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AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
Train songs have played a major role in American culture and they also play a prominent role in the canon of 20th century American music. From “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “Wabash Cannonball” to “City of New Orleans” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” songs about passenger trains captured a sense of their eras.
But by the 1960s, jet airplanes started to replace trains as the dominant form of commercial travel, and the romance of air travel was starting to capture the nation’s fancy. Popular music embraced this exciting new era of travel – along with the heartbreak of a broken relationship ending with the former lover flying off into distant skies.
Here is a bit of the musical magic from that era…
I still hum this song on those infrequent occasions when I change planes at LAX…
”L.A. International Airport” [Susan Raye]
With silver wings across the sky, vapor trails that wave goodbye
To those below who've got to stay at home
I wish that I had flown at night, so I could take that champagne flight
Rid myself of every tear I own.
Soaring high above the heaven, in a 747
Fighting back the tears that curse my eyes
Captain's voice so loud and clear, amplifies into my ear
Assuring me I'm flying friendly skies.
L.A. International Airport
Where the big jet engines roar
L.A. International Airport
I won't see him anymore
*****
Who better than Merle Haggard to sing a country song about airplanes and broken hearts…
”Silver Wings” [Merle Haggard]
Silver wings
Shining in the sunlight
Roaring engines
Headed somewhere in flight
They're taking you away
And leaving me lonely
Silver wings
Slowly fading out of sight
*****
John Denver really should have recorded a sequel to this song to let us know if he ever came back…
”Leaving on a Jet Plane” [John Denver]
So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go
*****
Airplane songs weren’t all country and folk. Rockers were singing about air travel too.
Economic News, or We're All Going to Die!!!! Or Not. I'm not a Psychic.
—TheJamesMadison
April 2, 2025 was Liberation Day, the day that Trump's tariff offensive against the world started. Absent any real numbers, the press focused on the stock market's reaction as proof that it was a bad and destructive thing. Well...
There goes that narrative. Stocks are now back to where they were on April 2 one month later.
Are stocks the economy? No. It's somewhere between investment, speculation, and gambling, and the more time goes on, the more I think it's closer to gambling than anything else. What else is there?
Well, how about this? The below is the 2-year bond yield on US Treasuries over the last three months.
This is important because the 2-year bonds are the main vehicle of financing US debt, and it's lost 50 basis points since Trump took office. The US has a current debt of nearly $37 trillion. 50 basis points saved on that matters when refinancing bonds and directly affecting the amount of interest payments. We're currently at a point where interest payments on debt are probably going to be more than $1 trillion a year. That's more than the DOD's entire budget of about $850 billion.
Shaving down interest rates has an outsized effect on our deficit, and it's why Trump has been so vocal against Fed Chair Powell, an officer who reports to Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent. (Tangentially, Trump does have the power to fire Powell. It's a minor theme of the employment lawsuits going around right now.) The Fed directs interest rates, and the Fed's rates are well out of alignment with market rates, indicating a necessary cut (you know, what Powell rushed to do in October of last year in order to try and help Kamala Harris win the presidency).
Okay, but what else? Who cares about interest rates? I don't really care, even though I know I should. How about this:
There it is: Native-born workers: +1.04 million Foreign-born workers: -410,000 pic.twitter.com/SkHM1GnTgN
One of the lesser talked about parts of the Biden economy was the growth of jobs at the expense of people who were born here in favor of those who weren't. You can see that in the graph where the red line (foreign workers) was consistently above the growth of the green line (native workers), but this last month saw a sharp change, news brought about by the 177,000 April employment numbers.
There is no one number that can indicate the strength of the economy, but the GDP numbers for Q1 (when you actually look under the baseline -.3%) was actually pretty good, employment seems to be moving in the right direction, and bond yields seem to indicate better management of federal debt.
We are just over 100 days into Trump's presidency. He walked in with what he saw as a mandate to shake things up. We've gotten a lot of noise about how it's all bad, but...all I'm really seeing is signs of hope.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as extremist.
Having regarded the AfD as a suspected extremist movement since 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), on May 2 designated the populist party as “right-wing extremist,” following an “intensive and comprehensive expert examination.”
This means that intelligence services now have the right to keep it under surveillance.
BfV said in a statement that AfD’s approach to ethnicity is “not compatible with the free democratic basic order.”
According to BfV’s statement, AfD does not consider German nationals with a migration background from Muslim-origin countries as equal members of the German people.
I know...I know... it's impossible for the 4th Estate to be anything but perfectly neutral and aboveboard. Yet here we are!
The German people made AfD one of the most popular parties in Germany, and clearly the elites in Germany can't tolerate having mere citizens deciding the fate of the country.
Are there true extremists in AfD? Of course. Just like there are true extremists in every single political party on earth. But it is curious that the lunatic violent environmentalists who want Germany back in the stone age aren't classified as extremists. And it is curious that the remnants of the communists who routinely surveilled, tortured, imprisoned, and murdered their fellow Germans aren't classified as extremists. And it is most curious that the Muslims openly advocating for sharia law in Germany are not classified as extremists.
And AfD and Israel have common cause...they both see militant Islam as an existential danger. And that is in stark contrast to the ruling party: CDU never met a murdering Islamist they didn't like!
So maybe Germany should be allowed their opinions on foreigners taking over their country. Obviously they need Donald Trump to run for Chancellor. Maybe he can clean up Germany's border after he fixes ours!
It is common for people to draw parallels and comparisons between whatever or whoever is happening now and whatever and whoever happened before. The greater the event or the man, the more people will go looking for historical parallels. Even loose parallels are still embraced as a way to contextualize and explain whatever is happening now. We see this all the time with events and men alike. "Not since X" or "best since Y" or "worst since Z" are all very normal things to see.
When something becomes a cultural touchstone, it will inevitably become a common point for drawing historical parallels. COVID was compared to the 1918 Spanish Flu (or less often, the 1968 flu outbreak). 9/11 is the touchstone for terror attacks here and abroad. The October 7 attacks were described in many countries as "Israel's 9/11" because 9/11 is the touchstone. Depending on your political preferences, Biden was the worst president since Carter or the greatest president Roosevelt (or various others). The comparison made most often and most loudly for the past decade, however, is also the stupidest.
That comparison is, of course, between Trump and Hitler. This is a histrionic and profoundly stupid comparison. The two are nothing alike. If they were anything alike, those making this common and loud comparison would have been liquidated close to a decade ago, followed by total political persecution and slaughter of their fellow travelers while amping up state control of industry, social programs and wars of conquest. These, of course, did not happen. They couldn't. Trump is not at all like history's greatest boogeyman. But Trump, whether one likes him or not, is a great man, and great men invite comparison. This particular comparison, despite being very common, is quite stupid - but that doesn't mean comparison as such is stupid.
There are others. A lot on the right like to compare Trump to Reagan. Those on the left pretending to be edgy will sometimes say that Trump isn't really like Hitler, because he's really much more like Mussolini. One of our esteemed Morons (h/t whig), however, drew a historical comparison that I found compelling. It is a man who was profoundly different and Trump's opposite in virtually all of the particulars, but who shares very a common theme: Mikhail Gorbachev.
Like Trump, Gorbachev was a loyal patriot of a system that was approaching end-stage corruption and incompetence. Like Trump, Gorbachev took control in an attempt to salvage the system to which he was loyal by instituting reforms and making sweeping changes in an effort to arrest the decline. Like Trump, Gorbachev was the target of endless intra-Party attacks and coup attempts. The men are nothing alike in the specific. Gorbachev was a communist and Trump is not, as an obvious example.
But in a broader sense, the two are in similar situations, and trying to do essentially the same thing: fix the problems are arrest the decline. Both the USSR of the 1980s and the USA of the 2020s are empires in decline. Both are being consumed by corrupt and incompetent petty kinglets. Both countries have (or had) a decrepit, criminal ruling elite and a growing underclass increasingly mired in malaise and that is actively hated by its rulers. The USSR was further along then than the USA is now (and started from a much lower point), but the parallels are there and, I think, it is not hyberbolic to say that the situations rhyme. Things are not as bad here as they were in the USSR at its end, but we're on a similar glide path, with many commonalities.
The situation in both countries demanded - and got, at least in part - new leadership. Those leaders are not so dissimilar to each other. Gorbachev was not a revolutionary. At his core, Gorbachev was a loyal Communist Party member and Soviet. He did not want revolution and he did not want to tear down the Soviet Union. He wanted to reform the Soviet Union, to clear out the worst of the corruption and incompetence, clear out the deadest of the dead wood and in so doing, try to guarantee the Soviet Union's survival. He knew and was not alone in his knowledge that the USSR was teetering on the edge of collapse. His entire agenda was geared toward saving the system to which he was loyal, however damaged it had become.
Sound familiar? I think so. I think it sounds a lot like Donald Trump. Like Gorbachev, Trump is a reformer and not a revolutionary. He is thoroughly patriotic, loves the United States and is loyal to her and her people. He is trying to clear out the worst of the corruption and incompetence and clear out the deadest of the dead wood so as to ensure the recovery and re-ascendance of the United States. Unlike the USSR, the USA is (probably) not on the razor's edge of collapse but nonetheless, Trump - like Gorbachev - is having to beat back coup attempts and a continuous full-scale Party counter-assault by and on behalf of the politically-powerful established interests feeding on the body.
There are, of course, meaningful and important differences between the two that go far beyond one being a communist and the other being a human. Gorbachev was often fairly timid and Trump is brash. Gorbachev tried to be a "team player" and Trump does not. Gorbachev gently implemented many halfway measures, and Trump tends to go - or at least try to go - whole-hog. At the micro level, the two are radically different men with radically different approaches and diametrically opposed philosophies.
At the core of it, though, the two are quite alike. All of the particulars are different, but the themes are not. Both of these men tried (or are trying) desperately to fix and salvage their countries. To invert the normal form, they came not to bury Caesar, but to praise him. Gorbachev failed and ended up burying him anyway, though Trump so far has not. That's another fairly important difference.
Job growth was stronger than expected in April despite worries over the impact of President Donald Trump's blanket tariffs against U.S. trading partners.
Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 177,000 for the month, slightly below the downwardly revised 185,000 in March but above the Dow Jones estimate for 133,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. [Bolding mine]
Do you want direct evidence of the media's hatred of President Trump and their manipulation of their reporting to demonize him?
There it is!
The administration is not enacting "blanket tariffs." The news is filled with their constant offers to negotiate, their willingness to change tariffs based on actual data, and their obvious recognition that tariffs are both an economic and geopolitical tool.
"Blanket tariffs" is simply wrong, and an obvious attempt to reduce the efforts of the administration to simplistic, jingoistic, and rigid.
And there is more! Think back to the years of Glorious Leader Biden...how often did the media cite downward revisions in data? I can't recall a single report! They simply glossed over the constant revisions, because they were in the bag for the administration.
Every time the media vomits up this sort of manipulative nonsense, remind yourself that it is bought and paid for by the Democrat/Progressive apparatus. The media are whores, and cheap ones at that.
NY Times is Concerned About China Dumping Subsidized Goods on Europe Due to Trump’s Tariffs
—Buck Throckmorton
The New York Times has excoriated President Trump for trying to disengage the US economy from our mercantilist reliance on cheap Chinese goods. But for all its enmity toward Trump and his trade policies, the Times is concurrently worried that Europe might find itself in an unfavorable trade relationship with China – a trade relationship like the awful one from which President Trump is trying to extract the U.S.
Other than being driven by intense, partisan animus toward Donald Trump, it seems inexplicable that the paper of record would be concerned about Europe surrendering economic sovereignty to China, while at the same time being passionately opposed to America exerting its own economic sovereignty. Isn’t the Times being hypocritical?
No, the NY Times is not being hypocritical. It is very consistent in being rabidly anti-American. Therefore, being concerned about Europe retaining an industrial economy while cheering against American industry is quite principled for the voice of the left. It may be vulgar and offensive, but it’s consistent with the Times’ America-Last principles.
First off, here are some of the typical recent headlines the NY Times has been running as it contemptuously covers Trump’s economic agenda:
Just a quick fisking of that headline and sub-headline is revealing.
“Europe fears a flood of cheap Goods from China.” I don’t blame them, because a flood of cheap Chinese goods has done great harm to America.
“A hazardous scenario for European countries: The dumping of artificially cheap products that could undermine local industries.” Correct! China dumping artificially cheap products on America has undermined local American industries. What is so telling is that the Times is OK with cheap, subsidized products undermining American industries, and they want it to continue. Their concern is that Donald Trump may make it impossible for China to dump on us any longer, and that China may start dumping on Europe instead. That is a problem to the NY Times.
Here is some of the body of that story.
China has for years presented an economic challenge for Europe. Now, it could become an economic disaster. It produces a vast array of artificially cheap goods — heavily subsidized electric vehicles, consumer electronics, toys, commercial grade steel and more — but much of that trade was destined for the endlessly voracious American marketplace.
Per the Times, it’s OK for China to dump subsidized goods on the U.S. because we have a “voracious” marketplace. Their fear is that Europe might also have a voracious appetite for goods subsidized by a communist country artificially supporting its manufacturing.
With many of those goods now facing an extraordinary wall of tariffs thanks to President Trump, fear is rising that more products will be dumped in Europe, weakening local industries in France, Germany, Italy and the rest of the European Union.
Again, the Times is OK with China having already weakened local industries in the U.S. Their concern is that Trump’s tariffs might cause China to weaken local industries throughout their beloved European Union.
“The overcapacity challenge has taken a long time, but it has finally arrived in European capitals,” said Liana Fix, a Washington-based fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There is a general trend and a feeling in Europe that in these times, Europe has to stand up for itself and has to protect itself.”
So we’re now acknowledging that China has overproduction, that it subsidizes the dumping of its excess production on other countries, and that Europe has to stand up and protect itself. But for some reason these same people are apoplectic that Donald Trump and a majority of U.S. voters feel the same way about protecting the United States from China.
“We cannot absorb global overcapacity nor will we accept dumping on our market,” Ms. von der Leyen [President of the European Union] said as Mr. Trump’s tariffs went into effect.
You’re right, Ms. van der Leyen! And neither can the United States absorb global overcapacity, nor should we accept dumping in our market either.
“The worst-case scenario is high U.S. tariffs” while at the same time “China is flooding the European market,” said Noah Barkin, a senior adviser for the Rhodium Group, a policy research organization. He said that would be “a double whammy for European industry. That is what Europe wants to avoid.”
Can a Principled Free Trader please explain to me why it’s a “worst case scenario” for Europe to be both the dumping ground for subsidized Chinese products while also being the victim of having its exports blocked by high foreign tariffs. I’ve been regularly assured by Principled Free Traders that that exact scenario is a desirable occurrence when that double-whammy of dumping and protective tariffs is inflicted on U.S. manufacturing. Doesn’t Europe benefit from the same “lower consumer prices” that the free traders are always touting when they promote American surrender to foreign mercantilism?
But trade experts say the economic relationship between Europe and China is rooted in a decades-old reality: a Chinese marketplace that is effectively closed to many European companies because of regulatory burdens and the Communist Party’s buttressing of Chinese companies. The European trade deficit with China was nearly $332 billion (€292 billion) in 2023.
Again, Chinese trade barriers and government subsidization of industry, along with the resulting trade deficit are bad for Europe. Correct. They’re just as bad when the U.S. is being victimized by China.
There is much more in this article that keeps hammering these same points about how unfair Chinese dumping would be for Europe, which are coincidentally pretty much the same points Trump and MAGA have been making about unfair, unreciprocal, unilateral trade that destroys American industry and economic sovereignty.
Jeffrey Tucker asks the question in the tweet below, “I’m trying to understand NYT economics. How can what’s good for the US be an obvious disaster for Europe.?”
The answer, of course, is that the New York Times does not want what is good for the U.S. It conveys a globalist disdain for America and wishes it harm. Unfair trade with China that harms the US is good for the left’s ultimate vision for the U.S., but our country must be harmed economically for the left’s vision to be fulfilled.
I would also argue that all “conservatives” and libertarians who similarly preach unilateral surrender by the United States to foreign mercantilism are just as antagonistic to a strong, independent Unites States as is the New York Times and their crowd.
A high school English teacher in Maine has allegedly called for the Secret Service and U.S. military to assassinate President Donald Trump, his supporters, and top Trump advisors.
JoAnna St. Germain, who teaches at Waterville Senior High School, appears to have made the concerning remarks on her Facebook page, prompting investigations by police and the school district where she is employed.
I doubt she'll receive anything more than a slap on the wrist, but in the highly unlikely event she does lose her job, she can always go teach at Harvard or Berkeley. Where she can be free to teach Jew-baiting, anti-Americanism and Chi-Com indoctrination to her black heart's delight. Unless of course President Trump's efforts at exposing and dismantling of the Pre-K to Post-graduate indoctrination machine can run unimpeded for the remainder of his term and continue indefinitely. the destruction of American academia has been going on for nearly a century or more, from Horace Mann and John Dewey to Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School and through the malign influence of Bill Ayers and his coven of corruptors. So, preventing further brainwashing and hopefully deprogramming the past two or three generations of those who came through the school systems is not going to happen overnight, and certainly not without a fight, that given the words of this stain in Maine, could and likely will get physical. Burning tesla dealerships, and sleeping subway riders, if not entire cities circa the summer of 2020 should be your first hint.
The Trump administration this week slashed $1 billion in so-called “mental health” grants for educational institutions, many of which were going to promote leftist ideology and train leftist activists.
The Education Department confirmed Wednesday that it was making cuts to grants handed out by the Biden administration ostensibly for the purpose of “mental health” because of the focus of many of the recipients on racially-focused programs. In a notice to Congress, the administration said it was going to “re-envision and re-compete” the funds allocated for mental health at schools in a gun control bill signed by former [puppet] President Joe Biden. . .
. . . The move was first reported on Tuesday by Christopher Rufo, who wrote on X that there would be “no more slush fund for activists under the guise of mental health.”
Larry Kudlow says the recession talk sweeping through Wall Street and the press is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the latest GDP numbers — and a refusal to acknowledge the early effects of President Trump’s economic agenda.
On his Fox Business Network show Wednesday, Kudlow took direct aim at what he described as a “media and Wall Street obsession” with the headline 0.3 percent decline in real GDP during the first quarter of 2025. . .
. . . Kudlow pointed to what he called “core GDP” — a measure that strips out volatile components like inventories, government spending, and net exports. That narrower but more stable measure, known formally as real final sales to private domestic purchasers, rose at an annual rate of around 3 percent in the first quarter.
“Mr. Trump has barely begun, but take a look already at core GDP — which takes out the fluky trade import numbers from tariff front running and looks at just the heart of GDP, which is private sector consumption plus private sector business investment,” Kudlow said. “Well, looking at core GDP, you see an actual increase in the first-quarter economy — of 3 percent, no less.”
Of course Kudlow is a friend and ally of Trump having served in his first term. But he's also a shrewd and astute business guru who wouldn't stick his neck out for no good reason, as he does value his own reputation.
And as you can see from the links, there are major companies coming back to the US and once again setting up shop, which means jobs and long term investment here in the USA.
As we all know, or should know, economics and geopolitics are tied at the hip. It's no secret that the Chi-Coms have long sought to dethrone America and become the preeminent global superpower. Trump knows this and much of what he is doing vis a vis tariffs and other moves (such as the Panama Canal, Greenland and in the Middle East are intended not only to boost our domestic and foreign positions but to check the ChiComs.
Workers throughout China are flooding the streets in revolt as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slam the fragile Chinese export economy.
From the cramped streets of Sichuan in the southwest to the cold outskirts of Inner Mongolia in the northeast, furious workers are demanding backpay and protesting mass layoffs as factories shutter under pressure from Trump’s tariffs. . .
. . .The wave of anger sweeping across China today echoes the uprising in 2022 when Chinese citizens protested President Xi Jinping’s COVID lockdown orders. Xi’s forces quickly cracked down on dissent, leading to violent clashes across the country. China watchers anticipate Xi will take action again. “Xi today has the same mentality as Mao. His bottom line is that no major crisis will be allowed to endanger his hold on power,” an adviser to the Chinese government told the Journal.
There are a lot of internal problems within Red China that potentially pose a threat to the CCP. The one-child policy means a majority of the population will be elderly and not able to keep their industry and economy going and growing. The introduction of even very tightly controlled capitalist reforms instituted under Premier Deng Xiaoping a generation ago have given Chinese youth a taste of western freedom and they prefer it. The level of corruption in their government down especially to the local levels. Over the past few years there have been many mass-stabbing attacks primarily aimed at the children of local party bosses and politburo members.
There are also reported morale problems in their military as well as graft and incompetence that is reflected in their military readiness and quality of their arms and armed forces, and a gigantic real estate bubble that when it bursts could crash their economy big time. Now Trump comes along and the anticipated Chinese century that was supposed to happen with the coming of the new millennium could go up in smoke. This kind of situation on the mainland could also put Taiwan in the crosshairs perhaps sooner than expected.
I'm not predicting the Chinese Communist Party will collapse any time soon. But who knew that the Soviet Union would ever fall when it did, if at all. Hopefully, for the sake of the suffering Chinese people, the CCP disintegrates. And let's hope our own egghead schmucks in Foggy Bottom don't repeat the same insanity in dealing with whatever government arises from the ashes as it did with Russia post the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yeah, that is too much to ask for.
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.
Have a great weekend.
ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
Welcome to a community in Texas - where the Constitution is not welcome. (Meh, AKA every Democrat run city and state - jjs) EPIC City – Caliphate Blueprint USA
The wave of anger sweeping across China today echoes the uprising in 2022 when Chinese citizens protested President Xi Jinping’s COVID lockdown orders. Xi’s forces quickly cracked down on dissent, leading to violent clashes across the country. China watchers anticipate Xi will take action again.
. . . the supposed culprit of the import surge—consumer panic buying—simply isn’t real. Consumers are not front-running the tariffs. And that, too, is good news. If they were, demand would be pulled forward and set to sag in future quarters. But it hasn’t been. That means the runway ahead may be longer than expected. Consumers Aren’t Front Running Tariffs
SiriusXM CFO Dismisses Tariff Concerns on Earnings Call: ‘We Sleep Well at Night.’ text
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that she has held conversations with U.S. President Donald J. Trump on trade, revealing, “We agreed that the secretaries of the Treasury, finance, economy and commerce will continue working in the coming days on options to improve our trade balance and advance outstanding issues for the benefit of both countries.” Sheinbaum Agrees She Will Work to ‘Improve’ US-Mexico Trade Balance.
“The liberal press and their pals on Wall Street are talking about recession — because the first quarter GDP was scored with a slight decline of three-tenths of 1 percent,” Kudlow said. “Yet if you look under the hood of the GDP report, and carefully parse through the numbers, what you actually come up with is a rather strong economy, that’s growing at something like 3 percent.” Kudlow Says Real GDP Is Booming Beneath the Surface of Q1 Data
CIVIL WAR 2.0: J-6 FBI FALSE FLAG "RIOT" & AFTERMATH, LEFTIST PERSECUTIONS, DEMOCRAT PUTSCH, AMERICAN DISSOLUTION
The details of the settlement have yet to be announced, with both parties saying they “need more time to finalize documentation,” the outlet reported. The city filed suit against the “Mighty Ducks” alum in January 2019 after his claim to be the victim of a homophobic, racist attack at the hands of two MAGA-heads prowling in the dark of night was exposed as a poorly crafted charade. Jussie Smollett and city of Chicago reach settlement in lawsuit over hate crime hoax
A former judge from New Mexico, Joel Cano, along with his wife, Nancy Cano, has been released on $10,000 bonds after facing charges of tampering with evidence and allegedly harboring a Venezuelan gang member, following a federal raid on their residence. The couple was apprehended in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after Homeland Security Investigations got a tip-off in January 2025 concerning Cristhian Ortega-Lopez. Ortega-Lopez is an alleged member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Ex-Judge and Wife Accused of Harboring Foreign Gang Member Released on Bond
Morell asked Omar if more Democrats should be traveling to El Salvador to advocate for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 member deported by President Donald Trump’s administration. Omar, without answering the question, repeatedly told Morrell to “fuck off.” Bro-Fo Omar Tells Reporter To ‘F*ck Off’ Over Basic Question About El Salvador
Kilmar Abrego Garcia allegedly threatened and repeatedly abused his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, according to a protective form she filed in August 2020. Included in her domestic abuse allegations are claims that Abrego Garcia dragged her out of a vehicle by her hair and left her on the street in December 2019, broke her son’s tablet and broke down doors in their house in January 2020 and pushed her against a wall while breaking TVs and phones in March 2020. Suspected MS-13 Gangbanger Democrats Rushed To Defend Named In Second Domestic Abuse Case
“On the eve of Israel’s 77th Independence Day, massive fires rage near Jerusalem, forcing evacuations and closing major highways,” the state of Israel posted on X April 30. “Our firefighters and security forces are working tirelessly to protect lives. We are grateful for the support of all our friends offering assistance. We pray for everyone’s safety.” Did Terrorists Start Jerusalem Fires Before Israeli Independence Day?
Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), and Robin Kelly (D-IL) all submitted official requests to have their support withdrawn from the India-born congressman’s impeachment proposal on Tuesday, stating they had been mistaken on certain aspects of it. 3 Democrats Withdraw Support for Rep. Thanedar’s Trump Impeachment Proposal
FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES, CENSORSHIP, FAKE NEWS, MEDIA, BIG BROTHER TECH
Michael Walsh: Whether the patrician Walter Lippmann would have admired the wishful handiwork he espoused in Public Opinion (1922) now that it is a reality is open to question, but surely he would celebrate the intrusion of the American federal government, along with governments around the world, into both de facto and de jure informational control of cyberspace. In many countries around the world, the press and attendant broadcast media are now directly and unabashedly controlled by government entities which, in many cases, openly fund and censor them. THE CONVERSATION: 'A Higher Loyalty'
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
The mainstream media’s refusal to adopt a neutral stance on climate change has transformed a complex scientific debate into a monolithic narrative of impending catastrophe. How Media Exploits Climate Catastrophism
The news comes days after the Trump administration launched an investigation into UC Berkeley for allegedly failing to disclose funding from China, including a $220 million government investment in Berkeley’s joint research institution with Tsinghua University. UC Berkeley Received Six-Figure Donations From CCP Officials, Records Show
Harris rattled off a list of Democrat leaders who really inspire her: “Corey Booker, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Murphy, Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, AOC, and Bernie Sanders.” Kamala’s Return Speech Sparks Secondhand Embarrassment
Douglas Murray: . . . the true highlight of Kamala’s speech came when she dug into her familiar wine-mom technique. Then the memories really came flooding back. To the public — if not to her. Flailing around with her hands and laughing before she had even said anything funny she invoked the behavior of animals in the zoo. Quite literally. Kamala Harris reminds everyone why we didn’t elect her president
The apparent suicide attempts, in February and April, involved high doses of prescription medication that prompted emergency responses to her home and congressional office, according to The Colorado Sun. Both events were previously undisclosed to the public and only came to light as Caraveo announced a new bid for Congress this year. (Dear Democrat voters . . . - jjs) REPORT: Former Democrat Congresswoman Tried To Kill Herself Twice Ahead Of Election
Waltz’s reassignment reflects Trump’s strategic reshuffling to optimize his administration’s efficiency, ensuring America First policies are advanced at the UN while national security gets a reset following ‘Signalgate.’ Trump Nominates Mike Waltz to Become UN Ambassador.
Romania had elected hardline conservative anti-globalist Calin Georgescu late last year, but the election was called off and nullified after he was accused of being pro-Russian. Romanians scheduled a new election for May, and Simion—who has promised Georgescu a position in his government if he wins—has emerged as the front-running candidate. Protests have erupted across Romania with people objecting to interference in their elections from Brussels, globalist plotters who canceled Georgescu’s victory. Exclusive — Leading Romanian Presidential Candidate George Simion: Let’s ‘Make Europe Great Again’ (MEGA! - jjs)
DEFENSE, MILITARY, SECURITY AFFAIRS
Waltz came under scrutiny after he put together an encrypted Signal group chat that mistakenly included the Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg, which inadvertently disclosed discussions with top Trump administration officials about plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen. One source familiar with the situation told CBS News that the president believes that enough time has passed since the controversy that Waltz and Wong’s departure can be framed as part of a reorganization and that he initially resisted efforts to remove his national security adviser to avoid the appearance of bowing to outside pressure. Reports: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Deputy Alex Wong Out at National Security Council
Cool image time! The false-color X-ray picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was released today by the science team for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, showing some interesting astronomical features about 26,000 light years away near the galactic center. Giant galactic magnetic filament disturbed by pulsar
The cluster is about 650 light-years away in Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer, and has been nicknamed “Ophion” in honor of its resident constellation. “Ophion is filled with stars that are set to rush out across the galaxy in a totally haphazard, uncoordinated way, which is far from what we’d expect for a family so big,” said Huson in a statement. “What’s more, this will happen in a fraction of the time it’d usually take for such a large family to scatter. It’s like no other star family we’ve seen before.” Astronomers discover a cluster of a thousand very young stars that is flying apart for unknown reasons
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “[M]an everywhere appears as a worshiping creature.” This applies not only to the faithful, but to the unbeliever as well. A person who rejects the divine merely redirects his worship to something else: money, politics, ideology, romantic love, knowledge. The list goes on.
In a peaceful, prosperous nation, it’s easy to live that way. But what happens when the West’s centuries-long experiment with secularism proves each of these replacement faiths to be tin gods? Look to Europe, where it all began.
This Easter, the Catholic Church in France baptized 10,384 adults, along with about 7,400 new members aged 11 to 17. This is the highest number of entrants in more than 20 years, and a 45% increase in adult catechumens compared to last year.
Father Benoist de Sinety, a parish priest in Lille, noted that this year’s Ash Wednesday masses “shattered attendance records,” with many congregants being “young people attending for the first time.”
Guess which denominations aren't seeing a rise in attendance? “Progressive” ones. Hee hee.
Russia will fund the construction of a new nuclear plant in Iran, Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said at the closing ceremony of the 18th Joint Economic Cooperation Commission on Friday.
The two countries will undertake "the construction of new nuclear energy facilities and the completion of phases two and three of the Bushehr power plant using Moscow's credit line," Paknejad said.
Russia has helped Iran build its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr, in the south of the country.
Paknejad's comments came as US and Iran officials met in Oman on Saturday for a third round of nuclear talks. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators, a week after a second round of talks took place in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
Expert indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear day prior to the lead negotiators' meeting.
That's nice. It will be good to see a nice, peaceful country like Iran prosper.
It's so strange to see guns just casually displayed on shelves at Walmart, like they're no different from everyday groceries.
It's wild how you can spend five hours on the road in America and barely notice a change in your surroundings. Meanwhile, a five-hour drive in Europe lands you somewhere where the language is completely different and they have their own unique take on cheese.
Chanting 'USA!' for no apparent reason.
This Is Wild
Body transfer illusion is the illusion of owning a part of a body other than one's own. This is the famous rubber hand experiment and it tricks your brain.
Zoo Korkeasaari has quit the nearly 13-year-old Amur tiger Tamuri. Tamur lived in Korkeasaari for 11 years, the zoo says in a Facebook post.
The decision to kill a highly endangered animal is justified by reproduction. In the summer, a junior amur tiger male from Germany is coming to Korkeasaari, chosen as the companion of Tamuri’s descendant, Odeya female.
They wanted a peaceful start to a young male in Korkeasaari.
In nature, a young and old male would struggle for his territory. According to Korkeasaari, organising such a competition would not be good for animals.
You'll have to hit the “English” option at the top of the page.
With vaccination rates among US kindergarteners steadily declining in recent years and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowing to reexamine the childhood vaccination schedule, measles and other previously eliminated infectious diseases could become more common. A new analysis published today by epidemiologists at Stanford University attempts to quantify those impacts.
Using a computer model, the authors found that with current state-level vaccination rates, measles could reestablish itself and become consistently present in the United States in the next two decades. Their model predicted this outcome in 83 percent of simulations. If current vaccination rates stay the same, the model estimated that the US could see more than 850,000 cases, 170,000 hospitalizations, and 2,500 deaths over the next 25 years. The results appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Calling that mRNA crap a “vaccine” is going to have years of consequences.
When Muslim terrorists began their latest massacre in Kashmir, they first checked IDs and asked their victims to recite the ‘Kalmas’ one of several Islamic recitations used by Indian Muslims, beginning with, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.”
Those who could not recite the Islamic doctrine were killed.
“Are you Muslim? If yes, then recite the Kalma,” victims were told by the Jihadis.
“He asked my husband’s name and religion. Then he shot him,” one female survivor testified.
Describing the massacre of 26 innocent people, including an American citizen, in a Kashmir meadow as terrorism is misleading. The targets were not selected because they were government officials. They were not screened for their politics. The location was not a strategic target. The only thing that the victims had in common was that they were non-Muslims.
This is not terrorism. It’s genocide.
Question: Can/should the 1st Amendment be re-written to exclude religions like Islam?
A great many of you remember the game show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” and many of you are probably familiar with “The Monty Hall Problem,” named for the show’s host.
This is a logic problem that seems to have an illogical answer, but I finally figured out a way to understand it.
Let’s say you are a contestant on “Let’s Make a Deal.” Monty tells you that behind one door is a new car, but behind each of the other two doors is a goat. You have to choose one door. We can all agree that your odds are 1 in 3 of choosing the door with the new car. For argument’s sake, let’s say you choose door #3.
Whether or not you chose the door which hides the car, there is a 100% chance that there is a goat behind at least one of the other two doors. Monty then opens one of those doors, revealing a goat. In this case we’ll say it’s door #1. Monty then offers you the opportunity to change your door from door #3 to door #2. Should you do so?
The answer is “Yes.” Your odds will increase from 33% to 67% if you switch.
When I first heard about this, I could not wrap my brain around it. In my mind, there is a 1 in 3 chance I chose the correct door, and since Monty always had a door with a goat behind it to challenge my initial choice, I couldn’t see how my odds would change once Monty revealed a goat. So I actually played it out, and that’s when it all made sense.
If I initially chose the correct door - a 33% chance - I would always lose once I changed doors after being shown the goat.
But if I initially chose one of the two wrong doors - a 67% chance - I would always switch to the correct door after being shown the goat.
Therefore, my odds switch from 33% to 67% of correctly choosing the new car.
So back to our example, if you chose door #3 and the car was actually behind door #3, you would lose after switching. But if you chose door #3 and the car was behind either door #1 or door #2, you would be guaranteed to choose the winning door after the goat was revealed and you switched doors.
Here’s a little of Monty’s dealmaking. Also, open thread.
My company moved to a new email system for some damn reason, and today was the day they switched over. They sent clear, detailed instructions on how to get it set up on your phone (No, really. Step by step, screenshots and everything. Should have been bulletproof). I was following them when suddenly I was not seeing what the instructions said I should be seeing, so I called the help desk.
The guy that answered was friendly, and he asked me to download an ap called Beyondtrust which would allow him to remotely control my phone and finish the install.
I said no.
“Look, can you just tell me how to fix it? I trust you (and I do) but I just really hate giving remote control of my electronics to anyone. I'm not an idiot, I first went online in the early 90s with an Atari ST series computer. I've never been phished, never been hacked because I'm really leery of stuff like this, always have been. Can you talk me through it please?”
And he did, and we resolved the install. I get that it would have been easier for him to just take over, but...
Is it just me? Am I being stupid in a world where NSA knows everything about me and I carry a device around with me that tracks my location 24/7 and can easily be used to eavesdrop on me? My college age son thinks I'm nuts (Dad, anyone can find anything about you any time they want, why bother trying to hide?). He's not wrong, yet still I persist with my instincts from the stone age of the world wide web. Thoughts?
Earlier this month, Bloomberg published an article about declining male enrollment in American colleges and universities. They weren't alone - the story was also available on wire services and popped up on various newspapers - but Bloomberg's article was notable in how messy it is and what it attempts to raise in reader's mind - and what it attempts to have the reader never consider.
The pattern usually goes like this: state some facts, state some more tangentially-related or unrelated facts, stoke some fear and depend on nobody saying to himself, "wait a moment, what's missing? Are these things actually related? Why is this article trying to scare me?" We see this all the time in the American press.
Men opting out of college isn't a new phenomenon: Women have outnumbered men in undergraduate enrollment for about 40 years, and the gap continues to widen. Almost half of women age 25-34 have earned a bachelor's degree, according to Pew Research Center data; for men the rate is 37%. Between 2011 and 2022, the number of Americans attending college dropped by 1.2 million, with men accounting for almost the entirety of that drop.
As US men forgo higher education, the demographic group as a whole has lost ground in other areas too. Working-class men today are less likely to be employed than they were four decades ago, their inflation-adjusted wages have barely budged in more than 50 years ... Men with a college degree or higher still earn roughly 200% of what men without a diploma do, census data show.
Those are interesting comparisons. Can you spot a missing fact? One that stands out immediately is: "how was 'working class male' employment 40 years ago versus college education rates?" Bloomberg has made an assertion that "working-class men" have a bad deal, and it's because of falling college attendance creating too many "working-class men." Did it? Let's see.
In 1965, around 13%-15% of men aged 25 to 64 had a college degree. Looking at birth years of 1935-1950, we see soaring higher ed, with male degree attainment in those birth cohorts moving from between about 22% to about 32%. So degree attainment was quite a bit lower than it is today at the end of the period, but not by as much as you might think based on the scary headlines.
According to a 2017 study, "blue-collar" employment fell by more than half in terms of total employment as compared to the 1970s. So is the problem "men aren't going to college anymore" as Bloomberg asserts, or is the problem "employment prospects suck for non-white-collar people" as the data indicate? The two are not wholly unrelated. If there are fewer blue-collar jobs, it would be good to pursue a white-collar job if you can, and that means college. Bloomberg, however, after framing the argument, fails to discuss the broader historical picture. Instead, they go for scare tactics. This is under the ellipse in the first quote:
... they're less prone to get married or have children, and an increasing number report having no close friends. Men are also four times more likely than women to die by suicide. Data show that men age 18-30 spent an average of 6.6 nonsleeping hours alone each day in 2023, 18% more than they did in 2019 and over an hour more than women did, according to a report by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group.
Not only are they poor and underemployed, they're lonely and suicidal and it's because they didn't go to college!
Bloomberg also spends hardly any time on the cost problem. This article spends one paragraph plus a single quote from a high school student on the cost problem with college. It spends four paragraphs - plus an insert quote - on YouTube and social media "influencers" (and Trump, of course) conspiring to get men to reject college. It would all be fine if it weren't for those meddlers on YouTube and in the Oval Office! They also claim - in another three paragraphs - that men skip out on college because they're bored and it takes too long and there's too much bias in favor of instant gratification. A few words on needing a mortgage to go to college, literally nothing about education quality, and a pint of digital ink on "influencers" and "boredom" with a chaser of "you'll be miserable and suicidal if you don't go."
No. Men aren't increasingly lonely because they're not going to college. Blue collar jobs didn't vanish because not enough men went to college. Marriage rates aren't declining because not enough men go to college. Birth rates aren't approaching fertility trap territory because not enough men go to college. Bloomberg wants you to think those things, using the oldest trick in the book. The data they provide are unrelated, and the data they choose not provide are related. All of those key metrics were better when male educational attainment was lower.
But college - whether men go or not - is not the core problem. The problems described in the article - declining male enrollment, declining blue collar career prospects, declining marriage, declining reproduction, high loneliness, male suicide, etc. - are real but they are far less tightly correlated to the enrollment changes than Bloomberg wants to acknowledge. These are broad social problems that can't be boiled down to "foolish young men who spend too much time on YouTube aren't going to college because evil influencers tell them not to and they think it might be boring" or likewise boiled down to "men going to college collapses marriage and birth rates and the industrial economy."
The attempt to pin all our problems on declining enrollment is insane, and there is one line in the article that exposes what Bloomberg is really concerned about:
Returning Gen X students such as Wilson won't be enough to keep higher ed afloat.
Ah, there it is. Can't be having colleges fail because they priced themselves out of the market and drove away half their customers by offering poor value and low quality and a bad experience. Instead, get those young men to do their duty and go to college by making them (or, more likely, their parents) think they'll be underemployed, poor, lonely and suicidal if they don't. Gotta save the higher ed racket at all costs.
This article is egregious, but it isn't really special. This is how the press works and, despite the press' declining influence, it remains fairly effective.
"TJM, you've posted so much this week, but nary a word about movies? Are you okay?"
Yes, I'm fine. All is well, but I've held off long enough. The boss put out Disney threads from time to time, so I will limit myself to one Disney thread this whole week.
Currently, U.S. and Canada presales for Thunderbolts* stands at $12M+, which is on pace with another first installment MCU movie, 2021's Eternals ($71.2M). The presales figure is also ahead of that year's Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings ($75.3M) and behind this year's Captain America: Brave New World ($88.8M). Hence, the current opening projection on Thunderbolts* is $70M-$75M domestic at 4,300 theaters, with another $90M-$100M abroad.
How to Watch the Marvel Movies in Chronological Order
Like previous MCU titles, the expected draws are males over and under 25. Given that Thunderbolts* is largely Florence Pugh's movie, it will be interesting to see if her Little Women and Don't Worry Darling female fanbase shows up; women under 25 are currently trailing men under 25 in first choice.
Look at these star-fucking losers thinking that Florence Pugh is a box office draw.
Assuming a $70 million opening, one can expect the film to end up with somewhere between $200 and $250 million total US box office. Maybe the same worldwide for a total between $400 million and $500 million. That's a lot of money.
But then you have to do the actual calculation to figure out how much Disney needs to make to break even. The marketing budget will be at least $100 million. The purported budget is $180 million (though, that number is old and there were at least two sets of reshoots, last summer and then last November, reportedly not nearly as extensive as the last Captain America movie). So, that's, bare minimum, a $280 million investment that Disney needs to get back from box office receipts it shares with theaters.
It needs to make, at least, $466 million to break even.
Disney may get that. Maybe. And that's why major studios greenlight giant films: to maybe make their money back.
Out of the top ten movies so far of 2025, Disney has four of them. That's not bad, is it? Well, one of them is Moana 2, which came out last year (and is a genuine, big hit for the studio, lots of cash). The other three are Snow White with $200 million total worldwide so far (on a $350 million, at least, budget), Mufasa: The Lion King (also released last year and a solid, though not great, hit, for the studio, it most likely made its money back at $722 million total worldwide), and Captain America: Brave New World ($414 million at a cost of, most likely $350-380 million to produce, not even market).
Disney more and more reminds me of MGM from the 1950s, easily the biggest movie studio of the time with the biggest hits, but unable to actually turn a profit because their spectacle musicals were so expensive and their sets so badly run that the studio under Louis B. Meyer simply could not make enough money. It's why they sold their library to television that decade. They needed the money.
Disney is a deeply unhealthy film studio right now, and Thunderbolts* does not look like it's going to reverse any of the issues. Maybe Fantastic Four: The First Steps will do it?
Early tracking is not clear (I saw something about a $64 million opening, which would be horrible, but marketing has only started and the number will probably go up, assuming that number is accurate at all), but I'm sure the cast is on board with trying to expand the fanbase as much as possible. Let's see what Pedro Pascal, Mr. Fantastic himself Reed Richards, had to say recently. He couldn't possibly have done something like Rachel Zeigler in the run-up to Snow White's opening, right?
I've largely disengaged from modern blockbusters, especially comic book movies, out of sheer disinterest. However, I got a chance to see Captain America: Brave New World last week for free, and I took the chance out of curiosity.
Bleh.
However, it made me think about the degradation of the Marvel brand from an internal perspective mostly because the movie was making very explicit efforts to tie back to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, often considered one of the best Marvel films. The Winter Soldier was made in the veins of 70s political thrillers with an antagonist with no head (the Hydra organization's name says it all) and a hero on the run and against the corrupt system. Its action is more muted and grounded by Marvel standards (it still includes three flying aircraft carriers, so it's a comparative thing).
Brave New World is about political intrigue, centering on the actions of the newly elected US President, General Thaddeus Ross played by Harrison Ford, and some subplots from some previous movies like The Eternals and The Incredible Hulk. It's supposed to be filled with intrigue and has this 70s thriller feel to it, but it doesn't work nearly as well.
The reasons the film doesn't work as a movie interest me less than how the idea of making this kind of movie has changed over the last ten years or so.
Main Ideas
So, let's pull together what I'm talking about, the connective tissue, the things both movies try to do similarly.
There's the serious tone, the effort to ground the film in something approaching reality, the use of politicians as movers of the plot, and an embrace of conspiracy.
In The Winter Soldier, those are accomplished through a story about Steve Rogers having to adapt to this new time after having been frozen for 70 years and only brought back right before the big fight in the first Avengersmovie. He believes in America as it was in the 40s when he was frozen, but he's faced with an America controlled by shadowy elements. That gets centers on a cabinet secretary played by Robert Redford who is one of the most powerful members of Hydra, the shadowy, deep state organization that wants to use a program in their new helicarriers to target and potentially kill every potential threat in the world.
In Brave New World it's about a treaty effort by Ross to equitably share the adamantium (the metal that will go into making Wolverine's claws at some point) with the world as discovered in the giant alien thing partially submerged in The Indian Ocean at the end of The Eternals (I think, I haven't seen it). This gets sidelined when Sam Wilson's friend, Isaiah Bradley (I think he was introduced in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but I never watched it), suddenly stands up in the White House and tries to kill Ross. Turns out he was being mind controlled by someone from Ross's past, the gamma infused super genius Samuel Sterns whom Ross had held illegally imprisoned for decades to help craft his rise to power. Also, Ross has a small subplot about his daughter, Betty, not liking him because of the events from The Incredible Hulk.
Why does it work in one and not the other?
Focus
One thing I always have in my mind is the Classical Unities, three concepts that are considered to be ideals for telling stories. The one I care about is Unity of Action (Unity of time and place are more appropriate for Greek drama than much of anything else), saying that there should be one principle action in a story. This can be renamed as a film having a Core Idea, the one central driving force and reason the story exists.
Both The Winter Soldier and Braven New World have this, but the first works a whole lot better than the second.
In The Winter Soldier, it's about Cap rejecting the American government of the day, about how it's being manipulated by shadowy forces. Cap must fight the good fight, a constantly re-evolving and growing organization, and against all odds. This meshes well with his character, a man out of time, while, despite the nebulous nature of the threat, the path towards discovery of the conspiracy is clearly written and outlined. There's a series of steps that Cap must take to find out what's going on, going deeper into a black hole of conspiracy until he must punch things better. It works.
It's tight. It's good stuff. And it has the added interesting wrinkle of being against the executive being able to kill anyone in the world without oversight, and it was released during the Obama administration when he did just that...to two American citizens. I don't think the Russo Brothers are at all anything other than left-wing, but it's an interesting wrinkle.
Now, Brave New World does not have this strength, but I will give it some kind of credit. If you want to distill the film down to one word, you can. It's "legacy". Mostly the legacy of America, as manifested in Isaiah's story, and General Ross's ambitions for legacy as president (he says it explicitly at one point). You can also throw in Sam Wilson himself since he's taken on the mantle of Captain America from Steve Rogers and has to deal with it. But, honestly, none of it actually works because the legacy idea on any of them doesn't actually...say anything. It's thin and pushed aside for plot mechanics and never really resolved. I suspect a lot of it has to do with reshoots (so many reshoots, reportedly). It's why Sam himself never...seems very important to the movie. He's a plot device to get us from one storythread to the next, and not a whole lot else. He's caught in Ross's movie, at best.
What does Ross's need for a treaty, his need for resolution with Betty (I'm certain this entire subplot was added in reshoots to make Ross more sympathetic), or Ross's treatment of Sterns have to do with Wilson or his emotional journey...at all? If you can say that both are dealing with the idea of legacy, the two actually still don't mesh. Wilson's story is supposed to be about living up to someone else's reputation while Ross's is about facing his own. It's a real clash that doesn't work.
Plot
One wouldn't expect an MCU movie to have terrible action (questionable CGI, sure, but not terrible action), and Brave New World delivers fine on it. The problem, though, is that the story stringing these perfectly...fine action sequences is just so...uncompelling. A lot of it has to do with the last section, about how Sam Wilson doesn't feel like he's anything more than a cog in a plot machine dedicated to Ross's character journey, but more has to do with the fact that the string of clues to uncover is just...not well hidden.
The only thing that's really a secret is that Ross becomes Red Hulk in the final act, which the marketing spoiled. However, everything else about Ross hiding stuff is obvious and even explicit from the get-go. The specifics end up revolving around a hidden character, Sterns, who has no history in the franchise as far as I can tell. The mystery is around the specifics of Sterns, and they're just not that interesting or, again, tied at all to our main character.
So, Wilson goes on this journey of discovery of plot details, but none of it relates to his own journey at all. He's essentially a cop in a procedural. Except the movie isn't treated like a procedural. It's treated like a 4-quadrant action-adventure with a main character with an arc. It's just more to create this disconnect with the audience, something that The Winter Soldier does not share.
In The Winter Soldier, the entire plot revolves around a personal issue to Steve Rogers: his relationship to his childhood friend Bucky Barnes, who was discovered by Soviets during WWII and turned into a brainless, dangerous super soldier. He's become the spear tip of Hydra, the bad organization of the film, and Steve has to fight him, but also try and redeem him. It's solid storytelling mechanics to tie a plot to a character. It's clean. It's efficient. It works.
By comparison, Brave New World is just a complete mess.
Brand
Of course, that doesn't explain the box office of Brave New World. Captain Marvel was kind of crappy, and it made more than a billion dollars.
No, the problem is that the brand got broke. Years of mismanagement, bad larger directional decisions (the multi-verse was a very expensive bust), and general distaste for the most loyal members of its traditional fanbase. Outright antagonism towards your own customers ends up creating an effect, and a movie reportedly costing at least $380 million to produce (and, probably another $150-200 million to market) needs to make A LOT of money to break even at the box office when you include the theatrical distributors get a cut of every ticket (general rule people use is that theaters get 40% of ticket sales on average, the contracts are weird).
You can pull off antagonism against your audience in Captain Marvel at the height of the MCU's popularity, but you can't with Brave New World when the MCU's popularity is obviously much lower than before. There's still something to be said for a film that can make $400 million at the box office worldwide, but...Disney isn't happy about it.
Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their roles, CBS News first reported, in the first major shakeup of Trump's White House.
It was "made clear" to Waltz earlier this week that his time leading the National Security Council had come to an end," CNN reported. Questions have swirled about Waltz's role after it was revealed that he added a journalist to a chat on the Signal app detailing military strikes. The chat involved high-ranking military and administration members and news of the breach became a blunder for the White House.
(No, it was not written by Trent Crimm. I chose The Independent story to quote for the Ted Lasso reference purely.)
This third Signal chat involved not only Hegseth's wife, who was also a former Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet, but also his senior adviser and spokesperson Sean Parnell, and Tami Radabaugh, who was a former Fox executive producer and close friend of Rauchet's, and now works as Hegseth's deputy assistant for public affairs at the Department of Defense, according to The Washington Post.
While, it is unclear what was precisely being discussed in this third group and it is not known if that chat remains active or not, as per Washington Post.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told Morning Edition that House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans blocked any inquiry resolutions into the matter because they know Hegseth and his actions are "indefensible." Smith filed a resolution of inquiry, which allows a member of the House to force an investigation even when they're in the minority.
It should be remembered that Waltz was never the target of calls for resignation and investigation. Here's Elizabeth Warren calling for Hegseth to resign:
EPA cancels 781 Environmental Justice Grants because Trump is a big ole meanie who ran on just this sort of thing, and you should be super mad about it
The agency plans to send cancellation notifications to an additional 404 - meaning a total of 781 grants are being canceled, said the filing, a declaration from Daniel Coogan, the EPA's Deputy Assistant Administrator for Infrastructure and Extramural Resources.
The grants are primarily related to programs that deal with environmental justice - that is, dealing with pollution in communities that face disproportionate impacts and have limited resources. This includes low-income and minority communities.
The Trump administration has targeted environmental justice programs - firing 280 staffers and reassigning another 175 who worked on the issue, saying it's part of a broader effort against diversity initiatives.
This push to kill government grants to leftist organizations, I think, has the potential for being the largest, undertold story of the second Trump administration.
I see numbers like 781 grants being canceled, and I just...wonder. There's no information about how much money that represents, but the EPA gives out $4 billion a year in grants. Those grants can be less than $100,000 to small orgs, $1 million to other governments, or bigger. So, this could be maybe a few million dollars or a couple of billion. Probably somewhere in between. I would guess the 781 represents a few tens of millions, tops.
But, that's tens of millions of dollars designed to prop up a leftist ecosystem of lawyers and activists to fight for leftist causes. This creates a system of support for government action and social coercion that wouldn't exist otherwise.
And grants are being cut everywhere. The USAID cuts got the most attention ($40 billion), but every agency has this sort of thing, and every agency is cutting back.
Combine that with the Democrats' efforts to alienate as much of the American public as possible since the Obama's first election, and you've got an interesting mix that we haven't seen the fruits of yet.
I can't make predictions, but I can say...it might be interesting.
Reality is a stone-cold b*tch, and the stark reality of the Canadian economy is that it is almost completely reliant on America. Posturing about independence and reorienting Canuckistan's economy away from the United States and toward the EU and South America and the Pacific rim and blah, blah, blah sounds good as election soundbites, but as real policy? Not so much.
President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reached out to him personally just one day after winning the country’s recent election, which proves that Canada is already eager to re-engage on trade.
Speaking to reporters, Trump described the conversation in clear terms: “He called me up yesterday. He said, ‘Let’s make a deal.’” Trump explained that the outreach came even though, during the election campaign, both leading Canadian candidates had publicly taken anti-Trump positions. “They both hated Trump,” he said. “And it was the one that hated Trump, I think, the least that won.”
Whether this is wishcasting on President Trump's part remains to be seen, but the damage to the Canadian economy if Carney does not negotiate a comprehensive fair trade agreement will be profound, and much worse than any damage done to our economy.
Carney is a globalist technocrat, with a soft spot in his heart (but not his wallet) for anti-capitalist nonsense, like "Occupy Wall Street!" He is a liberal who is not a fan of American dominance of the world economy. Or, if one wants to be less polite, he is a "Champagne Socialist."
But the Canadian economy is circling the drain, so Carney must act. And the only sane policy for an economy with a GDP smaller than that of Texas is to accommodate President Trump's requirements. Sure, there will be negotiation so that Carney doesn't look like he is bending the knee, but if he is smart, he will indeed bend the knee.
And I want to see the video!
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!
Podcast: CBD and Sefton are joined by Vox Clamantis, a career federal prosecutor. We discuss what Due Process actually is, and how it applies to deportation, what the Trump administration can do to combat judicial overreach, and more!
Stephen Miller: The courts are attempting to unconstitutionally enshrine open borders into law by imposing an "infinite process" on deportations. They're too cowardly to admit what they're doing and just say, "We don't like the way they people voted and who they voted for, so we're deposing the president through a judicial coup." Instead, they're just making it so that we can have a nominal law that allows the deportations of foreign criminals and gang members, but we're also going to impose "due process" requirements that will guarantee all illegals a lifetime residency in the US.
George Clooney now looks like Bela Lugosi from Ed Wood In this "interview," Jake Tapper claims that Clooney writing an op-ed at the instigation of Barack Obama was "brave," and Clooney returns the favor by telling Jake Tapper that "journalists" are brave and irreplaceable. It's the world's least enticing gay porn.
However, D'Onofrio isn't some dispassionate observer. He's not just some random FSU student. It doesn't sound like he was anywhere in the neighborhood of the shooting, either. He was brought on primarily to talk about the politics, but was presented as an FSU student to try and leverage sympathy for his position.
But let's also remember, once again, that the alleged killer was prohibited from buying any kind of firearm in the state of Florida. He stole a firearm owned by his police officer mother. He carried a firearm into a gun-free zone. Florida's permitless carry only applies to people over 21, so he wasn't covered by that. No one used a red flag law to disarm him.
At every level, he broke the law. None of the laws sold to the people of Florida as necessary to prevent a tragedy worked to prevent this tragedy, and yet it's somehow the fault of people who recognize that?
The price of eggs has dropped from an average of $8/dozen to $3.13/dozen but Democrats are claiming Easter eggs prices are up. I guess all of the non- or anti-Christian "fact" checkers in the media are taking the day off, for some reason.
Trump offers Easter wishes Happy Easter! BTW, I read that this is the first time in years the White House website has offered an Easter prayer. Every other religion and fake religion got promoted by Biden, but not Christianity. Oh, and NPR's Easter story is that "Trump seeks corporate sponsors for Easter egg roll." Obviously every president does this, but this communist propaganda organization only points it out now, after having denied the Biden's family influence-farming operations for a decade.
An idiot congressman tries to get us into a shooting war with Russia!Brian Fitzpatrickrepresents Pennsylvania... very, very poorly. [CBD]
Bill Melugin
@BillMelugin_
BREAKING: Police say the suspect in the FSU shooting is 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner, the son of a Leon County, FL Sheriff's deputy. Police say he "unfortunately" had access to her gun, and the gun was used in the shooting.
2 deceased -- not believed to be students.
Podcast: CBD and Sefton chat about Iran, and the unfortunate fact that only America can deal with them militarily, the nonsense that the media are spewing about the illegals being deported, Harvard's pomposity, and more!
