May 7, 2026

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE (CONT’D):

Posted at 2:02 pm by Stephen Green

PORSCHE CRASHES:

Exit quote: “This is bigger than Porsche. It is a warning to every foreign company that built its long-term growth assumptions around China. Because the old China growth model is breaking down in real time. Consumer confidence has weakened. Property wealth has deteriorated.”

Flashback to November of 2019: How to Conduct Business with Chinese Companies That See a Dark Future.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

OOPS:

Posted at 1:31 pm by Stephen Green

SPENCER PRATT ISSUES A CHALLENGE IN LA MAYORAL DEBATE THAT NITHYA RAMAN WILL NEVER ACCEPT. “Last night, Pratt called Raman out on her alleged expertise about the homeless, issuing a challenge to her that she will never accept. Watch:”

“They’re a team:”

Related: Can AI make Spencer Pratt mayor?

It cannot really be said that videos like these lower the tone of public life. Traditional political broadcasts are already awful and people go to great lengths to avoid seeing them. The most famous spot of the 1960s showed a little girl being blown up by a nuclear bomb. AI videos are effective in politics for the trivial reason that you can create whatever scenarios you like for rhetorical purposes. In Curran’s clip Kamala Harris is drinking vodka straight from the bottle, and Mayor Bass has her face made up like the Joker – in a pre-AI age the only way to depict this would be to animate it, which would take much too long. “Storytelling” is meant to be the secret to political communications and AI lets one do this in a much more literal sense. Donald Trump’s famous 2024 ad told viewers that “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” but here Gavin Newsom is simply made to say that “if you were a transgender migrant I could get you a free pussy.”

No doubt the medium has its limits, some of which we can see in the video. AI-generated images and videos tend towards the style of Thomas Kinkade: every surface glistens too much, every shadow is too accented, everything seems to glow with a sort of insane light. In Curran’s video the wood-paneled walls of the dining room look like they have been covered with ten coats of varnish. The effect is dense and headache inducing; combined with the human voices that AI tends to generate, which are best described as a monotone bellow, it is easy to see how these kinds of ads could become exhausting to watch if overused – just as the spots showing a candidate dressed in plaid petting a friendly Labrador have become exhausting. It is perhaps telling that Trump, the master of all mediums, only uses AI for jokes rather than for actual communiques to the public.

I’d say “we’re witnessing the future of political advertisements,” but that future, for better or worse, is now here:

More:

Tweet continues, “in 2017, [Raman] ran for city council in 2019 on a ‘fix homelessness,’ promptly firehosed infinite taxpayer cash at other ‘homeless non-profits,’ and now suddenly says ‘it’s not okay for people to be sleeping on the streets.’ ‘We can fix this’? Yeah, we can, if the ‘we’ doesn’t include you.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES:

Posted at 12:59 pm by Stephen Green

YES YOU CAN Support Obama’s Hideous Vanity Complex With These Inspiring Gift Shop Items.

The Barack Obama Presidential Center won’t be open to the public for another few weeks, but the gift shop is already up and running. All proceeds will support the Obama Foundation and its mission to “inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world.” The foundation is also responsible for funding and operating the new presidential center, which has been described as a “hideous eyesore” befitting the colossal vanity of a tinpot dictator.

So, what are you waiting for? You can help fund Obama’s brutalist monstrosity right now by purchasing some of the inspiring items for sale on the center’s website.

This gorgeous lapel pin ($30) This “unique accessory” was designed by Sameera Chukkapalli Holmes, a former NYU professor of ethical leadership and an architect who specializes in sustainability and social equity. It allegedly represents the “intersection of bold design and global leadership.”

The New York Post adds that “Many weren’t impressed with the pricey pins — with some comparing them to chewing gum, pregnancy tests and blobs of toothpaste. ‘It looks like chewed gum or an eraser that a third grader has been mutilating,’ one user on X wrote.” Wow, that’s just churlish, and rude. Why, it’s as if a Murdoch-owned publication has a grudge with the Lightworker.

And vice-versa:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

HUH:

Posted at 12:29 pm by Stephen Green

WHAT LOSERS THINK IS A “SCANDAL.”

Posted at 12:06 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OKAY, GROOMERS: Border Patrol Raids Disney Cruise Ship, Finds Every Parent’s Nightmare Lurking on Board — This Is What Dems Want Defunded.

A group of alleged child predators were arrested after they’d been working around children and families aboard a Disney cruise.

They were apprehended by the same immigration agents Democrats want to defund.

KNSD reported Wednesday that a Disney cruise docked in San Diego after a trip with stops in Ensenada, Baja California, as well as Catalina Island, where federal agents took several employees into custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Sandra Grisolia released a statement about the raid:

“On April 28, HSI San Diego arrested twenty-three crewmembers from multiple cruise ships at the Port of San Diego as part of Operation Tidal Wave. The arrests targeted individuals suspected of involvement with Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), based on information received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

TEMU MISSILES:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green

JON CALDARA: Flipping the script: Coloradans no longer run their government.

Independence Institute, which I run, helped bring together nearly 50 highly diverse organizations that are usually at each other’s throats. We all shared a common concern: government in Colorado is turning opaque.

Open records are getting harder to access, open meetings are closing. The “people’s” work is being hidden from the people.

And when I say organizations from all over the political spectrum worked together, I’m not exaggerating: Independence Institute, the ACLU, Heidi Ganahl’s conservative Rocky Mountain Voice, the progressive Colorado Times Recorder, Colorado Public Radio, League of Women Voters, Colorado Press Association, Colorado Broadcasters Association, Common Cause, Colorado Black Women for Action, and many, many more.

Over a year-and-a-half of work we crafted a constitutional reform based on what many other states already have, called “Right to Know.” It’s simple: a fundamental right for the people to access public records and government deliberations, with reasonable exceptions.

But you won’t see this proposed amendment on your fall ballot.

The normally sober state Title Board voted 2–1 to block it. The appointees of Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Attorney General Phil Weiser voted against you being able to vote on governmental transparency.

Were they ordered to do so? I’ll let others speculate.

Their argument was that your “right to know” the affairs of government isn’t a single subject, and only “single subjects” may go to the ballot.

Legislators’ bills must also have a single subject. The difference is they get to decide for themselves whether a bill qualifies. By contrast, we “the people” must get permission from an unelected board. A set of rules for them; a different set for us.

If they don’t want openness, it’s because they’re hiding stuff.

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, AND YOU CAN GET IT WITHOUT EVEN TRYING:

Posted at 11:27 am by Stephen Green

OR JUST SITS THERE DOING NOTHING WITH 80/20 LEGISLATION, SEN. THUNE:

Posted at 10:56 am by Stephen Green

BLUE CITY BLUES: Wall Street giant Apollo aims to open ‘second headquarters’ outside NYC — in latest fallout from Mamdani’s war on the wealthy.

Private equity giant Apollo Global Management, headquartered in Manhattan, has decided to open a new business hub — internally dubbed its “second headquarters” — in either Florida or Texas with an official decision likely to be made public in the coming weeks, people close to the matter say.

The new outpost could eventually become home to as many as 1,000 employees over time – in line with Apollo’s current headcount in New York, the sources said. The buyout firm currently employs more than 6,000 worldwide.

Previously: Zohran Mamdani’s victory in NYC mayoral primary leaves Wall Street ‘alarmed’ and ‘depressed.’

Now they’re just leaving.

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green

ONCE BURNED, TWICE SHY:

Posted at 10:38 am by Glenn Reynolds

APOCALYPTO II, FIRST WORLD BOOGALOO:

 

If only Aztec Batman had been better at his job: Trailer: Warner Brothers reveals Aztec Batman, where evil white Europeans come to destroy the peaceful natives.

Posted at 10:35 am by Ed Driscoll