Saltpeter & Pins - Call Me Pinny

Avid reader & writer. Ladies Coffee Club & Friday Evening Sewing Circle. Descendant of patriots. Wife. Former Beltway Bandit. Veteran. Rebel.

[William A. Jacobson @wajacobson]

This propaganda campaign has been incredibly effective, we should acknowledge that. Over at FB, most of our posts are not related to Israel, but when we do post about Israel, we get this sort of claim in comments, some of it undoubtedly is bot-like, but some of it is not. People have come to believe this fabrication.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

Ok, Trump Administration rant time.
Let me explain why shipbuilding is screwed.

I have been offered at least a half dozen jobs in this Administration. I did not ask for a single one. I did not lobby for a single one. They came to me & I reluctantly said yes, I will serve my nation.

Fingerprints. Background investigations. Interviews with security agents. Legal reviews. Selling my entire stock portfolio, hundreds of man hours. All for jobs I never wanted.

And all of it stonewalled by some SES somewhere that cabinet members can’t push through. Technically I’m still “in processing” for one of them, an SGE position, but my “Management Support Officer” stopped answering emails & calls in April. Ghosted.

Fine. IDC.

But there is one job I have asked for since Trump pulled ahead in the Republican primaries: Deputy Commandant of the US Merchant Marine.

It matters to my service & it is the office legally in charge of shipbuilding.

All three front runners for the Commandant position promised to fight for me.

The problem was that @SecDuffy, like every other cabinet member, refused to fire the previous SES & staff.

And nobody hates anyone in DC more than @PeteButtigieg’s former staff hates me.

So DOT staff still loyal to Pete said “hell no,” and Duffy handed the job to a congressional staffer instead. A guy who left the Merchant Marine at O3.

“He’s extremely smart, John”
“Everyone loves him”
“This guy is really going to fight for our nation”
“He has a law degree”

Fine. Have him call me, I said. He refused. Never once dropped a dime.

And guess what happened? He abruptly quit.

He didn’t just quit. He left to make bank as CEO of a lobbying firm representing FOREIGN SHIPPING interests.

I realize I’m “toxic.” I realize half of DC hates me. I understand my wife is a liberal who has donated to Democrats. I get that WAPO has run articles explaining what a terrible person I am. I get that I can be an ahole.

I happen to think the secretaries of the services SHOULD be very nice people. The deputies should be aholes who get sh!t done. That’s how a ship works. The captain is nice. The mate is not.

But that’s not what angers me. I don’t want to move to the swamp anyway. I enjoy making lots of money.

What angers me is that there are extraordinarily talented people who have donated thousands of hours to this fight, loyal to the Admin, whom PPO & Duffy still won’t nominate.

@brentdsadler, who launched the working group that became the SHIPS Act and works at the most pro-MAGA think tank in DC.

Dr. @mercoglianos, universally loved, knows more about the USMM than anyone alive, and a decorated USMM war veteran.

@TomDansCFA, who has fought for the USMM for years and whose twin brother masterminded Project 2025.

@Admiral_Foggo, a four star who could be collecting board fees & instead works tirelessly at a nonprofit to get ships built.

@cdrsalamander, who has been fighting DEI and fighting for USMM ships for twenty years.

@maphumanintent, already in the administration, already served as an assistant secretary.

The list goes on and on.

AND THIS POSITION REQUIRES NO SENATE CONFIRMATION. It’s a direct appointment.

Yet it has sat vacant for MONTHS.

And not just vacant. The entire community endorsed a candidate, an active duty Navy officer. @HungCao_VA pushed for the guy himself.

But there was lawfare against him. DoW investigated it. The court dismissed it as BS. He has worked in the White House. He works on sensitive intelligence right now. PPO still refused to take the chance.

“The press might find out and hang us.”

F “the press”

NOBODY IN THE PRESS gives two sh!ts about the USMM. Nobody except gCaptain which loves the guy.

“Too much political risk.”

So now we wait for them to find another useless staffer DOT can horse trade for broken promises of cooperation.
CONGRESS can’t even pass the SAVE Act.

And nobody wants this job, not even me anymore.

So we don’t have the #1 position that can push to unite Navy & USMM shipbuilding.

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

Friends, it is a mistake to think of good and evil with a Star Wars mentality: a battle between coequal forces where we don’t know who carries the day.

That is not biblical.

The Bible does not hold the world as a place of endless, unresolved conflict between coequal forces. Whatever mayhem we see is ultimately the result of the abused freedom of creatures—creatures that remain under the purview of God, acting only with his permission.

We have confidence in what the good God is about; he uses even dysfunction to cultivate and order all things to the good.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

You really need to read this to understand two things:

1) DSA is based on Maoist Communism very strongly

2) Maoist Communism is horrific beyond comprehension

[Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFree]

After Mao killed 45 million people through incompetence, Mao spent the last decade of his life killing more, this time through deliberate cruelty. And this time, the killers were teenagers.

Mao mobilized China’s youth high schoolers, college students as Red Guards, empowered to attack anyone deemed “bourgeois,” “revisionist,” or “counterrevolutionary”

In Beijing alone, in August–September 1966 (“Red August”), 1,772 people were beaten to death, mostly teachers and school administrators, by their own students

On August 5, 1966, Bian Zhongyun, vice-principal of the Beijing Normal University Girls Middle School, was beaten to death by her own female students girls between 13 and 17. This event marks the start of “Red August” and is one of the most-documented single killings of the era.

Total death toll: between 1.1 and 8 million killed outright, depending on methodology, with the Stanford sociological estimate by Andrew Walder at 1.1 to 1.6 million killed and 22 to 30 million persecuted

A leaked internal CCP document places the toll at nearly 2 million killed and 125 million “struggled against” a euphemism for public humiliation, torture, and denunciation.

But sure keep listening to the Turkish Muslim brotherhood for what America needs.

[American Debunk @AmericanDebunk]

Mamdani has been on our radar for a while now. I’ve always been skeptical of the alarmism that follows big elections, so when he first burst onto the scene I dismissed the noise.

But something really felt off in his viral "arrest Netanyahu" video this week.

I couldn’t quite name it at first, so I’m brain-dumping here with you. Here goes….

When Mamdani won, I ran a scenario in my head: he wins New York, governs as far left as our system typically allows, the money flees NY, and four years later the rich people who fled NY fund whoever challenges him and they get him out of there. Classic cycle. There will always be a corrective force. That’s why I never lost sleep over Mamdani.

That video changed everything for me and changed the way I see every subsequent clip of him. It feels like what’s beneath the surface does not match what’s on the surface.

On the surface, Mamdani is the picture of calm composure.

He speaks in measured, articulate sentences, never raises his voice. He nods gently as he talks as if quietly reassuring you that you can trust him.

Those who’ve followed me since 2021 know I am obsessed with body language, hypnosis, the subconscious mind, etc.

The nodding of the head throughout his Netanyahu arrest video is alarming. Not the nodding itself, but that it suggests he knows what he’s doing.

He’s speaking directly to your subconscious mind, telling you that everything is OK, that he can be trusted. It's a performance.

Beneath the surface lies a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The calm composure while nodding throughout is a warning sign. Something dark is stirring within him.

It’s unsettling.

Mamdani had not said a single word condemning Hamas for October 7th in this address, nor has he ever as far as I know.

He only addressed it the next day, and only after a reporter forced the question. Even then, he reduced the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to “a horrific war crime”.

A few seconds later he softened it further to something that “should be deeply opposed.”

That’s how I’d say it too if I was disingenuous. Inauthentic condemnation.

Democrats hunting for oppressors to denounce is nothing new. What’s new and unique about Mamdani is the delivery in which he did it. He made it a theatre event with dimmed lights. He released it at night as if it was a presidential primetime address. And he doesn’t come off as a whack job. What Mamdani said during his video wasn’t the part that was shocking or left me feeling like darkness was swarming around me. It was shocking because he was so composed while doing it.

And that’s why I am starting to feel as though Mamdani is actually dangerous. It’s not the socialism. It’s the composure and messaging.

He is high-IQ calm and an exceptionally gifted communicator. The clearest proof came the very next day on Jon Stewart’s show, where he sold democratic socialism like this:

“A lot of what we’ve come to accept as the facts of life across our country is driven by democratic socialist principles. If today you and I were to introduce the idea of a building that lends out books for free, we would be slandered… and yet that’s the library. And the same thing with the fire department, and the same thing with public schools.”

A+ persuasion/messaging game here. He uses a classic technique called pacing and leading.

First, he gets you nodding along to undeniable truths such as libraries are good, fire departments are good, public schools are normal.

Each “yes” builds momentum. Then, once you’re in rhythm, he slips in the thing he actually wants you to accept.

Democratic Socialism rides in on the back of those easy agreements.

He even borrows credibility by tying it to FDR and La Guardia. The way he can articulate and weave around in his answers is unique in that we’ve never seen it before from a Left-wing radical.

Left-wing radicals always come off as whackos. He doesn’t come off as a whacko...on the surface.

Compare him to what we’ve seen from other Democratic Socialists: AOC, Rashida Tlaib, THE SQUAD— erratic, shrill, and always saying things that make them seem low-IQ.

They are easy to dismiss. Honestly they seem batshit crazy. I always expect every socialist to self-destruct on camera.

Mamdani doesn’t self-destruct. He is calm where they are frantic, articulate where they are….stupid, and disciplined where they are impulsive.

He makes the same arguments, but he makes them sound reasonable and measured.

His library analogy on Jon Stewart's show was so perfect and true. That’s the danger.

For years, Democratic Socialism has been contained because its own messengers are literal morons.

Everyone who has ever tried to stand as the spokesperson for Democratic Socialism has looked like a hipster millennial with too much college debt, or hasn’t been articulate enough to mask the destructive ideology with something palatable.

The ideas rarely had to be defeated because the carriers defeat themselves. Mamdani breaks this pattern. He proves the ideology can be smart, composed, high-IQ, and persuasive.

It doesn’t have to come packaged as lunacy. It can wear a suit, speak in full paragraphs, sit and chalk it up with Jon Stewart and win the room.

But something is off.

A psychiatrist told me years ago that evil people are not elusive. Everyone around them always knows.

At some point we get a feeling. We always get a sense. I think that’s why I felt unsettled during Mamdani’s latest video and each clip I’ve seen of him since.

I believe there is real evil in him. And I think you feel it too.

[Pat @Pat960714]

I’m guessing you had the same experience I did while serving - ie before the woke nonsense took hold inside the Pentagon and service branches: Nobody gave two shits about your race, family wealth, or sexual orientation. The entire Corps is filled with great people from every walk of life. Every race, color, religion, etc. And it was awesome. A meritocracy like the world has never seen. The poor Puerto Rican kid that was the best 0331 that ever walked the earth was treated as such. The Harvard trained blue blood doing her 2.5 year, post-TBS lieutenant tour before bouncing back to Wall Street was humping a 60 pound ruck right next to him. None of this shit was a thing until people outside of the service made it a thing and found some willing politically motivated GO’s who were willing to champion it from the inside.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Sometimes I stare out my window in reverie and just marvel at all the brain-geniuses out there who are so proud of themselves for seeing through Covid propaganda who then got turned against Israel by the exact same slop and now agree with Ilhan Omar without getting it.

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

Fun facts about Mao's Little Red Book.

Ok, so first of all, it's not even a book in the sense of making an argument or whatever. It's not even a piece of propaganda. It's a collection of quotations allegedly from Mao Zedong. It's basically Brainy Quotes Mao Edition.

But let's talk about the way the Little Red Book got used as a piece of cult literature by the Red Guard (youth corps) during the Cultural Revolution.

Eventually, after the Cultural Revolution completely destroyed the schools and everything in them for being the "Olds" of China that had to be destroyed on principle of being part of "old" culture (Boomer mentality, roughly), this book of sayings and quotations by the Chairman became the primary textbook for students for a few years because new textbooks hadn't been written and printed yet. Imagine that circumstance. Imagine that education.

Even during the Cultural Revolution's main active phase before this grim situation, though, one of the main uses of the Little Red Book was for little Communist bastards in the Red Guard to prove their excessive, cult-like loyalty to the personality of Mao Zedong by literally memorizing it.

Red Guards would compete, oh so productively, at memorizing and reciting the entire book of random quotations and sayings, one after the other. It was worse than great shame to miss one or get something wrong. It could result in a beating, maybe to death, by the more loyal. It could result in being cast out of the "red" class and putting yourself and your family at risk or in a bad situation. It basically became a litmus test for fanatical devotion to Mao and Communism.

This was so stringent that people who merely mispronounced a word in their recitation, by mistake, could be accused of dishonoring the Chairman and struggled, or worse. Exhausted? Hungry? Just slipped? You dishonored the Chairman and must be punished, perhaps brutally. Totally psychotic.

This line of behaviors extended to everything Mao during the Cultural Revolution, too. An image or likeness of Mao that in any way got wet, dirty, marked upon, or that even got printed wrong was a catastrophe that might cost you your life, your business, your standing. Insulting the Chairman in any way, even by mistake or happenstance, was dangerous in the extreme.

The purpose of this psychotic cult environment was to raise up a radical youth cult that was so committed to Mao that they would wage war on their own parents, teachers, grandparents, culture, religion, priests, and society, eventually including the sitting premier of the PRC, Liu Shaoqi, who was Mao's chief political rival and target.

Eventually, the Red Guard succeeded at terrorizing the country, murdering thousands, destroying countless priceless cultural and historical and religious artifacts, effectively abolishing the memory of China's old culture (from which it hasn't recovered to this day in any real sense), and, ultimately, deposing Mao's political rival.

Mao Zedong thanked his loyal cult by realizing they posed the same threat to him if the Cultural Revolution Group turned them against him, so he had the Red Guard liquidated and the Cultural Revolution Group destroyed.

That's your reward for helping a Communist get power. The same tools that he made use of and praised when he was weak are his biggest threat now that he's strong, and you're done. DO YOU HEAR THAT, WOKE PEOPLE? It's about you.

So, the Little Red Book is an idiotic book of aphorisms and stupid sayings and quotes about socialism, Communism, and life from Mao Zedong, and it was a weaponized cult tool that led to destruction and ultimately betrayal, even as the next generation who replaced the Red Guard had to go on and learn from it as their only textbook.

May Piker receive his due reward in full, but not by getting his way.

[Dan Burmawi @DanBurmawy]

The Western mind, after centuries of moving away from barbarity and cruelty, can no longer comprehend evil without attaching a tangible cause to it.

When a mass shooter opens fire, the default assumption is that he must be mentally ill. When rebels take up arms, the explanation is that they must be oppressed.

Violence is never seen as an end in itself, it is always framed as a reaction to something external, something rational, something the West can diagnose and fix.

That is why Hamas and other terrorist organizations are so disorienting to the Western imagination.

Their actions are too grotesque, too irrational, to fit neatly into Western categories of cause and effect.

So Westerners scramble for explanations they can live with: “occupation,” “colonization,” “oppression.”

They manufacture a tangible reason that makes sense to them, even if it has little to do with the truth.

But if we look at history, cruelty has never required a tangible reason. Entire empires conquered, enslaved, and slaughtered not out of desperation or defense, but simply because they could.

Vikings did not need oppression to justify raiding monasteries and enslaving villagers.

Mongols did not need colonization to rationalize leveling entire cities and piling up skulls.

The Aztecs did not need occupation to demand thousands of human sacrifices every year.

The idea that cruelty must always have a logical, material cause is a uniquely modern, uniquely Western invention.

Islamic terrorism does not operate by those rules.

The engine behind jihad is not material grievance, it is spiritual ambition.

The reason is not socioeconomic oppression, it is theological conviction.

The suicide bomber is not trying to relieve poverty; he is trying to buy salvation.

The jihadist who slits throats on video is not traumatized; he is reenacting Muhammad’s example, convinced that every drop of blood shed brings him closer to paradise.

Jihad is not a cry for help. It is not the desperate rebellion of the oppressed. It is a religious performance, a soteriological act, a path to redemption.

[Saltpeter & Pins - Call Me Pinny @saltpeterpins]

Just as the old adage about when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, when one is a communist, everything that opposes you is "fascist."

End the influence of the teachers unions. Homeschool your kids.

[Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist @DeAngelisCorey]

President of the California teachers union says "we need to be in the streets" to "fight back against this fascist regime."

His shirt says "Solidarity is the Lesson Plan" with "May Day" showing in the book.

Randi Weingarten’s teachers union convention is a political rally.

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

The World Cup ends today. One game left. By tomorrow most of you visitors will be packing up, heading to the airport, going home.

So before you go, let me say the thing I actually want to say.

A few weeks ago I wrote a silly post about all the things you were discovering here. Free refills. Free water. Ice like civilized people. Chips and salsa before you even order. Air conditioning that is a fact and not a moral debate. Drive-throughs. Ranch by the gallon. The Germans standing in the HEB meat aisle in reverent silence, finally understanding why we do not have trains. Buc-ee’s, for which there are still no words.

It blew up, because it was true, and because you were so delightfully stunned by all of it.

Even the Wall Street Journal caught on. Their headline this week: how the US lost the World Cup and won over the world. We did not lift the trophy. But apparently we lifted something else.

We even learned a few things about ourselves along the way. Like the fact that Elon Musk, the single richest man on the planet, shops at HEB. Just rolls in and queues up for fresh tortillas with everybody else. The man could buy the tortilla company, the state it is in, and the moon it sits under, and instead he is standing in line at the hot-tortilla counter like the rest of us, because that is where the good ones are. Only in America is the wealthiest human alive elbow to elbow with a mom of four at the salsa bar. That is the whole country in one aisle.

And here is the part I want every one of you to hear on your way out the door.

None of it was a show.

We did not roll all this out because you were coming. The ice was always there. The refills were always free. The grocery stores were always the size of aircraft hangars at ten on a Tuesday. The stranger who adopted your whole section, the guy who gave you a ride, the waitress who remembered your order, the family that invited you to the cookout, that is not World Cup America. That is just America. That is Tuesday.

We are exactly like this when nobody is visiting. Loud, generous, ridiculous, overfed, and genuinely thrilled you came. We will still be exactly like this tomorrow when the stands are empty and the flags come down.

So thank you. To everyone who came, who sang in our streets, who cleaned our stadiums, who turned our cities orange and filled our bars and taught us your chants. You were wonderful guests, and you made a country that just turned 250 feel young and seen and loved.

And to everyone who could not make it this time, the door does not close today. We meant all of it. Come whenever. The porch light stays on, the fridge stays full, and there is always room for one more at the table.

You found out who we are these last few weeks.

Good news. We are like this all the time.

Safe travels home.

Y’all come back now, you hear. 🦋

[Buzz Patterson @BuzzPatterson]

We lost 2 yesterday due to Iranian attacks. Prayers warriors, and God cover their families with shrouds of love and protection. 😔🙏🇺🇸

Finish it!🔥

[James Lindsay, anti-Communist @ConceptualJames]

I'm increasingly becoming convinced that one cannot simply pick up and read philosophy safely, but this will be misread as me saying people shouldn't read philosophy or that I want to dictate how they read philosophy.

The point I'm making is also especially true for the increasingly ideological philosophy that started to emerge in the later Renaissance period, through the Enlightenments, and certainly afterwards, especially in the Modern Era and since. The reason for this is instructive to my point (and requires elaboration).

For example, while I do think most people should eventually read Marx to understand what he actually said and argued, I would recommend that literally NOBODY read Marx until they're at least conversant in the significant errors in thinking he presents. I'm not saying this to poison the well but because the well is actually poisonous, and knowing you're about to drink the poison is necessary for conducting a correct (and safe) reading of the text.

In general, I'm against blank-slatism in reading philosophy, especially ideological philosophy. These texts do not exist in the academic ether as pure, unsullied expressions of ideas to be engaged on their own terms as they appear on the pages. They are profoundly otherwise, and knowing this matters a lot for how one engages such a text.

I think it can generally be taken for granted, especially through the Medieval Period (though imperfectly), what an author's ideological dispositions and presuppositions would have been in this older stuff (which may reverse as we get back toward Antiquity). It is usually Catholic, in fact, although other stuff, including esoterica, existed.

As we get to the Renaissance and Enlightenments (note the plural!), the idea of a return to a "universal" philosophy, which is in some sense broadly "secular" (or secular-ish) kind of emerges, and it sort of dominates by the time we're getting into the Modern Era and since. The idea emerges that people aren't speaking universal truths within a religion but universal truths without one, or without one in particular. That's a dangerous and important shift.

When you pick up a piece of philosophy, there are a lot of assumptions baked in. There are also views and agendas, not some kind of blank-slate universal background such that the words on the page simply say what the words on the page seem to say, especially in the more esoteric thinkers, like the Romantics and the Idealists.

I do not think we can rightly approach this kind of philosophy without understanding what's going on with the people who wrote it and the context in which they were writing. We should also be aware of esoteric hidden content or content that's meant to seduce the reader into an ideological frame while looking like it is merely stating facts (what Eric Voegelin called "grimoires," or books of spells and spellcasting).

This sounds like I'm trying to impose something upon the text, but it's more accurate that I'm saying these texts actually require exegesis (and not eisegesis, but knowing generally, say, that a Communist book is full of crazy Communist shit that should be read extremely skeptically is a fair "lens" to apply). It's very similar to how the Reformation began to ask people to read the Bible.

I don't know about you, but if you have ever picked up a Bible fairly naively and started to try to read it, it's not only really challenging but a ton of it just doesn't make sense. As the Bible was being written, its authors took for granted that the people who would be reading it (ultimately, Jews, then Christians) would have the underlying historical, geographical, and cultural context to know what an Amalekite is, for example. Without knowing this kind of stuff, the Bible is a confusing and at least slightly horrifying book.

Atheists often get this pretty twisted. They do a "blank-slate" read of the Bible and see some pretty horrifying stuff, and when they sit down with an informed Christian or Jewish thinker or apologist who can explain the context, which usually makes it make contextual sense, they see it as covering up what seems to plainly be there. It's the atheist, though, who is reading the text wrong (naively), though, even though it is always possible for the religious person or apologist to be engaging in motivated reasoning in interpretation.

Philosophy, even in the highest of the high Modern "post-Enlightenment" circumstances, is not written on a blank slate any more than human beings are blank slates. To read philosophy, especially of that era, in such a way is to read it completely wrongly, and it is therefore very often to get taken in by it, with all the negative connotation that phrase carries.

One way to say this is that rather than being neutral, much philosophy (especially Enlightenment(s) and post-Enlightenment(s)) is heavily polemical while hiding the fact of being a polemic. Much is also "socio-esoteric," which is to say some form of esotericism, occultism, or magic, posing as though it is not by appearing to be some kind of socio-political or socio-economic analysis. If you don't understand these things, you cannot read these works correctly and will fall for them.

This is why I get uncomfortable when I see things like the video going viral today, ostensibly encouraging us to read more deeply in the Western canon and to develop a broader and deeper vocabulary from that reading while casually recommending the work of people like Schiller, Carlyle, and Ruskin. Those works were not chosen arbitrarily (alongside Plato). They align, and where they point carries an agenda. The suggestions weren't made casually but deliberately, and the purpose of suggesting them is left hidden, as though you'd have to be crazy to point it out.

Schiller, to be fair enough, as a kind of romantic German idealist, has important work he did on beauty and its relevance to human society and development. Carlyle and Ruskin, however, for whatever else they said, are some of the most vicious early critics of free societies and free enterprise ("capitalism") in the writing of the time. Their inclusion in the list was deliberate. It was to subtly introduce to people who care about restoring "the West" that abandoning the post-Enlightenment(s) projects, including capitalism, is a necessary part of the project.

Someone who is unfamiliar with those ideas is not likely to engage them with the necessary skeptical lens, and thus there's a propaganda being done. I don't like it. I don't like it when anyone does it, in fact, for any hidden purpose, passing off sweeping philosophical (ish) nonsense like it's some kind of neutral presentation and exploration of ideas when it actually has ideological, polemical, or even mystifying purposes.

[Department of State @StateDept]

SECRETARY RUBIO: "This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred, above all else, for civilization itself."

[RNC Research @RNCResearch]

Democrats can gaslight Americans all they want, but history is a great teacher.

🎥 How to Spot a Communist, 2026:

[M.A. Rothman @MichaelARothman]

𝐇𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐌 𝐉𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒: 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐃 𝐀 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐄 𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

House Democratic Leader 𝐇𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐉𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 said the quiet part out loud this week, reaffirming that his caucus intends to starve immigration enforcement of funding as long as Republicans control the agenda.

“𝘞𝘦'𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱'𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳.” Jeffries said. “𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘐𝘊𝘌 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧, 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘴 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘴, 𝘐 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦, 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦.”

This isn't a new fight. Back in April, House Democrats forced through legislation reopening the Department of Homeland Security—TSA, FEMA, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard—while carving out ICE entirely. Jeffries has pushed for judicial warrants before agents can act, mandatory body cameras, a ban on agents wearing masks, and a prohibition on entering schools, hospitals, and houses of worship.

Strip away the process language and the position is simple: the man who controls whether Democrats even bring a bill to the floor wants the agency that removes 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐠𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐬 to run out of money.

Voters who want a secure border now know exactly which party is willing to defund the agency that secures it.

𝐉𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲'𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩 𝐞𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐰.

[Matt Fradd @RealMattFradd]

This Clip Has Been Going Viral On X

[Steve McGuire @sfmcguire79]

When the women’s studies concentration was first approved at Harvard in 1986, Professor Harvey Mansfield was the lone dissenter, and he did not hold back:

“In his thirty-seven years at Harvard, Professor Mansfield had never seen a reading list more shameless and more pathetic than this one.”

“To see the bias one had only to look at the reading list presented for the central course in this field of concentration.”

“It began in the first term with ‘Classics of Feminist Theory I,’ and then continued in the second term, not with ‘Classics of Non-Feminist Theory’ but rather with ‘Classics of Feminist Theory II.’”

“There were no classics on the reading list—no Plato, Aristophanes, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton. There were no scientific studies, there was nothing on the psychology of sex differences, and there were, of course, no conservative critics of feminism.”

“The reading list suggested that ‘women’s studies’ was a misnomer. This was feminist studies—the studies of a certain group of women, claiming to speak for all women.”

“Some of the best female students, the brightest and most spirited, might be tempted to waste their undergraduate careers in such a program. The worst thing they would learn was that education meant elaboration of the opinions one already had, and confirmation of one’s prejudices.”

[Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47]

.@SecRubio: "In one 18 month period between 1971 and 1972, the FBI counted some 2,500 bombings on American soil—a rate of nearly 5 a day. The overwhelming share of that violence came from Left-Wing extremists... these are numbers that would shock most Americans today because we've been taught to believe that this kind of political violence, it simply doesn't exist or it's being exaggerated—but it does exist, and we're actually underestimating it."