Read it.

The writing is on the wall — bold and in large font — for private landowners and homeowners in areas governed by socialist-aligned officials who have zero respect for private property. They’re coming for your land.

Remember Marxist-aligned New York City Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who called for the government to “seize” luxury condos to house the homeless during the coronavirus pandemic. These far-left officials have made their Marxist intentions clear, and they can no longer be ignored.

Shift to the West Coast, homeowners in the fire-ravaged Palisades, part of the Los Angeles area governed by Marxist-aligned Mayor Karen Bass, have been left homeless and with more questions than answers.

Instead of calling them ‘conspiracy theories’ we ought to call them ‘spoiler alerts’.

Democrat playbook: Encourage fires in places where rich people live though incompetent management, wait until the rich people give up on getting government permission to rebuind, then buy up the property at fire-sale (yuk yuk) prices, and build crappy government housing there to afflict the rich people with the same crime and homelessness problems that Democrats create everywhere.

Rinse, repeat.

Time to leave.

Power Line.

racked up preparing for his testimony before Congress last month,

Invoices reveal more about what Gov. Tim Walz’s $430K in legal bills paid for.

As I wrote earlier (with an update from John), Walz ran up the near half-million-dollar tab from a big-time Washington, DC, firm and has asked state taxpayers to cough up the cash to pay his tab. And let’s just say Walz didn’t exactly make us proud, or wow America, with his performance at the event itself. Did he even read the research they gave him?

So where did all the money go?

Read it.

The German Federal Ministry for Education and Families, run by centre-right CDU Minister Karin Prien, is facing mounting criticism after revelations that it has funneled nearly €11 million this year to the controversial DeZIM Institute—an organisation deeply embedded in Germany’s far-left activist scene.

DeZIM claims to combat racism and right-wing extremism—but its activities and partnerships reveal strong ties to radical left-wing activism. Almost all work done by the institute’s “researchers” is based on the belief that Germans live in a structurally racist society, according to media outlet Nius.de.

DeZIM’s leader, Naika Foroutan, described communism as a “utopia that is worth pursuing further.” She has lectured the Germans, saying that this country “per se belongs to no one.”

Read it.

Administration officials on July 13 defended President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement operations, including one on a California marijuana farm last week that a worker advocacy group alleges led to a man’s death.

Yeah, he was running away and managed to fall off a building. Yet somehow Trump is to blame.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem told NBC News’s “Meet the Press” on July 13 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained 361 illegal immigrants and encountered 14 unaccompanied minors during a July 10 operation on two marijuana farms in Southern California.

“At the California marijuana facilities, ICE and CBP law enforcement rescued at least 14 migrant children from what looks like exploitation, forced child labor, and potentially human trafficking or smuggling while facing assault and even gunfire,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Among those arrested were “criminals with convictions for rape, serial burglary, hit and run and DUIs,” she added.

Both marijuana sites are operated by and licensed to Glass House Farms, which confirmed the operation and said it was fully complying with the search warrants.

Read it.

There have been numerous ‘back to Africa’ movements over the years, usually promoted by leftist activists. Often these movements are driven by fantasies within the black American community of exporting the best of US life, economy, technology and infrastructure into Africa and far away from the “oppression” of white people.

Of course, it’s white people that created the majority of the marvels that define western civilization; the rest of the world simply seeks to imitate this model, often with limited success.

Back to Africa travelers most often come to this shocking realization after encountering a multitude of struggles when trying to assimilate into African societies. The limitations and lack of easily available resourced in Africa are stark. There is no monolithic culture with unified ideals in African nations, they are deeply tribal and view black Americans as distinctly separate and alien despite sharing similar skin color.

Black Americans also run up against the social disapprobation of their being descended from slaves.

Instead of accepting this reality and moving on, activists have proposed new projects that seek to build a kind of isolated bubble of wealth within an African enclave – They are so desperate for Wakanda to be real that they are hoping to conjure it into being.

The Right believe it when they see it. The Left see it when they believe it. Guess which one Reality favors.

Rap artist Akon, real name Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam, launched such an endeavor seven years ago with the intent to “free black Americans” from the racism of the west and bring the Marvel movie Utopia to life.

The $6 billion construction effort, called Akon City, was started with the support of the government of Senegal in 2018 and was also supposed to adopt a new cryptocurrency called “Akoin” (the imagination of modern artists is truly staggering). Sitting on Senegal’s Atlantic Coast, Akon’s high-tech, eco-friendly city was supposed to run entirely on renewable energy.

Of course, rappers are known for their opportunism, not their grand vision or leadership. Both Akon City and the Akoin project have met with failure, with Akon city being scrapped by Senegal and the cryptocurrency facing investment setbacks and accusations of mismanagement.

Of course, rappers are perfectly qualified to run major projects and organizations successfully–do they not have the Magic Skin Color that instantly makes them experts in everything?

The Telegraph (UK).

Anti-migrant violence broke out in a town in south-east Spain late on Saturday after an attack on a 68-year-old man earlier in the week.

Five people were hurt and police made one arrest during fighting between far-Right groups, locals and North African migrants in Torre-Pacheco, local officials told Reuters.

Apparently is is now ‘far-Right’ to protect your friends and neighbors from being attacked by foreigners. Well, that simplifies things.

The Telegraph (UK).

Middle class workers will face higher taxes later this year, a Cabinet minister has suggested.

Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, said the Government had promised not to increase taxes for “people on modest incomes”, and that Labour would base its policy on the “principle of fairness”.

Apparently it’s ‘fair’ to take your money if you have money, and not to take your money if you don’t have money.

Proglodytes just love to have a catchy tag that they can use to label people; after all, they tend to think in slogans.

Trump Calls Epstein List A Democrat Psyop, Tells MAGA ‘Not To Waste Time And Energy’

Trump faces a revolt from his MAGA base over the Epstein files (NBC News)

Trump Defends Bondi Amid MAGA Backlash Over Epstein Files

How the Trump shooting supercharged beliefs in a divine right of MAGA (Isaac Arnsdorf/Washington Post)

MAGA ‘Cruel Kids’ Reject ‘Silent Majority’ Label at Party of the Summer 

MAGA Is Tearing Itself Apart Over Jeffrey Epstein (David French/New York Times)  As if David French knows anything.

Former Obama Speechwriter Admits Shunning MAGA Didn’t Work

Who Goes MAGA? (TechDirt) Few make the connection this explicitly.

MAGA world erupts over Trump’s defense of Bondi amid Epstein files fallout (Emma Colton/Fox News)

MAGA cares more about Jeffrey Epstein than dying without Medicaid, which explains everything (Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer)  Will Bunch loses his shit, which is pretty much his job description.

Economy and Epstein: Gen Z MAGA wants results (Tal Axelrod/Axios)

Read it.

Things are not happy in Monterey County. The California county, which Kamala won by 63%, is considered a ‘sanctuary’ for illegal aliens by the Department of Homeland Security.

But that sanctuary status was recently violated and local officials are outraged. So is the Solidarity Network: a pro-illegal alien group that ‘monitors’ immigration enforcement arrests.

Monterey County Board of Supervisors Chair Chris Lopez responded by announcing that a maternal health walk was cancelled. “Monterey County deeply values the contributions of our immigrant workers and families that strengthen our local communities and economy,” Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo posted. The Monterey Solidarity Network promised to fight.

“A family man was taken from the street as he was taking his son to school,” the pro-illegal organization that had vowed to fight against President Trump’s immigration enforcement fumed. “How is ripping a man from his family, outside of his home, terrorizing his children, considered ‘compassionate’?”

Considering the arrested man’s past relationship with a child: it might be very compassionate.

Read it.

Whenever government fails (or refuses) to do its primary job, keeping people safe, people then have no alternative but to organize and do it themselves. This is typically tarted with the smear-term ‘vigilantism’, which like ‘black market’ or ‘price gouging’ is a tool used by the Ruling Class to denigrate things they don’t like.

Read it.

Germany’s highest administrative court has dealt a major blow to the government’s migration policies, ruling that Berlin must grant entry visas to thousands of Afghan migrants.

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed that the ruling is “legally binding,” therefore Germany has to “honour its promises.”

The decision follows a landmark case brought by an Afghan woman and her family, who were guaranteed relocation to Germany under the federal resettlement programme in October 2023 but have since been stranded in Pakistan.

The programme was introduced by the previous, leftist government which issued visas to Afghans at risk after the Taliban seized power in 2021.

More than 36,000 Afghans have entered Germany through these programmes, most of them via Pakistan.

While the initiative was intended for former local staff of the German army and other high-risk groups, internal government reports show that the system was exploited on a large scale, as the government allowed thousands of migrants to enter Germany with fake documents and fabricated stories.

Read it.

Well, actually, it doesn’t. Money is anything of value that can be used in trade (the ‘value’ of paper fiat currency is that governments will accept it in payment for debts to the government, which in modern society are almost inevitable). Tobacco products are famously used as ‘money’ in prisons; when I lived in New York City, subway tokens were almost universally accepted as being worth the nominal value of a subway fare (25 cents at the time). If people wanted to use gold and silver, whether in the form of coins or even of bits and pieces, they could do that. (The fact that doing so would be inconvenient and that most people are bone-lazy would generate enough friction to prevent it in most circumstances, but it could be done.)

Read it.

The United States has the most expensive transportation infrastructure in the world. That’s because we refuse to learn from experts, other countries, and our own history.

The government is typically why we can’t have nice things.

Read it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has withdrawn the nomination of Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly as vice admiral and command of the Navy’s strategically important 7th Fleet over drag queen shows he permitted on board the USS Ronald Reagan nearly 10 years ago, reports the Daily Wire.

The Senate approved Donnelly’s nomination on June 29, but Hegseth withdrew his name without any explanation.

“The Secretary is thankful for his continued service and wishes him luck in his next position,” an email from a spokesperson with the DOD told Stars & Stripes.

Uniform Code of Military Justice, Art. 133. Conduct unbecoming an officer

Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

It used to be ‘conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman’, but we don’t have gentlemen in the officer corps any more.

Read it.

What happens when governments refuse to govern? We can see the answer in the small German town of Harsefeld, Lower Saxony, which has lately been gripped by a wave of crime. Residents have been complaining of a gang of what appears to be mostly migrant teenagers terrorising the town with violence, drug dealing, and extortion. Police have apparently been unable to deal with the chaos, citing staffing shortages. The police station in Harsefeld is reportedly also closed, forcing emergency calls to be rerouted to a town 15 kilometres away and allowing criminals to flee before the authorities arrive.

In response to this breakdown of the law, local residents have been forced to take the law into their own hands. Groups of citizens have been patrolling the town and recording incidents. A police spokesman has described the groups as “quite creepy” and warned that “a vigilante group doesn’t help anyone.” Neither, presumably, does a completely impotent police force.

Local police say that they are currently investigating a number of reports, but that “it’s taking time,” despite the fact that the gang leaders are known to the authorities and video evidence exists of their crimes. But a significant backlog, as well as the German legal system making it difficult to prosecute minors, means that no charges have so far been brought against any of the perpetrators.

Read it.

Dramatic video footage from Ventura County, California, shows an anti-ICE protester discharging what appears to be a weapon at federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in an agricultural zone. The nature of the weapon remains unconfirmed.

“A protester was seen apparently firing some kind of weapon at federal agents during the immigration raid at a farm near Camarillo on Thursday. It’s unknown if anyone was injured in the chaos,” local media outlet ABC7 wrote in a post on X.

International Man.

War, in the long run, is a matter of economics. If you can’t afford to fight a war, you’ll lose the war. Missiles are now the preferred weapon for taking out enemy targets, and the only effective counter is anti-missile missiles. The problem is that both are brutally expensive. Can the costs be kept down, so war is more… affordable?

Generals, politicians, and “defense” contractors, however, love expensive high-tech toys. But if you’re going to afford a war, the most cost-effective weapon is an ignorant teenage boy—something the Third World, especially the Muslim world, is awash in. They’re cheap and stealthy delivery systems, far more effective than multi-million-dollar missiles. There’s an endless supply of them, and they can be employed in a myriad of ways. From an economic point of view, it makes no sense for technologically advanced countries (like the US) to use ultra-expensive weapons to attack primitive countries, as we’ve done for the last 75 years.

Regardless of the weapons used, the thing to remember is that war amounts to setting wealth on fire. Missiles are about taking real goods, manufactured at great expense, and using them to blow up other real wealth; there can be a perverse logic to it. However, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, I’m not sure governments are too concerned about lots of young men dying. A surplus of unemployed young males is destabilizing, especially in poor countries.

Even a large country like the US will eventually collapse under the weight of war. That’s much more true of the Ukraine. And vastly truer of Israel. Israel will further bankrupt itself shooting down missiles with ultra-expensive anti-missiles. With a gigantic debt load, enormous war expenditures and losses, living on welfare from the US, and no prospect of things getting better, the prognosis isn’t good. About a million (it’s said) of Israel’s seven million Jewish citizens have recently made the chicken run, and those who remain aren’t allowed to leave. I think Israel has a near-insoluble problem. Giving them more money and missiles won’t help.

Read it.

Australia’s special envoy on antisemitism has warned of a “deeply troubling” rise in hate crimes against the Jewish community, following a 300% surge in reported incidents since the outbreak of war in Gaza.

Speaking on Thursday, Jillian Segal outlined a series of recommendations to combat the threat, warning that antisemitism in Australia had reached a “tipping point that threatens social harmony.”

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Segal said Jewish Australians have faced a wave of intimidation, including arson attacks on synagogues, harassment, vandalism, and threats. “We’ve seen cars being torched, synagogues being torched, individual Jews harassed and attacked, and that is completely unacceptable,” she told reporters.

One Melbourne synagogue was targeted in a suspected arson attack last Friday. On the same day, around 20 protesters reportedly stormed an Israeli-owned restaurant, and cars were defaced with antisemitic graffiti.

Segal called for tougher hate crime laws, better Holocaust education, and accountability for universities that tolerate antisemitism. Her report also urged action against online hate and biased media.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese backed Segal’s recommendations, calling recent acts of antisemitism “despicable” and vowing they “won’t be tolerated.”

I remember a time when that headline would have read “Australian Jews” rather than “Jewish Australians”. (Consider the delicate distinction between “American blacks” and “black Americans”.)

Read it.

Germany’s social insurance system is coming under increasing pressure from demographic shifts and a stagnating economy. Long-term care insurance is no exception. The political class attempts to sedate the symptoms.

It confirms what demographers and economists have warned about for years: Germany’s social security structure is not built to withstand demographic change or recession. It is a fair-weather construction—a luxury that prosperous societies afford themselves in times of surplus, only to pare it down in times of crisis. That crisis, anticipated by economists such as Stefan Fetzer and Christian Hagist, has now arrived. In a widely discussed study, they predicted that without fundamental reforms, the German welfare state would reach a tipping point by 2030. By then, the total contribution rate to social security would rise to 44.5% of gross wages—suffocating the private sector in the process.

Read it.

Two people have died after a suspected attack by Houthi rebels on a Greek-owned vessel in the Red Sea, marking the first fatalities of seafarers in the vital shipping corridor for more than a year.

In the second attack in 24 hours, the Liberian-flagged cargo ship Eternity C came under fire from men in small boats and bomb-carrying sea drones on Monday evening, 50 nautical miles west of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthis.

Earlier, the rebel group claimed to have sunk a Greek-operated, Liberian-flagged commercial ship named Magic Seas. The Houthi attack on Magic Seas was the first in the Red Sea since December.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the strikes on Eternity C, Yemen’s exiled government and the European Union’s anti-piracy patrol Operation Atalanta blamed the Houthis.

Read it.

The Greek government announced tough new measures against migrants arriving from Libya on Tuesday, July 8th, following a major diplomatic incident in Benghazi, where local authorities denied entry for an EU delegation.

Migration flows from eastern Libya to Greece have surged in recent weeks. This week alone, 1,500 people landed on Crete after departing from Libya’s coast.

In response, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a temporary halt to asylum requests for individuals arriving from North Africa. “Greece will suspend asylum requests from individuals arriving from North Africa for three months,” he said.

The government aims to deter migrants from attempting the journey. “Those who manage to reach Greek territory will be confined in closed centers under administrative detention,” Mitsotakis noted.

The announcement comes just days after a high-profile EU delegation’s visit to Libya ended in controversy. Led by EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner, the delegation first held talks in Tripoli with the internationally recognized government. Then, after reaching the Benghazi airport in Eastern Libya, the members of the delegation were treated as personae non gratae and forced to fly back to Europe.

They ought to have done this ten years ago. The best way to ‘deter migrants’ is to sink their boats and watch them drown, not feed them and shelter them and argue endlessly about what to do with them. “If your people come to our country illegally they will die. Take whatever action you think appropriate. It is YOUR problem, not OUR problem.”

Read it.

Finland and Lithuania are set to produce anti-personnel landmines, according to reports dated Wednesday, July 8th.

Domestic production of the devices will permit their domestic defence sectors to be kept supplied and for Ukraine to become a buyer of the lethal devices in the future. Both countries share a border with Russia, making growing regional tensions a major concern for their governments and populations.

The two Scandinavian and Baltic countries have both announced their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of such technology in war and peacetime and cites the long-term effects of anti-personnel mines on civilians in current and former war zones. Ukraine looks set to make the same decision. (Its antagonist Russia was never a party to the Convention in the first place.)

Separately, three other NATO and European Union member states—Estonia, Latvia, and Poland—are also scheduled to withdraw from the treaty, again citing the Russian threat, with Polish defence firms claiming that they are ready to move into landmine production if required.

Land mines are a force-multiplier when you’ve got a smaller population than an opponent and thus fewer troops. Worrying about the effects on civilians is a very female concern, convenient for bleeding-hearts who are not engaged in an existential struggle, which modern warfare typically is. When enemy troops are crossing your border you want then STOPPED and to hell with its effect on civilians, who ought to have the wit to stay out of that area. Once the war is over is time enough to worry about cleaning up the land mines.

Read it.

Oh, the delicious irony. For many years I’ve been writing about the southern US border and the many ways in which Mexico has used it as a “steam valve” to get rid of people in perpetual poverty, as well as malcontents, violent criminals and political revolutionaries. Who could have foreseen a time when the conundrum would be reversed and Mexico would be crushed by an avalanche of its own unwanted citizens?

But weren’t we told that migrants are an “economic boon” to any country lucky enough to have them?

The argument among progressives and open border activists has always been that migrants are average law abiding people (just like us) who slip across the border simply to integrate into our society and live the American dream. They claim that Mexican leaders are not in control of the situation and that people are desperate to escape crime and social decline.

In reality, government officials have long encouraged migrant caravans to traverse their territories and they have allowed illegal immigration into the US as a means to divert their failures into the laps of American taxpayers. Migrants aren’t trying to escape problems in Mexico, they ARE the problem in Mexico. The more of these caravans the Mexican authorities can get rid of, the better their economic situation appears.

Turd World countries in the Middle East use the same trick, for the same reasons.

Read it.

The fentanyl crisis was not accidental. China supplies the chemicals, but it is the Mexican cartels who manufacture and distribute the poison. Fentanyl is a synthetic killer that has claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives. None of this would have been possible without the Biden administration’s reckless border policies. The cartels were given free rein to exploit a system that no longer functions.

Today’s cartels are not street gangs. They are paramilitary empires. Groups like the Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel have private armies, armored vehicles, encrypted communications, and surveillance technology. Some even use spyware like Pegasus to monitor law enforcement, journalists, and rival organizations. They are militarized, disciplined, and global in reach. And they operated with confidence because they knew our border was wide open.

Read it.

Today’s higher education accreditors let colleges and universities get away with mediocrity: low graduation rates, highly negative return on investment, and activism that looks little like scholarship.

Accreditors are meant to vouch for college quality and to recommend improvements—but they rarely hold institutions accountable for such travesties as a four-year graduation rate under 15%, a negative return on investment in six figures, and pervasive antisemitism. Instead, they often require “diversity” practices that bleed into illegal discrimination.

Fortunately, university systems in six states have formed a new accreditor to focus on “academic excellence” and “student outcomes.”

The new entity, the Commission for Public Higher Education, is a product of efforts led by the State University System of Florida and state systems in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas. (Texas has multiple state systems—the partner here is the Texas A&M University System.) It joins a small number of new accreditors bringing competition and innovation to higher education accreditation.

Read it.

three people dead and 10 others injured, including several teenagers.

The gunfire erupted just before 1 a.m. on the 1500 block of South Etting Street, and Ring camera footage captured multiple individuals pulling out firearms and shooting, according to ABC Philadelphia.

ABC Philadelphia writes that the shooters opened fire indiscriminately—even with children nearby.

“This is coward stuff. You see the size of this block—individuals just shooting randomly into houses, into cars,” said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel.

“I mean, this is coward, wannabe thug stuff.” Officers, already responding to reports of large gatherings and loud music, were nearby when they heard the shots. Upon arrival, they found a dozen victims aged 15 to 24, including a person injured while trying to flee the scene. Authorities released surveillance images of suspects seen in the Ring footage, and at least one person has been taken into custody, though their exact role is still unclear.

Read it.

Polish farmers on protest since mid-May against EU green policies have left their posts in the town of Szczecin, close to the German border, to join the growing Civic Border Defense Movement against the German federal police’s unlawful migrant dumping operations.

Despite PM Donald Tusk reinstating temporary checks on the German border earlier this week—after weeks of initially dismissing the concern as unfounded, right-wing “hysteria”—the scandal and growing diplomatic dispute have not subsided.

New footage of German police cars secretly dropping off illegal migrants on small country roads on the Polish side continues to circulate on social media, prompting Poles to remain skeptical about the liberal prime minister’s efforts to solve the crisis.

Read it.

Ukraine was widely recognized as the most corrupt country even before the Ukraine war, but since war broke out and tens of billions of euros have flowed into the country, corruption has flourished like never before.

Swiss newspaper Neue Züricher Zeitung details how a clique of oligarchs, many of them close to President Volodymyr Zelensky, have grown famously wealthy.

“These big businessmen are profiting enormously from the war, while also being patriotic, pro-Western and very discreet,” wrote the Swiss Neue Züricher Zeitung‘s (NZZ) Kyiv correspondent, Guillaume Ptak.

In other words, instead of showing off with sports cars, these new oligarchs know they have to keep their wealth hidden amid a devastating war. The paper details five individuals who have profited enormously.

Read it.

In the shadow of record profits and centi-billion dollar valuations, the American trucker is being pushed further to the sidelines – not by automation or fuel prices, but by corporate betrayal.

Walmart and Amazon — icons of “American” capitalism — are now placing signs at their distribution centers in foreign languages to accommodate an influx of non-domiciled, non-citizen truck drivers. Don’t be fooled… this isn’t about inclusion, it’s about replacing those more expensive American truck drivers.

Note the three languages displayed: English (this is, after all, America), French (yeah, well, Canadians are Americans, too) and … ARABIC? What do they know that you don’t?

Read it.

Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is looking at mounting a return to politics in Illinois about ten years after his release from prison for wire and mail fraud, Politico reports.

So long as Democrats keep voting for crooks, crooks will keep running as Democrats.

The Other McCain.

Say hello to Da’shontay “Day Day” King and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Day Day got shot to death by a cop in Racine, Wisconsin, in May 2022. The reason I’m writing this up now is kind of a long story, and let me preface this by repeating what I’ve often said before: Crime is a people problem. If you want to prevent crime, you must first understand that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a relatively small percentage of the population, i.e., habitual criminals. These are repeat offenders, who generally begin their criminal careers while still juveniles, and are more or less constantly involved in criminal activity their entire adult lives. The public is never safe as long as these habitual criminals are on the street, and so the goal of law enforcement should be to identify these hard-core types and, when they are apprehended for one of their many crimes, make sure they go to prison for the maximum sentence. I’ve called this “The Al Capone Rule” — it was difficult to get criminal convictions against the Chicago gang boss, so the feds indicted him for income tax evasion and put him away. It didn’t matter what charge Capone was finally convicted for — he’d obviously gotten away with all kinds of crimes, including murder. What really mattered was getting Capone off the streets. If modern-day law enforcement would use the same approach with habitual criminals, we’d have a lot less crime. And so . . . felon in possession of a firearm….

Imagine how low the crime rates would be if young black males were prohibited from possessing firearms.

Read it.

In my previous article, The Problem is Not Plagiarism, but Cargo Cult Science, I claimed that upwards of 90% of non-STEM academic papers should be classified as Cargo Cult Science. This assertion prompted a challenge from a HackerNews commenter who said I should “Pick a field and debunk it if you can.”

Sorry, commentor, that’s not the way science works. You have to demonstrate that your ‘science’ actually works, not the other way around.

To reiterate, Richard Feynman considers the main feature of Cargo Cult Science to be the following:

But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science.  That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation.  It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly.  It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards.  For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

That sure sounds like psychology to me. (Also economics, but let’s not go there.)

I’ve selected psychology as my Cargo Cult Science field of choice primarily because it’s one of the most obviously fraught subjects and due to my own brief academic detour into this field after dropping out of engineering (a very questionable decision in hindsight).

In psychology, papers are either p-hacked garbage that doesn’t replicate or, more commonly, have no scientific value due to their methodology or subject of study. These papers aren’t necessarily “false” per se, as much as they don’t produce any valuable knowledge by design, serving mainly to advance the careers of the authors through journal publications and the gathering of press and citations. I consider all these Cargo Cult Science.

While p-hacking and the replication crisis are widely acknowledged, albeit not solved, problems, I argue that these are minor compared to the four major issues that undermine psychology: reliance on surveys, disregarding indexicality, studying nouns, and using statistics.

This post will discuss the weaknesses in psychological research outside of clinical psychology. In a subsequent post, I plan to explore the problems with “mental illnesses” (especially depression) and their treatment.

The Other McCain.

But, yeah, mainly it was the gunfire.

Imagine how low the crime rates would be if young black males were prohibited from possessing firearms.

Read it.

The Trump administration recalled its top diplomat in Colombia, John McNamara, for “urgent consultations” on Thursday in response to what it described as “baseless and reprehensible” statements from senior Colombian officials. While the State Department did not specify which remarks prompted the move, it indicated that further actions would follow. In response, Colombian President Gustavo Petro recalled his country’s ambassador to the U.S., citing the need to reassess the bilateral relationship.

Tensions between the two nations have been rising, exacerbated by the recent shooting of opposition Senator Miguel Uribe, which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio blamed on inflammatory rhetoric from Colombia’s far-left government.

Earlier in the year, President Petro refused to accept deportation flights from the U.S., prompting President Trump to threaten tariffs and sanctions; however, that dispute was ultimately defused. Colombian Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia resigned amid the diplomatic fallout.

Read it.

Initial signs suggest a shift in federal posture toward increased scrutiny of rogue non-governmental organizations (NGOs) potentially engaged in domestic color revolution operations aimed at sowing chaos and destruction. These NGOs are reportedly backed by a mix of left-leaning (and often anti-American) high-net-worth individuals, U.S. taxpayer funds, corporate donations, and potentially hostile foreign actors.

Shortly after the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles last month, FBI Director Kash Patel stated, “The FBI is investigating any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots.”

Patel’s comments are merely a hint that federal investigations are intensifying on a network of leftist NGOs. Some of these NGOs are assessed to be deeply aligned with Marxists and are allegedly advocating for the dismantling of capitalism through color revolution operations aimed at collapsing the system as part of a broader ideological realignment—a so-called “great reset” oriented toward socialism and, ultimately, digital communism.

Independent researcher and content creator Nate Friedman (27, New York-based) has released a series of videos on X detailing the command and control structures of these dark-money-funded NGOs operating in New York City. Some of these NGOs are aligned with Marxism, potentially receiving overseas funding. His findings suggest these organizations are engaged in destabilization operations.

I love the smell of conspiracy in the morning.

Instead of calling them ‘conspiracy theories’ we ought to call them ‘spoiler alerts’.

Read it.

Heat waves in Western Europe are occurring earlier and earlier. They are no longer confined to July and August but now spill over into June and September. The ‘energy transition’ is seen as the universal remedy for ‘global warming’: with the help of heavily subsidised programmes, the aim is to imagine an ecologically correct future in which technology will lower the thermostat. In the meantime, mass housing is becoming unliveable, and children are baking in concrete schools where temperatures are reaching 40°C.

The unsuitability of homes and public buildings for the heat is the result of several decades of frenzied modernisation of the built environment in the years following the Second World War. As the countryside was being permanently depopulated, cities were surrounded by belts of low-rent buildings intended to house first the baby boomers and then, once that generation had passed, immigrants. These mass housing structures, built quickly using cheap materials, are now proving totally unsuited to rising temperatures.

And what about the public buildings that have sprung up in so many cities, built with glass and concrete? Libraries, community centres, administrative buildings, schools, and colleges have multiplied, with soulless, characterless architecture and materials that cannot withstand the test of time. Today, their ‘modernity’ is no longer attractive.

Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Four people have died from gunshot wounds and 14 others have been hospitalized following a drive-by shooting in Chicago, police said Thursday. At least three were in critical condition.

The shooting happened late Wednesday in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. Several media outlets said it happened outside a restaurant and lounge that had hosted an album release party for a rapper.

Someone opened fire into a crowd standing outside, police said, and the vehicle immediately drove away.

Imagine how low the crime rates would be if young black males were prohibited from possessing firearms.

UPDATE: Breaking: Chicago Man Not Shot (Babylon Bee)

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Last month marked 40 years of Schengen—what should have been a celebratory anniversary of a virtually borderless Europe. Instead, as a sign of the times, on July 1st, Poland announced the reinstatement of border controls with Germany and Lithuania, following accusations that its western neighbor secretly “dumped” illegal migrants inside Poland.

On 14 June 1985, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands met in the Luxembourg town of Schengen to sign an unprecedented agreement. It would allow the five countries to abolish checks at their internal borders, enabling the free movement of people, goods, and services between them.

Since then, as the European Union expanded, the Schengen area has been extended nine times—most recently at the beginning of this year to include Bulgaria and Romania. Today, it consists of 29 countries and guarantees free movement for 450 million people. The EU, naturally, regards this as a massive success and one of the bloc’s crowning achievements.

Power Line.

Both Scott and I have covered the truly bizarre saga of Wilson Tindi, the Kenyan-born, high-ranking Minnesota state bureaucrat, who also is an illegal immigrant, convicted felon, registered sex offender, and (alleged) serial drunk driver.

Wilson contains multitudes. But still, you can see why he tried (and failed) to change his name.

Alpha News has the update,

Minnesota Department of Education confirms convicted sex offender no longer employed by agency:
MDE said Wilson Tindi, a Kenyan national and convicted sex offender, earned $145,000. His last day was June 27, the same day Alpha News first reached out to the agency.

The Department also claims that he’d only been there since April, having previously worked at the state Pollution Control Agency.

I did more digging myself into Tindi’s story, uncovering the second (alleged) drunk driving arrest and more than $1,200 in unpaid court fines. Perhaps they could garnish his last paycheck?

The story began as an Alpha News exclusive and has stayed that way, with not one legacy media outlet picking up the story, which literally has everything.

If only Tindi, age 42, had done something truly transgressive, truly outrageous, like vote Republican, then his story could be told.

Power Line.

How many Twitter personalities are actually bots? Apparently, a great number. Many, pretending to be human beings, presumptively Americans, are in fact bots created in Iran, China, Russia, or some other likely-hostile country.

The same is true, I think, of mobs. Demonstrators can be turned out for many left-wing causes: today, it’s “Palestine.” Yesterday, it was “No Kings.” The day before, Black Lives Matter. To what extent are these protesters, sometimes violent, the same people? And to what extent are they being paid to protest?

I think they are, in fact, largely the same people. In the summer of 2021, my organization did an anti-Critical Race Theory tour of the state of Minnesota. We had protesters and bomb threats, and at one or two venues arrests were made. So we had armed security at all of those events after the first two. Toward the end of that tour, we did an event in Duluth that drew left-wing protesters, waving signs, chanting, etc. (It was a bit surreal, as the nearly all-white demonstrators accused one of our speakers, a black woman, of being a racist.)

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Columbia University has appointed Farah Jasmine Griffin, a longtime supporter of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, to the position of “University Professor,” the Ivy League school’s “highest academic distinction” reserved for “exceptional scholars.”

Columbia president Claire Shipman announced the move in a Monday statement, lauding Griffin as “a scholar of rare breadth and clarity” known for “the depth of her contributions to Columbia’s intellectual life.” Griffin joined Columbia in 2000 and served as the inaugural chair of the school’s American and African Diaspora Studies Department. She has been an outspoken proponent of the BDS movement during her time at Columbia.

As early as 2002, Griffin signed a divestment petition targeting Israel, prompting criticism from Columbia’s then-president, Lee Bollinger. More recently, in 2016, Griffin signed a faculty petition that accused Israel of “inhumane segregation and systemic forms of discrimination” and called on Columbia to “take a moral stance against Israel’s violence in all its forms” by divesting “from corporations that supply, perpetuate, and profit from a system that has subjugated the Palestinian people for over 68 years.”

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The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday, June 26th, ruled against France in a ‘racial profiling’ case following complaints from individuals who felt they had been targeted on the basis of racial criteria during police checks.

The ECHR decision that confirmed police ‘discrimination’ for the first time in France brings the issue of ethnic statistics back to the forefront: although banned in France, recording ethnicity would in fact help to set the record straight. If police officers ‘target’ certain populations during routine checks, it is because they are overrepresented among fraudsters and offenders.

The lawsuit was based on the case of a certain Karim Touil, who was stopped nearly 15 years ago and who believes he was the victim of police harassment because of his ethnic origin. Five other cases were also heard by the Court, but were dismissed.

The Foundry.

Activists in the revolutionary ecosystem that organize street mayhem are veering sharply from anti-deportation actions to pro-Iran ones. They may have to swap in flags of the Islamic Republic for the Mexican ones they’ve been waving in Los Angeles, or the Hamas ones they waved earlier, but so be it.

Unless, that is, the ceasefire that President Donald Trump announced late Monday sticks. In that case, the organizations in the ecosystem will move on to the next crisis, manufactured or not, that offers an opportunity to tear down society.

Who are these organizations lining up behind Iran’s theocracy? Some are committed to the anti-Israel cause, sort of a raison d’être for the Tehran regime at this point. But many others are secular, Marxist organizations that just want the destruction of the West in general.

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Socialists always rise to power in the midst of failed liberal leadership. The assumption being that liberal policies accomplish nothing because they “don’t go far enough” to push the collectivist values of wealth redistribution and equity-based cultural engineering. If only the political left asserted more control over people’s lives and property, all the ailments of American society would magically disappear.

In most cases socialism also fails to make people’s lives better. Though one could argue that it does eventually achieve its goals of equal wealth – Socialism makes everyone equally poor. In countries where socialism actually finds “success” a couple of factors are always present: A small population that avoids multiculturalism and mixed demographics, and access to abundant natural resources.

Wherever socialism in introduced into an otherwise prosperous economy, the standard of living automatically degrades. When socialism is used as a bandage to stop the financial bleeding of a depressed market wounded by liberal management, it always makes things far worse.

Time to leave.

UPDATE: How Zohran Mamdani Brought New Voters to the Polls (New York Times) Vote for me and get free stuff!

UPDATE: Mamdani says he doesn’t believe ‘that we should have billionaires’ (Tara Suter/The Hill)  The cornerstone of socialism it theft. Then,  when you run out of other people’s money, every one is equally miserable. See Venezuela.

UPDATE: Zohran Mamdani doubles down on plan to target ‘whiter neighborhoods’ with higher taxes — and says billionaires shouldn’t exist (New York Post)

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The blood of murdered mother of two Larisha Thompson, 40, is on the hands of former President Joe Biden, his open borders administration, and Democrats defending those, according to Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C.

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Welcome to 1934.

Time to leave.

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A local journalist at Fox Baltimore is starting to dive into the same rabbit hole we’ve explored for years—tracing the dark money networks funneling cash into left-wing nonprofits tied to the Democratic Party machine. Whether it’s funding anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles or quietly backing political campaigns, the funding network is vast, coordinated, and often concealed behind leftist law firms that create a web of pop-up nonprofit organizations.

Gary Collins of Fox Baltimore and the Baltimore Sun recently flagged a mysterious multi-week propaganda blitz—radio ads flooding the airwaves across the Baltimore metro area with praise for far-left Gov. Wes Moore’s supposedly ‘stellar’ economy. Collins noted that the campaign is now expanding to television.

The commercial, funded by America Works USA—a dark money-funded nonprofit affiliated with the Democratic Governors Association (DGA)—promotes Moore’s potentially misleading claims of economic growth, job creation, and a budget surplus.