The Foundry.

President Donald Trump just visited the United Nations to offer a customary annual presidential address.

Before he arrived, there were reports that U.N. staffers had joked about shutting down the escalator to chastise Trump for cutting out aid to some U.N. programs.

Upon arrival, as if on cue, Trump was met by a series of mysterious coincidences.

As soon as he and first lady Melania Trump mounted the escalator, it suddenly froze—forcing them to walk up.

Other escalators worked fine. Shortly afterward, the supposedly broken escalator was just as mysteriously running again.

When Donald Trump went to the podium, his teleprompter mysteriously quit—and his alone.

As he delivered his speech from a text, the amplification in parts of the assembly was mysteriously lowered to near imperceptible levels.

Despite U.N. denials, all three “accidents” were too closely tied to Trump to be coincidences.

Read it.

A German court has sentenced far-left activist Hanna S. to five years in prison for her role in a string of violent assaults in Budapest last year, German media reported. The ruling by the Munich Higher Regional Court is not yet final.

Between 9 and 11 February 2023, masked attackers linked to the Antifa movement targeted people they claimed were “fascists,” assaulting them with sticks and knives at five locations across the Hungarian capital. Nine people were injured, six of them seriously.

The case has gained attention because one suspect, Italian activist Ilaria Salis, was elected to the European Parliament this year. Her new parliamentary immunity has so far blocked efforts by Hungarian prosecutors to bring her to trial.

Hungary’s government has since officially designated “Antifa” and “Hammerbande / Antifa Ost” as terrorist organisations. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the decision was the “first step” in treating Antifa as a terror group under Hungarian law.

Read it.

A coalition of 16 states and the District of Columbia is suing the Trump administration to keep materials they say “recognize and affirm gender identity” in their federally funded K-12 sex education programs.

Read it.

Chinese communist-style digital tracking is coming to the UK with a new “right to work” scheme in the form of a universal ID called the “Brit Card”. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, facing unprecedented backlash from native born citizens for his open border policies and two-tier justice system protecting migrants from prosecution, is attempting to exploit public anger to gain support for an Orwellian surveillance rollout.

The government says the mandatory ID, based on the UK One Login system, will help to stop “illegal” immigrants from crossing the channel by denying them access to work. The UK One system was introduced in 2023 and is built on biometric tracking; similar programs have been attempted for two decades in the UK but they have been consistently thwarted by public pressure.

The problem with the immigration claim is that it is a clearly baseless con.

Take note that Starmer distinguishes “illegal migrants” as the targets of the ID, but most immigrants coming to the UK are allowed in legally, aided by numerous subsidized programs and asylum policies. Starmer’s choice of words is very deliberate and highly disingenuous.

Read it.

Think of it as evolution in action.

CNN, a Voice of the Crust.

Federal employees from agencies across the US government say they’re “terrified,” “disoriented” and filled with anxiety as they brace for a possible shutdown that the Trump White House has threatened will pave the way for new rounds of fast-tracked mass layoffs.

There is widespread confusion and fear among federal workers as the Tuesday night deadline approaches for Congress to approve a spending package, according to more than a dozen employees from 11 federal agencies who spoke to CNN. Many are still waiting to find out who will be required to work through a shutdown — and who will be furloughed.

Complicating matters, the White House budget office has directed federal agencies to “use this opportunity” to prepare sweeping new layoffs, based on which programs lose funding in the event of a shutdown and which don’t align with President Donald Trump’s priorities, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

There’s a new sheriff in town.

“I’m absolutely terrified about going through the same thing all over again,” said one federal worker who was fired and rehired this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s cuts. “This kind of treatment is inhumane. I don’t even know how to prepare for the complete unknown.”

The federal employee, like many others who spoke to CNN, insisted on speaking anonymously because they feared retribution by the Trump administration.

“My employer doesn’t have my back,” the employee said.

That’s because their ’employer’ is no longer a Democrat who relies on the Deep State playbook.

They realize that, under Trump, the old reliable Deep State playbook no longer applies. That’s enough to scare everybody.

Read it.

A California solar power facility once hailed as a renewable energy breakthrough is shutting down two decades ahead of schedule after killing tens of thousands of birds and failing to meet electricity output goals, Blaze Media reported.

The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert was once the largest solar plant in the world. Built on 3,471 acres of public land, the $2.2 billion project included three 459-foot power towers and more than 173,000 heliostat mirrors, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Launched with $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration, Ivanpah began operations in 2014 with an expected lifespan of 30 years. But it is now scheduled to shut down in 2026 after failing to generate solar power efficiently, the New York Post reported.

Washington Examiner.

Thus validating Trump’s designation of them as a terrorist organization.

Read it.

If the Supreme Court wants to correct one of the worst decisions of the progressive era, one that violated basic separation of powers principles and vitiated the constitutional authority of the president as head of the executive branch, it will finally overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. after 90 years of poisoning the government well.

If you’ve never heard of the case, don’t be embarrassed. Most people, aside from government wonks and constitutional nerds, haven’t. However, it’s finally being brought to the fore because of President Donald Trump’s firing of government officials at so-called independent agencies, and it’s about time.

The Supreme Court just issued a temporary stay of lower court orders in Trump v. Slaughter that told Trump he couldn’t fire Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission. This followed other recent cases in which the justices stayed lower court decisions banning Trump from firing officials such as Gwynne Wilcox and Cathy Harris from the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, respectively.

All of these government officials sued, claiming Trump lacked the authority to fire them. They relied on Humphrey’s Executor, which appears to be on life support. So, what was that case all about and why is it still important today?

Read it.

(€68.13 million) to groups that are allegedly tied to terrorism or extremist violence, a new report has claimed.

It comes shortly after sources told journalists that the FBI is investigating leftist groups for possible ties to the killing of Charlie Kirk. The Washington-based Capital Research Center (CRC) that produced this report is also looking into whether Alex Soros, who was handed his father’s multi-billion dollar empire in 2023, will “build on his father’s legacy” or “tear it down.”

The CRC paper states that the evidence behind its claim is “stark” and says it should “form the justification for various accountability actions,” possibly including the revoking of the Open Society Foundations’ tax-exempt status.

Perhaps most significantly, it points to the awarding by Open Society of “at least” $23.27 million (€19.82 million) to seven groups that “directly assist domestic terrorism and criminality on U.S. soil.”

The Foundry.

Jimmy Kimmel’s return to the nation’s airwaves is proof of just how unseriously left-wing violence is taken by the liberal media.

If Johnny Carson had gone on air after the murder of John F. Kennedy and said, “We hit some new lows this weekend with the Democrat gang trying to characterize this kid who killed President Kennedy as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” what would his network have done?

Kimmel is a hater and a purveyor of disinformation, but he’s able to get away with saying that about “the MAGA gang” because his bosses approve of the lie.

Indeed, liberals have spent the days since Charlie Kirk’s murder insisting that the real danger to free speech comes not from left-wing killers’ bullets but from Republican officials.

Read it.

The Netherlands is the second most densely populated country in Europe, and with surging mass immigration, has been experiencing a raging housing crisis for years.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten has written Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy, a book she claims will empower us and give us hope. The problem is that every word coming from the union boss’s mouth is nonfactual lefty claptrap.

You don’t need to buy the book to understand what I mean. In an interview with a sycophant at The Progressive, a far-left magazine that covers politics and culture, Weingarten claims that “the undermining of public education is an intentional strategy of the right; they favor school privatization.”

Why should a teacher care whether schooling is public or private? A bit of a political agenda, perhaps?

Read it.

California is one pen stroke away from enacting a controversial bill that would impose fines of up to $1 million on major social media platforms that fail to censor content deemed in violation of state civil rights laws.

Read it.

Monday on his eponymous YouTube show, former CNN host Don Lemon went into the ugly, vile depths of political rhetoric with a torrent of hatred toward the Charlie Kirk memorial service, quoting from his own book published last year to call it “white nationalism wrapped in religious nationalism” imbued with false, “performative” Christianity, and a tribute to Americans of the past who glorified slavery.

All to celebrate a man Lemon deemed an unrepentant racist who said “racist shit” and created “a movement claiming divine permission to rule” with “domination” and deny “their sexual diverse children’s right to exist.”

Lemon even predicted his hateful, vile comments spanning some 79 minutes would draw blowback, but nonetheless argued he had a special right as a black man given America’s past to call out those as false Christ followers while arguing Erika Kirk was seemingly the only person there channeling Jesus.

Read it.

For every terror attack by a transgender leftist or Antifa militant that you hear about in the news, there’s many attacks that you don’t hear about. The establishment media has been very careful to obscure these incidents with ambiguous reporting, denials and outright lies.

For example, Nicholas Roske, the man who attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, identifies as transgender. This fact has been quickly buried by the media, just as the man’s political affiliations were ignored at the time of his arrest. Though, Wikipedia was very quick to change Roske’s gender and refer to him as “her” on their Brett Kavanaugh assassination plot page.

At the time, the media complained that the event could lead to legal actions removing protesters from outside the homes of judges (leftist groups were attempting to intimidate the Supreme Court over their decision to overturn Roe v Wade). They also focused more on the abortion decision, insinuating that it was the Supreme Court’s fault if members faced assassination threats. Democrats stalled on passing a bill that provided more security for SC Justices; the Kavanaugh incident finally forced them to take action.

There have been numerous leftist and Antifa related terror incidents over the past several years, most of them barely mentioned by mainstream journalists and few of them categorized as political terrorism by organizations like the ADL. Whenever an attack involving any suspect who is remotely right wing occurs, the news is flooded with coverage.

In the case of alleged Charlie Kirk shooter, Tyler Robinson, the media continues to deny that the gay leftist is associated with leftist causes. Even going so far as to misinform the public and attempt to tie the man to MAGA, despite his family and friends admitting he is a leftist.

Read it.

Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia in the coming days, MSNBC reported Wednesday, citing three sources.

“The full extent of the charges being prepared against Comey is unclear, but the sources believe that at least one element of the indictment–if it goes forward–will accuse him of lying to Congress during his testimony on September 30, 2020 about whether he authorized a leak of information,” an MSNBC reporter wrote on X.

Read it.

shooter with a rifle opened fire from a nearby roof onto a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement location in Dallas on Wednesday, killing a detainee and wounding another two critically before taking his own life, authorities said.

“This morning, a deranged gunman attacked a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Dallas field office from a nearby rooftop,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X. “The shooter fired indiscriminately at the ICE building, as well as at a van in the sallyport where the victims were shot. Three detainees were shot.

More indiscriminate violence from the Left.

ATQUE: Sniper Attack Kills Two At ICE Facility – Shooter Dead On Roof

ATQUE: 3 people shot at immigration detention facility in Dallas and the shooter is dead, official says (Associated Press)

ATQUE: Live Updates: One Dead and Two Wounded in Dallas ICE Facility Shooting (New York Times)

ATQUE: 1 dead, 2 others hospitalized after shooting at Dallas ICE facility, police say (CNN)

ATQUE: 2 dead after shooting at ICE facility, ICE spokesperson said (NBC News)

Read it.

blockade of Gaza said Wednesday that some of their boats were attacked by drones overnight while sailing south of Greece.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said it was attacked during the night by “unidentified drones and communications jamming.” It said that “at least 13 explosions” were heard on and around several flotilla boats, while drones or aircraft dropped “unidentified objects” on at least 10 boats.

No casualties were reported but there was damage to the vessels and “widespread obstruction in communications,” it added.

Nobody ever said that virtue-signaling would be easy….

Read it.

Well, we know whose side they’re on.

Read it.

The European Parliament’s legal affairs committee voted today, on September 23rd, against lifting the immunity of the Italian leftist MEP Ilaria Salis, who was arrested and imprisoned in Hungary in 2023 for participating in attacks organised by the Antifa-linked Hammerbande (Hammer Gang).

Members of this group bludgeoned nine innocent people—claiming they “looked like” neo-Nazis—with batons and hammers on the streets of Budapest.

Salis’s election to Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance in the European Parliament last year secured her immunity, which Hungarian authorities had requested to be lifted.

Read it.

The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), a multinational convoy of around 40 ships attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza, has been shaken by internal disputes and resignations.

The conflicts arose over the participation of queer and ‘LGBT’ activists, which several participants criticized as unrelated to the flotilla’s stated mission.

Khaled Boujemâa–the flotilla’s coordinator–resigned on September 16th in protest against Saif Ayadi, who identifies as a “queer activist.” Activist Mariem Meftah and moderator Samir Elwafi also criticized attempts to push a “culturally progressive agenda” into the mission. Meftah stated that homosexuality is a private matter and that exploiting the “holy cause of Al-Aqsa” for unrelated ideological purposes contradicts Islamic values.

The internal turmoil led Greta Thunberg to step down from the flotilla’s leadership team. She remains on board only as an organizer and volunteer.

Israeli-Swedish journalist David Stavrou has highlighted in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet that the flotilla includes participants with extremist, antisemitic, and chauvinist views, which raises serious questions about the operation’s true intent.

No question at all–it’s ‘true intent’ is virtue-signaling, pure and simple.

Read it.

The United States is considering imposing sanctions as soon as this week against the entire International Criminal Court, putting the court’s day-to-day operations in jeopardy in retaliation for investigations of suspected Israeli war crimes.

Washington has already imposed targeted sanctions on several prosecutors and judges at the court, but naming the court itself in the sanctions list would be a major escalation.

Six sources with knowledge of the matter, all speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue that has not been publicly announced, said a decision on such “entity sanctions” was expected soon.

Sounds like a plan.

Read it.

Gaza is the snail-darter of the modern Left.

Read it.

We’re talking about the SPLC, of course.

Read it.

Several French mayors have raised Palestinian flags on town halls—defying government instructions ahead of France’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.

The initiative follows Socialist leader Olivier Faure’s call to display the flags, despite warnings from the Interior Ministry about the risks of importing international conflicts onto French territory.

Trump’s Censorship Binge After Kirk’s Killing Is Part of an All-Out Effort to Crush the Opposition (Andy Craig/The UnPopulist)

The Post-Kirk Clampdown … America’s new cancel culture has arrived. (Patrick Frey/Quillette)

The MAGA Movement Is Not a Debating Society (Jamelle Bouie/New York Times)

Trump’s economic promises to Black voters fall short after a modest shift in support for him in 2024 (Josh Boak/Associated Press)  Because Democrats have been blocking his moves.

Trump Demands That Bondi Move ‘Now’ to Prosecute Foes (New York Times)

MSNBC Host Claims It’s ‘Hard to Understand’ Exactly What Kimmel’s MAGA Smear Meant

Trump Makes Bonkers Demand for Bondi to Lock Up His Enemies (Jack Revell/The Daily Beast)

Trump is breaking US diplomacy, State Department staffers say (Nahal Toosi/Politico)  Really? Other countries ignored Obama and Biden. Nobody ignores Trump.

In Assault on Free Speech, Trump Targets Speech He Hates (Peter Baker/New York Times)  Which Democrats have been doing since Clinton.

Prosecution Rests Case In Trial Of Trump Assassination Attempt Suspect: 5 Takeaways  Funny, I don’t remember anybody trying to assassinate Obama or Biden. Must be all those white supremacists on the Left.

Trump Pushes Attorney General Pam Bondi to Prosecute Political Foes (Wall Street Journal)

From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home (Adrienne Matei/The Guardian)  Get your feminist Narrative, right here.

Eric Adams, Donald Trump and the Case That Broke American Justice (Noah Shachtman/New York Times)

Here’s what happens when big-time lobbyists become big-name Trump officials (Caitlin Oprysko/Politico)  And how does that differ from when big-time lobbyists become Demcorartadministration officials? Proglodyte projection in action.

“Path to a dictatorship”: Democrats flame Trump’s public pressure on Bondi (Avery Lotz/Axios) You’d think they’d get tired of shouting “Fascist!” “Authoritarian!” “Dictatorship!” “Nazi!” all the time, when it’s obvious that normal people are just tuning them out.

The US right claimed free speech was sacred – until the Charlie Kirk killing (J Oliver Conroy/The Guardian)  The Kirk assassination brought home the fact that when one side cheats all the time and the other side plays by the rules, the cheaters tend to win, and they’re tired of losing. “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” — Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, Portion 72, verse 1.

Read it.

America is suffering from leftist fatigue. Three left wing shooters in the span of a week, from the murder of Charlie Kirk to an attack on an ABC affiliate station in Sacramento to the most recent event – A shooting at a country club wedding in Nashua, New Hampshire.

This is, of course, not counting the transgender killer who murdered 2 children and wounded 18 others at a catholic school in Minneapolis the week before the Charlie Kirk assassination. In every case there has been clear intent of politically motivated violence. Democrats and woke activists continue to deny they have any culpability, but after a decade of demonizing everyone who disagrees with them as “fascists and Nazis”, isn’t this the end result they always wanted?

The suspect, identified as 23-year-old Hunter Nadeau, was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder. Witnesses heard the man scream “The children are safe, free Palestine!” as he started shooting, killing one person and wounding two others before he was hit in the head with a chair by a female party member and ran away with his head bleeding.

Funny how all of these juvenile delinquents attacking weddings and schools and TV stations and such are proglodytes. If the right were such a breeding ground of terrorists, they must be on vacation or something. Slackers.

Read it.

“Whoever knew slavery never wants to be a slave again,” said Fidel Castro in February 1993. However, by the hand of the socialist regime established by the Cuban revolution in 1959, slavery has returned to Cuba.

Socialism IS slavery, in its essence.

Newsbusters.

Rolling Stone has come a long way, baby, and not in a good way.

The ’60s era rock bible is now a hard-Left institution that refuses to defend free expression.

Need proof?

The magazine attacked comedian Dave Chappelle for telling the “wrong” jokes about the trans community.

Artists like John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting) faced censorship, and Team Rolling Stone refused to have his back.

The Times (UK).

Jeremy Corbyn has broken his silence on the civil war embroiling his new left-wing party, saying he was “appalled” by the abuse directed by Zarah Sultana and her allies towards one of his advisers.

Corbyn and Sultana, the firebrand Coventry South MP, are locked in an increasingly public spat over the direction and structure of “Your Party” — an attempt to capitalise on socialist dissent towards Sir Keir Starmer’s government and its policy on Gaza.

Sultana ignored Corbyn to prematurely announce the venture in July. Since then, the pair and the factions behind them have competed for control over finances and data.

On Thursday, Corbyn, 76, and four independent pro-Gaza MPs criticised Sultana, 31, for sending an “unauthorised” fundraising email and told supporters to cancel any direct debits.

Read it.

In a much anticipated public appearance, Susan Monarez, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, attempted to defend her short tenure at the embattled public health agency.

Things did not go well for her from the start (via Camus on X):

Senator Dr. Roger Marshall delivered a stunning rebuke to the CDC, exposing them as the primary cause of vaccine hesitancy. He laid out the truth: by forcing unjustified COVID vaccines and an unnecessary Day-1 hepatitis vaccine on every American, the CDC has shattered public trust.

Read it.

The European Parliament will next week take a major step towards deciding whether Italian MEP Ilaria Salis should face trial in Hungary for her alleged role in a series of violent Antifa-linked attacks in Budapest.

Salis, 41, was arrested and imprisoned in Hungary in 2023 for participating in a series of attacks organised by the Hammerbande (Hammer Gang), a German left-wing militant group linked to Antifa. The members of the group surrounded and bludgeoned nine innocent people—who the attackers decided “looked like” neo-Nazis based on their choice of clothing—with telescopic batons and hammers on the streets of Budapest.

One 61-year-old security guard was left with a fractured skull and lasting facial paralysis.

Read it.

A clue to what is happening to socialist parties across the West can be found in the choice of Sócrates to lead Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS). Whereas most PMs rise to the position after leading an important ministry or a major city, José Sócrates’s highest office had been that of minister of the environment for all of two years.

How is it that none of the relevant state ministers in previous socialist governments was ready to step into the role of party leader and PM? How is it that an inconsequential environment minister becomes the only alternative available?

The reality is that the most reputed names amongst the socialists chose not to pursue leadership. The very reluctance is the clue to the reason why: socialism was spent. Economically, socialism had been discredited by the communist experiences throughout the world; at times providing real world empirical counterfactuals within the same nation, such as was the case in Korea or Germany. Culturally, the sexual revolution having been won and counter culture reigning supreme, ‘progress’ could only possibly be furthered by delving into more extreme causes. Whether instinctively or fully cognizant, mainstream socialist higher-ups sensed that the future of socialism would have to become increasingly extremist and populist, by necessity.

Read it.

Some Christians are familiar with the Apostle’s Creed. That percentage goes up once Episcopalians are not counted. The Credo has long been an integral part of the faith and works as a short hand for both prayer and a statement of faith. It begins, of course, with “I believe…”

Well, the Progressives have their own bastardized version of the Creed since their occult like movement took off. You’ve probably seen it in some fashion or another somewhere. Typically is listed on a multi-colored sign or banner with “We Believe” at the top and the statements of faith listed below. However, unlike the Christian Creed (Episcopalians excluded), the Progressives will update their/thems/zers Creed via Memo and online subscription at the Party’s directives. Such as the latest and greatest Pride Flag or the Progressive Creed. Since I feel like it’s my duty to spread the Gospel of George Floyd, I give you the updated Progressive Creed for the zealots of the Right-side-of-History to give their testimony.

The Atlantic.

As Kamala Harris rushed to pick a running mate last year, her “first choice” was her close friend Pete Buttigieg, but she decided that it would be “too big of a risk” for a Black woman to run with a gay man.

How one would classify Walz is an exercise left for the reader.

Read it.

Amid California’s worsening affordability crisis and warnings of a 75-percent price increase at the gas pump, state legislators over the weekend sent a package of bills aimed at tackling energy costs, fuel supply, and pollution to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

The funny thing about Reality is that it sticks around even after you refuse to believe in it.

The Telegrapb (UK).

In a hospital in northern England, a middle-aged patient is told he needs a CT scan. It’s an urgent cancer referral. So, he promptly follows the signs in the sprawling NHS hospital to radiology. As he prepares to be loaded into the scanner, staff run through the pre-procedure checks: Any allergies, heart disease, diabetes, previous reactions to X-ray dye? And: Could you be pregnant?

For one senior radiographer, Samantha*, this is a familiar scenario. “It’s mortifying to repeatedly ask middle-aged men – who at that moment have presented for life-saving treatment and are hooked up to monitors and multiple drips – what their sex is. Or worse, if they could be pregnant.”

In around 20 NHS trusts, all patients aged 12-55 having a scan using ionising radiation around the pelvis are quizzed over their pregnancy status – regardless of gender. One trust questions men as old as 60.

The rot has gone deep in Britain. That’s our future … unless we change it.

Read it.

The Kiel branch of the Young Socialists (Jusos) is demanding a ban on men’s podcasts, Apollo News reports. Jusos is arguing that the format spreads ‘toxic masculinity’ stereotypes and conspiracy theories, and pose a threat to democratic values. Their motion, set to be debated at the SPD youth organization’s state delegate conference at the end of September, is titled: “Ban men’s podcasts! – Take the microphones away from men!”

According to the motion, podcasts like Hoss & Hopf or the Andrew Tate brand have “developed into a dangerous phenomenon over the past two years.” Jusos Kiel argues that such programs promote “an uncritical glorification of toxic masculinity ideals and the ‘alpha mindset,’” while frequently featuring guests who spread “sexist stereotypes and discriminatory statements.” They further accuse these podcasts of presenting “pseudoscientific theories and numerous conspiracy theories” that are “trumpeted out to the world.”

The Antiplanner.

Oregon’s strategy for saving energy is doomed to failure, say comments on the draft strategy written by the Antiplanner. A key part of the strategy calls for prioritizing multimodal transportation over roads and promoting development patterns that make it easier to live without a car. This strategy has never worked, the comments point out, and if Oregon is going to have an energy strategy it should adopt one that will actually work rather than one that is designed to fail.

ABC News, a Voice of the Crust.

At least 13 people have been wounded, five critically, in two shootings that erupted over a span of 12 hours at homeless encampments in Minneapolis with the city’s mayor saying he wouldn’t be surprised if they are connected.

The shootings on Monday marked the fourth and fifth mass shootings to occur in Minneapolis in the past three weeks, including one on Aug. 27 at Annunciation Catholic School that left two children dead and 21 people injured.
“This is tragic. It’s horrible. It’s unacceptable, and, sadly, it’s not surprising,” Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference early Tuesday.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the city’s latest mass shooting unfolded Monday night at a notorious homeless encampment in southeast Minneapolis, in which eight people were shot and an estimated 30 shots were fired.

Read it.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Free Speech Rankings crowned California’s Claremont McKenna College with a grade of B- as the best college in the U.S. for free speech, while a string of other California schools received F grades amid anti-free speech environments across campuses.

FIRE released its sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings, which pulled responses on free-speech topics from 68,510 students attending 257 American colleges. The survey highlighted a decline in support for free speech among all students.

Students on both sides of the political aisle are showing a deep “unwillingness” to face controversial ideas, the press releases stated.

Read it.

A few years ago, before the trans craze became the ideological leviathan that it is today, I read a news analysis that estimated the proportion of the population identifying as transgender or non-binary as 0.1%. Since then, after continuous relentless promotion of all things transgender by the media and academia, the number has apparently grown by almost an order of magnitude. In March of 2023, just after Audrey Hale carried out her mass shooting at a parochial school in Nashville, Newsweek reported:

According to the Williams Institute research center, around 0.6 percent of Americans over the age of 13 identify as transgender.

However, the ensuing eighteen months must have been busy ones for the trans-promoters, because in late 2024 USAFacts reported that the percentage had increased even further:

About 0.95% of the nation’s adult population identifies as transgender, according to Household Pulse Survey data collected from May to September 2024. This is equivalent to approximately 2.3 million adults.

I’ve seen other estimates that the trans population is 1%, 2%, or even 3%.

In the last few years there have also been a number of mass shootings carried out by transgender or non-binary perpetrators. The pace of such shootings seems to have accelerated in recent months, leading to widespread assertions that the number of atrocities carried out by trans people is disproportionately high, relative to their percentage in the general population. Determining the accuracy of such assertions, however, is a very difficult task, as I discovered over the last few weeks while trying to dig more deeply into the topic. I asked Vlad to help, since he is an adept at using AI for research, but he said that his AI assistant was stymied by his request. The relevant data are simply too diffuse, obscure, or otherwise unavailable.

Read it.

Here’s a question my home state of Oregon could easily answer: How many kids have received gender transition surgeries in the last 15 years? The state has this data and is required by law to give it to me. Yet instead of doing so, officials are now telling me that they’ve been illegally selling Oregonians’ health information for years. It’s a head-turning argument, but it’s also false. It shows how desperate the state is to avoid answering my question.

Read it.

The plenary session of the European Parliament descended into shouting and jeers on Thursday after left-wing MEPs refused to observe a minute of silence for American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was murdered on Wednesday. The gesture, requested by representatives of the Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) and supported by Patriots for Europe (PfE), sparked a verbal confrontation that sharply divided the chamber.

The gesture was proposed at the beginning of the session as a sign of respect for Kirk, a prominent conservative voice on both sides of the Atlantic. However, the left-wing parties rejected the proposal, arguing such tributes should not be part of the institution’s official proceedings.

The refusal sparked a backlash from conservative and patriotic MEPs, who argued that honoring Kirk transcended politics. While conservatives attempted to uphold the minute of silence, boos and shouting were heard throughout the hall.

Read it.

California lawmakers have advanced a bill to ban the sale of nonstick cookware and corded kitchen appliances that contain PFAS (forever chemicals) despite strong opposition from an industry group that insists the products are save.

Bill 682 would phase out a range of consumer products in the state – along with many commercial products, that contain any amount of “intentionally added PFAS” starting in 2028.

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are man-made chemicals, known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down easily and can build up in the human body and the environment.

The bill would make it illegal for anyone to distribute, sell or offer for sale any cookware that contained the chemicals – so all you garage sale sellers better watch out.

“PFAS are leading to an avoidable public health crisis,” said state Sen. Ben Allen (D) who introduced the bill. “It’s clear we need to be taking stronger steps to regulate and minimize the use of these forever chemicals.”

Time to leave.

Read it.

The bureaucratic jungle in Germany is expanding unchecked. According to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, the number of information obligations for businesses has reached a new record high this year.

In private life, state bureaucracy is omnipresent. Whether it’s filing taxes or navigating the paperwork faced by homeowners, the state routinely enlists its citizens to carry out its own administrative work. In essence, the citizen performs a protracted year of social service in administration—without compensation, always under the looming threat of legal coercion.

Read it.

On Aug. 22, young Iryna Zarutska was murdered—not with a gun, but with a knife. The horror in the video circulating online comes less from the weapon than from the killer’s casual comment to a bystander: “I got that white girl.”

Those words reveal this was not simply an outburst of rage. They show a moral framework in which killing “that white girl” was normalized—even justified.

That is also what makes the assassination of Charlie Kirk so alarming. Some want to minimize it as just another “gun crime.”

Read it.

America’s great cities once symbolized prosperity and culture. Now, many are paying a steep financial price as crime surges and businesses flee. As one line in a new op-ed piece put it, “Crime has a balance sheet. In poorly led cities, that balance sheet is bleeding red ink by the day.”

Retail is bearing the brunt, according to an op-ed by Ted Jenkin at Fox News. The National Retail Federation (NRF) reported U.S. retailers lost $112 billion in 2022 due to theft, up from $94 billion in 2021. Between 2019 and 2023, shoplifting incidents rose 93% and dollar losses climbed 90%. Major chains are pulling back: Target projected $500 million in additional losses this year, Walgreens has shut stores across San Francisco, and Nordstrom left downtown entirely.

“Does it seem insane to you that so many of these retail stores have to lock up much of the merchandise…knowing that they will never be arrested?” the piece asked. The fallout is visible in empty storefronts and shrinking city budgets. San Francisco’s downtown vacancy rate has hit 34.8%, erasing jobs, tax revenue, and foot traffic.