Read it.

Cartels have doxxed and put bounties of the heads of several federal immigration officials – offering $10,000 to kill or $2,000 to capture them, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed on Sunday. She did not specify whether the bounties applied to a particular agency such as ICE, or the US Border Patrol.

The Foundry.

Gangs, cartels, and known terrorist organizations have put bounties on the heads of specific Immigration Customs Enforcement agents and border patrol officers, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revealed Sunday morning.

“It’s about $2,000 to kidnap them and $10,000 to kill them,” Noem explained on “Fox & Friends.” “They’ve released their pictures and sent them between their networks.”

These gangs, cartels, and known terrorist organizations are “being extremely effective” and they want to take these agents down because they “are keeping them from making money off their criminal networks.”

The New Neo.

If you want to kill a SCOTUS justice, and get close enough to be charged with attempting to kill or kidnap a SCOTUS justice and have to plead guilty, it’s worth your while (if you’re a man, that is) to claim to be a woman.

That’s what would-be SCOTUS assassin Nicholas Roske did. To refresh your memory, he was the man (yes, man) who was arrested in 2022 outside of Justice Kavanaugh’s house by federal marshals who were there guarding it.

This was after the Dobbs draft had been leaked, but before the official decision was handed down. Roske’s goal was to kill three of the conservative justices on the Court, allowing Biden or Biden’s autopen to nominate leftist justices in their place and therefore change the course of SCOTUS history and decisions. You might call his plan an insurrection of sorts, and he did more than just write about it or talk about it. He did turn himself in, but apparently only because those marshals were there.

Read it.

A visiting professor at Harvard Law School has been placed on administrative leave after his arrest in connection with an incident outside a Brookline synagogue on the eve of Yom Kippur, officials said.

Carlos Portugal Gouvea, who also teaches at the University of São Paulo Law School, was charged with illegally discharging a pellet gun, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, and vandalizing property, according to public court records.

Brookline police responded Wednesday evening to reports of shots fired outside Temple Beth Zion, a synagogue in Brookline, as Yom Kippur — the holiest day in the Jewish calendar — was beginning. More than a dozen officers were dispatched, according to Brookline.News, which first reported the incident.

Read it.

Russian planes recently flew into Polish and Romanian airspace to test NATO’s resolve while the world veers toward a conflict in Asia—one that could be far worse than the situation in Ukraine—where true deterrence and resolve remain largely absent.

On Sept. 3, Beijing staged a military extravaganza to parade a full suite of fearsome weapons. Many journalists were awed, and some defeatist experts advocated Chamberlainian appeasement. Others, mostly China observers, tried decoding the seating plan of senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials atop Tiananmen Square for clues about the power struggles in Zhongnanhai.

However, what is often overlooked in the discussion about the event is that it represents the financing and support mechanisms behind a new type of quasi-world war. The ongoing Russia–Ukraine war is one example, and the potential invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese regime is another. Let’s explore this further.

The Xinhua images of the Sept. 3 event, featuring Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un consorting in solidarity, should be interpreted as a calculated response to the new tripartite model the West has devised for militarily supporting Ukraine. That model conveys that Kyiv identifies its military hardware needs, European allies provide the financing, and the United States produces and delivers the hardware.

The Beijing event showcased a parallel model: Moscow requests war materiel, including troops, China and North Korea supply them in exchange for cheap Russian energy, with India and a few other countries dipping in. Thus, even though the war’s actual fighting is confined within Ukraine and Russia, its financing involves a much wider array of adversarial states. The coalitional symmetry in this financing mechanism can prolong the bloody conflict indefinitely, which Russia and Ukraine, if left to their own devices, cannot achieve.

Read it.

U.S. Border Patrol personnel shot an armed woman in Chicago on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said, as scores of protesters faced off against federal immigration agents on the city’s southwest side.

No law enforcement officers were seriously injured in the incident in which a group that included the woman rammed cars into vehicles used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

The woman, a U.S. citizen who was not identified, drove herself to the hospital, according to the statement. No additional information was immediately available about the woman’s condition. ICE agents fired pepper spray and loaded rubber bullets as part of heated exchanges with protesters on Saturday.

NARRATIVE MEDIA: Border Patrol agents shoot woman in Chicago as protesters confront immigration personnel (Jim Vondruska/Reuters)

Read it.

Walk through downtown San Francisco or Los Angeles and you’ll navigate a shifting obstacle course of tents, human waste, and unstable individuals. Business districts that once thrived now see foot traffic evaporate as customers avoid entire blocks. Parents can’t take children to public parks. Elderly residents can’t use their own sidewalks. The social contract that public spaces belong to everyone has collapsed.

Between 2015 and 2022, Los Angeles County’s homeless population surged by 56% while Houston’s fell by 32%. Today, California houses 28% of America’s homeless population with just 12% of its residents. San Francisco’s homelessness rate is nearly 20 times higher than Houston’s.

California has spent over $27 billion on homelessness in recent years. The difference is systems architecture. Houston and Dallas built something that works. California built something that doesn’t, then spent billions pretending otherwise.

This matters because instability breeds instability. When encampments persist for years, residents and business owners face constant uncertainty. When sweeps just move people two blocks over, when every neighborhood waits to see if it will host the next relocated camp, the crisis simply shifts location without resolution.

Read it.

Mullally, 63, was confirmed on Friday following approval from King Charles III, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England. A former chief nursing officer for England, Mullally was ordained in 2002 and rose quickly through the hierarchy, becoming Bishop of London in 2018.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior cleric in the Church of England and functions as a figurehead for the Anglican churches worldwide. The decision to appoint a woman is likely to deepen existing rifts within the Anglican Communion, particularly with provinces in Africa and Asia that have strongly opposed female bishops and liberal reforms.

So much for the ‘Anglican Union’.

Read it.

North Carolina’s largest police union has requested federal law enforcement assistance, including National Guard deployment to Charlotte, citing what it described as escalating violence and a staffing crisis.

In a letter Thursday, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 9, told city leaders: “The request is due to the ongoing failure of city and police leadership to address the severe staffing crisis within the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which we believe has led to a violence crisis in Charlotte.”

Although North Carolina law prohibits public-employee collective bargaining, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police functions as the primary representative body for officers and is often referred to as a police union.

Read it.

A combination of ideology, social media, mental health disorders, and medication may be influencing recent trends in violence and radicalization among those who identify as transgender, according to experts.

“My general feeling is that we’re seeing more of it … not for any one factor, but because of several factors all convening, and they’re all amplified by the political rhetoric,” said C. Alan Hopewell, a Fort Worth neuropsychologist.

When people struggling with their sexual identity are prescribed hormones to change their bodies, it impacts the way they think, he told The Epoch Times.?

Hopewell said that combining hormones, medication, and intense online pressure can create a dangerous situation.

Read it.

California is home to numerous profitable industries, but many of the state’s residents struggle to survive under the weight of big government. Case in point: excessive regulations have suffocated the state’s housing market and led to some of the nation’s highest rents and most expensive homes.

In contrast, metro areas in the South, particularly in Texas, are leading in the construction of new apartment buildings this year. Austin hosted nearly double the number of new units as Los Angeles, which is larger tin both geographic and population size. One of the reasons for the South’s housing boom is its less-restrictive regulatory environment. According to Doug Ressler, a senior analyst and manager of business at Yardi Matrix, a real estate data firm, “Southern metros typically offer streamlined approval processes and fewer regulatory hurdles, making it easier to bring multi-family projects to market.” Notably, Texas lawmakers further relaxed the state’s land zoning laws earlier this year to allow for more housing construction.

Read it.

One of the two victims who died in the synagogue attack in Manchester, UK was shot dead by police, with the other victim killed by suspect. In fact, the police were the only ones with guns at the incident.

Here’s what happened: The suspect, Jihad al-Shamie, rammed a vehicle into a crowd of people gathered outside the synagogue, striking several individuals. He then exited the car and stabbed at least one person before attempting to enter the building. Worshippers and security staff managed to block his entry – when armed cops showed up within 7 minutes and shot al-Shamie.

Al-Shamie killed one of the victims and sent two to the hospital with injuries, while the cops accidentally killed another victim and shot a 3rd person who was also sent to the hospital. sd

You can’t make this stuff up.

Better Homes & Gardens.

A garbage disposal is an electronic device fitted to the underside of a kitchen sink. It uses blades to grind food waste into pieces small enough to be carried away in the plumbing system. It is a clean, fast, eco-friendly way to get rid of your kitchen waste, as food goes into the water system and not a landfill.

While things like vegetables, fruit, cooked foods, and even ice can go down a garbage disposal without problems, other things can clog your plumbing or damage the blades. This can be costly to have repaired, so it’s in your best interest to know how to properly use one. To ensure the long life of your garbage disposal, avoid putting these items down the drain.

Looking at this list, one wonders whether a garbage disposal is worth having at all.

Read it.

A sticker featuring a target over a photo of Alternative for Germany (AfD) party co-leader, Alice Weidel, is allegedly being distributed by the Left Party Youth in Hannover, Germany. The sticker, which also features the text, “Aim Here,” has sparked an investigation by the German police.

“This sticker is being distributed by the youth organization of the Left in Hannover. This is not just a call to violence, this is an incitement to attack in the spirit of the left-terrorist Antifa. The radical Left should finally have the plug pulled. Criminal complaint is being filed!” wrote Thorsten Weiß, the deputy chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in Berlin.

The Left only objects to political violence when they are the targets.

Hochul alleges DHS cut $187M from counterterrorism funding with ‘no discretion’ (Brady Knox/Washington Examiner)

Judge Blocks Trump Plan to Pull NYC Transit Funds

Trump Cuts Funding to 16 Blue States That Didn’t Vote for Him (Malcolm Ferguson/New Republic)  I suggest that the fact that they are Blue States is more significant than the fact that they might not have voted for him.

Trump administration uses government websites and email messages to pin the shutdown on Democrats (NBC News)  As Democrats always did with Republicans. They act as if this were a New And Strange Thing.

Why Trump’s 2020 election loss lives on in the Georgia governor’s race (Patrick Svitek/Washington Post)

We asked 1,000 Americans who they blame for the shutdown (Washington Post)  It’s never about the shutdown–it’s always about the blame game.

White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes (Tony Romm/New York Times)  As every Democrat administration has done in the past.

Google joins presidential bribe club (Liz Dye/Public Notice)

Head of Eisenhower library resigns after sword spat with Trump administration (Ed O’Keefe/CBS News)

Trump’s ICE Has Started Targeting Activists, Not Just Immigrants (Mike Ludwig/Truthout)  What a great idea! Deport Antifa!

Stephen Miller Implies He Intended for Trump’s Nutjobs to Kill Democrats (emptywheel)

Trump Finds a New Way to Use the White House for Tacky Racist Trolling (Tom Latchem/The Daily Beast)

Trump Quietly Grants Defense Guarantee To Autocracy That Gave Him A Luxury Jet (S.V. Date/HuffPost)

Late Night Shows Receive Their Shutdown Talking Points

More Americans blame Trump, Republicans for shutdown than Democrats: Survey (Tara Suter/The Hill)

Public Trust in News Media Drops to Another New Low in Gallup Poll (Even Among Dems!)

Google News Shifts Blame for Gov’t Shutdown

Trump’s ‘Shoot the Hostage’ Shutdown Strategy (Andrew Egger/The Bulwark)

‘NATO for nonprofits’: Groups organize to band together if targeted by Trump (Peter Nicholas/NBC News)

Trump’s Flood of Emergency Appeals Is Straining the Judicial System (Lydia Wheeler/Wall Street Journal)  Much like all the bogus suits against Trump.

No Matter Who Controls What, the Media Will Blame the GOP if the Government Shuts Down

Read it.

Ian Roberts, the Iowa superintendent who was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement last Friday after fleeing from a traffic stop and ditching his district-issued vehicle (in which a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a hunting knife was recovered) – completely lied about his bona fides.

He’s also lost his superintendent’s license, while the DOJ launched an investigation hours after ICE detained him. The 54-year-old native of Guyana entered the United States on a student visa in 1999, overstayed, lied on a form claiming he was eligible to work when he was hired in 2023, and now faces deportation.

According to the Des Moines Register, Roberts never obtained a doctoral degree from Maryland university – something which would have been easy to verify during the vetting process. Roberts has “long stated that he received a doctoral degree from Morgan State University in Baltimore. But a university spokesperson told the Des Moines Register on Monday that Roberts did not obtain a degree from the school, despite attending Morgan State from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2007.”

He attempted to obtain a doctorate in urban educational leadership. Despite his failure, Roberts has claimed on multiple occasions to have “completed” the degree at Morgan State, including in a 2009 self-published book.

Jonathan Turley.

Rose Docherty is what they call a criminal recidivist in the United Kingdom. The 75-year-old woman has been arrested for a second time for the same fiendish act: offering to speak to women considering an abortion. She was arrested outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for carrying a placard which stated “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Fortunately, she and her sign were quickly seized by the local police to protect the public.

Free speech literally does not have a prayer in the United Kingdom. We previously discussed the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested for standing near an abortion clinic while silently praying. Police asked what she was doing standing at the location and when she said that she was praying in her head, they arrested her.

How Docherty ended up in the hoosegow in Glasgow is a chilling tale of how censorship can consume a nation.

Read it.

President Trump’s address to the United Nations last week was a historic speech and a tour de force. He made the point that the United Nations is a useless talking shop, incapable even of making its escalator and teleprompter work.

He identified the twin threats to the survival of Western civilization to be the uncontrolled flood of immigration from desperate and often chronically criminal people with no interest in becoming functioning citizens of a new jurisdiction, and the drive to reduce carbon dioxide on the mistaken theory that climate change is a threat to life itself.

These waves of illegal immigration are not immigration at all but only desperate masses fleeing adversity, while sheltering substantial numbers of very violent and dangerous criminals. It is an invasion, and resembles nothing so much as the barbarians pouring into the Western Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D., ahead of the more destructive and ferocious barbarians who followed them in the fifth century and completely overthrew the Western Roman Empire.

The president even revealed that the U.N. had made substantial financial contributions to subsidize illegal immigrants into the United States, who are now, at great expense and social stress, being systematically deported.

Read it.

In today’s financial system, what many people take for granted as foundational truths are actually deeply flawed assumptions or outright deceptions.

Below is a breakdown of commonly misunderstood financial concepts—reframed to reflect a more accurate interpretation of how the system really works.

Read it.

Ian Andre Roberts, the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools in Iowa, who was arrested by ICE late last week for illegally overstaying a 1999 student visa, has reportedly had active voter registration as a Democrat in the state of Maryland since 2012.

The story of Roberts was bad enough from the onset. Entered the country in 1999 on a student visa. Ignored a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2024. Gaming the system to attain a full-time superintendent position, in which he earned a $270,000 annual salary. Fled ICE during a chase, where agents eventually found cash, a knife, and a loaded gun in his vehicle.

In short, an illegal alien profiting off skirting the law represents everything seedy about the failed immigration system in this country. But wait, there’s more.

According to information attained by Townhall columnist Dustin Grage, Roberts has an active voter registration status in Maryland. He has held that status as a registered Democrat (of course) since 2012, according to records.

Read it.

The universal rule for politicians is ‘leave no dollar untaxed’. Even if you follow the rules, they’ll change the rules in the middle of the game in order to put their hands into your pockets.

Sarah Hoyt.

I want you to consider — other than possible activation by mysterious behind the scenes forces, to change the national conversation, and note I’m not laughing at this, which means “ten years ago Sarah” is staring at me in horror from the back of my mind — that 2020 broke people. It broke people BADLY. I see it in my own family. I see it in my circles. And I see it in myself.

Mind you, a lot of us broke in the sense of “I’m now full blown introvert, and will just glare at people if you take me out, and spit like a cat if I’m forced to be around strangers for a full day.” But other people broke in other ways. And I doubt very much there are any of you out there, who don’t know what I’m talking about. In fact doing impromptu, small mental health adjustments has become a thing in everyone’s friendship circles.

Terms I used for my own mental health management (keeping in mind that I’m a raging depressive) have escaped and are now in the wild, seemingly everywhere “out of spoons.” “Reality testing” and of course “kicking the black dog.”

Read it.

The UK recorded its largest-ever migrant crossing on a single vessel this weekend, according to Bloomberg – piling further pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer as his Labour Party convenes for its annual conference in Liverpool.

The Home Office confirmed that a boat carrying 125 people crossed from France to England on Saturday, breaking a previous record set in August when 107 people arrived in what was dubbed a “mega-dinghy.” The surge underscores the worsening crisis despite Starmer’s vow to “smash” the smuggling networks responsible for ferrying people across the Channel.

“These small boats crossings are utterly unacceptable and the vile people-smugglers behind them are wreaking havoc on our borders,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement. “Protecting the UK border is my priority as home secretary and I will explore all options to restore order to our immigration system.”

The problem is that, unlike the U.S., U.K. law allows you to stay if you can reach their shores.

Read it.

Chinese gangs are taking advantage of loose marijuana rules in Oklahoma to grow and transport marijuana to other states for sale on the black market, authorities say.

Oklahoma narcotics officials told Congress $153 billion worth of marijuana is unaccounted for and likely leaving the state for the black market in other states.

As many as 85 percent of licensed grow sites have connections with Chinese owners or operators, according to Mark Woodward, information officer with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

Since 2022, the state has shut down more than 6,000 illegal growing operations. Most U.S. states have made marijuana legally available, but taxes and regulations have pushed up its price, leaving an opening for black market sale

Trump falsely suggests FBI agents to blame for igniting Jan. 6 violence (Politico)

Trump’s war on Tylenol is also very much a war on women (Arwa Mahdawi/The Guardian)

Trump’s central role in Comey case may become key to defense strategy (Washington Post)

Poll: Public Confidence in Higher Ed Growing (Kathryn Palmer/Inside Higher Ed)  “Despite the Trump administrations ongoing attacks on colleges and universities….”

Why Donald Trump is obsessed with Portland (Politico)

On MSNBC, Sen. Murphy Claims Radicalization Unimportant, Trump Destroying Debate

Brennan: Trump Won’t Intimidate Me With Charges

Colombian president accuses Trump of violating UN principles after visa revoked (Axios)  He ought to learn to keep his mouth shut.

‘I’m not going to be intimidated by the likes of Donald Trump’: Fmr. CIA Director on being targeted (MSNBC)

Inside the Trump Administration’s Push to Prosecute James Comey (New York Times)

NPR-Ipsos poll: Americans don’t broadly support Trump’s National Guard deployments (Debbie Elliott/NPR)

MSNBC’s Willie Geist Downplays N.J. Democrat’s Naval Scandal, Turns Shame on Leakers

Donald Trump’s Disapproval Rating Among Republicans is Now in Double Digits (Kate Plummer/Newsweek) Which means 10%. The horror! The do admit that 86% approve, which is very white of them.

FBI’s Patel clarifies role of hundreds of agents on Jan 6, says Wray lied to Congress (Brie Stimson/Fox News)  My, what a surprise.

Trump’s transportation department pulls trail and bike grants it deems ‘hostile’ to cars (Jeff Mcmurray/Associated Press)  Trump just keeps on winning for regular Americans.

Trump’s shutdown plans: Mass layoffs, deregulation, military deployments (Jacob Bogage/Washington Post)

The full force of Trump’s federal job cuts is about to hit the D.C. region (Washington Post)

What the Right Really Means When It Says ‘Free Speech’ (Sarah Jones/New York Magazine)  More mind-reading by the Narrative Media.

The Race to Save America’s Democracy (Garry Kasparov/The Atlantic)

Trump’s Politicized Prosecutions May Hit a Roadblock (Adam Serwer/The Atlantic)

US set for largest mass resignation in history as Trump continues deep cuts (Michael Sainato/The Guardian)

What to know about Trump’s new pharmaceutical tariff plan (Joseph Choi/The Hill)  Don’t bother to read it, we’ll tell you what to think.

Greene, Straying From Trump, Reflects an Emerging MAGA Split (Annie Karni/New York Times)  There’s that MAGA guy again. He really gets around.

What the Trump regime doesn’t want you to know about Dallas ICE shooting (Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer)  Will Bunch loses his shit. Jennifer Rubin must be on vacation.

Sen. Chuck Schumer says he has ‘no faith’ in Trump’s judicial system after Comey indictment (Alexandra Marquez/NBC News)  Welcome to our world, Chuck.

Green Meltdown: Trump’s Second Term Breaks the Back of Climate Activism

Democrats Rage, Leftist NGO Mobilizes After ICE Arrest Of Iowa’s Top School Superintendent

The Other McCain.

People in Iowa and around the country are mystified by this situation. How did this guy get hired? And how much of his biographical information is actually true?

Read it.

Belgium will soon link refugee benefits to integration efforts as part of a broader crackdown on illegal migration and asylum abuse, Asylum and Migration Minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt has confirmed.

Under the plan, recognized refugees will continue to receive full social benefits, but payments could be cut if they fail to learn the language or look for work. People with subsidiary or temporary protection—such as many Ukrainians—will start with lower payments but can earn “integration bonuses” by completing language courses or training programs.

The reform was promised in the federal coalition deal and comes alongside tougher asylum measures, including the closure of reception centres to migrants already protected elsewhere in the EU and a target of cutting migration costs by €1.6 billion by 2029. Van Bossuyt argues Belgium must stop being a “magnet” for asylum seekers and crack down on what she calls “asylum shopping.”

In July, Belgium reintroduced internal border checks on buses, flights, and major roads from France, Italy, and Greece, following similar moves in Germany and the Netherlands. The government insists the checks are needed to prevent secondary migration.

Meanwhile, Brussels is challenging Europe’s top courts after rulings blocked deportations of failed asylum seekers. Former Constitutional Court president Marc Bossuyt has accused the European Court of Human Rights and the EU’s own Court of Justice of “tying governments’ hands” and called for stricter limits on judicial intervention.

Van Bossuyt said regional governments will be responsible for integration checks, with talks already held in Wallonia and Flanders and Brussels next on the agenda.

Read it.

A gunman opened fire inside a Mormon church in Michigan during Sunday services before apparently setting the building ablaze, killing at least one person and injuring nine before police shot him, authorities said

Hundreds of people were inside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township when a 40-year-old man rammed a pickup truck through the front door, then got out of the vehicle and started shooting, Police Chief William Renye told reporters. Police believe he “deliberately” set the building on fire.

After the suspect left the church, two officers pursued him and “engaged in gunfire,” Renye said. The man was killed.

I think we can safely say that this guy was not a Republican.

Read it.

The U.S. State Department said on Sept. 26 that it would revoke Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s visa after he called on U.S. soldiers to disobey orders during his visit to New York.

“Earlier today, Colombian president @petrogustavo stood on a NYC street and urged U.S. soldiers to disobey orders and incite violence,” the department stated on X.

“We will revoke Petro’s visa due to his reckless and incendiary actions,” it added. The department did not provide further details about the incident.

Petro traveled to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, though it is unclear whether he is still in the city.

Actions have consequences.

Read it.

More and more people are turning their backs on the European Union. With them, the states are also losing economic substance. Exit taxes are being used in an attempt to counter this.

The states of the European Union are experiencing a veritable exodus. About 1.4 million EU citizens left their home countries in 2023, among them 265,000 Germans. Among the favored destinations are, alongside Switzerland and the United States, booming regions such as Qatar or Dubai.

Unmentioned in the article is the fact that the United States is one of the worst offenders in this space. If you want to renounce your U.S. citizenship, you have to pay an ‘exit tax’ calculated on the basis of as if you had sold every U.S. asset you own.

Read it.

Sounds like an ‘insurrection’ to me….

Read it.

(a) It’s astonishing that it’s had to come to this.

(b) The EU apparatchiks are going to go ballistic.

Military.com.

Over 30 years ago, a scandal rocked the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, launching an investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and uncovering evidence that more than 130 midshipmen might have cheated on an exam.

The events surrounding the 1990s cheating scandal have resurfaced decades later to embroil a former mid. The military records of Democratic U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Navy midshipman then and now a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, were released by the National Archives in what Rep. Robert Garcia called an “illegal and likely politically motivated disclosure,” according to Politico.

Garcia, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, on Thursday called for an investigation into the release that appeared to implicated Sherrill in the academy cheating debacle.

Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, told The New Jersey Globe that she was not allowed to walk with her midshipmen mates at her 1994 graduation because she “didn’t turn in some of my classmates” during the cheating scandal.

“I will  not lie,  cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do.” Sounds pretty clear to me.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a post to the social media platform X on Thursday that the leak of Sherrill’s unredacted military records was “a betrayal of everyone who’s ever worn the uniform.”

Here are five things to know about one of the biggest scandals in recent history to unfold at the Naval Academy.

Read it.

Something strange has happened with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Dallas).

For years, Crockett has spoken with what some described as a “ghetto accent.”

Yet in her latest MSNBC interview about the Comey indictments, her ‘ghetto’ accent appeared to revert to her normal voice.

Read it.

ikipedia had faced trouble from the Kremlin before, with Russian censors threatening it almost from the start of the Ukraine war in 2014. But it was only in late 2023, with the appearance of glitzy ads across Moscow, that a serious plan to replace it became clear. RuWiki, as the censors’ project is known, is mostly a straightforward copy of Wikipedia. But the most sensitive moments of history have been left out or rewritten. The Kremlin’s ideologues hope that millions of Russians will now embrace these new versions as the truth.

The RuWiki project might be called Orwellian, if the author were not himself occasionally censored. The entry on “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, for example, omits the regular site’s description of Winston Smith’s Ministry of Truth, where historical records are “corrected” (though Smith’s job gets a mention elsewhere). RuWiki’s rewriters hack their way through the sensitive zones of Putinist ideology: lgbt rights, oral sex, Soviet history and the war in Ukraine.

Russian atrocities in Bucha, near Kyiv, in 2022 are reimagined as a “Ukrainian and Western disinformation campaign”. Kherson, a Ukrainian city being destroyed by Russian bombs, is mentioned without a word about the war. The execution of 22,000 Polish officers at Katyn in 1940 is rewritten to cast doubt on the archive documents proving it was done by Soviet secret services. And all references to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was killed in prison in February 2024, are altered to describe him as a mere “blogger”.

Off-Guardian.

Agroecologist and environmentalist Claire Nasike Akello says that, in legal terms, the sharing and selling of indigenous seeds is a criminal offence in Kenya. In effect, Kenya’s Seed and Plant Varieties Act demolishes self-sufficiency among smallholder farmers who use indigenous seeds to grow food.

Writing on her website, she says that the legislation seeks to create a dependency on multinational companies by smallholder farmers for seeds thus giving an upper hand to these firms that continue to steal biological resources from local communities with a profit-driven mindset.

Read it.

Britain’s “one-in, one-out” migrant deal with France is off to a rocky start, with new figures showing that arrivals continue to vastly outnumber deportations despite government claims of progress.

Under the scheme agreed between Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, migrants arriving illegally by small boat are to be returned to France in exchange for allowing approved asylum seekers to enter the UK via a legal route.

But while the Home Office confirmed the first family of three—including a small child—arrived in Britain after applying in France, just six people have been deported so far, compared to 1,157 arrivals in the same week.

Ministers insist the deal will deter dangerous Channel crossings. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy described the pilot programme, running until June next year, as “just the beginning” and promised to increase deportations in the coming months.

Read it.

The French-Italian border at Menton has once again become the main entry point for illegal immigration into metropolitan France. Local authorities have recorded around 10,400 interceptions since the beginning of the year, with 200-300 people sent back each week. Although the figures do not reach the crisis levels at the end of 2023, attempted crossings have increased by 30% in recent weeks. The summer season could push interceptions to around 15,000 by the end of the year, a number similar to 2024.

The state’s response includes strengthening the gendarmerie, border police, customs, and soldiers from Operation Sentinelle.

Migrants often use express trains from Ventimiglia or steep routes monitored by drones and police patrols. Among those detained, citizens of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco stand out, with 10% being unaccompanied minors. Although radicalized profiles are a minority, their presence highlights additional security risks that the authorities cannot ignore.

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?

The Foundry.

Where do young people learn that it’s OK to kill over political differences? Look no further than what they’re taught in school.

There, college professors routinely assign books by leaders of radical groups that murdered people to advance their political goals. These blood-drenched terrorists are presented as positive role models, and their violence is romanticized as advancing justice.

Read it.

Mexican intelligence services warned Ukraine earlier this summer that Mexican volunteers had joined the International Legion not out of solidarity, but to acquire advanced combat drone training for the benefit of drug cartels back home, according to a July report by the French outlet Intelligence Online.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), together with military intelligence, has launched investigations into several Spanish-speaking units of the Legion to identify alleged cartel members from Mexico and Colombia. These individuals reportedly used private security companies in Latin America to reach the front, including at least three former members of the Colombian FARC, who infiltrated with Panamanian and Venezuelan papers.

According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, cartel-linked fighters were especially focused on learning the latest tactics for using FPV (first-person view) drones in combat. “We welcomed them in good faith, but we realized Ukraine had become the epicenter of global FPV tactics. Some only come here to learn how to kill with a $400 drone, then take that knowledge elsewhere,” an SBU officer said.

I suggest we leave the Ukrainians to face the Russians by themselves.

The Foundry.

The assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has brought many Americans together as they commemorate him, but it has also revealed the country’s political divisions.

In the past two weeks, vandals and other offenders have allegedly targeted Kirk memorials and TV stations involved in the suspension of late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s show.

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill were already looking at a messy political battle over the looming expiration of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies. Then the anti-abortion advocates showed up.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? Politico was sure surprised.

With a possible government shutdown less than a week away, Democrats’ big ask is that Republicans agree to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which were expanded by Congress in 2021 and are set to sunset at the end of the year.

A nibble here, a nibble there, and all of a sudden the Democrats have won and the Republicans have lost. This has been going on all of my life. Republicans always believe that THIS TIME Lucy will actually hold the football.

Insurance premiums are likely to skyrocket this fall without an extension, and some Republicans are open to cutting a deal, mindful that a failure to act could have dire consequences in the midterms.

And the reason that insurance premiums at skyrocketing is that Obamacare mandates minimum care according to the Democrat virtue-signaling political agenda (such as contraception coverage for Catholic nuns) rather than what people actually need–and, more to the point, what people actually want.

Sine (far too many) Republicans are open to cutting a deal because they put winning in the midterms before what’s best for the country. These guys are the Deep State in a Clever Plastic Disguise.

But now prominent anti-abortion groups are wading into the debate, pounding the halls of Congress to make their case that the enhanced tax credits for ACA insurance premiums function as an indirect subsidy for services designed to end pregnancies.

Which they obviously are. Nibble, nibble, nibble….

The argument could make conservative Republicans who already loathed the policy dig in further against greenlighting an extension.

God, I should hope so.

It’s setting the stage for a major internal GOP power struggle that could pit hard-liners against moderates in more competitive districts, while also complicating the ability of Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to allow a bipartisan deal to go through.

And it’s exactly this sort of shit that make people think that Congress sucks and will never do anything but suck. Hard to say they’re mistaken when all the evidence points that way. Want to know why Trump is President? Here you go.

Read it.

The Scandinavian model is often misrepresented as a humane and efficient form of socialism. In reality, it is a distinctly coercive and oligarchic form of statism.

Which is why Democrats really love it.

While the system preserves the formal legality of civilized concepts like human rights, justice, and private property, in practice, it operates on a Marxist-fascist foundation: it systematically violates the individual through taxation, regulation, and bureaucratic entrapment—leaving only a small, politically-connected class permitted to engage in a narrow, state-sanctioned form of commerce.

Which is why Democrats really love it.

Read it.

refugee—is sitting in her seat on the Charlotte, North Carolina, light rail, engrossed in her phone as she is riding home after work. A black male, Decarlos Brown, sits behind her and he suddenly stands up and quickly stabs her with a large pocketknife.

A few minutes later, she is dead, having bled out in the rail car, another young black male trying to comfort her and stop the bleeding with his shirt. Her killer mutters something about getting “the white girl” and steps off the train at the next stop, only to be quickly arrested.

There are numerous angles to this story, and they cut across nearly every debated social issue in this country from race to lenient judges to safety on public transportation.

ATQUE: N.C. Passes ‘Iryna’s Law’ After Refugee’s Stabbing Death

Newsbusters.

Along comes the hard-left Guardian US to save the day with an article by Adrienne Matei entitled “From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home.”

It’s a l-o-n-g and rambling piece, but one thing can be said in its favor: it doesn’t lack a sense of humor.

Thus, a “cultural historian” is quoted as saying:

“There’s been a reluctance to name this moment as fascism.”

Right! So much reluctance that Googling “Trump fascism” yields only 20.4 million results in 0.33 seconds.

“Tax Cattle”: coined by the YouTube giant hoe_math, whose channel I heartily recommend.