Jack Smith Appears to Have Lied to Congress About His Pretext for Hounding Trump About Missing Documents
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Just like the Russiagate Hoax.
New documents first obtained by the Daily Caller suggest former special counsel Jack Smith may have misled lawmakers and the public regarding the pretext for his investigation into President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents.The documents reveal the National Archives' internal watchdog did not consider its February 2022 message to the Justice Department (DOJ) about Trump's possession of classified documents a criminal referral, contradicting Smith's account of how the case began. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) case report from February 2022, obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, notes that its message to the Justice Department was a referral, but not a criminal referral.
Smith had previously claimed in court filings that the investigation was "[p]rompted by NARA's discovery of classified documents in the 15 boxes in January 2022 and a criminal referral from NARA in February 2022."
So first he admitted he predicated opening the investigation on the NARA "referral."
But when it turned out that you can't open a criminal investigation based on a non-criminal "referral," he retconned his story and said it wasn't based on the NARA complaint.
"The OIG determined that this matter and the other relevant matters be classified as -R (referral to DOJ for their assessment and guidance, not the same as a criminal referral for prosecution which is only done for criminal investigations)," the report first made in 2022 and edited throughout 2023 to include such information notes.
FBI messages included in the documents show that the bureau first treated the missing documents complaint as a "spillage" issue with "little likelihood of being pursued as a criminal matter."
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"Based on the allegations as set forth below and as supplemented by our virtual meeting, Matters 1, 2, and 3 are not matters for which PIN would open a criminal investigation at this time. If you develop additional evidence related to these allegations, especially as to the contents of the underlying documents or any evidence," it continued about the potential case.
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In June 2023, Smith's office received a massive trove from NARA: 54 spreadsheets of text messages from inside Trump's orbit obtained from the White House custodian.
After obtaining the documents, senior attorney Thomas Windom was eavesdropping on the conversations between Trump and his top advisors in his first administration, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, first daughter Ivanka Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and many others. It appears the review was done without first separating potentially privileged information.
Republican Senator Jack Haggerty has filed a bar complaint against sleazy Democrat operative Jack Smith.
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., filed a bar complaint against former Special Counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday for his "serious misconduct" in running the Biden-era Arctic Frost lawfare against Donald Trump and other Republicans.Jack Smith is "a blatantly partisan actor and his prosecutorial misconduct damaged our constitutional order. He should never be able to practice law again," Hagerty wrote in an X post announcing his filing.
The complaint filed with the Tennessee Supreme Court's Board of Professional Responsibility takes aim at Smith's use of subpoenas to obtain the phone toll records of Hagerty and other Republican members of Congress. Not only did Smith and his team seek and obtain non-disclosure orders to prevent the phone companies from notifying the GOP officials that their records were being subpoenaed, but they also reportedly did not disclose to the court approving the NDOs that the subpoenas targeted members of Congress.
Marsha Blackburn has already sued him, and wants him criminally charged.
"I think that it would be a good thing for him to face prosecution," Blackburn told the John Solomon Reports podcast this week just hours before she filed her lawsuit alleging Smith was never lawfully a special counsel and therefore violated her rights as a member of Congress by collecting her phone records."I think it would be a good thing for him to have to reveal who all was in on this with him, and I think it would be a very good thing for him to have to return all these records to the people that he [has] victimized," she said.
Hollywood: Shit or Garbage?
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Unexpectedly, it's expected to bomb.
Early reports showed the production recreating the riots that Democrats have effectively weaponized for more than five years. They obsess over the subject, eager to paint all Trump supporters with that garish brush.Now, Jan. 6 has a movie all its own. An early report says "The Social Reckoning" weighs in on that ugly riot.
World of Reel shares a pointed reaction to the film and its subject matter:
January 6th eventually comes up, the entire film builds toward it. The film's arc leads naturally to the suggestion that January 6th was, in part, a product of Facebook itself.Sorkin has literally said the same thing on the record regarding Facebook and Jan. 6.
The problem?
Who will actually see the movie? Box office projections have "The Social Reckoning" opening to a very soft $6-$10 million on its opening weekend. The competition won't be stiff.
Ana Navarro is urging the Disney Groomer Network to fight the FCC's investigation into its partisanship -- which would require it to devote equal time to the other side -- while urging viewers to vote Democrat.
ABC's The View co-host Ana Navarro urged viewers in a competitive Florida congressional district to vote and promoted the Democratic candidate challenging the Republican incumbent -- even as Disney-owned ABC is fighting to preserve the daytime program's status as a "bona fide" news interview program before the Federal Communications Commission....
Navarro did not stop at encouraging viewers to participate in the election. She specifically discussed defeating Salazar and promoted her Democratic opponent.
"And we can actually knock this woman out," Navarro said. "There's a great guy running. His name is Elliott Rodriguez. Give him a look!"
Salazar is actually an open borders "Republican," but that gets her no grace from the partisan Navarro.
That simple comment could cause a major issue for The View, ABC, and the entire Disney company.The remarks come at a particularly notable moment for ABC because the network is currently embroiled in a dispute with the FCC over The View's treatment under federal equal-opportunities rules.
In May, ABC and Disney-owned Houston station KTRK-TV formally petitioned the FCC to declare that The View qualifies as a "bona fide news interview program."
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ABC maintains that The View qualifies for the exemption and has argued that FCC scrutiny of the program threatens the network's First Amendment rights.Navarro's remarks are now drawing renewed criticism of that position.
Daily Wire opinion editor Ben Domenech responded, "How is this not electioneering? She's literally telling them who to vote for."
Speaking of intense partisans at the Disney Groomer Network: Programming chief Dana Walden (a real lefty scrunt) seems to hint that Jimmy Kimmel is donezo.
Disney's Dana Walden on Jimmy Kimmel's Late Night Future: "It's Challenging"The host is currently on a one-year contract for his ABC talk show.
Disney's president [was] asked about the future of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Kimmel signed a one-year contract extension in December 2025 to keep hosting the late night show through the 2026-27 season, and Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw asked Walden if the host would be sticking around."I'm not going to make that announcement here with you today," Walden said....
"The truth is, it's a very challenging daypart," Walden said Thursday at the Bloomberg event.
"Daypart" = "part of the broadcasting day." Late night doesn't bring in the numbers as it did 20 years ago.
"That's not to say that Jimmy is not doing a phenomenal job, and his ratings are up. But they're up relative to a smaller audience that's watching late night on broadcast television."Kimmel and the show also have a big presence on YouTube and social media platforms, but those views and clicks bring in a fraction of the revenue that on-air advertising does. "That is not a lucrative opportunity for a very premium talk show," said Walden.
"We're trying to make sense of the business while also honoring a deep partnership," she continued. "I love Jimmy; we have great friendship. He's close to a number of the people at Disney. We're trying to work through it and make sense of, what does Jimmy want, what's the right thing to do, and what's the right thing for our business."
Doesn't this sound like an "it's not you, it's me"?
James Gunn's Supergirl is bombing even on HBO, where subscribers can view it for no extra charge.
According to Nielsen's Streaming Top 10 for September 7 through September 13, Supergirl generated just 304 million minutes viewed in the United States during its first four days on HBO Max.That was enough to make Supergirl the No. 1 movie on HBO Max, but only the fifth most-watched streaming movie across the services measured by Nielsen.
Perhaps more significantly for Warner Bros. and DC Studios, Supergirl's initial streaming consumption appears to have fallen well below several recent DC movies that were themselves regarded as major box office disappointments.
That includes The Flash, Blue Beetle, Black Adam, and even Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
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Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Again? led the week with 908 million minutes, followed by The Whisper Man with 404 million and Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu with 366 million.
James Gunn might soon be out. His Lanterns show takes a blowtorch to one of DC's most beloved heroes, Hal Jordan. This is probably because Hal Jordan is white and they want to replace him as the main Lantern with the black John Stewart.
And because Hal Jordan was identified specifically as a Republican in a DC event. So, you know --Racist.
So the show turns him into a murderer and loser.
Oh, and kills him. Or maybe he took the coward's way out and killed himself.
Sunday's episode confirmed the death of Hal Jordan, and Green Lantern fans let the DC Studios co-head hear about it.Gunn spent Monday replying on Threads, telling one fan "sorry if you don't like it," and another that the DCU following their favorite comics continuity is "probably not going to happen."
The episode reveals that following the events of Episode 5, Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan went to prison for 10 years.
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One fan told Gunn to "at least respect the characters that made the comics popular."
"Killing Hal off right away after we have waited 15 years to see him on screen again was the worst thing you could have done," the fan wrote.
Gunn's answer, in full:
"Hal's the star of TV series & he's in all the episodes so far. It's more live action screen time than all the live action screen time he's had combined throughout history. Kyle is amazing in the role. We more than respect him. We love him, despite his imperfections."
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Gunn says they love Hal. It's exactly what Cosmic Book News has questioned all season: you don't treat these characters this way if you love them.
Hal Jordan waited 15 years to get back on screen. The DCU brought him back to send him to prison for a decade, confirm his death, and dig up his corpse for the ring.
That's not paying homage. It's a mockery of the source material, the creators behind it, and the fans who made these characters popular in the first place.
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Per Cosmic Book News' sources, Gunn is expected out when his contract expires next year.
Tom King, a leftwing depressive mope of a DC writer who has character assassinated every character he's been allowed to write, was one of the creators of the show. His specialty is deconstruction, so Gunn knew what he was getting when he hired King.
King is also finally done at DC, "insiders" say.
Tom King, who co-created Lanterns and helped Gunn build the DCU, just exited his Wonder Woman comic, and per CBN's insiders, he's done at DC.
A bad sign for Gunn is that his planned show, Dynamic Duo, about two of the Robins teaming up, has been "delayed."
Cancelled, I think that means, as Paramount prepares a clean sweep of the DCU's personnel. Gunn wisely got his Superman sequel into production in a hurry, to make sure he at least has a job until the movie's release -- as Kathleen Kennedy often did. But after that, he's gonzo.
By the way: the Lanterns writers have no imagination beyond today's Twitter Outrage. They say they based the Hal Jordan-John Stewart relationship -- an older white guy who won't give up his spot to the minority who wants to supplant him -- on the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris succession dynamic.
The increasingly contentious relationship between Hal Jordan and John Stewart in HBO's Lanterns was partially informed by a surprising real-world political event: the 2024 transition from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket....
"What does it mean when you are the superhero and have been the superhero for decades and you've been holding on to this sort of legacy, and then all of a sudden this young guy comes around," Britt-Gibson said.
John's individual characteristics were also deliberately positioned as threatening to the veteran Green Lantern.
"Young and black," one panelist said.
"And handsome, and strong, and confident. It's threatening," came the response from Britt-Gibson. "And fearless, of course. That's threatening."
The writers then revealed that the extraordinary political events of 2024 became part of that creative conversation.
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The political upheaval was unfolding while the Lanterns writers were discussing similar themes involving Hal and John.
"Right as we were having the conversation, we had already started talking about it and breaking it, the Democratic National Convention was coming up," Baden Kelly explained. "That's when we were trying to figure out who is going to be the front runner here. Is it going to be Kamala or is it going to be Biden?"
Hey Kids! Comics!!
But they looooove Hal Jordan, right?
They're absolutely obsessed with "racism" -- and attacking white people every five seconds.
The writers of HBO's Lanterns changed John Stewart's backstory after Aaron Pierre was cast in the role, incorporating the actor's lighter complexion into a storyline in which John's appearance was considered "more palatable to White people."
In other words, the Guardians of the Universe, beings of near-infinite power and hundreds of thousands of years old, chose a light-skinned black man to be a Green Lantern so that he wouldn't provoke Muh Racism in white people.
Millennia-old space aliens who have had contact with 10,000 sentient alien species are all about the tiny distinctions in skin tones on Earth.
This seems more of a "You Thing" than a "Guardians of the Universe Thing."
..."John Stewart is supposed to be a dark-skinned Black man," Baden Kelly explained. "We are changing that canonically by having Aaron come in, and we need to change that in the writing. We need to find a way to make this make sense."
Rather than simply accepting Pierre's appearance as another difference between a comic book character and his live-action counterpart, the writers decided to incorporate his complexion directly into John's upbringing.
That decision ultimately became part of the explanation for why John was treated differently from his brothers.
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She then explained what the writers decided to add to John's story.
"That's when we baked in this idea that part of his being chosen is because they felt like his particular looks were more palatable to White people," Baden Kelly said. "And if that is who he was going to have to impress to get this job, he was probably the more likely of the three brothers to be able to do it."
We can turn Hal Jordan into a murdering loser, but we need a backstory involving space aliens sensitivity to "colorism" to explain why the TV version of John Stewart is one shade lighter than his comic book version.
I continue to not understand why David Ellison bought Warner Bros/Discovery. It's an ailing brand whose biggest IP is billions of dollars of debt.
Warner Bros. Discovery stumbled in the second quarter, demonstrating the hazard of depending heavily on blockbuster returns from its Burbank film studio.Disappointing performances by "Supergirl" and "The Bride!" drove down quarterly theatrical revenue by 46%. The tepid showing illustrated how the Warner Bros. studio has fallen since last year when it was riding high at the box office with "Sinners" and "A Minecraft Movie."
..
Overall, profit for Warner Bros. Discovery, which also is the parent of HBO, CNN, TLC and HGTV, plummeted 91% to $149 million, or 6 cents per share, compared to $1.6 billion in the second quarter of 2025 amid the film studio's blazing run.
The company also fell short of Wall Street expectations for revenue, which sank 11% to $8.7 billion, despite noteworthy gains in its HBO Max streaming business.
In fairness, the company did have a good 2025.
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RFKJr. Exposes More Billions in Medical Fraud
—Disinformation Expert Ace
KanekoaTheGreat @KanekoaTheGreatNEW: RFK Jr. says Medicare spending on wound care patches exploded from $200 million in 2019 to $14 billion last year: "It's all stolen."
Bad actors billed Medicare billions by slapping the most expensive skin grafts on elderly and dying patients who didn't need them.
"The doctors who prescribed them would get 6% of the sales cost. And so, they were incentivized to prescribe more expensive products. In Europe, they spend 35 cents a cubic inch. We were spending $135, and that went up to $2,000 a cubic inch."
"So 2019, we were paying $200 million. Last year we spent 14 billion. All stolen. It's all stolen. And we were on track to spend 23 billion this year."
"We put an end to it, and we now have driven that cost down to somewhere around a billion dollars."
In one Arizona case, the owners of two wound care companies pleaded guilty to more than $1.2 billion in fraudulent claims. Medicare paid over $1 million per patient for grafts slapped on elderly patients who didn't need them, many of them dying in hospice.
In June, DOJ charged 11 more defendants over more than $2 billion in allograft claims, including a company accused of issuing sham invoices to inflate what Medicare paid.
It feels like every week I learn a new way people were ripping off taxpayers for billions.
Video below the fold.
Related: Hennepin County, Minnesota helpfully set up a new welfare program for Somalis to defraud.
They got so many obviously-fraudulent applications that even fraud-happy Minnesota had to halt the program.
It's estimated that three-quarters of the applications are fraudulent.
The welfare was for businesses who were "harmed" by ICE operations in Minnesota, due to illegal aliens not showing up for work or illegal aliens not patronizing restaurants.
Hennepin County shut down a small business grant program after apparently fraudulent applications raised concerns, with $1.5 million in public money left in the fund.The county said fraudulent applications plagued the recovery program, which was meant to help offset local business losses during Operation Metro Surge. County leaders repurposed the remaining $1.5 million into what they described as a lower-risk program with wide-ranging support such as business consulting for new entrepreneurs.
Two successes came out of the now-ended fund, according to the county: no tax money actually went to fraudsters and legitimate businesses did receive help.
Um, no. You stopped the obvious fraud. Plenty of more skillful fraudsters got paid.
...Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde said 82 legitimate businesses received help, but the county got about 300 applications and shut down the $2 million program after giving out $500,000.
218 out of 300 applications were "obviously fabricated."
Commissioner Lunde said the county and a nonprofit helping to review grant applications found a significant number with red flags for fraud."As we dug deeper in, and we started to see patterns, and those patterns were not -- they were fraudulent patterns," Lunde said.
Note that the only reason these fraudsters were caught is because they copy pasted repetitive applications for a large number of fake businesses. That's the "patterns" the commissioner euphemizes above.
Also, the only verification they bothered doing was going to the addresses of the "businesses" to make sure they even existed. Three quarters of them did not.
But of the businesses that did exist -- how many actually suffered thousand dollar "losses" due to illegal aliens not coming to work or eating in their restaurants? They didn't bother to even check that.
Actual Justice Warrior has more, including video of local news coverage. Lord knows you won't see national media outlets cover it.
Trump boasts he'll be sending out $500 refund checks to people overcharged for Obamacare.
The real refunds need to go to independent workers who pay for their own insurance, but who are forced to subsidize the unhealthiest of all people getting insurance through Obamacare.
President Donald Trump is set on Sept. 30 to start sending $500 checks to nearly 1 million Americans his administration says were overcharged through the Affordable Care Act's federal exchange for buying health insurance.Treasury Department checks, along with letters signed by Trump notifying recipients, will begin going out to more than 950,000 Americans across 30 states, according to an administration official.
"For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov," Trump says in the letter, which was viewed by USA TODAY. "That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now I'm returning it to you!"
Trump announced the $500 Obamacare refund checks on Sept. 10 in a video posted by the White House that coincided with the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. The money is separate from a controversial $5,000 dividend Trump has vowed to distribute to all Americans if Republicans retain control of Congress after the November midterm election.
The White House has said the Biden administration collected user fees from health insurance companies that consumers paid for in the form of higher premiums ‒ and that the premiums exceeded what was needed to run the exchange. The Trump administration has accused the Biden administration of sitting on the surplus of money.
The checks, issued five weeks before the November midterm election, come as Americans' anxieties over high costs and affordability pose major political liabilities for Trump and Republicans as they look to hold on to power in Congress.
"You have paid into this flawed System, and now you are finally getting something back," Trump says in the letter.
In news that would make RFKJr. happy: McDonald's is spending $8.5 billion to change its menu to be healthier -- more protein in meals.
The fast-food chain is exploring higher-protein menu options and different portion sizes, as customers increasingly look for meals that will satisfy them without leaving them feeling like they need to unbutton their jeans....
The menu rethink is part of a much bigger makeover. McDonald's plans to spend roughly $8.5 billion to support franchisees over the next decade. The money will go toward modernizing restaurants, improving operations and helping franchisees win customers.
The plan did not impress Wall Street, with shares falling 6% in afternoon trading after the spending was announced.
Part of that shift comes as Americans are putting more money and attention toward wellness. GLP-1 use is one piece of that change. About 11% of U.S. adults said they were using a GLP-1 medication for weight loss in 2026, up from just 3% in 2024, according to Gallup.
The U.S. wellness economy reached roughly $2.1 trillion in 2024, making it the largest wellness market in the world, according to the Global Wellness Institute.
That focus is increasingly showing up in how some consumers order fast food, too. McDonald's is placing a sizable bet on getting customers through the doors more often at a time when its rivals are making their own expensive plans.
Burger King, for example, has committed up to $700 million through 2028 to its "Reclaim the Flame" turnaround plan, which includes restaurant remodels, new technology, kitchen equipment and other upgrades. Those efforts appear to be gaining traction as Burger King U.S. reported comparable-sales growth of 8.5% in the second quarter of 2026.
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Now the company is looking for ways to stretch business even further. It plans to explore more flexibility on the beef side, including different portion sizes and menu options.
"We're looking to add more choice in beef for those seeking more flexibility in portion sizes, for example, a burger bowl," Jill McDonald, McDonald's executive vice president and global chief restaurant experience officer, said during the meeting.
You're spending billions to introduce a burger without the bun?
But that's not their real plan. Their real plan is to make Quarter Pounders entirely out of 10 karat gold.
Gold has no calories. Look it up.
The fast-food giant is giving away a miniature Quarter Pounder made from a quarter pound of 10-karat gold as part of its 2026 Monopoly Golden Edition promotion in Canada.According to Access Winnipeg, the unusual collectible has an estimated value of C$20,000, which works out to roughly $15,000 USD.
Unlike the restaurant's usual signature burger, there is no need to add cheese or a side of fries.
McDonald's official promotion website confirms that the prize is crafted from a quarter pound of 10-karat gold and comes with an appraisal.
So now that this is a Health Gains thread:
Does apple cider vinegar help with gastric reflux?
"Most of the research on apple cider vinegar is about blood sugar and weight. For digestive symptoms, I am not aware of a single well-designed human trial showing it helps reflux, bloating, gas, or the gut microbiome," says gastroenterologist Sameer Berry, MD, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City and the chief medical officer of Oshi Health, which provides multidisciplinary gastrointestinal (GI) healthcare.Acid reflux, when acid from your stomach moves up into the esophagus and throat, is common: Research has found that 2 in 5 Americans experience it weekly. Some people with the condition rely upon anecdotal evidence that ACV can tame uncomfortable symptoms like heartburn and indigestion.
I'm one of them. When I get reflux, which I get if I eat carbs or something that disagrees with me within two hours of bedtime, if I drink a tablespoon of ACV in a glass of water, the reflux goes away in 20 minutes.
Years ago someone claimed that reflux is not caused by too much acid, as you might think, but too little acid, where your stomach never finishes digesting a meal so it just hangs around in your gut. Apple cider vinegar gets the last meal fully digested.
Or maybe it just sends a signal to the stomach that, as it has a lot of acid in it, it's time to turn off the acid taps.
I don't know. But it works for me, much better than antacids ever did.
The online claims aren't backed by research though, says Dr. Berry. "There is absolutely no evidence in human trials that ACV does anything for acid reflux," he says, adding that for reflux, "I don't recommend it."ACV may also make chronic reflux, known as gastroesophageal reflux disease, symptoms worse because it is acidic, says Simon Mathews, MD, a Baltimore-based gastroenterologist and spokesperson for the American Gastroenterological Association, where he chairs the Committee for GI Innovation and Technology. "An inflamed esophagus doesn't benefit from an increased acid load," Dr. Mathews says.
Maybe. All I can say is that it works for me, every time.
Vinegar is bad for your teeth so you need to brush your teeth after drinking it. Because I don't want to be bothered with that in the middle of the night, I take apple cider vinegar pills when I get woken up with reflux. They're cheap and available on Amazon (and pretty much any drug or nutrition store.
By the way: A commenter recommended nicotine lozenges over gum. I knew about lozenges, but never tried them until he recommended them. Thanks -- it's how I take nicotine now. Costco sells a big box of them, 270 lozenges, for $45. Pretty cheap.
"If you enjoy the taste and if you feel better on it, it's totally safe to use. If your reflux gets worse with it, then I would absolutely stop," he says.
Well of course. But it's worth a try, I think.
Here's seven supplements you should take if, unlike me, you're over 40.
To spare you having to read, here are the seven: Vitamin D3, Vitamin B12, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, Omega 3s, Probiotics. Potassium's hard to get in a supplement because the little pills they sell have 3% of the RDA of potassium. You have to take -- let me run the calculations -- ten just to get 30% of the RDA. You could, however, get Potassium Chloride, which people cutting salt use as a salt substitute. But I'd be cautious. I have to assume they strictly limit the amount of potassium in each pill for a reason.
A special message about addiction for Jack Straw.
Anyone have any health gains to report?
I have a semi-gain. I got serious about staying Keto for the first time in years. I've been in keto almost every day, at least just a little. (I check my urine.)
But unlike in previous keto regimes, I'm not really losing any appreciable weight. Has anyone else gone through this? Is there a fix to kick-start actual fat-burning? (You don't have to mention the "fat fast," I know about that.)
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Schmolls: Paxton and Collins Up Over Their Weirdo Opponents
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Paxton is up according to his own campaign poll.
People scoff at campaign polls. But campaign polls are real polls, unlike media polls, which are cheaply done just for clicks. Campaign polls have real money and effort put into them.
The problem is that the campaign can withhold all the polls that show them down and then release the one poll that shows them up. I assume that happens all the time. All the time.
That said, at least the last poll of likely voters has Paxton up:
A new poll of likely voters shows Republican Ken Paxton leading Democrat James Talarico 48% to 45% in the Texas U.S. Senate race.The Pulse Decision Science survey, conducted Sept. 24-27, was identified as a Republican internal poll.
Trump boosted Paxton:
"He is unbelievable. He is a loyal, hardworking character. Ken's one of the best state attorney generals in the entire country. He has been for the last many years and frankly he's gonna go down as one of the best ever," Trump said in a video.
The RCP poll of polls says the Collins is up over the replacement for Maine Fuhrer.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has reclaimed the lead in her reelection bid, not merely in a single poll, but in a major polling aggregator.As of press time, Collins led former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson by 0.2% in the RealClearPolitics polling average. That metric includes six surveys, three of which show Collins leading. One InsiderAdvantage survey shows the race tied while two show Jackson with a lead.
Notably, none of the three most recent surveys show Jackson leading the contest.
In hard left Minnesota, the ultra-left-wing lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan -- who wore a t-shirt with the motto "PROTECT TRANS RIGHTS" written on a combat knife -- is up only a single point over Republican Michelle Tafoya.
The InsiderAdvantage survey found that 46 percent of likely voters in the state supported Flanagan, while Tafoya garnered 45 percent support.Matt Towery, a pollster with InsiderAdvantage, called the survey results "unusual" for a race in a blue-leaning state, noting outgoing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's (D) waning approval ratings and a widespread fraud scandal in the state as possible contributing factors to this close race.
"Tafoya does extremely well with men and Flanagan is losing every age group other than the youngest of voters, who in the poll have a significant 'enthusiasm about voting' gap versus other age groups who are more enthusiastic," Towery said in a statement.
CNN's Harry Enten points out that Republicans typically outperform their September polls by five points -- which means the Republicans would hold the Senate with a 50 50 split and Vance as a tiebreaker.
Let's do better than that.
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Supreme Court Will Decide Major "Environmental" Case, Deciding If Leftists May Use the Power of the Lawsuit to Steal Democracy From the Hands of the People
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Shawn Fleetwood of The Federalist:
The U.S. Supreme Court will kick off its 2026 term next week with what will be one of its biggest cases of the year. And according to several legal specialists, there's much more to the dispute than meets the eye.The case in question is Suncor v. Boulder, which deals with the lawfare that Boulder, Colorado, launched against Suncor Energy companies and the Exxon Mobil Corporation. The city is seeking monetary damages based on claims that the oil giants' activities are contributing to "climate change" and that such activities are harming Boulder residents.
Before SCOTUS is the question of whether federal law prevents state-law claims "seeking relief for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate." The justices will also consider whether they have jurisdiction to hear the case.
During a Tuesday virtual press conference, Alliance for Consumers Executive Director O.H. Skinner said that Democrats and their allies are attempting to make the suit out to be nothing more than a "basic tort case" that is "trying to hold people accountable for their actions." In reality, however, he noted that the lawsuit is effectively "a Swiss Army knife for them to accomplish social change through a court system."
"It's actually bigger than 'climate change,'" Skinner said. "It's about [Democrats'] overall ability to weaponize courts to accomplish policy goals that are sweeping and that are multibillion-dollar in scale, and they could end up with an order that basically rewrites the American economy [if they prevail]."
Should the Supreme Court endorse Boulder's position that states and localities can pursue these types of state-based claims against Suncor and Exxon, the AFC executive director said, such a ruling would open up Pandora's box for leftists to advance similar lawfare against other industries they disfavor. He specifically noted that standard could apply "across all sorts of different social questions, all the way down to guns."
One bad thing is that Alito has recused himself, due to an investment in energy companies.
I don't know why righties recuse themselves. Lefties never do.
Another case will be decided by the Supreme Court: a "landmark" lawsuit against the Muslim government of Dearborn, Michigan making non-Muslims dhimmis.
In Sept. 17, the American Freedom Law Center filed a landmark lawsuit on behalf of a Dearborn, Michigan, resident, alleging that the Arab-majority Detroit suburb, led by Muslim officials, has promoted Islam and discriminated against and fostered hostility towards Christians and Jews -- in violation of the Constitution's establishment clause.The details of the case brought by my courageous colleague, Federalist Senior Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland, are shocking. She alleges that Dearborn's leaders have endorsed glitzy Ramadan displays and advertised an iftar dinner with public funds. Conversely, they have allegedly ignored Cleveland's requests for comparable commemorations for Christian and Jewish holidays and sidestepped concerns over public rallies glorifying jihadism. They have also berated a Christian pastor and fellow constituent. Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud called Pastor Ted Barham a "bigot" and "Islamophobe" who "is not welcome here" when he questioned the city's renaming of a city street for an avowed Hamas and Hezbollah supporter.
The complaint cites past instances where courts have found the city to have discriminated against non-Muslims.
Having petitioned her elected leaders to treat all religions equally, only to face stonewalling, Cleveland has taken them to court in defense of her and her neighbors' sacred rights.
A victory for AFLC could end such discrimination and set a powerful precedent. It would send a message to other like-minded officials nationwide. Cleveland's complaint should also serve as a clarion call for Americans about the potential consequences of Islamization.
Meanwhile:
James Varney:
Many Americans may be losing trust in journalism, but attorneys at the Clarkson Law Firm are apparently not among them.In recent years, the Southern California-based firm filed at least four class-action lawsuits in federal courts that appeared to rely heavily on investigative articles published by ProPublica, STAT News, and other news outlets. Most of the suits came on the heels of negative stories about some of the country's biggest health insurers, including UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, and Humana. Facebook's owner, Meta, also seems to have come into Clarkson's crosshairs following a news report about privacy concerns regarding its high-tech eyeglasses.
Clarkson, which advertises itself as a "public interest law firm," was also quick to amend suits by adding plaintiffs that appeared in the articles, most of which alleged insurers were cheating Medicare patients through AI algorithms that denied patients care.
Legal experts say this pattern raises questions because attorneys are generally required to conduct their own inquiries before filing class action suits. News reports are considered hearsay, so filing suits largely based on them is forbidden by the rules of procedure that govern federal courts.
"Relying solely on an article in a newspaper, journal or other publication would not satisfy the class action requirement," said Arthur Landry, a veteran insurance defense attorney in famously litigious Louisiana. "The class actions against the health insurers in question for alleged wrongful denial of claims appear on their face to be based entirely upon publications, and there is no reference in the suits to counsel having attempted to verify the contents of the articles."
"The apparent connections between the publications and the lawsuits, including close time relation between the press coverage and the filing of pleadings, raise serious questions," he told RealClearInvestigations.
While RCI found no evidence that Clarkson and the news outlets coordinated their efforts, the repetitive timeline of stories and lawsuits, stories about the lawsuits, and social media doubling or tripling each gives the appearance of an operation rather than individual efforts, a pattern that has become a modern-day loop used by those looking to influence public policy not just on health care but other major issues such as artificial intelligence, global warming and the like. When the work of nonprofits, academic researchers, and other groups that share the same public policy goal is added, there is a cascade effect that makes their position more formidable.
One of the most striking examples of this dynamic started on March 13, 2023. That day, STAT News, a respected online outlet that focuses on healthcare and is available only with a subscription, published the first in a series of articles on alleged attempts by UnitedHealth to deny coverage, expensive hospital visits, and the like to its Medicare Advantage patients.
Eight months later, on Nov. 14, 2023, STAT published another article in the series, which would become a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting, reporting that a UnitedHealth subsidiary, NaviHealth, used an AI algorithm to try to shorten patients' rehabilitation stays to boost profits.
On that same day, Clarkson filed a lawsuit against UnitedHealth that largely recounts the March and November stories. The lawsuit footnotes the STAT articles eight times in the 45-page filing. Two of the footnotes refer to the STAT story published that same day in November.
The lawsuit also repeats language in the Nov. 14 article. One paragraph in the Nov. 14 lawsuit involves an allegation STAT published that day, namely that NaviHealth "set a target for 2023 to keep rehab stays within 1 percent of the days projected by the algorithm," thereby turning something reported that day into a pleaded factual allegation.
The lawsuit also appears to have cribbed language from STAT's March article. STAT's claim that company algorithms "compare a patient's diagnosis, age, living situation, and physical function... in a database of six million patients" and that they were used "to pinpoint the precise moment when they can plausibly cut off payment" are repeated verbatim in Clarkson's filing.
Later in the complaint, Clarkson alleges the algorithm's "generic recommendations fail to adjust for a patient's individual circumstances and conflict with basic rules on what Medicare Advantage plans must cover," the exact language STAT used in March.
STAT did not respond to RCI's questions about whether they were in contact as the articles were being prepared, and Clarkson declined comment. STAT's investigative pieces do not mention Clarkson.
After the lawsuit was filed, STAT published -- again on Nov. 14, 2023 -- a story boasting its work had been the basis for the litigation, and all parties trumpeted their work on social media posts, thereby achieving the cascade effect and creating a public relations crisis for UnitedHealth.
More on the Democrat Media Party's coordinated lawfare/"journalism" scam at the link.
The Red-Green Alliance Takes Another Blow as Oil Traffic Through the Strait of Hormuz Rebounds to 98% of the Pre-War Level
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Iran recently pleaded for another seven-day ceasefire.
When America rejected that -- actually, the "negotiators" were told to leave -- Iran published its letter urging Democrats to side with Iran as usual and vote against the GOP.
This is why: the world is getting most of its oil through the Strait, protected by the US military, and Iran is getting zero barrels through, stopped by the blockade.
Literally all we now have to do is maintain the blockade, keep the west-side of the Straight clear, and wait for Iran to collapse.
Even the NYT admits Iran is losing the War of the Strait.
Mideast Oil Exports Rebound Even as Prices Remain ElevatedMore tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz as shippers gain confidence, but the global supply of oil is still below demand.
By Peter Eavis
Sept. 29, 2026
Oil exports from the Middle East have risen sharply this month, some oil analysts say, taking them closer to the level they were at before Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz in March, a rebound that could ease some pressure on global energy prices.In September, an average of 10 million barrels of oil has gone through the waterway daily, according to Kpler, a firm that tracks oil tankers. Separately, six million barrels of crude a day has left the Persian Gulf states this month through pipelines and ports that bypass the strait, Kpler's data shows.
That's a grudging estimate. Most other say 12-13 million barrels per day, plus another 6-8 million through Saudi Arabia's East-to-West oil pipeline, meaning the we're now seeing about 20 million barrels per day again, or close enough to make no difference.
Before the war with Iran began at the end of February, around 19 million barrels of crude left the region daily through the waterway and other routes. Because of the difficulty in tracking tankers, export totals supplied by analysts might not reflect the true flow of oil, but most experts say volumes rose significantly this month.
The turnaround has most noticeably occurred in the strait, even though Iran continues to attack tankers. A U.S. military operation aimed at protecting the vessels from the attacks appears to have encouraged more shipments by big exporting countries, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
"They are getting a substantial amount of oil out, and it is increasing over time as shippers' confidence goes up," said Eugene Gholz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on conflict in the strait.
President Trump, members of his administration and U.S. military officials have said for weeks that the Strait of Hormuz is open, and that tankers are moving oil through the strait.
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THE MORNING RANT: With the End of Biden-Era Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards, the Era of CAFE Credit Trading is Also Over
—Buck Throckmorton
The Trump administration continues to restore freedom to the American automobile market. Under authorization established by Congress, Transportation Secretary Duffy just released the “Freedom Means Affordable Cars” initiative, which reversed Biden’s corporate average fuel mandates ("CAFE"). It also eliminated regulations that created market distortions that were costly to consumers. Those former regulations were all in service to the climate hoax, of course.
Mr. CBD discussed this news earlier this week, pointing out that the 50-mpg goal of Biden/Buttigieg was unachievable, and that its un-achievability was in service to the left’s war on the legacy auto industry and to consumer choice.
I would like to point out two other major consumer-friendly results of this initiative:
1) Re-setting of Vehicle Classification: Current CAFÉ regulations have counter-intuitively incentivized auto manufacturers to add weight and off-road functionality to cars so as to classify them as “light trucks” and evade the CAFÉ regulation for cars (which are stricter than for light trucks.) At the same time, there has also been an incentive to build larger and heavier “light trucks,” because the bigger the vehicle’s footprints, the lower the CAFÉ requirement for the “truck.”
Aside from this creating incentives that were contrary to the goal of CAFE, it also made cars more expensive and less fuel efficient than they would be if consumers could just buy whatever car or truck they wanted.
2) Elimination of CAFE Credit Trading: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") created a market for the trading of CAFE credits, which has served the purpose of awarding EV manufacturers (primarily Tesla and Rivian) credits they can sell to other manufacturers that could not achieve the mandated CAFE fleet requirement.
This is a huge consumer-friendly development. Ford spent $800 million on CAFE trading credits in 2025 alone, which amounted to about $400 per new gasoline-powered car it sold. To put this another way, if you bought a new Ford Explorer in 2025, about $400 of your purchase price was remitted by Ford to Tesla to buy CAFE credits. The same applies if you bought a car from other mass-market auto companies such as Toyota, Honda, and Dodge.
While I am a huge fan of Elon Musk for buying Twitter and restoring free speech - as well as for Starlink, DOGE, SpaceX, etc - I resent having been forced to contribute to Tesla’s revenue stream when I’ve purchased new gasoline-powered cars.
Tesla Made $1.99 billion by selling regulatory credits in 2025 (some of this was from Europe and elsewhere, and this also includes other credit markets such as California’s ZEV credits.) This all went to the bottom line. Tesla’s net income in 2025 was $3.8 billion. It would have been below $2 billion without the sale of those regulatory credits.
Rivian’s staggering losses would have been even worse if it weren’t for the money that was paid by legacy auto manufacturers to Rivian for its CAFE credits. Over the past two years, Rivian has received over $500 million from the sale of regulatory credits.
In summary, Secretary Duffy states that this regulatory relief will:
• Give automakers the flexibility to manufacturer cars the public wants to buy.• Reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by $1,300 for American families.
• Save the American people $138 billion over the next five years.
• Prevent more than 300,000 serious injuries and save 1,900 lives by encouraging new car sales.
Exploding EVs
Since I’m discussing EVs…
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The Morning Report — 10/2 /26
—J.J. Sefton
Good morning kids. I know I'm a day late, but October already. Meh, on a personal note, 10 Years already! Wow. I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to all of you and of course Ace for allowing me the incredible opportunity to do this column. And a nod to all the cobs for their support and collegiality over the years! It's been rewarding and challenging, especially the past two years as I have been dealing with health issues, brain cancer which unfortunately despite surgery as well as chemo and radiation, are ongoing as I have had a couple of recurrences which I am still dealing with and given the nature of this disease, barring some miracle cure or treatment regimen, I will be facing for the rest of my life, however long the good Lord grants me. So with that I thank you all for your prayers and good wishes, so enough of that and let us get to the news of the day.
While we're speaking of cancer, we collectively still must deal with Islam.
On Wednesday night, I visited the University of Texas at Austin to address students there — and so did notorious Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.I, a female survivor of Hamas’ brutal terror, came to share my story at the campus’ Chabad student center.
On an auditorium stage half a mile away stood Piker, who once said about the day I was shot and taken: “It doesn’t matter if rapes f–king happened on Oct. 7, like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much.”
This man sold out the 460-seat venue where he spoke within 20 minutes, and another 2,500 people joined a waiting list.
He isn’t a fringe character on college campuses; he’s increasingly becoming the mainstream on campus. But his enthusiastic fans are the people who most need to hear my story.
The list of Muslim suicide pilots also includes EgyptAir Flight 990 in 1999 where the first officer kept shouting “Allahu Akbar” while downing the plane as well as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, the subject of endless fantastic conspiracy theories ranging from UFOs to black holes, but that was actually likely the work of Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.After the FlyDubai incident in which an Omani Muslim pilot stabbed an Indian pilot in a reported attempt to hijack Flight FZ1073 bound for Israel and possibly crash the plane, the list of Muslim pilots who tried to bring down airplanes is up to 4. And that means that 44% of pilots who deliberately crashed tried to crash planes were Muslim.
Who do you think is the most extreme socialist candidate running in these 2026 midterms?” a participant named Barry M. asked. . . “This guy’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He goes on Fox News, and he deflects every question: ‘Did I want America to suffer during 9/11? Well, people can’t afford groceries.’ That isn’t the question that you were just asked. This guy is the most dangerous one,” the senator continued.“Well, that’s like who’s the tallest midget? Because man, oh, man. That’s a tough one. I’d have to say just on sheer jihadist credentials, it would have to be Abdul El-Sayed,” (Sen. Bernie)Moreno replied. .. El-Sayed, who is running against Republican Mike Rogers, has claimed he is “not a socialist,” although he is running on a platform backed by socialist lawmakers Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). He has also campaigned with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who claimed America “deserved 9/11.”
And from the insane we go to the ridiculous.
Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike — who is now in the hospital after a botched execution — was given the all-female lethal injection team she had requested, her attorneys revealed on Thursday.
Couldn't they find women who could get the job done?! I understand this Lindsey Clancy was available?! Well, that or find a jihadist with a rusty hacksaw, we're overrun with them!!! And jeez, what are they using for lethal injections, St. Joseph's aspirin? Um, I'm no chemist but I understand something called potassium cyanide might've worked a tad better in stopping this fiend's black heart.
Anyway, God bless you all and on that and all the other depressing notes I bid you to have a great weekend!
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Daily Tech News 2 October 2026
—Pixy Misa
Top Story- Xbox is not for sale, says Xbox. (Windows Central)
Unless you have a lot of money.
Like... Any at all.
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Thursday Overnight Open Thread - October 1, 2026
—Doof
From Seaeyes
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Thursday ONT! Mixed bag of content for those who care. Open thread, as always. On time, as always. What's on YOUR mind tonight?
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Spooky Season Cafe
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Point Reyes National Seashore
by Cynical Publius
Horror themes played by horror icons.
New dog costumes. Not just the little dogs dressed up as knife murders I've posted before.
Okay, but if you've missed the knife maniac little dogs, here they are. And here's one terrorizing the cat.
Opossum steals Halloween candy but the neighborhood watch witch stops him.
KISS made their prime-time TV debut on the Paul Lynde Halloween special in 1976.
This guy's gonna get a call from his HOA.
+1 flaming katana. I think it's just covered in match phosphorous and there's a striker plate in the hilt but whatever, man.
Speaking of magic: simple sleights of hand exposed.
Bats are celebrating their 65 millionth birthday, some pointy-heads claim.
A huge genomic and fossil study suggests bats first evolved in Europe around 65 to 60 million years ago before spreading across the globe. The findings also indicate that flight and echolocation emerged near the beginning of bat evolution, potentially helping explain how bats became one of the most successful mammal groups on Earth.
Science has finally caught up to Duncanthrax.
...The results suggest that bats first evolved in Europe during the late Paleocene. Their descendants then moved into Africa.
As bats continued to diversify, separate groups expanded into the Americas, Asia, and Australia. Over time, those migrations produced the major bat lineages found around the world today.
...The findings also provide new clues about the origins of two of bats' defining features: powered flight and echolocation.
...
Researchers also analyzed the fossil bat Vielasia, which sits on the oldest branch of the bat family tree. That fossil suggests echolocation had already appeared close to the beginning of bat evolution.
Taken together, the evidence indicates that both powered flight and echolocation emerged before modern bat groups began diversifying. Those abilities may have helped give bats their remarkable evolutionary success.
Anthony Fauci immediately sampled the tissues of a million-year-old bat fossil to find a disease he could infect the world with, then "cure."
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France In Crisis as "Youths" Set Fire to Schools, Cars, and... People
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Macron has declared a crisis and gathered his advisors to figure out how to stop the riots.
So many Doctors and Engineers are taking part in them!
France's intelligence agencies briefed a government crisis meeting on Thursday that a wave of student protests, sometimes violent, that has swept across the country was initiated by hard-left politicians, a person close to the prime minister said.The protests against teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings erupted in the Paris region last month but have turned increasingly violent as they spread nationwide, with dozens injured and with police making hundreds of arrests.
Student protesters started fires in at least two high schools, while teachers were inadvertently splashed with petrol at a third in the southern city of Marseille, officials said. At least one car was torched in Strasbourg in the east and riot police clashed with youths in Toulouse in the southwest.
Inadvertently splashed with gas?
Are you sure about that?
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Quick Hits
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Trump is asking the Supreme Court to pretty please with sugar on top let him stop using taxpayer money to pay for federal prisoners' "gender transitions."
The Trump Justice Department on Monday asked the Supreme Court to a Bureau of Prisons policy that cuts off federally-funded medical interventions and social accommodations for transgender inmates to go forward.The department's emergency appeal follows a federal district court order last month that continued to prohibit the bureau from enforcing its new rules against an inmate who is or will be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, according to CBS News.
The judge overseeing a challenge to the policy, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, ordered the Trump administration to continue providing medical care to a class of transgender inmates.
A group of inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria filed a lawsuit last year after President Trump issued an executive order at the start of his second term that prohibited the use of federal funds for medical procedures or treatments for transgender inmates within the federal prison system.
The Supreme Court hands Trump a temporary win -- temporary because they're overturning a lawless lower court's preliminary injunction, and not ruling on the ultimate merits yet -- and okays Trump's deportation of illegals to safe third countries when their actual country of origin refuses to accept them back.
You know an immigrant is a real All-Star Doctor/Engineer/Space Explorer when his home country refuse to take him back.
The Trump administration has used this as a solution for migrants from places like Cuba and Venezuela that refuse to allow illegal aliens to be returned. Other countries like India and China allow some repatriation but at a slow pace. So in those cases the Trump administration has been deporting people instead to a number of countries in Central and South America and some in Africa and Asia. A well-known example of this policy is the handling of Mahmoud Khalil who is likely to be deported to either Algeria or Syria once his lawsuits against various parties end.
Another big Trump win for sovereignty: restoring the "public charge" doctrine, which says that immigrants who are likely to require citizens to support them should not be allowed to enter the country.
The Trump administration is now trying to stem the flow of immigrants who are, or who are likely to become, public charges. It froze all immigrant visa applications abroad in August 2026 to retrain its consular officers on the new philosophy of not streamlining the issuance of tourist visas to impoverished refugees claiming to be headed to Disney. Only now are some select embassies gradually beginning to process cases again. Before the new training and rules, visa officers and DHS officials processing deportations were limited in considering what benefits could count against the "public charge" rule to cash welfare payments meant to cover basic living expenses and long-term institutional care paid for by the federal government.The new Trump rules, which are certain to be challenged in court, allow visa officers overseas and DHS domestically to conduct case-by-case reviews that consider an applicant's age, health, family status, assets, financial resources, education, skills and whether the person has previously received means-tested taxpayer-funded benefits. The new rules will potentially affect millions of people, and deter many more from even applying. (Notably, the public charge test exempts some refugees, asylees, and those in humanitarian categories, meaning those truly in need should have help available to them.)
After decades of back-and-forth on the issue, the practical impact of these new rules is that it will become easier to deny visas, admission, or permanent residence to applicants who are likely to depend on government assistance.
Did you vote for this? Because I sure did.
UK's Labour government is unpopular because it continues allowing unlimited mass migration from barbaric countries without vetting. They cannot win an election with the current population.
Therefore, they've decided to allow in even more migrants from barbaric countries.
This was always the plan. This was always the plan.
This is The Plan in America, too -- though Trump has, for now, stopped it.
If the people do not like their government, then the government should fire the people, and elect another.
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Iran Urges Americans to Vote for Democrats
—Disinformation Expert Ace
The case for Democrat collusion with Iran is far, far more extensive than the completely-fake Hillary campaign contrivance of "RUSSIAN COLLUSION."
And the mad theocrats of Iran are making their support of the Democrat Party explicit.
Iran publishes propaganda letter urging US voters to punish Trump in midterm electionsIran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps put out a 25-page letter addressed to Americans urging them to oppose President Donald Trump during the upcoming midterm elections.
The IRGC, which as repeatedly tried to sway the Nov. 3 US elections, claimed that the president and his support of Israel were the cause of the war -- as they urged voters to reject both in the voting booth.
"America's national security and the lives of its service members are entrusted to someone who is not only an inveterate liar but is also an insanely avaricious man whose only motivation in life is the accumulation of greater wealth," IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said in the regime's latest attack on Trump.
The letter accuses Trump of concealing the "peaceful nature" of Iran's nuclear program despite allegations from the International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog that Tehran was enriching its uranium beyond what's needed for a power plant.
The US and Israel have defended the war in Iran primarily as a means to prevent the Islamic republic from obtaining nuclear weapons.
The IRGC also lashed out against the US government designating the security force as a terrorist group, claiming there was not "a single verifiable instance where the IRGC has committed an act of violence against civilians."
UK Prime Minister and Pallid Cuck Andy Burnham even admits his Islamic friends are behind the thwarted attack on the air field base used by US personnel.
The British government believes Iran "played a part" in the incident over the weekend at the RAF Fairford air base in England, which has been used by U.S. warplanes carrying out strikes on Iran, U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday.
Burnham's remarks to the BBC were the first confirmation by the British government of its assessment of the incident, which saw five men -- all British nationals in their mid-20s -- arrested near RAF Fairford early Sunday morning on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act. They were all released on bail the following day, however, even though the police had the right to hold them for up to 14 days under U.K. counterterrorism laws.
Their quick release drew criticism from President Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But it also prompted questions in the U.K. as to whether the authorities had overreacted.
The Bee, fully accurate as usual:
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The Muskily Heterosexual James Talarico: Despite My Transparently Disingenuous Claims to Have Moderated on the Trans Issue, I Have Not Changed My Position At All
—Disinformation Expert Ace
There's always the question with shifty, dishonest left-wing politicians. You know they're lying, but who are they lying to?
When they claim to be moderate, are they lying to the moderates?
Or are they lying to the leftist base?
Lately some left-wing influencers have complained of Talarico seemingly walking back his earlier gonzo support of All Things Tranny --- "God is nonbinary," "there are six genders," "I love trans children," I have a favorite drag queen and I want to tell you all about "her."
David Strom notes that Talarico recently attempted to give himself wiggle room on trannies playing in girls sports, saying he would oppose that IF it presented a safety issue.
But here's the thing: He won't say if it poses a safety issue and the trans lobby has spent ten years insisting there is absolutely no safety issue at all, because trans girls are girls and if some actual girls wind up with permanent brain damage and hearing loss, oh well, no one lives forever.
Nevertheless, trans activists were alarmed by this and demanded to know: Does he still believe that Trans Woman Are Women, for all purposes, no exceptions?
Talarico clarifies: When I say I'm moderating, I'm lying to the moderates. My positions on trans issues haven't changed a bit and I am all in on trans children.
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Source at FlyDubai: The Omani Co-Pilot Was a "Religious Extremist" (Non-Amish Division), "We Hired the Services of a Terrorist"
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Via Ed Morrissey, "We may never know the motive" once again becomes "We knew the motive all along because of course."
But the media will never get tired of playing this game.
According to GB News and Israeli media, FlyDubai's so-far-unnamed terrorist pilot offered plenty of clues to warn the airline about assigning him to a Tel Aviv route. The pilot was already known as a "religious extremist" who prayed ostentatiously and refused physical contact with females, even to shake hands. A FlyDubai employee offered an anonymous condemnation of his employer as betraying the UAE by assigning an Omani to the route:News anchor Yosef Yisrael said the source detailed how the pilot "was someone characterised by very strange behaviour, especially around religious observances that were out of step with his surroundings".He added: "For instance, he used to pray a lot, and would not shake hands with women."
The source also claimed that usually only Emiratis fly to Israel - and accused the airline of betraying his country.
"There is no other way to put it, we hired the services of a terrorist and nearly caused the deaths of 180 people," the source said.
"If you see something, say something" was the vague advice offered by Bush for about a year after 9/11. He was very careful not to say what somethings we should consider worth saying something about.
But then the leftist NGOs and Islamist advocacy groups began fighting back against even this vague caution, and the rule soon became "Ignore all behavior of Muslims, o matter how strange or alarming, or else you're a bigot who will be cancelled out of your job."
And here we are.
Via Twitchy: CBS says the FlyDubai terror pilot's motive may never be known (Inshallah).
Just as Beyamin Netanyahu announces the co-pilot who stabbed his captain and attempted to crash the plane full of Israelis underwent Islamic radicalization...
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Secretary of War Hegseth Plans to Fire 20% of All Generals and Admirals; Appoints a Panel to Game Out the Future of Warfare, Including Elon Musk
—Disinformation Expert Ace
I know that when the government wants to fire people, the best way to do it is to announce a staff slim-down. Judges can't force the government to retain more personnel than the government thinks they need, but they can protect left-wing saboteurs who are fired for cause. So best practice is to just say you're cutting personnel, then get rid of the saboteurs.
I don't know if Hegseth has to do that in the military, though. I think he might have more plenary power to fire people than secretaries overseeing civilian departments do.
So maybe this is just a reduction in force.
Either way, he'll be firing nonperforming generals and admirals.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce plans to reduce by 20% the number of positions reserved for generals and admirals during his State of the Force address on Wednesday.Hegseth approved reduction plans for the Army, Navy, Air Force and the military's joint pool earlier this month, according to memos seen by Fox News Digital. The services were directed to implement the plans and complete the reductions by Jan. 1, 2027.
...
The new target doubles the 10% overall reduction in general and flag officer positions Hegseth ordered last year as part of his effort to streamline the military's senior ranks. That earlier directive separately called for a 20% reduction in active-duty four-star positions and a 20% reduction in National Guard general officers.
...
Hegseth dubbed that effort "less generals, more GIs," arguing that reducing senior headquarters positions would push resources and authority toward troops closer to the fight.
...
At least some of the positions will be downgraded rather than eliminated altogether. In a Sept. 16 memo approving reductions to the military's joint pool, Hegseth directed officials to establish O-6 requirements for general and flag officer positions identified for downgrade, allowing colonels and Navy captains to fill those jobs.
That sounds like he's using this as cover to fire the nonperformers. But I don't know.
The announcement comes exactly one year after Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to Quantico, Virginia, for an extraordinary gathering where he laid out his expectations for the military's senior leaders and warned those who did not support his reforms to step aside.
CBS: Hegseth said he'll be firing officers who "clung to woke."
Hegseth said he's aimed for the department to be "unrelenting, unapologetic, and uncompromising" in its mission to win. Generals who "clung to the woke department or seem to think civilian control of the military is simply a suggestion, well, they no longer work here," Hegseth said.
He also announced the military would be a force of cleanshaven normies: "No beardos, no weirdoes."
"The media calls that a purge," he said. "I call it accountability, and long overdue."Hegseth also used the speech to spell out the kind of force he wants. He used a string of derogatory terms for people he said should not serve in the military: "No fatties, no t******s, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors."
I assume the censored word is the absurdly forbidden word "trannies." Just because. Trans agitators decided they needed their own n-word to ban and decided that the very typical method of shortening a word by just ending a "y" or "ies" ending was "offensive" and a "slur."
By the way, this word so offended communist propaganda outlet NPR they deleted it entirely without even noting the censorship:
"No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors," Hegseth said on Wednesday. "The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in, with testosterone testing on top."
Oorah.
As you can imagine, NPR is so triggered you guys!
He also will clarify that religion is not disfavored in the military, as it was under Obama and Biden. Quite the opposite.
In his last proclamation, Hegseth declared he will establish the Office of Religious Affairs at the Pentagon that "will report straight to the top.""Cutting-edge technology ... new basing and bases ... and a better educational pipeline are still incomplete without the most essential component of our republic: faith," he told the assembled service members.
He said the Defense Department has "a sacred duty" to provide troops with "first-class religious support" wherever they're sent, bashing past administrations for treating the topic as an afterthought.
"Political correctness and secular humanism got a vote. Chaplains did not. Budgets were cut. Resourcing and manpower needs were ignored. Base chapels fell apart," Hegseth claimed. "Decisions about faith and religion were made by secular careerists in cubicles and lawyers running around with red tape."
He's also expanding the colleges from which officers will be drawn, shifting away from woke Ivies to southern schools which probably instill more traditional (and pro-military) values.
The military training program, called "America's Corps of Cadets," will include Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University and Hillsdale College."We need more officers from academic institutions like our military academies and senior military colleges, and today we're going to make that happen," Hegseth said.
Each school will be a "distinguished military college" and will be expected to "maintain exceptionally high standards of cadet discipline, tactical instruction and military organization," the Pentagon chief said.
...
"From the Ivy Leagues to the most liberal arts colleges, our colleges and universities have become anti-American DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] worshipping woke factories. Qualities like grit and courage replaced with political correctness and social justice," Hegseth said. "God and country traded for Che Guevara and critical theory."
He announced an Autonomous Warfare Command, which would field AI-guided military drones.
Hegseth also announced a new panel to game out the massive changes in future -- actually, current -- warfighting. Elon Musk, tech mogul Palmer Lucky, and Newt Gingrich were named as leaders.
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Of Course: Texas Police and FBI Disrupt Planned Terror Attack to "Shoot Up" the State Capitol, Out of Antisemitic Animus
—Disinformation Expert Ace
No word on his immigration status.
No statement that he's a citizen.
So maybe he's one of those Doctors and Engineers our country would collapse without.
Texas authorities and the FBI on Thursday stated that they had thwarted a plan to attack the State Capitol in Austin.Benny Caldera, 40, was arrested in his home in connection with the matter, Fox News reported. Authorities reportedly received a tip on Tuesday about a possible attack on the Capitol.
Caldera was reportedly angry with the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel organization that has become a lightning rod for opposition to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.
M.A. Rothman @MichaelARothman𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐀 𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏
Texas DPS SWAT officers arrested 40-year-old Benny Caldera Jr. at 3 a.m. Wednesday at his home in Converse, outside San Antonio, after a tip that he planned to attack the Texas State Capitol in Austin, authorities said Thursday.
The tip came from a friend who got a farewell message from him. According to arrest documents, Caldera wrote: "𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 ... 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴∗𝘰𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘶𝘱."
The same documents say he told that friend he was angry at AIPAC and that "𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥," NBCDFW reported. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐮𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐨-𝐈𝐬𝐫𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩.
He was first charged with a felony terroristic threat against a public servant and held on a $75,000 bond. By Wednesday evening he was in federal custody. Records show he was arrested in 2023 for carrying an unlicensed firearm. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐡∗𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝.
The Daily Wire notes the arrest comes amid a steady stream of political attacks on AIPAC, and cites federal filings that rank the group 191st in lobbying spend in 2024 at $3.3 million. Rhetoric about a group of Americans has consequences, and this time the police got there first.
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The Morning Rant
—CBD
The massive, all-encompassing incompetence of most government is on full display today! Humanity has spent its entire history getting better and better at killing each other, yet the Tennessee Department of Corrections can't manage to knock off somebody who is already strapped to a f*cking gurney?
In our culture's drive to make everything painless, including capital punishment, we have made a mockery of the concept, and botching a simple task is just the icing on the cake. This woman was convicted in 1996...30 years ago! That her sentence wasn't carried out promptly after a pro forma appeal is a travesty of justice, and in and of itself is cruel and unusual.
The first woman set to be put to death in Tennessee in over 200 years was given two doses of a lethal injection Wednesday evening, but remained alive as her botched execution descended into chaos — and prompted the governor to demand an outside probe and issue an emergency pause on all executions for the remainder of the year.
There are several tried-and-true ways that the state can kill, and it isn't unreasonable for the people to expect some minimal level of competence in carrying out the sentence. Hanging works. Firing squads work. Electrocution works. But the newest fad of painless death by injection seems not to work very well at all, because the idiots in charge of concocting the lethal dose try to do it in the kindest, most peaceful way imaginable.
Here's a pro-tip! Take a gram of Fentanyl confiscated at the border, mix it in some saline, and shoot it into the bitch's vein. That will do nicely, since the dosage is hundreds of times larger than the lethal dose.
But this is the best part of the entire embarrassing mess!
She was taken to a nearby hospital, where her lawyers said she was “being provided life-saving measures.”Her condition was unclear as of Thursday morning; however, a doctor who was retained by Pike’s legal team as a medical expert said she likely now has a brain injury as a result.
Life-saving measures after a botched execution?
Apparently there was no "protocol" for this outcome, which exposes the mindset of the bureaucracy. Protocols and regulations are the shield that apparatchiks use to protect themselves from responsibility.
So this evil bitch is in the hospital, perhaps with brain damage, which will be used by her lawyers as a reason to prevent any further attempts to give her what she so richly deserves.
Because we can't kill brain-damaged people? Why not?
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter and X/Twitter]. If you folks who are on X/Twitter would follow us it would be much appreciated!
