August 11, 2026

THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Say what who will about the Trojans, but at least they had to be fooled into letting their enemies inside the gate.

Posted at 1:29 pm by Stephen Green

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT! British Royal Navy Discovers Spy Cams on K3 Scout Vessels — Data Was Going Straight to China. The Royal Navy doesn’t have much of a fleet these days. But some of what what it does have left is transmitting data to the CCP:

Many have long suspected that China routinely buries spyware in electronic components and software it sells overseas. According to a new report, that’s exactly what they’re doing with British-made drones that were taught to phone home.

Information was allegedly being sent directly back to the Chinese Communist Republic:

Royal Navy spy drones used by Britain’s elite special forces secretly sent data to China, The Telegraph can reveal.

The cameras on the K3 Scout surveillance drones had components made in China which were secretly transmitting information to a device in the country.

The Royal Marines have been using the £12m fleet since March and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was forced to remove all internet connectivity from the cameras after discovering the breach.

Although the drones weren’t manufactured in China, the cameras were discovered to be compromised:

The drones were supplied by a major British defence contractor, Kraken Technology Group, which sourced the cameras from a third party who had given assurances about their security.

An investigation into the drones revealed that the cameras were transmitting “heartbeat communications” – data to confirm they were online and functioning normally – to an IP address in China. The MoD insisted that there was no evidence that any sensitive data or systems had been sent abroad.

Just because they can’t find evidence of crucial information being transmitted doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Whoever put spyware in those cameras presumably didn’t do it for fun.

We need a complete and total shutdown of the Royal Navy until we can find what the hell is going on there (and who is spying on who for who): Royal Navy captain steps back from duties over link to [Labour] MP whose husband faces China spy claims.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

THIS IS A PHENOMENON I’VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT FOR GOING ON TWO DECADES:

I linked it earlier, but if you missed it here’s the underlying article in The Atlantic, which is excellent.

Posted at 12:37 pm by Glenn Reynolds

IT’S ALL A PSYOP, ISN’T IT?

Posted at 12:33 pm by Glenn Reynolds

‘I WAS JUST A KID’ IS THE EXCUSE FOR BEING INSANE THE LAST FEW YEARS:

Yesterday I wrote about AOC’s “defense” of the woke insanity of the past few years.

“Woke one was craaaazzy.“

She was speaking about Francesca Hong’s stated positions as a sitting state legislator, over 30-years-old, and she held those positions until she started getting trashed for them in her current campaign for governor.

But really, she was just a kid and shouldn’t be held responsible for anything she said outside the current context of her campaign.

Time is remarkably fluid these days:

But hey, 2020 was just a few bad tweets, right?

Tweet concludes, “it was the removal of choice for vaccines, it was the inflammation of racism, it was the numbing of meritocracy, it was the dismantling of the spirit of quite a few cities (and the accompanying declining property values), it was the collapse of a political party, it was the crushing of common sense (particularly in the young), it was the ruin of university value, it was the end of trust in the media, it was the fostering of the most selfish era in modern society. It was fascism, intolerance, and decidedly un-American. It was shameful and despicable. It was not ‘bad tweets.’”

Many more responses here: The replies to this tweet about the woke era are making my day.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED:

Tweet continues:

GHOST = Global Hypersonic & Orbital Spaceport Technology. A containerized, deployable launch site system that enables Electron and HASTE launches anywhere, anytime.

Missile defense. Responsive launch. Sovereign launch capability. Delivered where it’s needed most.

Coming soon across two pads in Alaska in 2027.

“Sovereign” is where the implications get truly interesting.

Posted at 12:27 pm by Stephen Green

WHEN I SAY “DON’T GET COCKY,” I MEAN IT:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Glenn Reynolds

JIM GERAGHTY: The DSA Has Slogans, but Isn’t Interested in Policies.

Near the end of the [New Yorker interview with David Remnick] — perhaps sensing that she had not come across as knowledgeable and thoughtful in her answers — [DSA co-chair Megan] Romer emphasized that she doesn’t really speak on behalf of the Democratic Socialists of America:

Romer: So, if you’re looking to me to be the one true arbiter of DSA thought, I am absolutely not. I come from a—

Remnick: Who is? Or that doesn’t exist, and never will?

Romer: DSA, it doesn’t exist. A convention, I guess, would be the closest to the one true arbiter of DSA, and it happens every two years.

Over on the DSA Reddit, you can find DSA enthusiasts calling Remnick “a member of the ‘elite New York intellectual class’” who “considers himself above regular fly over state working class people.” (I feel like I’ve heard that kind of knee-jerk snide dismissal before.) But recall which questions tripped up Romer:

  • “What does ‘taxing the hell out of them’ mean?”
  • “What does prison abolition mean to you? ”
  • “What does defunding the police mean, in your mind? ”
  • “How do you feel about [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine]? ”
  • “What is the position that DSA is headed toward here? Is it for a two-state solution, or is it a binational, one-state solution?”

Those are not trivia questions. He’s asking her what she thinks. In theory, there’s no wrong answer.

I could write that Romer is a shallow, uninformed moron, and that would be a lot of fun and probably go viral. But it probably wouldn’t dissuade anyone who feels positively about the DSA. Fans of the socialist movement will probably dig in their heels and conclude, like that Reddit commenter, that Remnick, you, and I are being smug elitists because Romer had troubling answering those questions and articulating what policies she wanted to see.

At Commentary, Seth Mandel adds that “facts are ruinous to anyone who wants to argue for the eradication of Israel. The DSA has rebranded itself as first and foremost an anti-Zionist organization supportive of the worst kind of violence. Knowledge of the important events in this conflict make taking such a position indefensible—which, of course, it is.”

Related:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

JONATHAN TURLEY: Sam Alito is Locked and Loaded . . . and He is Not Going Anywhere.

Even after overturning Roe v. Wade and other historic opinions, Alito still has unfinished business. An example can be found in two cases involving bans on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 that are now awaiting argument in the October term.

Many of us have been frustrated by the Court’s failure to address these laws barring AR-15s and other weapons. Just last year, the Supreme Court declined review of such a Maryland law. Alito and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch indicated that they wanted to hear the case, falling just one vote short of granting certiorari.

Notably, the required fourth vote could have come from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who called the Fourth Circuit’s ruling in Snopes v. Brown “questionable” and added that the Court “should and presumably will address the AR-15 issue soon, in the next Term or two.”

Now, it will.

This could end up a big term for civil rights — stay tuned.

Posted at 11:41 am by Stephen Green

HIS TRUE MOTIVE MAY NEVER BE KNOWN:

Next time, empty a magazine or two into him, fellas.

Posted at 11:25 am by Stephen Green

THE ABSURDITIES ARE HEIGHTENING: Trans Rep Sarah McBride Has a Sad but I Can’t Stop Laughing. “‘This strategy of cutting off conversation and even cutting off relationships, it was done from a good place,’ McBride claimed in the video, equating family-destroying temper tantrums with moral suasion.”

Posted at 11:10 am by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: California sued over policy that could free serial killers as Laci Peterson’s friend sounds alarm.

Schubert singled out some high-profile prisoners serving life without parole:

Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his pregnant wife Laci and their unborn son after she vanished on Christmas Eve in 2002. Gang member David Hill fatally shot San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004 and wounded his partner. Darryl Lamar Collins was 24 when he killed two people in 1995 but was granted early release in 2017 thanks to changes in California’s youthful offender parole law — only to kill his girlfriend Fatima Johnson less than a year later. They are among thousands who could potentially benefit from the new regulations, Schubert said.

According to Schubert, the board exceeded its statutory authority by using the bureaucratic rulemaking process to create a resentencing and clemency review system for prisoners sentenced to life without parole, a plan that California’s Office of Administrative Law approved on July 9.

Exit quote: “The main primary arguments deal with the fact that one, they don’t have the legal authority to do this, that this is an administrative bureaucratic agency that’s trying to rewrite the legislature, that they’re trying to rewrite sentencing laws that came out of ballot initiative.”

But Muh Democracy™ or whatever.

Posted at 10:49 am by Stephen Green