Read it.

Tesla’s armored pickup truck, with shatter-resistant windows and ultra-hard stainless steel exoskeleton, appears to be thief-proof and now “California-tested” after a new video shows an unsuccessful break-in by a group of thieves.

“Cybertruck is California-proof. Armored glass beats criminals trying their best to break in – even when jumping on the roof,” X user Arash Malek said in a post.

The Foundry.

Public universities in Texas are in the sights of the latest undercover investigation by the Accuracy in Media team to reveal schools’ flagrant disregard for the law in red states.

“Now that a number of states have prohibited DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and critical race theory in higher education, we decided to take our cameras to those universities to find out if they were actually adhering to the law,” Adam Guillette, president of Accuracy in Media, told The Daily Signal in a recent interview.

“Not surprisingly, a half-dozen universities in Texas, funded by our tax dollars, had administrators that bragged to us about how they ignored the law,” Guillette said.

Read it.

Mothers inadvertently are exposing their young daughters to male predators on Instagram in a quest to garner money and fame, an investigation published Thursday by The New York Times found.

The Instagram accounts, numbering in the thousands, reveal how social media platforms are altering the definition of childhood and the increasing commodification of young girls, the Times found. In some cases, mothers managing the accounts actively sell photographs, previously worn outfits, and chat sessions with their underage daughters.

Top patrons are willing to spend thousands of dollars to foster inappropriate relationships with these children, often resulting in abuse, according to the Times. In some cases, men flirt, torment, and extort the daughters and parents into providing increasingly scandalous photos.

The Free Press.

Just over a week ago, Marco Troper, the 19-year-old son of former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, died in his Berkeley dorm room after taking a drug.
“We don’t know what was in it,” his grandmother Esther Wojcicki told local media. “Teenagers and college students need to know that drugs today are not the same as the drugs of yesterday. They’re often laced with fentanyl.”
His family are waiting on the results of a toxicology report, which could take up to a month. But if it’s true that Marco lost his life to fentanyl, one thing is clear: he did not die of an overdose.
He was poisoned.

New York Times 

Whenever Dennis Wilson wants to take a drive in his new SUV, he has to set aside an extra 15 minutes. That’s about how long it takes to remove the car’s steering wheel club, undo four tire locks and lower a yellow bollard before backing out of his driveway.
His Honda CR-V is also fitted with two alarm systems, a vehicle tracking device and, for good measure, four Apple AirTags. Its remote-access key fob rests in a Faraday bag, to jam illicit unlocking signals.
As a final touch, he mounted two motion-sensitive floodlights on his house and aimed them at the driveway in his modest neighborhood in Toronto.
But all of these security gadgets, Mr. Wilson is convinced, will do no more than delay what seems inevitable: Toronto’s seasoned auto thieves won’t be deterred by the defensive gear, and they’ll make off with this Honda SUV just as they did with its predecessor — and its insurance replacement, which they returned to steal.
“By no means do I think that I’ve stopped them,” Mr. Wilson said. “All I’ve done is made it take an extra 10 minutes to steal my car.”

Read it.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Cargo Cult, it appeared in various forms in Melanesia during the early to mid-20th Century. The best known, and the one to which Dr Feynman refers, was the John Frum Movement. During World War II, these cultists observed the belligerents using aircraft to move cargo, either by air-drop or landing on airstrips. Wanting this wealth for themselves, though knowing nothing about aviation, they tried to replicate factors they had observed.

Read it.

In the era of Big Tech ‘Cloud-ism’ or ‘Late Capitalism,’ the de facto three branches of government are mass media, intelligence, and finance. And if we add municipal authority to Montesquieu’s trio, its parody, replacing the town square and marketplace, would be Big Tech’s digital platforms.

Drawing these four cardinal functions together is the idea of an ‘everything app,’ which threatens to concentrate our ability to receive information (media), manage our bank accounts (finance), and make purchases and express opinions (online platforms), all while tracking the citizenry (intelligence).

On one level, the incentive here is convenience. The advantage of an ‘everything app’ isn’t that all these functions will be in one place (your phone’s screen is already one place), but that you can carry out online activities (buy train tickets, get food delivered, check your bank statement, send a message to someone) without having an account with each activity’s service’s provider.

The Other McCain.

Active duty U.S. Air Force soldier Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washing DC as a protest to the “genocide” in Gaza. His death was determined hours later at a hospital.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

The Shirky principle is the adage that “institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”. More broadly, it can also be characterized as the adage that “every entity tends to prolong the problem it is solving”.

For example, the Shirky principle means that a government agency that’s meant to address a certain societal issue may hinder attempts by others to address the issue, in order to ensure that the agency remains relevant. Alternatively, the agency may become so focused on the current way in which it addresses the issue that it will fail to adopt better new solutions as they become available, thus prolonging the issue.

The Shirky principle has important implications in various domains, so it’s important to understand it. As such, in the following article you will learn more about this principle, and see what you can do about it in practice.

Read it.

It’s not just fentanyl that is flooding the US courtesy of Biden’s open border policies: a record amount of methamphetamine was seized by US Customs and Border Protection agents at the Camino Real International Bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas, which is also known locally as Bridge II.

Read it.

Kudos to Greg Abbott for spreading the pain around to virtue-signaling blue-state mayors.

New York Post.

Republican lawmakers lashed out at the Biden administration over its lax border policies after a Venezuelan national who allegedly entered the United States illegally was arrested for killing a Georgia nursing student.

Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was arrested Friday in connection to the murder of Laken Riley whose body was discovered near a lake on the University of Georgia campus the previous day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) offered prayers for Riley’s family and friends before tearing into President Biden for his administration’s policies leading to the 22-year-old’s murder.

BLM and Antifa rioted for months because of the death of drug addict and felon George Floyd; notice how nothing happens when the victim is an innocent white female college student.

Read it.

The former director of Panama’s border patrol told The Epoch Times that the United Nations’ migration agenda is behind the chaos at the U.S. southern border and that U.N. partners are making things worse instead of better.

Read it.

approaches to the news that a released illegal immigrant has been charged with the murder of a Georgia college student on the respective editions of Good Morning America, Today and CBS Saturday Mornings. ABC mentioned the illegal immigrant part, but not the released part. NBC mentioned the murder but omitted the illegal immigrant angle, and CBS ignored the story altogether.

Read it.

Kentucky’s attorney general is investigating a health care company that wired $200,000 to James Biden the same day he wrote a check for that amount to his brother and future president Joe Biden.

James Biden worked as a consultant for Americore Holdings LLC, a Florida-based hospital chain that later collapsed. Americore declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 2022 under federal law amid reports of massive staff departures, poor patient care, and poor equipment at one of the hospitals in the state.

It’s not clear whether the probe by the office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, extends to members of the Biden family.

Read it.

A San Francisco store is making customers shop with escorts for part of the day to curb “rampant shoplifting,” representing the latest business to find difficulty operating in the city.

Fredericksen Hardware and Paint is asking customers to wait at a table in the front of the building until an employee can serve them, the local KRON4 reported Thursday. This system is in place for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening.

“Due to the rampant shoplifting, Fredericksen has introduced a one-on-one shopping experience,” reads a sign on a table blocking access to the store. “Wait here, and a clerk will be right with you to help you with your shopping needs. We’re sorry for the inconvenience!”

The Foundry.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

One, the prosecutors are either unapologetically left wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

Two, the cases are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Trump.

Carroll’s suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.

Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

Read it.

Four years after the pandemic, it’s still hard to predict where any particular public intellectual stands on lockdowns, mandates and the entire calamity of the response to COVID.

Very few have apologized.

Most have moved on as if nothing has happened. Some have dug into their own apostasy even more deeply.

Newsbusters.

The nation reels over images of Venezuelan migrants beating up on New York cops in Times Square, and is disgusted to discover that the dangerous transnational criminal gang known as Tren de Aragua has established beachheads in New York, Miami and Chicago. Reasonable people might believe that it is time, perhaps, to accelerate deportation of these criminal elements back to Venezuela. But did you know that the Maduro dictatorship stopped allowing deportation flights from the US?

Power Line.

On February 21, 2020, in Amador County, California, police found the dead body of Philip Haney, 66, hardly the typical Sierra foothills resident. A UC Riverside alum, Haney worked as an agricultural entomologist in the Middle East, where he studied Arabic and the Quran. With that background, Haney seemed a good fit for the Department of Homeland Security, but DHS bosses had a problem.

As Haney told The Hill in 2016, “DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties,” that is, “to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS).” That year Haney authored See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.

In November of 2019, Haney told the Washington Examiner he had “a severely hyper-organized archive of everything that’s happened” since See Something, Say Nothing. As the whistleblower explained, “my intention is to have it ready by early to mid-Spring of 2020 (just before the political sound wave hits), then ride that wave all the way to the Nov. elections.” On February 21, 2020, Haney turned up dead by gunshot.

The American Mind.

Politicians in both parties pay lip service to working- and middle-class interests, but generally ignore their major concerns. In poll after poll most voters identify their main concerns as inflation, lack of economic opportunity, health care, and issues such as crime and immigration that directly affect their jobs, their earnings, and their families. Relatively few, well under 5 percent, mention such things as the environment, racism, abortion, or even foreign policy, notes Gallup, a finding confirmed in recent Pew surveys.

This process is best seen by comparing education levels. Once a minor factor, educated voters since 2017, particularly with graduate degrees, have tilted toward the Democrats, beating Republicans by almost 30 percentage points. In contrast, those without a college education have gone from 14 percent more Democratic to 14 percent more GOP leaning.

The predominance of class is a key determinant amidst what are perceived as bleak times for working people. Many are simply dropping out; labor participation of men is now lower than in 1940, notes demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, when unemployment was three times higher. One recent poll found that only 34 percent of Americans approve of Bidenomics. By last summer a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans think the economy is worse now than in 2020, when the pandemic started in the U.S.

Read it.

Remington, the nation’s oldest gun manufacturer, which has been located for more than 200 years in Ilion, New York, will move to LaGrange, Georgia, on March 4.

“Two hundred and eight years of history. Gone, gone,” Ilion Mayor John P. Stephens told the New York Times. “Ilion is Remington. Remington is Ilion.”

“The history and the nostalgic loss that we’re going to suffer is almost, if not bigger, than the financial loss,” Stevens added, whose father was an employee at Remington for 37 years.

Read it.

Anger over a $355 million civil judgment against former President Donald Trump has major investors reconsidering doing business with New York.

Real estate mogul Grant Cardone said Wednesday his firm Cardone Capital will no longer underwrite New York real estate in the wake of Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling Friday in a civil lawsuit brought by Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James that also prevents Trump from doing business in the state for three years.

“Immediately discontinue ALL underwriting on New York City real estate,” Cardone posted Wednesday on X. “The risk outweigh the opportunities at this time. Recent political decisions will continue to deteriorate price and benefit states that don’t have these challenges.

“Focus on Texas & Florida.”

Y’all come on down….

BBC.

The test firing of a Trident missile from a Royal Navy submarine has failed, for the second time in a row.
The latest test of the UK’s nuclear deterrent was from HMS Vanguard and was witnessed by the defence secretary.
The missile’s booster rockets failed and it landed in the sea close to the launch site, according to the Sun, which first reported the malfunction.
When on patrol missiles would usually carry nuclear warheads but they are not fitted for test fires.
The Ministry of Defence said the “nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective”.

You can tell when government employees are lying because their lips are moving.

Read it.

The coach of a high school girls basketball team in Massachusetts forfeited a game at halftime earlier this month after a biological male playing for the other team had injured three of his players during the physical game.

Read it.

After around two decades of being told that mass immigration is good for the economy—essential, in fact, to keep it afloat—Britons have been informed that jobless legal migrants have cost them almost £24 billion (€28 billion) in just four years.

This amount has been paid by taxpayers since 2020 to cover the costs of services and accommodation for “economically inactive” individuals who have moved to Britain and are neither in work nor looking for work, and so are not contributing to the economy.

That is according to the Centre for Migration Control (CfMC) think tank, whose findings are based on data from the Office for National Statistics. It said that 2023 saw a record number (711,500) of “economically inactive adult migrants, regardless of the visa on which they arrived.”

“Hello! I want to live in your country! Give me money!”

Read it.

A full 60% of Texas voters say “there will be political violence in the United States in response to the 2024 election results,” according to a new poll from The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

Roughly 24% of respondents said political violence is “very likely,” while 36% found it “somewhat likely.” Comparatively, 21% said violence was “not too likely,” and only 5% said it was “not at all likely.” About 14% were unsure.

“Dark attitudes from the 2020 election and violent reactions to its outcome among Trump supporters continue to lurk in Texas public opinion,” wrote Jim Henson and Joshua Blank in their summary.

OffGuardian.

In 2021, after a year-long protest, India’s farmers brought about the repeal of three farm laws that were intended to ‘liberalise’ the agriculture sector.

Now, in 2024, farmers are again protesting. The underlying issues and the facilitation of the neoliberal corporatisation of farming that sparked the previous protest remain and have not been resolved.

The World Bank, the World Trade Organization, global agribusiness and financial capital are working to corporatise India’s agriculture sector. This plan goes back to the early 1990s and India’s foreign exchange crisis, which was used (and manipulated) to set this plan in motion. This ‘structural adjustment’ policy and process involves displacing the current food production system with contract farming and an industrial model of agriculture and food retail that serves the above interests.

Read it.

The most recent results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight a concerning trend for U.S. students in the field of math.

In comparison to their counterparts in other industrialized nations, American students are falling behind. The rather sobering results revealed a 13-point decline for U.S. students when compared to the 2018 exam.

One of the podcasts on YouTube that I watch occasionally is fond of showing a crew stopping people on the street, showing them a map of the world with country outlines on it, and asking whether they can name a country. It’s surprising how many people think that “Africa” or “South America” are countries.

Read it.

n case you’re wondering whether or not libraries still have use in the age of the internet, they do. And we have Gavin Newsom’s state to thank in helping the nation get reacquainted with their new purpose.

That use appears to now be a designated place for drug use, robberies and public sex. At least, that was the case at the Contra Costa County Library’s Antioch Branch in California, according to a new NY Post article.

The city of Antioch is about 45 miles northeast of Oakland and is home to about 115,000 people.

Read it.

One thing Chicagoans can’t help but notice when scrolling through news feeds: the number of violent crimes committed by defendants while they were out either on parole, probation or awaiting trial.

That’s not surprising given the long-term decarceration trend in Cook County that’s left the county’s jail population at the lowest level in 40 years. Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans started a no bail/low cash bail policy in 2017, resulting in a growing number of pretrial defendants out on bond who are then charged with new crimes, as we reported here. The state’s new SAFE-T Act has taken that policy even further. In September 2023, Illinois became the first state in the country to eliminate cash bail altogether, while the law also reduced the types of crimes for which defendants could be detained before their trial.

The big question in 2024 is how will the SAFE-T Act impact crime, everything else equal. It’s still far too early to determine whether there are more violent defendants out on the streets awaiting trial and, unfortunately, the government is far behind on releasing the relevant data on that, according to a recent BGA report.

Read it.

On Saturday, 10 February 2024, Giorgia Meloni paid tribute to the victims of the Foibe massacres, perpetrated by Yugoslavian communists during and just after WWII, in a solemn ceremony at the Foiba in Basovizza. This fact alone is newsworthy, because it is the first time that an Italian prime minister has attended a ceremony in memory of the thousands of Italians killed and the hundreds of thousands who had to go into exile. “I came here as a child,” Meloni recalled, “when few did, because it meant being singled out, accused, isolated.” The victims were forgotten and the exiles were repudiated in their own country for decades. The official remembrance came only twenty years ago. With her presence, Meloni wanted to settle a historical debt: “The homeland is the family of the heart; so you, who have defended and loved this homeland and thus contributed to building it, are our family.”

Istria, Fiume, and Dalmatia—where there was a majority Italian population—were incorporated into Italy after the end of World War I. But after the defeat of fascism, they were integrated into Yugoslavia in February of 1947 as a result of the Paris Peace Treaties. Consequently, the Italian population was forced to leave their lands and homes. In what became known as the Istrian-Dalmatian exodus, some 300,000-350,000 Italians left the region. For example, the town of Pola (now Pula, in Croatia) had 33,000 inhabitants in February 1947; but, after the exodus, only 3,000 people remained.

The Italians were well aware of what awaited them under communist rule, because they had suffered persecution at the hands of Tito’s partisans since late 1943. In the early post-war years, the partisans murdered thousands of Italian civilians in a campaign of ethnic cleansing—men, women and children, under the pretext that they were “supporters” of fascism. Figures vary from 5,000 to 10,000 killed, although some historians put the number as high as 15,000. The victims were shot or thrown alive into natural sinkholes called “foibe,” which are abundant in the region: there are more than 1,700 in the Istria area alone, and some are up to 200 metres deep.

NBC News.

Gee, those gun control laws really work, don’t they?

New York Post.

Unsettling Post footage and interviews with US residents along the Canadian border offer a rare glimpse into the thriving migrant smuggling operation that has taken hold up north in addition to the debacle to the south.
Residents of bucolic Swanton, Vt. — a town of about 6,500 people located just across Lake Champlain from New York and about a 10-minute drive from the Canadian border — have been getting a troubling firsthand look at the US’s northern illegal-migrant crisis for months.
The town’s plentiful woods make the leafy hamlet an ideal spot for hunters — and also provide ample camouflage for smugglers, who have become so rampant that some locals are packing pistols to protect themselves and turning into amateur sleuths to help thwart them.
“Now I’ve got the Border Patrol guys on speed dial,” local Chris Feeley, 52, recently grimly acknowledged.

UPDATE: Vermont Town Gets First-Hand Look at Border Invasion

NewsMax.

New York businesses may leave the state following New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron’s historic $364 million verdict against Donald Trump, top financial services executives tell the New York Post.

They already considered the New York State Attorney General’s Office a major obstruction to doing business, starting with New York AG Elliot Spitzer, aka the sheriff of Wall Street. Despite forcing financial firms to fork over billions, Spitzer’s cases primarily focused on minor offenses.

The office has liberally used state laws, such as the Martin act, for political advancement, according to the Post.

In the cases against Trump and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York AG Letitia James has taken Spitzer’s strategies to a new level, Wall Street executives say.

Time to leave.

Read it.

A leading member of a Canadian centre-Left party supporting Justin Trudeau’s minority Government has tabled a bill seeking to jail people who speak out in favour of hydrocarbon fuels. Charlie Angus is a leading member of the NDP party which has 25 seats in the Canadian Parliament, and his bill seeks to ban the commercial promotion of hydrocarbons by any means “that is likely to influence and shape attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about the product or service”. Angus’s bill (C-372) is given the Orwellian title of ‘An Act respecting fossil fuel advertising’, and under this proposed anti-free speech measure, a gas station retailer could be fined C$50,000 for offering a complementary coffee and doughnut with every full tank.

Canada is really turning into a totalitarian hellhole.

BBC.

Even in the dead of Canada’s winter, the embers of last year’s record-setting wildfire season remain. So-called zombie fires are burning under thick layers of snow at an unprecedented rate, raising fears about what the coming summer may bring.

OffGuardian.

And here comes the killer. You trust. You trust that the people in the world who have the power to take care of the things you care about also care about the same things.

They don’t.

Yeah, sure, they care about their own children (maybe, but I have my doubts) they care about the water they drink, the food they eat, and the safety of the bed they sleep in under the roof of the house they live in. But they don’t care about you. Not one single iota do they care about you. In fact, they would just as soon throw you and your babies in an incinerator if it helped them achieve their own goals in the world. They don’t care.

Read it.

In a world inundated with information, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect provides a critical lens to view our interaction with media. Coined by author Michael Crichton and named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, this concept describes a curious paradox: the tendency of individuals to doubt news stories about subjects within their field of expertise yet readily accept the veracity of articles on topics outside their expertise. This phenomenon highlights the inconsistencies in our approach to media and poses significant questions about our perception of knowledge and credibility.

Read it.

While most people’s attention is focused on the dual crisis of America’s southern border and President Biden’s apparent brain freeze, they shouldn’t forget that over the last few months, the USA’s slide into a quasi-Marxist dystopia may be shifting into high gear. I’m basing this unpleasant conclusion on the following data points.

One is California governor Gavin Newsom’s proud introduction in California of his state’s Cradle-to-Grave Data Collection System (C2C), this clone of Communist China’s notorious Social Credit Score system began operation last October. California’s Office of the Governor’s homepage proudly boasts that since its launch, the C2C system has already scooped up more than 1 billion data points on all aspects of Californians’ lives and “will provide the public, researchers, and lawmakers unprecedented insight that could improve the education and quality of life for millions of Californians.”

And, according to Governor Newsom, C2C’s pervasive system of surveillance can, “By leveraging billions of data points, California’s Cradle-to-Career data system will be a game-changer for improving the quality of life for millions of Californians and highlighting ways to improve opportunity in the classroom and access to the workforce. Through insights and innovation only made possible by this system, the Golden State is leading the nation in equitably connecting our education system to the workforce to ensure every Californian has the freedom to succeed.”

I wonder if the good governor and Xi Jinping compared notes during Newsom’s October 2023 trip to China?

OffGuardian.

In the digital age, the incessant calls to action reverberate across the virtual landscape, summoning legions of fervent warriors to wage battles against perceived evils.

This rallying cry, echoing the urgency of a multitude of crusades, permeates our online existence. Be it the casual dehumanization of entire swaths of people to the slow deterioration of language through constant decries of ‘racist’ and ‘pedo’—everything is a conflict now. A conquest. A campaign against the devil himself. We do not ‘treat’ cancer; we FIGHT IT. We do not discuss climate change; we FIGHT IT! It is not enough to ‘Not be racist’; you have FIGHT against racism! The fight against homelessness, the fight against heart disease, the fight against hate—that’s a novel one.

The internet has become a constant battlefield where zeal and fury and bold, untenable posturing are prized virtues. Amidst this cacophony, a troubling pattern emerges—the call to arms is always fueled by fear, anger, outrage and the demonization of specific, or sometimes not-so-specific, groups of human beings. It is a grand mobilization, an ever-present summons to fight against perceived devils, urging countless brave soldiers to embark on a crusade. Yet, as we heed these calls, it is essential to question the consequences of blind action and reflect on the historical echoes that warn of the perils of unchecked zeal.

Read it.

On January 24, Stanford University held a forum on combating anti-Semitism. The event, which featured Stanford president Richard Saller and provost Jenny Martinez, was meant to reassure Jewish students that the university had their back amid the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping college campuses.

“We really do want to make sure that all of the communities on campus get the respect that they deserve,” Saller told the forum. “We’re committed to equal treatment and equal protection.”

The events that transpired that night undercut that message. By the end of the evening, protesters had physically threatened Jewish students, harassed a rabbi, and told employees of the elite university that they would “find out where you live.”

The Guardian.

Chicago will not renew its ShotSpotter contract and plans to stop using the controversial gunshot detection system later this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office announced on Tuesday.

The system, which relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm and network of microphones to identify gunshots, has been criticized for inaccuracy, racial bias and law enforcement misuse. An Associated Press investigation of the technology detailed how police and prosecutors used ShotSpotter data as evidence in charging a Chicago grandfather with murder before a judge dismissed the case due to insufficient evidence.

Chicago’s contract with SoundThinking, a public safety technology company that says its ShotSpotter tool is used in roughly 150 cities, expires on Friday. The city plans to wind down use of ShotSpotter technology by late September, according to city officials. Since 2018, the city has spent $49m on ShotSpotter.

“Chicago will deploy its resources on the most effective strategies and tactics proven to accelerate the current downward trend in violent crime,” the city said in a statement.

“Doing this work, in consultation with community, violence prevention organizations and law enforcement, provides a pathway to a better, stronger, safer Chicago for all.”

Young male black gang-bangers will vote for Johnson for a hundred years, per Lyndon Johnson.

Read it.

As inflation remains stubbornly high, farmers throughout the Western world are warning that cost increases from the net zero movement will drive food prices still higher, while simultaneously putting many smaller farmers out of business.

“Let them eat bugs!”

Read it.

Denver is buckling under a financial crisis caused by illegal immigration. But the fault lies not in the stars, but with the city itself.

“Denver will cut hours at recreation centers, end in-person vehicle-registration renewals and eliminate spring flower beds to save $5 million this year, a response to the migrant crisis that is expected to cost the city $180 million,” the Colorado Sun reported.

But the city isn’t just cutting corners on niche city services.

Get Woke, go broke.

Read it.

Another day, another city, another collapse in the commercial real estate market.

This week the property in question is a 20 story building located at 1515 Market St. in Philadelphia, which Philadelphia Business Journal notes has “joined a growing list” of distressed office properties in the city.

Almost $60 million in debt backed by the building was moved to special servicing in December, the report says. Owner Accesso Partners, based in Florida, has a $59.4 million balance on the building, which it acquired in 2014 for $85 million.

Power Line.

“We do have three persons detained and under investigation for today’s incident,” Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves told reporters Wednesday. According to Graves, “bad actors” had caused the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ rally, and unidentified “officials” said they did not believe the motive was terrorism. (Word starting to dribble out today that the shooting may have been “a personal matter,” which is a euphemism for “gang-related.”)

Fox News identified no suspects or possible motive, and provided no information on the firearms used in the attack.

According to Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings, the high number of wounded and low number of dead suggests that the perps were non-white. The fact that no news outlet has mentioned the perps’ race or provided pictures reinforces this suspicion.

Read it.

Rachel Dolezal was president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP when she posed for this 2015 photo. Dolezal resigned June 15, 2015, amid a furor over racial identity that erupted when her parents came forward to say she has been posing as Black for years when she is actually white. She has changed her name to Nkechi Diallo and now lives in Tucson, where she was working as a part-time instructor for Catalina Foothills Unified School District. District officials said she is no longer employed there after they learned Tuesday of her OnlyFans social media content.

Read it.

A migrant charged with assaulting two cops in Times Square last month and subsequently freed without bail was arrested again Tuesday night while allegedly trying to rob a Macy’s store in Queens.

NYPD officials confirmed 19-year-old Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel as one of four individuals accused of “acting in concert” to steal over $600 worth of clothing in the Queens Center Mall at around 5:30 p.m Tuesday. A security guard tried to confront the suspects but was punched in the face by one of them and suffered minor injuries.

While Gomez-Izquiel was arrested after getting away initially, the other three suspects—two men and a woman—remain on the run as of Wednesday morning. “[Gomez-Izquiel] acted as a lookout with a group of three unapprehend[ed] others, who concealed merchandise from inside the store and passed all points of sale without paying,” the NYPD said in a statement.

The American Mind.

If you had asked me ten years ago about the possibility of a future civil war in America, I—an “Intelligence Community” veteran who analyzes civil conflict in Asia—would have laughed. I’m not laughing anymore, and neither are a lot of other people. Recent tensions between the federal government and Texas over the former’s refusal to secure the border and enforce immigration law are bringing to life scenarios that once seemed theoretical, if not fantastic. In mid-January, “Texas soldiers” took control of a section of the border near Eagle Pass and then denied access to federal agents, setting the stage for a standoff some alarmists are calling “today’s Fort Sumter.” Even as Texas pushes beyond legal and normative boundaries, creating a potential constitutional crisis in the process, more dangerous challenges lie ahead. In today’s America, a combination of democratic backsliding, ethnic factionalism, and elite splintering have set the stage for a series of intractable political and legal challenges that could plausibly lead to violence in 2024. The only real questions now relate to the scale of the violence and whether the American union will ultimately survive it.