We Started A Game We Didn't Finish. ONT, Remember?
—WeirdDave
Howdy Horde! Thursday night, almost to the weekend, how is everybody?
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Ladyhawk Cafe
—Ace
Val de Courre, France
by Soule Sebastien/@Valgone_photo
Rescuing a tiny skinny kitten sheltering under a truck in the rain.
Cat and dog are amazed by visiting turtle.
Possibly worse than letting a fox guard the henhouse.
Mama koala helping her baby down the tree.
Dog teaches tiny puppy how to play with a ball.
Sometimes a link has only a single intended viewer: All true penguins are extinct. What are called "penguins" now are frauds, imposters, and grifters.
Here, a "penguin" swindles another gullible human.
So-called "penguins" are often notorious criminals.
Google's terrible AI describes the smell of the durian fruit this way:
The durian fruit is notorious for its pungent, often described as "stinky" smell, which has led to its ban in public places in some areas, though many find the taste delicious.Here's a more detailed look at the durian smell:
Descriptive comparisons:
The smell has been likened to a mix of rotten onions, turpentine, raw sewage, gym socks, stale vomit, skunk spray, and even pig excrement.
Here's a Dramatic Husky reacting to the smell of the durian fruit.
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Trump's Department of Education Orders Schools to Certify That All DEI Programs Are Defunded, As a Precondition of Receiving Any Future Federal Funding
—Ace
The big question is: will lying on these forms be prosecuted as felony fraud on the US government?
Because all of the leftwing school administrators are already lying, renaming DEI officers as just "Officers" while keeping them on the payroll (yes, the Air Force did that).
As a condition for receiving federal money, the Trump administration is ordering K-12 schools to certify that they are following federal civil rights laws and ending any discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion practices.A notice sent Thursday by the Education Department gives states and schools 10 days to sign and return the certification. It's the latest escalation against DEI policies, apparently giving the Republican administration a new lever for terminating federal money.
"Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right," Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. He said many schools have flouted their legal obligations, "including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another."
The certification asks state and school leaders to sign a "reminder of legal obligations" acknowledging their federal money is conditioned on compliance with federal civil rights laws. It also demands compliance with several pages of legal analysis written by the administration.
"The use of certain DEI practices can violate federal law," the administration wrote in the certification, adding that it is illegal for programs to advantage one race over another.
Schools and states that use illegal DEI practices can face a loss of federal money, including grants and contracts, and can be held liable under the False Claims Act, according to the certification. It specifically threatens Title I funding, which sends billions of dollars a year to America's schools and targets low-income areas.
That hints that maybe prosecution is in the offing for those who fraudulently sign the certifications while keeping renamed DEI policies and departments in place.
...It follows a Feb. 14 memo declaring that any school policy that treats students or staff differently because of their race is illegal. It aimed to fight what the memo described as widespread discrimination in education, often against white and Asian American students.
It wouldn't be an AP "news" article without now giving the left, and only the left, the chance to attack the policy, with zero comment from anyone supporting the position that Racism Is Bad.
The certification letter drew blowback from critics who said it conflicts with Trump's promise to return education to schools and states."Is this what the Trump administration calls local control? You can't say you're giving control back to states and then dictate how they run their schools," said Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union.
And of course it wouldn't be an AP "News" article without giving Randi "Shutdown" Weingarten the last word, to let everyone know what they're supposed to think:
The union's president called the certification requirement illegal, saying federal law prohibits the White House from telling schools and colleges what to teach, and that federal money cannot be withheld without due process.
"He's wielding a cudgel of billions in federal aid to tens of millions of children, of all races and ethnicities, to force educators to kowtow to his politics and ideology," said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT.
I need this rancid bitch in jail.
Lock her up, lock her up, lock her up...
A Female Fencer is Banned from Competing When She Refuses to Fight a Man
—Ace
If there's no difference between men and women, then there should be no "women's" sports, period. If there's no difference between men and women, women should just compete with men, period, and if they can't compete -- which they can't -- then they don't get to play sports.
This system where we spend a lot of taxpayer money to subsidize "women's" sports but then allow random dudes to crybaby their way in has got to go.
A female fencer is speaking out after she was disqualified from a tournament in Maryland for taking a knee and refusing to compete against a transgender-identifying male opponent.Stephanie Turner, 31, was black-carded and booted from a tournament this past weekend for refusing to compete against Redmond Sullivan, who is male and identifies as transgender. Sullivan formerly competed against males and was permitted by USA Fencing to compete in the women's tournament, the organization confirmed to The Daily Wire.
"I want to thank God for trusting me with this mission to fight for female exclusive sports and putting me in a place to effectively protest," Turner told The Daily Wire in a statement.
"I also want to add that I am grateful to the Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS) for their encouragement and support," she added. "They have helped me and so many other women who have been put in this unfair and confusing situation."
...
The transgender did what transgenders usually do when women refuse to support their delusions: He told her that he had the backing of a liberal member of the board of directors and threatened to use his power to squash her.
"Redmond says to me, 'Well you know, there is a member on the board of directors here who supports me, and there is a policy that acknowledges me as a woman, so I am allowed to fence, and you will get black-carded,' and I said, 'I know.'"
Sometimes backlash is unfortunate.
It's not in this case. The backlash is well-earned and justified.
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Chubby Theater Kid Spazz, The Fiercely Heterosexual Corey Booker (TM), Carries On Shouting and Stamping His Feet for 20+ Hours and Lefties Think He Really Did Something
—Ace
The constantly attention-seeking, beard-"dating" Senator Spartacus did a talking filibuster for some reason, shouting -- get this -- Orange Man Bad and also -- get this -- turning on the fake tears to show how much Passion and Fight he has.
Most people who saw clips of this had the same thought: "Vin Diesel is really porking out. And he's a lot gayer than he seems in the Fast and Furious movies."
Lefties are calling this obvious low-effort stunt to position himself for another failed run in 2028 heroic and inspiring.
I swear to God, it's so condescending to praise black people so extravagantly for dumb stunts like this. White liberals are always screaming their genuine beliefs about black people by gushing about how amazing it is that they can do relatively easy things.
Thus far, it has been a gloomy 2025 for the late night comedy shows as they have attacked Democrats from the left for not doing anything to stop Republicans, but on Wednesday, a trio of them claimed to have reason for optimism as they reacted to Sen. Cory Booker's 25-hour talk. Some suggested he get an award, while others claimed he spoke for all of America, while others tried their hand at media criticism, arguing the media hasn't praised Booker enough.CBS's Stephen Colbert teed up a clip on The Late Show of the final moments of Booker's speech where he compared himself to the Civil Rights Movement, "There were many great moments, but Booker saved, I think, the best for last."
After the clip and audience cheers, Colbert declared he was such a fan that he invited Booker on the show, "Yes, sir. That was beautiful. Give that man an award, eventually. First give him a toilet and a bed and a cauliflower steak or whatever he calls food. And I'm happy to say Cory Booker will be my guest on Monday right over there to talk about what is going on in the Senate, what is going on in America, and what can be done."Over at NBC and Late Night, host Seth Meyers welcomed MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and recalled, "Cory Booker, last night, did speak for 25 hours and then went straight on your show before declaring, "I did think, you know, as for what it accomplishes, I don't know, but it did, at least, say, I think, to, you know, his voters 'Look, I do still have some energy for this fight.'"
Well, that certainly is a high compliment. "I don't know what he did but I guess he did something!"
[Maddow] claimed, "Senator Booker said his constituents told him, 'Take risks, do something you don't think you can do, you need to show people that this not normal times and it is worth doing everything we can' and he did."
"Everything we can do" = blabbing in an air conditioned room for twenty hours
Noted Couch-Surfing Liberal Agent Frank Luntz was just tickled pink in his heiney-hole.
Frank Luntz: Booker marathon speech 'may have changed the course of political history'
I mean...
Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) "may have changed the course of political history" with his marathon speech breaking the Senate's record for the longest floor speech in its history."I want to emphasize what Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history. I watched a lot of it. I listened to words. I listened to phrases," Luntz said during a Tuesday evening appearance on NewsNation's "On Balance."
Wow. Corey Booker talked for a long time, which changed the course of history, and Frank Luntz did his part, too! "I listened to words. I listened to phrases."
Frank Luntz is doing Everything He Can to Fight Fascism, too!
He confirmed that Booker's unprecedented feat "struck a tone" with Americans in the midst of the Trump administration's controversial policies."He struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country too," Luntz told anchor Leland Vittert.
...
"That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028," Luntz said.
Yup, he just has to find another LGBQT+ supporting woman to pose as his girlfriend and he's all set.
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Violent Leftwing Professor -- the Chair of the English Department -- Suspended After Flipping Table Where Republicans Were Peacefully Providing Voter Information
—Ace
Don't worry, it's just some paid time off. He'll be back in class in a week or two, because the left insists that its fellow leftists have the right to attack the right without consequence.
People don't resort to "self-help" -- using violence to vindicate their rights -- because we trust, or used to trust, supposedly objective and fair institutions to vindicate our rights for us.
If that system is no longer in place -- and it's obviously not -- we will have to revert to older, more primitive, more violent methods.
Is that what the left wants? The left with their 350-pound shemales and spaghetti-armed theater kid "bullies"?
We'll see. We'll see.
Wisconsin university professor placed on leave after allegedly flipping College Republicans' tableUniversity department chair on leave after allegedly flipping College Republicans' table
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire English Department chair has been placed on leave pending an investigation into allegations that he flipped the College Republicans' table. Video: UW-Eau Claire College Republicans
The chair of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire has been placed on administrative leave after allegedly flipping the College Republicans' table on campus Tuesday morning.
UW-Eau Claire Interim Provost Michael Carney confirmed the incident with Fox News.
"I am deeply concerned that our students' peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted," Carney said in a statement. "UW-Eau Claire strongly supports every person's right to free speech and free expression, and the university remains committed to ensuring that campus is a place where a wide variety of opinions and beliefs can be shared and celebrated."
He added that "civil dialogue is a critical part of the university experience, and peaceful engagement is fundamental to learning itself."
Whatever we do, we have to continue spending trillions to fund public schools and our state-of-the-art university system.
The average college student is "functionally illiterate," writes "Hilarius Bookbinder," who teaches philosophy at a public university that attracts students with mid-range academic records.Most students "could not read a serious adult novel cover-to-cover and understand what they read," nor do they have "the desire to try, the vocabulary to grasp what they read and most certainly not the attention span to finish," writes Bookbinder. They don't read textbooks or primary texts, "even in upper-divisions courses that students supposedly take out of genuine interest."
Students write at the eighth-grade level, he writes. They submit the cheapest cliché as novel insight.
Exam question: Describe the attitude of Dostoevsky's Underground Man towards acting in one's own self-interest, and how this is connected to his concerns about free will. Are his views self-contradictory?Student: With the UGM its all about our journey in life, not the destination. He beleives we need to take time to enjoy the little things becuase life is short and you never gonna know what happens. Sometimes he contradicts himself cause sometimes you say one thing but then you think something else later. It's all relative.
The alternative is a coherent answer written by a bot.
The average student goes to college to qualify for a middle-class job, he writes. That's not new. But, these days, professors are seeing "a stunning level of disconnection."
Students are much more likely to skip days or weeks of class without explanation, the professor writes. If they show up, they walk out in the middle of a 50-minute class to look at their phones, to which they are addicted. Or they pretend to type notes on laptops while looking at social media. Or gambling.
Students expect faculty to do the work for them, he writes. "No, you can't have my slides. Get the notes from a classmate. Read the book. Come to office hours for a conversation if you are still confused after the preceding steps. . . .Try coming to class."
Students miss quizzes, then can't be bothered to show up for a make-up or talk to the professor about it.
The professor says that he'd like to fail most of his students -- but the administration would crucify him, because if you kicked out all of the illiterate phone-addicted dum-dums, there would not be enough money coming in to keep the university solvent.
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DOGE Discovers That the VA Was Paying $350,000-$380,000 Per Month For Minor Tweaks to Its Website
—Ace
This was almost certainly a payoff. I don't know many website managers who charge $350,000-$380,000 per month to give the hamsters a kick.
The contract has now been cancelled.
DOGE finds Veterans Affairs paying $350K per month for website modificationsThe Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), under the leadership of Elon Musk, revealed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had been spending an astounding $350,000--$380,000 per month on minor website updates before canceling the bloated contract.
Key Details:
The VA paid a contractor nearly $380,000/month for minor website modifications.
DOGE confirmed the contract was not renewed; the work is now done by one internal staffer in 10 hours/week.
The revelation follows DOGE's termination of 113 federal contracts worth $4.7 billion in total.
Diving Deeper:
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the agency created by executive order on President Donald Trump's first day in office, has uncovered yet another striking example of wasteful federal spending. This time, the target is the Department of Veterans Affairs, which until recently had been paying nearly $380,000 a month for relatively simple website modifications--work that a single staffer now handles internally with just 10 hours of effort each week.
DOGE broke the story via a post on X, formerly Twitter, praising the VA for not renewing the contract. "VA was previously paying ~$380,000/month for minor website modifications," the agency wrote. "That contract has not been renewed, and the same work is now being executed by 1 internal VA software engineer spending ~10 hours/week."
In sad news, Musk will be stepping back from his role as head of DOGE soon.
The left is celebrating that their literal domestic terrorism campaign against Musk has worked, but Musk and the Administration say he was always expected to step away from the job after 130 days, which is the term he was appointed to.
I don't know -- maybe he'd have sought an extension if not for the terrorism. I'm not sure if the terrorism worked or not.
The left sure is happy that their terrorism may have worked. Note that for your records.
Did you hear? A temporary government employee whose legally limited term of employment is 130 days is going to leave government employment after 140 days?!Shocking, I know. Somebody in the government is going to obey the law, which explains why the news media is printing screaming headlines that Elon Musk is leaving government employment.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk loudly proclaimed when Elon Musk was hired that he would be in his position for 130 days. Given how things work in recent years, it is shocking that somebody in the government is obeying the law. That almost never happened under Obama and Joe Biden.
Yesterday, X was filled with celebration that Elon Musk had been pressured out of the government by all the attacks on Tesla. It was all started by a POLITICO "scoop" that the Trump administration had had enough. Trump liked him, but his cabinet did not.
...
Every single of word of that "scoop" was a total invention. It was a Narrative(TM), and everybody in the media picked it up, amplified it, and created a story that was essentially a hoax as invented as the "fine people" hoax.POLITICO didn't make a mistake. The invented--or rather spread an invented hoax for somebody who cooked it up--because the left needs to create the sense that their coordinated opposition is working. Trump is losing momentum, his cabinet is revolting, and Musk has become a liability. It is part of their plan to cripple Trump by crippling Musk.
The left is doing what it always does when it's defending their zealous religious-cultist devotion to an unpopular position -- they're lying. They're claiming that they all really, really, rilly want to cut government spending too, they just don't like the exact way it's currently being done. But if it was done in the "right way," of course they'd support cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget, Silly-Head!
And when you ask them for a list of cuts they support, they go silent. Though they might say "We need to stop giving away tax bonanzas to billionaires," which isn't a cut in spending but an increase in taxes. (Which they count as "a cut in spending," because they claim the government is writing checks to the rich.)
Of course their main lie has been "We support cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse, because of course we do, but we don't like that this billionaire Elon Musk is doing it, looking at IRS transactions so that this near-trillionaire, literally the richest man who has ever lived on earth for all of history, can jot down Granny's bank routing information so that he can nab her sweet $1,300/month Social Security payments.
And also, they don't like that "no one elected Musk," which is true of every single Administration official in every single Administration, except it's less true of Musk, who appeared at Trump campaign rallies with Trump promising that if we elected him he'd appoint Musk as head of DOGE.
My point is this: The left is going to have to quickly change its lies post-Musk to claim some other objection to the exact way government spending is being cut, and who it's being cut by.
But don't worry -- the truth-seeking media will call them out for changing their story about why they oppose these particular cuts. The media will not let the Democrat Party get away with its usual lies, don't you worry one second Buddy!
Joe Scarborough: I Was Such a Rock-Ribbed Super-Conservative That the Republican Party's Liberal Leadership Repeatedly Threatened Me, But I Am Too Courageous and Tough to be Frightened
—Ace
Oh.
Is that how you see yourself?
That's interesting. Psychiatrically, I mean.
Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein:
NewsBusters readers know that Joe Scarborough has the braggadocious habit of mentioning his former congressman status at every possible opportunity. They're also aware that Scarborough, whom we've dubbed Muy Macho Joe, likes to brag about what a tough a hombre he is.Scarborough earned that moniker back in 2023 by bragging that if he ever saw a Capitol tourist snapping a photo somewhere Joe didn't like, he'd say: "Put the camera down or I'm gonna make you eat it. I would slap the camera out of his hand." Dirty Harry was a wimp in comparison.
On Wednesday's Morning Joe, Scarborough seized as a two-fer on the result in yesterday's judicial election in Wisconsin, in which the Democrat won despite Elon Musk campaigning in the state and donating heavily to the Republican candidate.
Scarborough not only dragged his former congressman status into the conversation, he also bragged about how tough he was when Republican leaders threatened to campaign against him when he took votes they didn't like.
As Scarborough described his display of extreme machismo. There's only one major problem. Does anyone actually remember the national GOP establishment opposing Scarborough in the 1994 primary, when he ran as a rock-ribbed conservative?
I had the Republicans doing everything they could to beat me in 1994. And I won.And so, I get up there, and I start voting in ways they don't want me to vote, and they threaten me. And at one point, I had a member of leadership say, if you, you know, if you don't go this way, Scarborough, we're going to, and I cut him off.
I go, what, come into my district? Please come into my district. I won by 62% the first time you did. Come in again, and I'll win by 75%, and I turned around and walked off.
Video at the link.
Greg Gutfeld lauds Joe Scarborough for his "honesty" as well as his "dime-slot Hillbilly eyes," as Scarborough claims that he first became aware of Biden's mental infirmity during the "shocking" debate.
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Open Thread
—Ace
Here's Karoline Leavitt lighting up the media for insisting that rapists and child-killers have a permanent right to live in America because they touched American soil.
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The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition
—CBD
The late and decidedly unlamented five year or 10 year or 20 year environmental plan of the Biden administration to transform America's evil addiction to fossil fuels into a beautiful garden of unicorns and pixies and lovely and abundant clean energy ran into two problems: Reality, and Donald Trump.
Reality came in the form of physics and economics; fossil fuels are incredibly energy dense, easily transported, the industry is amazingly efficient, and the fuel is cheap! Contrast that with the mess that is the current state of battery technology, the high cost of heating with electricity, the inability to transport that energy to its intended users, the pathetic range of EVs, and the awful environmental impact of just about everything involved with this massive worldwide boondoggle, and it's an easy decision.
Of course, our highly educated and profoundly stupid elites made the wrong decision, and that's where we needed Donald Trump. Physics and economics would have eventually saved the day, but not before countless billions more dollars were wasted on unproven or simply impossible technology, and with that the destruction of our superb energy production and distribution systems.
Within days of his inauguration, Donald Trump made it abundantly clear that the future of energy in America was not some pie-in-the-sky nonsense about solar/wind/tidal generation that can never supply the demands of our current economy, much less the hopefully growing economy of the future. The only way to do that is to decrease significantly total demand while increasing cost, and that is an economy and society-killing plan.
Sort of like Western Europe!
The Heartland Is Tearing Off Biden's Green Energy Shackles
A green company’s years-long effort to use the power of eminent domain to seize farmland in the Plains States was derailed after Republican South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden signed legislation on March 13 barring the condemnation of private property for the construction of a CO2 pipeline.Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion, 2,100-mile climate project envisaged pumping 12 million tons of carbon dioxide captured annually at Midwestern ethanol plants across five states – Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota – via a highly-pressurized pipeline before burying it deep underground in North Dakota.
Dubbed the “CO2 pipeline,” the project is part of a larger carbon capture and storage scheme, a taxpayer-subsidized investment fad touted to help heavy industries reach the Biden administration’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) supported the technology by offering participating companies a tax credit of up to $85 per ton of CO2 emissions captured and stored.
This is exactly what America needs. The 50 state laboratory that is the United States of America can act as each state sees fit. If North Dakota thinks green energy is crap, then good! And if California wants to kill its economy with a $125 billion train to nowhere, close all of its fossil fuel power plants, force everyone into electric cars, ban gas appliances, then have at it! Luckily, the last person to leave California won't have to turn off the lights, because they won't have any!
But the top-down diktats of the federal leviathan are a thing of the past. And those hugely expensive tax credits and graft-filled green energy grants are going away as well. If green energy is actually possible for a 1st World economy, then it must pass economic muster, and that means it must compete on the same level as every other energy source. And if that means that EVs are a thing of the past, or a plaything for the wealthy, then so be it. We have no responsibility for the financial success of any product, much less ones that would not exist were it not for massive government subsidies (read: a big tax on us).
It's time to return to market pressures as the primary measure of success. If Tesla fails...oh well! And if Tesla or any other green energy company succeeds on the merits? Fantastic! We will all have more choice!
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter] And the Apple and Spotify feeds for CJN's podcast should be working!
The Morning Report — 4/ 3 /25
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. So Cory Booker, who I see as the poor man's Barack Obama took to the well of the Senate two nights ago to deliver what amounts to the world's longest presidential candidacy announcement. How appropriate that he chose April Fool's Day, for this uncunning stunt.
Sen. Cory Booker’s 25-hour congressional floor rant is being hailed as a major achievement, but nobody has ever questioned Booker’s ability to talk endlessly. It’s his greatest talent. That and making other people’s money disappear. The 25 hours of rambling summed up everything wrong with Booker as a politician and a man. Booker and his media allies tried to bill it as a filibuster, but it wasn’t because the senator from New Jersey wasn’t trying to fight an actual piece of legislation, just calling attention to himself.Why did Booker actually ramble for 25 hours in the Senate? To run for president.
As stunts go, this was the most obvious one yet. Booker’s next Senate election is in 2026, but he has a campaign page up which claims that “he cannot stay quiet and complacent while Donald Trump and Elon Musk shatter constitutional checks and balances” and urges, “Stand with Cory by making a donation today.” But his obvious long-term goal is 2028.
There’s a problem with Booker’s presidential aspirations. And it’s not just that every time he speaks, he reminds everyone of an unsuccessful Obama.
It’s his corrupt track record.
well, Obama was elected twice and ran the Biden junta from 21-25 from Kalorama after the 2020 election theft. Aside from that, Daniel Greenfield takes a good hard look at Booker's record of malfeasance, rank corruption and criminality during his stint as mayor of a quintessential Democrat Shithole Newark NJ and then his abortive 2020 presidential candidacy and asks the rhetorical question of where did all the millions in campaign cash thrown at him go?
Considering that, despite what happened in Wisconsin with the election of an in-your-face commie to the state Supreme Court and preserving the Leftist stranglehold on the court as well as much of the state government, the Democrat Party and Leftism in general is in total disarray as Donald Trump rolls on with his agenda, the criminal judicial law fare and borderline/crossing the line acts of domestic terrorism against Tesla and other targets notwithstanding. Here's just the latest example.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents from Dallas, Texas, arrested a man for making “terroristic threats against ICE agents” and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem.In a post on X, HSI Dallas, revealed that they had taken a man named Robert King into custody and explained that his “social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire'” if ICE agents were spotted “in his neighborhood.”
“Robert King, a U.S. citizen was recently taken into custody in McKinney, Texas for making terroristic threats against ICE agents and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem,” HSI Dallas said. “King’s alarming social media posts included intentions to ‘open fire’ if agents are seen in his neighborhood.”
The average American sees things like this, coupled with the disaster unleashed on us with the erased border, transgenderism insanity, wokeism and DEI and all the rest of it and for objecting to it, get called racists, Nazis, homophobes, xenophobes and every other slur imaginable. Perhaps Booker understands this and senses an opportunity to look like the sane alternative to Bernie Sanders and Titty-Caca Ocasio Cortez and their ilk, despite being fully in their camp ideologically. He knows when to keep his mouth shut. Or given25 hours of bloviating against Trump and an agenda that is indeed popular with a broad segment of the citizenry, maybe not. To paraphrase Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants' opinion of Barack Obama, Booker and his handlers are projecting or trying to project the image of the clean, articulate black man who only speaks Jive when he has to, so as to try to recreate 2008 20 years later.
The Democrat Party is polling about 27 percent approval — and sinking.In 2024, it lost the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and both the popular vote and the Electoral College, 312-226.
In 2024, Donald Trump won over 46% of the Hispanic vote, including a majority of Hispanic men. Trump also likely captured 26% of the Black male vote, doubling his 2020 total.
In 2024, Trump increased his 2020 vote total in every single state. And he won 89% of all the counties in the United States.
On every issue, Democrats sided with strident leftist movements rather than the majority of Americans. . .
Democrats claim no formal role in such terror — but more or less seem to approve of its ends and means.
Left-wing comic Jimmy Kimmel winks and nods on national television about the current violent Tesla terrorist campaign. Tim Walz celebrates the resulting drop in the Tesla stock price. As Minnesota’s governor overseeing his state’s sizable investment in Tesla, Walz could care less about trash-talking his own taxpayers’ investments. Rep. Jasmine Crockett boasts that Musk “must be taken down.”. . . Senator minority leader Chuck Schumer, who once issued threats to Supreme Court justices Neal Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh by name, now boasts, “We have people going to the Republican districts and going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to either change their vote or face the consequences.”
Furious at their own increasing impotence, these contemporary Democrat Jacobins are dabbling with their own version of a reign of smut terror.
All Trump has to do is keep on delivering on the promises he has made, one of the more critical and difficult things is not only turning the economy around, but reversing the disaster that globalism and unchecked trade unionism did to our once gargantuan manufacturing sector that over the east 60 years or so has been dismantled and shipped overseas.
Hence the battle over tariffs which will kick into effect this week.
President Trump and his team are telling top financiers his tariff plan unveiled today is all about playing the long game — getting trading partners who are clearly protectionist to reduce or remove their barriers to US exports in exchange for us doing the same.In the end, they claim, everyone will be happy — including the American public that will be on the receiving end of the long-term gain of economic prosperity.
But The Post has learned that top Wall Street execs have been warning the White House and Trump himself in recent days that getting to that long-term gain, while feasible, will not be easy.
It could well result in a significant degree of short-term pain, more than just the markets going haywire. It could ignite something known as stagflation of higher prices ie., inflation, and lower growth, a possible recession. It’s an economic disruption not seen in decades as we upend the global trade ecosystem and play chicken with the rest of the industrialized world over tariffs.
Will Trump play that game of chicken? He knows trading partners will respond in kind; US goods will get more expensive overseas and import prices spike. That’s where the stagflation comes in. Everyone I know who knows Trump says he’s committed to the tariff hammer because he believes in his heart that they will rebuild America, bring jobs back to the Rust Belt and as he explained in his press conference, the trade deals we have crafted with even our allies are so unfair.
But you never know what a little stagnation will do to a politician, even one as steadfast as Trump — which is exactly the warning financiers made to the president in recent meetings.
The White House was said to be all ears during these meetings, as Wall Street executives explained the grim details of the short-term tariff pain: Uncertainty over what Trump would announce has stymied business spending for large swaths of the economy, and it will fall further once the tariffs go into effect.
US automakers are readying price hikes because they source much of their parts overseas. Trump announced a 25% tariff on imported autos.
As a Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Wednesday in a note: “The concept of a US car maker with parts all from the US is a fictional tale . . . tariff policy will cause pure chaos to the global auto industry and will raise prices to the typical Us consumer by $5k to 10K out of the gates.” Tariffs will impact farmers because we provide grain overseas and to China; our natural gas exports will be hurt, meaning a slowdown in growth on top of spending cuts businesses already enacted before in preparation of the tariff announcement.
That’s the bad news, but here’s what good could happen down the road: Trump’s art-of-the-deal making skills will change the protectionist behavior of our trade partners. He wants that stuff to stop, and if they do, he announced that he will reciprocate and things go back to normal. Perhaps even better than normal with new trade deals that don’t put US exports at a disadvantage, and bring jobs back home. . .
. . . Put all that together and it sounds like a great place to start talking and make this short-term pain that’s coming as short as possible.
Along with the effects of DOGE as well as the reversal of regulatory tyranny on American business, and the bolstering of our labor force by the sealing of our borders and sane immigration policy, we of a certain age might not live long enough to see the Rust Belt brought back to its former glory as the manufacturing powerhouse of the world.
Certainly, there are far too many individuals and institutions in and out of government, domestic and foreign which are desperate to thwart the American renaissance, economic, political, cultural and societal for a host of reasons.
So we shall see if the estimable Victor Davis Hanson is correct about the Dems' seeming impotence in thwarting the MAGA agenda. The seemingly lackluster turnout here in the Wisconsin special election is a puzzler given Trump's performance in '24. Is it mere complacency or what is it? Yes, it doesn't help that the GOP-e is worse than useless, and at times downright collaborationist with the enemy. We need to figure that out. See here and also see here.
yes, Trump endorsed Lindsay Graham, but it's either a good strategic move or a self-own. We can debate that for days, as we no doubt will.
Have a great day.
And lastly, a quick shout-out and thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
- ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
- Victor Davis Hanson: The Dems are too impotent to derail the country, but they are certainly destroying themselves.
From Profanity-Chic to Terrorist-Smut
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Daily Tech News 3 April 2025
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- While Microsoft really really wants you to use an online account the moment you install Windows, corporate customers really really don't want that, and indeed there is a new way to bypass it during the installation. (Bleeping Computer)
Farewell oobe/bypassnro. Hello start ms-cxh:localonly.
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Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - April 2, 2025 [TRex]
—Open Blogger
Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.
This is the Wednesday night ONT.
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Sea Weirdoes Cafe
—Ace
Patagonia
via @Tina95003848248
Goat overpass. Though anything is an overpass to a goat.
Androids have advanced. (Yes, we can now speak of genuine androids.) Once they walked haltingly and always about to totter over, now they walk smoothly.
I don't know if this is real. I doubt it.
Guy is annoyed to discover an alligator reading over his shoulder.
New species discovered in the Springfield Nuclear Power Aquifer.
It's a day of Weirdoes from the Sea.
Border collies showing off their mad speed at agility contests as well as
at work.
Too much cursing in the audio here: Coyote approaches dog... to play.
A pigeon liked a woman's pink shoes, which reminded him of pink pigeon feet, so he gave her his sexy mating dance. They're now dating.
Gay ostrich does "flirty dancing" for guy.
Sheep-Leaping, the Sport of the Future.
An illegal dog-fighting ring run by, what else, cocks. They're turning the system against itself!
Tossing a bag of "organic waste" into a volcano, like in that movie erg was such a fan of.
Throwing a stone into the deepest known cave in the world.
He knows what he did. (But he's a good boy so he feels shame.)
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Nashville Trans Shooter Plotted Attack for Years, Was Obsessed with Other School Shooters
—Ace
Nashville police have released their final report on the Covenant School massacre -- a targeted March 2023 attack on a Christian school by a transgender shooter who killed three third-graders and three adults.Rather than a highly anticipated manifesto, the report found that killer Audrey Hale left behind numerous notebooks, art books and computer documents about her plans to commit the attack and gain notoriety, partly inspired by the Columbine school shooting in 1999.
Hale, the 28-year-old attacker and biological female, began "fantasizing" about and researching mass shootings as far back as 2017, according to investigators. A year later, she wrote "detailed fantasies" about shooting up the Isaac T. Creswell Middle Magnet School for the Arts, killing her father and killing her psychiatrist.
"In this case, a manifesto didn't exist," the document reads. "Hale never left behind a single document explaining why she committed the attack, why she specifically targeted The Covenant, and what she hoped to gain, if anything, with the attack."
Instead, her motivations were scattered across those many notebooks and other writings, investigators found. They included an image showing more than two-dozen notebooks seized from Hale's car and bedroom. They also said she left a suicide note addressed to her parents.
Read the Nashville police report:
"In short, the motive determined over the course of the investigation was notoriety," according to investigators. "Even though numerous disappointments in relationships, career aspirations, and independence fueled her depression, and even though this depression made her highly suicidal, this doesn't explain the attack. As Hale wrote on several occasions, if suicide was her goal then she would have simply killed herself."
Oh, I see, you're babbling inanities because this is a cover-up. I'm sorry, my mistake, I thought you were professional police investigators who would tell us the truth.
Hale wanted people to remember her after her death, according to the document, and was partly inspired by books and documentaries on the Columbine killers. She wanted similar records of her own life and expected her guns, artwork and journals to be preserved in museums around the world."Most disturbingly, she wanted the things she left behind to be shared with the world so she could inspire and teach others who were 'mentally disordered' like her to plan and commit an attack of their own," investigators wrote.
Because of Hale's consistent diaries over a period of years, police said they were able to collect far more information about her than in a typical investigation. They found no evidence of accomplices and said she wanted to prove her "superiority."
The Covenant School was attached to a church that Hale once attended, and she chose the target because of her connection to it, because children wouldn't put up a fight, and because she wanted to obtain infamy, according to police.
I'm noticing a distinct lack of reference to her belief that Christians persecuted her because of her trans delusions.
Her biggest fear in the attack, at 5 feet, 2 inches tall and 120 pounds, was running into a "hero" who could physically overpower her and force her to be captured alive.So she settled on an elementary school that she described as the setting for her "happiest" childhood memories.
"She never remarked of being bullied and ostracized there; on the contrary, she remarked on a couple of occasions how she established friendships, which included play-dates at the homes of other children and a sense of acceptance," police revealed. "She gave no examples of how anyone at the school belittled her or harmed her, as she did in other places she attended school. Because of this, Hale felt The Covenant was the perfect place to commit an attack, as it was the perfect setting for her death."
Related: Six "boys" of hidden ethnicity were arrested for raping a 15-year-old girl in the UK. Quick, make a Netflix show where you change the ethnicity of the perps to white and start running it in public schools to shame white boys who didn't commit the crimes.
The person who posted noted that said the BBC had shut down comments on the post so you have to imagine that this crime wasn't perpetrated by the BBC's Favored Criminals.
Related, as far as leftist criminal pathology: Another Tesla firebomber has been arrested.
A man accused of firebombing a Tesla dealership in Colorado is facing federal charges, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday.Cooper Jo Fredrick, 24, was arrested in Plano, Texas, on suspicion of attacking a Tesla dealership on March 7 in Loveland, Colo., Bondi said.
"Let this be a warning. You can run, but you cannot hide," Bondi said in a video message. "Justice is coming."
Frederick, a resident of Fort Collins, Colo., allegedly ignited an incendiary device and hurled it at the dealership, narrowly missing several parked vehicles. The device landed between two cars, and created a fire, Loveland police said.
This Trantifa Auxiliary looks much as you'd expect.
Frederick was arrested a week after the attack. Federal prosecutors are seeking 20 years in prison, Bondi said.In addition to the federal charges against him, Frederick is also facing local charges, including second-degree arson and possession of explosives or incendiary devices.
...
Lucy Grace Nelson, 42, also known as Justin Thomas Nelson, is also facing charges in connection with a separate Feb. 27 incident at the same Loveland dealership.
Lucy looks like Thor so you'd better use the "right" pronouns with him. I mean, her.
And speaking of rancid sex criminals protected by the Deep State:
Hunter Biden has agreed to give up his license to practice law in Washington, D.C., as a result of his criminal record.The D.C. Bar's Board on Professional Responsibility, which oversees attorney discipline proceedings, revealed the decision by former President Joe Biden's son in a series of filings made public this week.
The voluntary decision to accept disbarment avoids potentially protracted proceedings over whether Hunter Biden's two prior criminal cases required him to lose his law license. Last June, he was convicted of owning a gun while using illegal drugs and lying on a gun-purchase form about his drug use. And in September, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion and other tax crimes.
A Consensus of Experts: French Academy of Medicine Agres Near-Unanimously That Covid-19 Leaked from the Wuhan Lab
—Ace
It's so strange how the media and Deep State only credit some consensuses of experts but not others.
Like: There are two sexes.
Origin of Covid-19: A Near Consensus in Favor of Laboratory Release
While the answer may never be known, five years after the Covid-19 pandemic, the French Academy of Medicine is leaning more toward an error at the Wuhan laboratory than toward a natural emergence of the virus. In its new report, it draws recommendations on both risk management in research and the monitoring of viral outbreaks."97% of the French Academy of Medicine voted almost unanimously to say that we believe SARS-CoV-2 originated from a laboratory error and that lessons must be learned from it to take precautions in the future," revealed Professor Jean-Francois Delfraissy at a press conference of the French Academy of Medicine on April 2, 2025. "It's true that as a virologist, I don't see many arguments in favor of the natural emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus," added Professor Christine Rouzioux, a virologist at Necker Hospital (Paris). In a new report co-authored by these experts, the French Academy of Medicine draws on the assessment of known elements regarding the origins of the Covid-19 virus to recommend significant improvements in monitoring the emergence of zoonoses, and especially greater safety in laboratory biological experiments.
More arguments in favor of laboratory errorIn 2019, the Wuhan laboratory was working on coronaviruses, this new report highlights. Another surprising element is that the first SARS-CoV-2 sequences obtained at the beginning of the epidemic in China were very homogeneous. "An RNA virus mutates very quickly, so it's a virus that had circulated very little," comments Christine Rouzioux.
A naturally evolving virus would, on the other hand, have lots of different mutations. This one didn't, because it was created to be hyperinfectious from the start.
Professor Patrick Berche, a microbiologist, agrees. "Once in circulation, this virus explodes with mutations, but when we discover it, there is no sign of adaptation to an intermediate host!"In addition, the virus contains in its genetic material the sequence of a cleavage site for a protein called furin. "This particularity facilitates the cleavage between S1 and S2 and greatly increases the affinity of the virus's Spike protein for human cells and therefore its infectivity," explains Christine Rouzioux. Finally, Patrick Berche points out the strangeness of the pandemic's epidemiology. "The animals at the Wuhan market were transported from other locations, yet there were no animal or human outbreaks at the point of departure of these convoys. It's as if everything had magically appeared in Wuhan."
...
Lessons remain to be learned, and this is the real objective of the report from the French Academy of Medicine, which does not aim to resolve the question of the origins of Covid-19, which may never be definitively answered. "The work underway in Wuhan was carried out in a BSL2 laboratory, which is therefore insufficient in terms of bioprotection of personnel and the environment," points out Christine Rouzioux. BSL2 laboratories provide for the use of laminar flow hoods (with an airflow reducing the risk of contamination).
I think this just means that workstations have hoods with fans above them... like your oven. That's it for "biosecurity."
That's why people keep saying that the Wuhan lab had about the same "biosecurity" as a common dentist's office.
But handling dangerous viruses of this type would require a BSL3 system, requiring the wearing of masks, gowns, and gloves, and stricter waste disposal. It is therefore necessary to develop "a culture of risk and responsibility" among researchers, argue the scientists from the French Academy of Medicine. "The risks are underestimated by a number of researchers," Christine Rouzioux diagnoses.
I used Google to translate the article.
Trump Announces "Liberation Day" Tariffs; Will Calculate the Direct Tariffs and Non-Monetary Barriers to Entry Foreign Countries Impose on Us and Slap Them Each With Reciprocal Tariffs Equalling About Half of Their Own Tariff Level
—Ace
President Trump displays a chart showing foreign countries'
tariffs on US goods, contrasted with the reciprocal tariffs he
proposes to impose on those countries. In most cases, his
reciprocal tariffs are about half the level of the foreign countries'
tariffs on US goods.
He's speaking now in the Rose Garden. Video below.
President Donald Trump is set to announce his decision on the implementation of an array of new tariffs Wednesday as some of the tariffs he has already announced will take effect. Trump has dubbed Wednesday "Liberation Day" and is planning an event at the White House's Rose Garden to unveil his decision on broader tariffs.Trump announced tariffs on Mexico and Canada earlier in his administration, but agreed to postpone both following negotiations with the leaders of those countries that led to agreements to bolster border security. Each tariff adds 25% on goods from the respective country. While those tariffs were part of border security negotiations, Trump is expected to unveil broader tariffs to achieve his stated goal of rebalancing American global trade.
On Tuesday, he received reports from the Treasury, Commerce Department, and Office of the Trade Representative on possible tariffs and their potential impacts, though he reportedly has already made up his mind on what to implement. "I've settled, yeah," he told the The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Ahead of the Rose Garden event, moreover, he unveiled a 25% tariff on auto imports that earned praise from union workers, including from United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders who opposed his candidacy. Trump notably feuded with UAW President Shawn Fain during the election, but Fain had high praise for the commander-in-chief after the auto tariffs.
"We applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working-class communities for decades," Fain said. "Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today's actions."
Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs are expected to go much broader, though the details remain unclear as of press time and interested parties are expected to push for limited exemptions all the way to the deadline.
The point of conjecture at present is whether Trump will announce an across-the-board 20% tariff on all foreign imports, with few if any exceptions, or whether he will opt for a more targeted, reciprocal tariff policy of matching each nation's respective rates and negotiating on an individual basis.
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LOL: Politico Is So Sad That Anthony Fauci's Wife and His Other Allies Just Got Fired from NIH
—Ace
As Black Conservative Perspective would say, they're all boo-hoo whinin' and cryin'.
As an anti-vaccine activist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent years attacking Anthony Fauci and sowing doubts about the successful effort he led to develop a Covid vaccine.As HHS secretary, he's exacting his revenge.
Kennedy on Tuesday fired Fauci's wife, Christine Grady, and reassigned at least three of Fauci's longtime colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, as part of a purge of senior officials involved in the government's development and distribution of the Covid vaccine, eight people familiar with the matter said.
BRB, organizing a Giggle Party
...The removals, which came amid a mass reduction in force across the health department, effectively gutted leadership at the NIH's infectious disease office and key parts of the Food and Drug Administration, stunning agency employees and leaving the broader public health community in disbelief.
"It's like a Fauci fixation," said Dr. Eric Topol, a public health expert and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. "So many of these people are just dedicated, they really want to do good and now they're losing their jobs senselessly."
POLITICO spoke to 11 people for this story, many of whom were granted anonymity for fear of retribution.
LOL. So brave.
Several NIH leaders were told to accept reassignment to outposts in states like Alaska or leave the federal government altogether, according to three people familiar with the matter. One of them was Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci at NIAID....
In a post on X, Kennedy called the firings a "difficult moment" but insisted that HHS needed an overhaul.
"The reality is clear: what we've been doing isn't working," he wrote. "HHS needs to be recalibrated to emphasize prevention, not just sick care."
...
Peter Stein, who heads the FDA Office of New Drugs that aided work on Covid vaccines and treatments, was fired on Tuesday amid a gutting of his office's policy shop. His removal came just days after Kennedy and new FDA Commissioner Marty Makary agreed to force out top vaccine regulator Peter Marks, who played a central role in creating the Operation Warp Speed initiative that delivered the Covid vaccine in record time. Marks' deputy, Julie Tierney, was also put on leave on Tuesday.
The abrupt house-cleaning -- delivered to officials in early-morning messages -- generated near-universal dismay across the public health landscape on Tuesday. And while Kennedy and his allies have argued that the overhaul is necessary to restore trust in HHS, the removals fueled suspicion among Fauci's supporters that Kennedy was using the mass firings to rid the department of top Covid-era scientists and others close to Fauci.
Really? Is that your suspicion?
In addition to purging leadership at NIH and FDA, Kennedy ordered cuts to a range of divisions focused on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases -- the area where Fauci first gained prominence as a leader of the government's response to the AIDS epidemic. The moves follow a crackdown already underway on grants related to Covid and vaccine hesitancy....
Makary and new NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya are also Fauci critics who gained prominence as opponents of the government's Covid response, with Bhattacharya at one point calling Fauci's role during Covid a "propaganda campaign." They have both vowed to overhaul the agencies and refocus public health priorities.
In a message to NIH staff on Tuesday, Bhattacharya wrote that he would "foster an environment where varied perspectives are valued and encouraged at NIH and the broader scientific community" -- a pointed contrast to his accusations that Fauci and his allies shut down dissent at the agency.
...
"This is the darkest day that I've had in 50 years of public health," said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, who called reassigning Marrazzo and others to far-flung locales "almost a way of punishing them for what they have done."
Cry moar, commie thugs and gaslighters.
Thanks to Jay in PA.
Brave and Righteous Reporters Finally Report on Biden's Mental Incapacity, After It No Longer Matters, and They Can Grift Money Off of Information They Hid for Six Years
—Ace
THE BIDEN BOOK DELUGE: The race to shape Joe Biden's legacy is on. The former president's extended orbit is bracing for a steady march of no fewer than four books dropping over the next few months that promise to excavate and relitigate not only the historic 2024 presidential campaign but the former president's own physical and mental condition before dropping out.Biden allies are already prebutting some of those books' authors, challenging their framing and questioning their fact-checking approach in an attempt to protect the former president's image. Dozens of former and current Biden aides have engaged on the books, according to a person with visibility into the process. Biden allies seem to be defining a satisfactory fact-checking process as one that includes readouts of dates, people, memos and meetings mentioned and a chance for Biden world to respond, item by item.
...
Starting Tuesday, the crush of books will begin with Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes' "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House" ($32). Already, the duo have produced reporting that depicts Biden's decline in vivid detail, including that he forgot the identity of one of his 2020 rivals and that Democratic officials had "hush-hush talks" to game out Biden's withdrawal as early as 2023, according to an excerpt in The Guardian.
There's also a book by Chris Whipple which whitewashes the Biden camp and the media from all responsibility, claiming they "believed what they wanted to believe" so nothing to see here folks.
Then comes Fake Jake Tapper's sudden realization that you can judge someone as being senile despite not having a medical degree and specialization in neurology and gerontology:
Biden aides who participated in the reporting of that book, according to the person familiar, were shocked to read the "cover-up" framing on the book jacket, as such framing wasn't used explicitly in some of the interviews facilitated by Biden handers, this person claimed. They say while Thompson and Tapper openly grappled with Biden's age prior to the book's release, allegations of a cover-up or conspiracy broke new ground.Asked about this, a spokesperson for Tapper and Thompson told Playbook: "Starting after Election Day, Jake and Alex began working on 'Original Sin' and found people post-election much more willing to talk candidly than they had been. Jake and Alex interviewed more than 200 people to figure out just what went behind the scenes of the Biden White House, conducting an extensive reporting and fact-checking process, including with former President Biden's team. We're not going to discuss who participated but stay tuned for what they discovered."
Couldn't have reported any of this before the election, huh, Fake Jake
Some former Biden aides don't expect the books to make much of a splash. They're betting amid the tumult of Trump's second term, Biden's legacy could look better. "Our attitude is the focus is on 'How can you help?' and most of his alumni are," a former Biden adviser told Playbook. "There will be [book] parties in D.C., but we're also going to move onto the next Signalgate in 30 seconds."
Signalgate >>> Having a Senile Mental Incompetent as Fake President for Four Years
Still, that may be wishful thinking from Biden world. "The next six weeks will be rough for the entire Biden family, because they're going to be the primary focus (and likely villains) in all of these books," said Caitlin Legacki, a Democratic campaign veteran who worked for Biden Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Ed Driscoll excerpts some of these non-bombshell revelations at Instapundit.
Biden's close advisor -- and suspected Shadow President for most of Biden's fake term -- Ron Klain knew that Biden was unfit.
Ron Klain, a longtime aide to former President Joe Biden known for his intense loyalty, is insisting he "never doubted" Biden's mental fitness -- as a new book describes Klain's distress ahead of Biden's dismal June 2024 debate against Donald Trump.In "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," author Chris Whipple writes that Klain viewed Biden, then 81, as "out of it" and even "half-seriously" worried that Biden thought he was "president of NATO."
"I never doubted the president's mental acuity," Klain told The Post Wednesday after a report on Whipple's book was published by the Guardian.
"He had become singularly focused on foreign policy and detached from Democratic allies in the pursuit of GOP support on Ukraine and Israel," Klain said of his impressions of the 46th president.
"He thought that being a great foreign policy president was enough."
It's still bitterly funny that Biden, often called the man who was wrong about every major foreign policy question of the 20th century, had that Old Man Vanity of believing himself to be some kind of wise man of world relations.
I think he believed this because everything with foreign policy is 1, ideology and 2, wild-ass guessing. It's hard to be proven wrong in foreign policy -- which is how Biden avoided coming to this conclusion despite always being wrong.
It's a sketchy field where idiots can think themselves profound thinkers. People like George W. Bush, for example.
This is from the whitewash "they believed what they wanted to believe book:"
"[Biden] had answers on cards, and he was just extremely exhausted," Klain said."And I was struck by how out of touch with American politics he was. He was just very, very focused on his interactions with NATO leaders."
Klain, Whipple writes, "wondered half-seriously if Biden thought he was president of NATO instead of the US."
"He just became very enraptured with being the head of NATO," Klain said. "Domestic political leaders don't really care what [French President Emmanuel] Macron and [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz think."
More from Whipple's book, as quoted by The Guardian:
According to Klain, it turned out that Biden "didn't know what Trump had been saying and couldn't grasp what the back and forth was"; left preparation and fell asleep by the pool; obsessed about foreign leaders, saying "these guys say I'm doing a great job as president so I must be a great president"; "didn't really understand what his argument was on inflation"; and "had nothing to say about a second term other than finish the job".As described by Klain to the reporter Chris Whipple, at one point Biden had an idea.
"If he looked perplexed when Trump talked, voters would understand that Trump was an idiot. Klain replied: 'Sir, when you look perplexed, people just think you're perplexed. And this is our problem in this race."
See Ed Driscoll at Instapundit for more about "President Klain."
