West in contempt, a freedom that was made possible by that civilization. Of course, the West’s enemies do not care about that irony. The point is to destroy the West, and Western freedoms will be weaponized against Western peoples. In the end, it was Western Europe’s leaders who have intentionally and consistently made this situation possible.

The focus of this essay is on western Europe but is most certainly applicable to what we are experiencing right here in the good old US of A. And its these leaders who for the most part are or were the cream of the crop of Academia.

Some of them, not so much.

Monday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) said President Donald Trump had caused a “consistent spike in the violence when it comes to politics.”

Crockett said, “I believe that we all need to pay attention to Trump and how he acts. He is the cause of all the confusion and the destruction that we have seen in politics. As far as I’m concerned, because it used to be we could disagree, and that was that. I disagree with a lot of Republicans, but it does not necessarily turn violent. Ever since he’s been introduced into politics, we have seen a consistent spike in the violence when it comes to politics.”

And yet this urine-saturated lice-infested whorehouse mattress somehow became an elected member of our House of rRepresentatives.

Elsewhere, is shit about to get real "down Souse American way" as Carmen Miranda would croon? John Bolton, the inept, egotistical warmongering buffoon reacted to our biggest carrier, the USS Gerald Ford arriving off the coast of South America, with what to me is a Luca Brasi/Johnny Fontaine Godfather reference:

“Well, I think the drug smugglers can obviously see what’s happening. It’d be stunning, as they do, that they don’t shift their routes and find other ways to get drugs into the United States. Let’s face it, it’s our demand for the drugs that’s giving them the incentive to try this; they’ll find other ways. But it also shows the confusion in the White House’s objectives. If it’s simply about illegal narcotics, that’s one thing, but it seems to be about overthrowing Maduro. Why else bring the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group from the European theater to the Caribbean? Trump has now put the gun on the table. The question is, is he going to use it or not?”

Either his signature or his brains will be on the paper!

Aside from being a communist thug, whose legitimacy as that nation's president is dubious at best, his close strategic ties to both Iran and the Chi-Coms have made his regime a national security threat to both America and our allies in the region. Neither of the aforementioned can be allowed to have any kind of a foothold or influence. Am I looking for a war, no. But flexing of our muscles if done very carefully and intelligently can yield the results we desire and that are necessary.

Maduro must indeed go as well as every other Communist regime in South America and the Caribbean, let alone the world. And south of our seemingly reappearing southern border, thank you President Trump, the Mexican people are sick of the narco terrorists and their corrupt government, and are taking to the streets...

Is President Trump's show of strength against Venezuelan and Colombian drug traffickers having an unexpected knock-on effect in cartel-plagued Mexico?It's hard not to think that when one sees the intensity of protests like these at the center of Mexico City:

In the long term if the pressure is kept up, no doubt it helps our situation at the border, despite most of the violence coming from American leftists attacking our own ICE agents and police.

It's a fine thing to defeat communism abroad, but we are going to have to crush the life out of it right here at home before they can crush us.

This is not the Democrat party of thirty or even twenty years ago. It is a party determined to transform this nation and destroy the foundations of Western Civilization. Because of federalism and its overwhelmingly successful 250-year history as a capitalist-based constitutional republic, they will never succeed in peacefully transforming the United States into a one-party socialist oligarchy. However, it’s very likely that they will succeed in violently fracturing the nation, fomenting civil conflict, and hastening the death of Western Civilization.

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
• 42% of likely voters aged 18-39 who identify as conservative want Democratic Socialist to win presidency, Parents and online videos or podcasts are most likely to influence young Americans to support democratic socialism, 52% said their teachers or professors favored democratic socialism when they attended school
  Heartland/Rasmussen Poll: Majority of Young Likely Voters Want Democratic Socialist to Win the White House in 2028
• Leaders across the English-speaking world used the pandemic to trade democratic messiness for centralized control, revealing a ruling class that trusts abstraction far more than its own citizens.
  The Dangerous Politics of Abstraction

Daily Tech News 18 November 2025

—Pixy Misa

• If you gaze too long into CoreWeave, CoreWeave gazes back at you. (The Verge) (archive site)
  
  Some actually sound reporting from The Verge's usually reliably crazy Elizabeth Lopatto, about deeply dubious datacenter holding company CoreWeave.

  But as I began to look more closely at the company, I began feeling like I'd accidentally stumbled on an eldritch horror. CoreWeave is saddled with massive debt and, except in the absolute best-case scenario of fast AI adoption, has no obvious path toward profitability. There are some eyebrow-raising accounting choices. And then, naturally, there are the huge insider sales of CoreWeave stock.

  Yes, naturally there are those.
  
  Wait, what?

  After I unfocused my eyes a little, I realized CoreWeave did make a horrible kind of sense: It's a tool to hedge other companies' risks and juice their profits. It's taking on the risk and the costs of building data centers that bigger tech companies can then rent while they build their own data centers which may very well wind up competing with CoreWeave. What's more, it's part of a whole stable of companies that are propping up demand for the behemoth of the AI boom: Nvidia.

  The usual names pop up in the list of investors in CoreWeave. Nvidia is a major investor and is selling the company billions of dollars worth of GPUs, which CoreWeave then provides access to for customers like OpenAI and Microsoft, which are also major investors.
  
  It also has billions in outstanding loans at variable interest rates.
  
  It's not a bubble.
  
  
   
• Meanwhile Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is deeply worried about the power a handful of unelected people like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have to shape the future of AI. (Business Insider)
  
  Deeply worried, I tell you. Deeply.

Overnight Open Thread (11/17/2025)

—CBD

Mount Mitchell, in North Carolina...the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River. To give you some sense of scale, Mount Mitchell is about 6,800 feet high, and Donner Pass through the Northern Sierra is about 7,000 feet high...one of the lowest passes through the range!

Average annual snowfall on Mount Mitchell (from 1980-2024) is about 85 inches. Average annual snowfall at Donner Pass is about 450 inches.

This is why I chuckle when I hear people talk about mountains in New Jersey.

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Federal Firearm Indictments Up 292 Percent Under Expanded Project Safe Neighborhoods in Northern Illinois

The number of defendants charged in PSN firearm indictments is up 287 percent compared to last year. The PSN program is an evidence-based program that focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders while bringing together a broad spectrum of stakeholders to identify the most pressing violent crime problems and develop comprehensive solutions to address them.

One such problem is violence in Chicago's downtown neighborhoods and public rail system. In June of this year, U.S. Attorney Boutros announced an expansion of PSN to include the economic centers in downtown Chicago and the entire rail system operated by the Chicago Transit Authority, including all train lines.

Sorry, it's a TownHall link, which means it can be nigh unreadable with the popups and other ads splashed all over the place. And to make it worse, there is a huge amount of government jargon and obfuscation. But the salient point is that the federal government is charging and prosecuting violent criminals.

I know...I know...it's a crazy idea, but it just might work!

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La Vie En Rose
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Heavy drinking in youth may aid career success, study suggests
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• Hoddypeak
  
• Hiraeth
  
• Apricity
  
• Gobemouche
  
• Brabble
  
• Perendinate

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Close it up

Manatee Monday! Cafe

—Ace

Puppies observe delicate surgery on a stuffed rabbit chew-toy.

It's learning...

Dog gets ready for the working day.

Dog refuses to get up.

The ancient Egyptians pharaohs used to mummify their cats as a tribute. Cite: this kid.

Mondays am i rite?

A dentist employs a therapy dog.

Evil river otter mimics the cute face-touching behaviors of good sea otters, to infiltrate us with fake cuteness.

A ritual mephitic dance.

ALL RIGHT WE'RE DIGGING WE'RE DIGGING WHOO HOO THIS IS AWESOME

In case you missed it (or in case I forgot to post it): Dog tries to get a baby to play fetch.

Soros Donated to Group Determined to Censor Conservatives (and Group Determined to Justify the Islamic Conquest of Israel)

—Ace

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.

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."

Oh? It was just a policy choice with both pros and cons, eh?

"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.

Lowly Federal Magistrate Orders Comey Prosecutor to Turn Over all Grand Jury Materials, Claiming a "Disturbing Pattern" of Prosecuting a Democrat

—Ace

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.

"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."

We never grant these motions, but a key Democrat Deep State operative is making it now, soooo.

...

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."

Malls Are Dying. Hollywood Is Dying.
Is America Dying?

—Ace

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.

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.

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.

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 competition
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

That'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.

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."

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.

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.

Surprise: Trump's Would-Be Assassin in Butler, PA Was Interested in Gay Furry Porn

—Ace

How very unexpected.

Breitbart:

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:

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.

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:

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.

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.

That report relies on Miranda Divine of the NY Post.

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.

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.

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.

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?

The Nigh-Infinite Racial Grievance of Michelle Hussein Obama

—Ace

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.

Michelle Obama grew up in Chicago in the 1970's. She wants you to believe white people were killing blacks because of how they talked and what they wore. @MichelleObama needs a therapist -- and Jesus. pic.twitter.com/v11d6VZHtZ

— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) November 15, 2025

But that's not all. She also says that she won't be running for president, and does not blame that on her own laziness or desire to suck up millions from leftwing corporations for doing nothing. No, it's because you're all "liars" who say you'll vote for a female candidate, but you won't, you dirty Sexists who are also Racists.

She says "we've all got some growing up to do" and that's the Unroyal We, by "we" she means "you."

Michelle Obama:

“Don't even look at me about running, because you all are lying. You're not ready for a woman. So don't waste my time. We got a lot of growing up to do.”

pic.twitter.com/9ckISDD7xw

— Spencer Hakimian (@SpencerHakimian) November 15, 2025

Terrence K. Williams @w_terrence

Dear Michelle Obama, let me jog your memory since you can't stop playing the victim card for five minutes.

You keep talking about how "hard" it is to be Black in America and how white people are supposedly holding you down. meanwhile:

You became the first Black First Lady in American history.
You were a well-paid lawyer before that.
You received multi-million-dollar book deals.

You and your husband walked away with a $60 million Netflix deal despite zero experience in film.

You and Barack left the White House richer than you entered.

You own multiple multi-million-dollar homes , including oceanfront mansions.
Your family's net worth is over $100 million.

All of this happened in the same America you claim is "unfair" and "holding you back."

Instead of fear-mongering and discouraging Black Americans, maybe try showing some gratitude for the country that made you one of the most privileged people on the planet and start inspiring Black people instead of convincing them they're powerless.

Because if America was really as bad as you say, Michelle, you wouldn't be living the American Dream at the very top of it.

The Bee:

Michelle Obama says her parents were "suspicious of folks who took more than they needed."

She has 3 houses and a $160 million dollar net worth. pic.twitter.com/6iIgWcORyH

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) August 21, 2024

Close it up

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

—Ace

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 Eagleman @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?

Not 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.

Lee Fang @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.

She 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.

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."

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.

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.

THE MORNING RANT: Beware the Concern Trolls Advising Trump to Abandon His Agenda Because of the Economy

—Buck Throckmorton

“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.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Pan and Selene
Hans von Aachen

The Morning Report — 11/17/25

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Ever since I became a political junkie and a confirmed conservative, some time between the high-tech lynching of Clarence Thomas and the nightmare of 9/11/01, the writing of the brilliant historian, economist and educator Thomas Sowell was something that I soon became aware of and devoured eagerly every time his byline appeared.

His retirement a few years back although understandable as he is now 95, was nevertheless something I was sad to see. His brilliance as a thought leader for free markets, Americanism and our society and culture is something that is sorely needed now more than ever, considering what we are reaping from the indoctrination mills of American academia these days. So, I was thrilled to see his byline appear once again this weekend. As a caveat, this piece was originally published in 2006. But as with his entire body of work, it is nevertheless relevant given the trajectory of both the leadership and especially the base of the Democrat party and its race to openly embrace and implement socialist policies across the land.

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’

Daily Tech News 17 November 2025

—Pixy Misa

• 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.