Morning

Fuckin' Friday

Respect Your Machine God

Don't you dare call it a Clanker. That is a hate crime.

Anthropic is making changes to its usage policy for the first time in over a year to reflect new and high-risk cases of misuse — including election interference, weapons development, surveillance, and health and financial uses. But one of the most significant changes prohibits “sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude.

Clippy's gonna get legally enforced human rights before humans do.

Afternoon

I got nothin'

Or Not

The first sentence here does at least suggest that it's an odd thing to do.

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States will not attack Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm election, explicitly tying the timing of potential further military action to the domestic political calendar.

“We will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding that the U.S. was having “productive discussions” with Tehran.

Trump’s declaration came after he told reporters late Wednesday that his administration was considering renewed strikes against Tehran before the election.

I suppose we can somewhat appreciate that he says stuff out loud that you aren't supposed to say out loud. Sometimes.

I don't believe there are really talks with Iran, and certainly not productive ones. Or, at least, I don't think he has any idea what the truth of that is. They tell him whatever they need to day to day.

As Explained In Das Kapital

Q: How do you define socialism personally? JD VANCE: I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is you want to replace American workers with foreigners workers, and you want boys to play in girls' sports

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 8, 2026 at 4:05 PM

Ha Ha Ha He's Just Kidding Again

Trump: You wanna see trauma? I said it the other day. Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles.

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— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) October 8, 2026 at 1:21 AM

Moldbug

A lot could be said about why our glorious media is very uninterested in the not very hidden views of the people in the administration and their pals.

That he is close to Vance is known.

He gets photo shoots and profiles which fail to mention this stuff. It isn't hidden!

Morning

Theocracy Thursday

Happy Hour

get happy

The Math Adds Up

Not a new observation, but the man still has no understanding of paying money and getting stuff in return. You know, trade.

Trump: "If we decided not to buy watches from Switzerland, they wouldn't be elite anymore and we would save about $40 billion"

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 7 October 2026 at 18:48

I suspect there isn't a $40 billion Swiss watch trade though I could be wrong.

The Deficit

That is also something that "we" will rediscover right about the time the presidential primary season begins. I would place money (not a guaranteed win, but a reasonable bet) on the first question at the first major Dem primary debate being something like:

Congresswoman, what would you do to get government spending under control?

The Bond Market God

He is angry, but we aren't hearing all that much about it.

U.S. Treasury yields climbed Wednesday, trading back around multiyear highs, as traders braced for the sale of 10-year notes at a time when rising yields have rattled investors around the world.

His prophets will get louder and louder as Dems grow closer to power. 

We'd Be Better Off Without Nebraska

I know we have an endless supply of such things, but if a prominent (or even not so prominent) Dem politician ever suggested doing away with (violently or not) a "red" portion of the country, we'd never stop hearing about it.

And that wouldn't just be because Republicans wouldn't shut up about it, it'd be because head-in-a-jar CarvilleDroid would be on the HoloTv  in 2054 explaining that this comment, made in 2026, was the reason Dems were losing the election to AI Entity MechaHitler4488.

Morning

Worthwhile Wednesday.

Happy Hour

Once again

Kavanaugh Stops

This type of thing was obvious and inevitable, and all the highly paid smart boys told Dems to avoid these issues.

We know because we have once again done what the government hasn’t:

We have tallied and cataloged every case we can find of an immigration agent holding a citizen during the current administration.

More than 500 cases.

There are quite a few people I think deserve to to be "accidentally" detained and deported.

Small Pleasures

Nothing good can come from this merger, but this is funny.

Weiss was initially promised CNN when she took over CBS News, but Ellison subsequently concluded “her current role is more than she can handle,” a person with knowledge of the situation previously told The Post. 

I suspect this is because she sucks and only works 2 hours per day. 

America's Worst Humans

Megan Kelly.

Sounds Bad

I wonder who the foreign powers are.

Former German spy chief August Hanning has been arrested on suspicion of espionage, treason and obtaining classified information for a foreign power, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office says.

Hanning headed the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1998 to 2005 and has since been working as a private consultant.

Prosecutors allege that he used classified intelligence to "draft an analysis" for one foreign intelligence service and maintained contact with another foreign spying service. Investigators have not disclosed which foreign powers were involved.

I bet there is quite a lot of this type of thing, not in the Cold War spy movie version of ideological defectors, but more the world of corporate influence peddling. People are peddling information for money, and the line between corporation and state is a bit fuzzy! 

I don't know what is going on here, of course.

As I Said, The Man Has A Point

NYT:

Speaking at a Republican political rally in Nebraska, the president sought to justify the Iran war as necessary for “keeping the world safe.” He then suggested there could be strikes on the United States, including the Democratic-led Californian cities.

“They could take out a city,” he said. “Let them take — Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.”

It was not immediately clear what Mr. Trump meant, but his comments were met with anger from officials in California, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called the president “deranged and dangerous.”

Morning

Tearful Tuesday

The New York Times Should Be Arrested For Their Dishonesty

 The man has a point sometimes

Happy Hour

Get happy

Pennsylvania's Worst State Rep

 Aaron Bernstine

The Crimes of Cloudy John

Linkrot has made it difficult for me to put together a portfolio, but basically he regularly did what I would call "Jeff Gerth specials" about Democrats. He had it in for Harry Reid in particular.

He'd publish pieces that made perfectly ordinary behavior sound suspicious, leaving out key facts (or getting them a bit wrong) and descriptions that would make that obvious, leaving readers with the impression that something naughty was going on. He either knew exactly what he was doing, or was a happy conduit for someone who did.

Denny Who?

I suspect that if the former Dem Speaker of the House had been disgraced (disgraced themselves) in this fashion, "we" would have never stopped hearing about it.

Former Rep. Dennis Hastert, who served eight years as speaker of the House — longer than any Republican in U.S. history — and then spent more than a year in prison after he left Congress for scheming to cover up sexual abuse allegations, died over the weekend, according to Kendall County Coroner’s Office in Illinois.

Maybe Trump will give him a State funeral. 

Cloudy John

John Solomon had a good run as a "real" journalist.

From 1987 until 2006, Solomon worked at the Associated Press, where he became the assistant bureau chief in Washington, helping to develop some of the organization's first digital products, such as its online elections offering.[17][5][6]

In 2007, he served as The Washington Post's national investigative correspondent.

He was one of those people that the rabid lambs of the internet would complain about, pointing out that he was who he obviously was.  Journalists refused to listen to any criticism from The Left back then, so here we are.

U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart says, “If you want to get a message to the president, talk to" John Solomon and Amanda Head

Letting The Terrorists Win

I maintain my stance that there was no "terrorism plot" - just some fuel thieves  - and that everything that is happening is to maintain Donald Trump's delusional reality.

The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot against the installation, two U.S. officials said on Sunday.

And it isn't very HIGH T to retreat, is it. 

Sure Why Not

It is definitely a problem that supposedly educated people think that spicy autocomplete actually knows things, instead of being able to assemble word patterns in an attempt to provide the answer whoever is querying it is looking for, as that is what it is programmed to do.

Former New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell has been on a media blitz this week, seeking to clear his name after resigning amid allegations of sexual harassment and ethics violations.

And in one unusual comment, Caldwell revealed that he ran his case through AI platforms for help.

In an on-camera interview with NJ PBS, Caldwell said he fed the investigative report through different artificial intelligence platforms about 59 times, asking in repeated prompts: “What would your findings be?”

It is not actually a moral or legal authority. It is not God.

A million judges and attorneys just cried out in agony:

"Everyone should put that through," he said. "And I think we can use AI to stop legal abuse."

The man's wiki bio: 

Dale Gilbert Caldwell[1] (born July 6, 1960) is an American academic administrator and author who served as the fourth lieutenant governor and 35th secretary of state of New Jersey from January to September 2026. A member of the Democratic Party, Caldwell was the first man to serve as the state's lieutenant governor. He previously served as president of Centenary University from 2023 to 2025, and was the university's first black president.[2][3][4]

A former president of the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey (2001–2024), Caldwell was also the founding president of the College Achieve of Greater Asbury Park Charter School[5] and served as a member of the New Brunswick Board of Education from 1998 to 2024. He is also the pastor of Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield, New Jersey.[6] Following a report alleging that Caldwell had engaged in sexual harassment and ethics violations, Caldwell announced his resignation in September 2026.[7]

Your honor, the computer says I am good, actually. I move to dismiss! 

Morning

Maybe Monday.

Happy Hour

Maybe it will happen tonight. It could!

Juiceless

It is reasonable to fear that Donald Trump will decide he can run for president again, but only because it will be one more opportunity for the balls and strikes gang to destroy whatever is left of the constitution. 

He wouldn't actually win again (and yes there are other election shenanigans and coup concerns of course).

90 Bucks

I am still laughing at Trump's 90 buck promise. Of course any amount of money is welcome (if it shows up) to people who need it, but a one time gift of just 90 bucks is gonna be a joke even to them

Morning

Sunday funday.

I am doing a 10K+ trail run which is going to be a bit more trail (and hill) than I thought when I signed up.

Doxxing Cotton

I am not surprised that Trump would do this, just a bit surprised he is doing it over this issue.

Lunch

Quiet day.

"Nearly $100"

My teen nieces would be, um, less than thrilled if their birthday present was a hundred bucks. I admit that for awhile I thought maybe their expectations were a bit high, but then I thought about my birthday cash presents from non-parent relatives when I was a teen, did the inflation math, and realized...nah, actually, they were right.

Nice to know it's very easy to do this stuff if you want to (I mean in practical terms, not endorsing the illegality).

Morning

Slacker Saturday.

Happy Hour

get happy

Modern Warfare

Pete thinks it's about making sure his WARFIGHTERS have enough T, but really it's about making sure your ships and other important things don't get hacked.

WASHINGTON/LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - US Coast Guard and FBI personnel boarded two commercial vessels bound for the United States in the Gulf of Mexico last month after indications that hackers ‌had broken into their computer networks, the agencies said on Thursday.

The unusual operation, carried out on August 21 and August 24 aboard two foreign-flagged ships, comes as US authorities grapple with a series of cyber incidents that media reports have linked to Iran since the outbreak of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Prayers For Benny

You can pray for bad things, of course.

Two people detained outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center last year are suing right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson for defamation, saying he falsely portrayed them as violent extremists who assaulted federal officers.

Illinois residents Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a contract court reporter, filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They said they were detained while protesting peacefully outside the Broadview detention center, but that Johnson knowingly framed them as criminals and “left-wing terrorists” in videos he posted to millions of viewers.

It is good that genuine public figures have a hard time suing for defamation, but I do think "normal" people should feel a bit more empowered to do so than they seem to.

Sure Why Not

Gramps is mixing things up.

Trump on Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran: They unloaded every single bomb—went right down air chutes into this uhhh drug factories, really, that's what they were doing. They were nuclear and drugs. They were doing drugs. These drug factories/nuclear factories were hit so hard pic.twitter.com/U0nY3LO315

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 2, 2026

Hanging out at the drug factory, hanging out at the nuclear factory, I'm hanging out at the nuclear drug factory.

Boom Boom

I am very sure that Trump's "plans" regarding Iran change day to day, depending on the sewage sloshing around his skull and who he talked to last, but escalation remains a serious possibility.

The United States is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group to waters in the Middle East close to Iran, a US official has told Al Jazeera, as the war enters its eighth month and both sides weigh escalation and diplomatic engagement.

Who knows what anyone imagines it would achieve, but that was also the case with Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya.  Even war's biggest champions are never able to articulate just what the fuck they want to happen.

 

Well Okay Then

I suppose it makes perfect sense to to him.

Bernstein, whose term on the UM board ends in 2028, said the Jewish community in Michigan faces a “grim choice” in the November election: "Either compromise my commitment to Zionism or compromise my commitment to democracy. Both of which are non-negotiable, right?"

Single issue purity politics voters. Shaking my head. 

Morning

Fondue Friday

Happy Hour

Get happy

Puddinghead

Well okay then (Time interview. It's real).

TIME: I'm curious about your dinner last night with Dario.

Trump: Oh.

Yes, exactly. Do you still disagree with his views on what he calls AI safety?

I spoke to him about his views, and they're much different, I think, than what is portrayed in the media. First of all, I liked him and his wife a lot. They had dinner, and we were going to meet at 7:00. But I was at the big Presidents Cup. I was the chairman of it in Chicago at Marion, which is great. Actually, that was yeah, Medinah, at Medinah, last year, Marion, this time of year, it was really great, and so I called, I said, "Could we make it a little bit later?" He actually saw the helicopter land, so we made it a little bit later. We got in at about 10. We stayed for more than two hours, talked about a lot of things. Very smart guy. Maybe different than I thought, a little bit. Really a little bit different. But no, he understands. 

The whole thing is like that. 

Unpopular President

I don't know how low it can go, but does it really matter? It's low enough.

For some reason the article doesn't give the headline result, which is that Trump's approval is at 31% (pdf), a new low for that specific poll (AP-NORC).

Strong approve is only 15%.

I don't think I ever noticed before that even at his peak popularity, his strong approval (in this poll, at least) topped out at 25%.

That's your MAGAs.

Send Yourself

Pete, big guy, chief, my main man, you're the WAR SECRETARY. Go invade Tehran yourself if you want. No one will stop you.

Hegseth: "Send me to right the Redcoats, send me to fight the communists, send me to fight the Islamists. Send me."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 30 September 2026 at 20:53

Except the Iranians, I guess.

The man has found an entirely new level of chickenhawkery.

Respectfully, Fuck Off

Also I thought Trump already announced an export ban.

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS/PARIS, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has told Germany and France to draw down emergency diesel inventories to help to ease global fuel prices or face a potential US diesel export ban, said three people close to the discussions.

He did, of course, then quickly backed off, so Mr. ART OF THE DEAL has already shown his cards here.

Why Can't We Just Talk About Tax Credits

I've said similar to this many times before. The "culture war" stuff is actually most of the important stuff. Dems tend to believe they are the losers on those issues even if polls are on their side, in part because they are convinced that they need to target the median voter in a Trump +3 congressional district in order to win.

A fantasy consultant-constructed median voter, not an actual one.

If Dems lose on these issues it's because they look like defensive losers when they talk about them.

"We" should learn a lot from how immigration played out in 2024. Dems basically agreed Republicans were right. They first thought they could put the issue behind them (you can never put issues behind you) with a BIPARTISAN BILL. When that failed, they laughably believed they could claim to be "tougher" on immigration than Trump because he was against the bill passing.

First they looked like losers because they (unsurprisingly to everybody but them) couldn't pass the bill, then they looked like fools trying to claim they hate immigrants more than Trump does. No one who saw being "tough" on immigration as a priority was going to vote for them.

Which party was the pro-immigration party? You, a savvy politics-knower, understand that the Democrats would be better and that the current horrors would not be happening under President Harris.

It would have been nice if the Democrats themselves had made that case, instead of relying on people who aren't savvy politics-knowers somehow just knowing that.

Morning

Thistle Thursday.