AS THEY SAY IN TEXAS, SOMETHIN’ ABOUT THAT BOY JUST AIN’T RIGHT: Gender Fluidity Fuels James Transarico.
October 24, 2026
CARL CANNON: Why RealClearPolitics Didn’t Fall for the Fake Polls.
The first episode involved an obscure outfit calling itself “Median Strategies,” which claimed that its August poll showed Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass with a double-digit lead over challenger Nithya Raman. There was no such survey. It was a sham carried out by a 21-year-old recent college graduate named Rahil Prakash. He briefly copped to the scam, then disappeared without revealing where he lived, who he really was, and what he hoped to gain.
This week, a much more ambitious con job came to light. “Wedgewood Polling” admitted it was a bogus operation hours before it was about to be exposed. Its proprietors promptly claimed (as did Rahil Prakash) that it was all a social science experiment designed to alert gullible news organizations, news consumers, and polling aggregators to the dangers out there.
“The polling industry needs major reform,” Wedgewood posted on X. “Having previously worked in the polling and research sector, we watched as the public’s trust in polling eroded alongside a rise in unverifiable, low-quality methodology. We wanted to test a simple hypothesis: How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously and expose how little scrutinization exists in media and public commentary?”
The statement continued: “Despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate data source.”
Well, not everyone treated Wedgewood as legit. RealClearPolitics, the pioneer poll aggregator, never included these bogus polls – either in the RCP Poll Average or in the voluminous number of surveys cited daily on our polling pages.
Read the whole thing.
STANDING UP AGAINST SEGREGATION AND BIGOTRY: Portland-Area County To Eliminate All Race-Based Housing Programs as Part of Agreement With Trump Administration.
LIGHTNING DEAL: HOSHANHO 7 Pcs Knife Set. #CommissionEarned
CHRIS QUEEN: Mein Home Team Goose-Stepped in It With a Throwback Profile Pic.
NBC News cited one expert who gave the Falcons the benefit of the doubt:
“Absolutely there was no ill intent, and I can’t imagine in a million years the Atlanta Falcons would do something like” seeking Nazi alignment, sports logo historian Chris Creamer told NBC News on Thursday.
“It’s throwback weekend for the team, and the social media team just wanted to dress up like the players were going to, and it’s a very common thing that social media accounts do across all sports,” he said. “If a team’s wearing a throwback uniform, usually their profile photo will be updated to match that.”
You know what I think it is? I think it’s the gold stripes. (See? Tech fans ruin everything! I kid. I kid.) In all seriousness, I don’t think the Falcons meant anything negative at all. It’s just unfortunate that the combination of several factors made things really weird for the Dirty Birds.
It is the stripes in the above image – Atlanta’s original uniforms and logo were iconic; I doubt anyone would have complained if the Falcons announced that they wanted to celebrate the era of Steve Bartkowski:
I may be showing my age here, but the first thing that came to mind when I saw this helmet was former @AtlantaFalcons quarterback Steve Bartkowski. https://t.co/nTZ8AMNMVz pic.twitter.com/FMgjMiszDh
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPai) July 20, 2023
SOME SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Feds Arrest FBI Deep Staters Who Lied to Congress (and America) About Hunter Biden Laptop.
“FAT FREDDY” MERZ CAN’T HANDLE MOCKERY: In Germany, the police will start a manhunt for a person who calls a politician “fat.” Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, has filed somewhere between “hundreds” and thousands of complaints, with attached criminal penalties possible, over people insulting him online.
Or should it be “Fat Fritz” Merz?
GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: Adapt or Die: Netflix Edition.
The question around conference tables and in the air at every Hollywood meeting these days is “what does it mean that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos schwacked all of his senior content chiefs and replaced them with Peter Rice?”
Well, no one who isn’t Ted Sarandos or Peter Rice can know for sure, but here’s what I think (hope?) it means. Peter Rice is an old school theatrical movie guy who built his reputation on working with brilliant young filmmakers like Danny Boyle to make great movies with budgets that were respectful of fundamental economics and which made everyone involved a lot of money… and because I know that, I believe Netflix is hoping Rice can shepherd them into a near future where the majority of their original films enjoy a real theatrical run.
I say I “hope” this is the case because if he doesn’t, and they don’t, then Rice’s proven eye for identifying good stories and great young talent will be wasted and Netflix risks becoming nothing more than a modern-day Blockbuster video without the brick-and-mortar stores and the after-hours drop boxes. And that would be very bad for business… Hollywood simply cannot afford to lose another buyer on the motion picture side.
Read the whole thing.
LIONEL SHRIVER: Can we be surprised that France has descended into nihilism?
The French themselves also bear responsibility for their growing impoverishment. Waves of protest have ensured the state remains bloated, burdening younger taxpayers with the extreme cost of pensions that still kick in at age 62 – youth’s reaction to which appears to be an eagerness to jump on the same gravy train at the earliest age possible.
Both groups out on the streets in force since mid-September – unassimilated immigrants and young, naively communist white French nationals – feel little vested interest in their country. According to an Ipsos survey this month, 79 percent of French young people have considered moving abroad.
Immigrants from North Africa and their descendants don’t feel French and aren’t really regarded by their white compatriots as French. They’re not only alienated from the world of the designer shops they’ve been demolishing, but fiercely hostile to it.Despite colonial ties, ghettoized, largely Muslim immigrants have little cultural affinity with perhaps the most supremely European of European nations. Excluded from the mainstream culture with few obvious routes to prosperity, immigrants must feel they’ve nothing to lose. If they feel they don’t belong in France, maybe they don’t.
Likewise, lefty, ethnically French young people must feel they’ve little investment in France. Tritely radicalized teachers have drilled into them that not only is their culture evil, but that they have no future. Climate change will scorch the earth to a cinder. Having last passed a balanced budget in 1973, their country is headed for fiscal oblivion (true). AI will eliminate all entry-level jobs, if not all jobs. They’ll never afford their own homes. Benefits being weighted towards the elderly, whose cohort only expands, the few younger folks who find work will have most of their earnings confiscated by the gerontocracy. Low fertility condemns Europe to decay, a conviction that further lowers fertility. Expecting nothing but collapse, conflagration and injustice fosters nihilism.
France already descended into nihilism in 1789 and 1968. And as John Daniel Davidson wrote earlier this month at the Federalist, “The riots in France last week stand as a warning to the United States and all western countries: mass immigration will split your country in two, and the two sides will eventually go to war.”
SHE’S JUST THE ANDREW TATE OF THE FEMOSPHERE:
Wait a minute… So she knowingly had sex with this guy without disclosing that she had an STD? A famous man would be criminally charged if he did this. Why do any women listen to this garbage? https://t.co/eve8qKpnpr
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 23, 2026
October 23, 2026
OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Europe’s Space Rider vehicle comes crashing down during drop test. “The incident occurred during an Oct. 6 drop test of the full-scale Space Rider model, from the European Space Agency (ESA). The robotic vehicle’s initial drogue parachute deployed successfully, but its main parafoil detached during deployment, leaving the prototype unable to slow its descent before crashing into the ground, according to ESA officials. The cause of the failure remains under investigation.”
Still a few bugs in the system.
ANNALS OF AUTOPHAGY: Researchers Discover a Surprising Twist in How Our Cells Age.
ICYMI:
We've gone from cans having over a year wait & fingerprint requirements
to
getting a silencer free with an optics purchase
And y'all are talking about staying home in November. We've never been so back. pic.twitter.com/W2NjvqZJj5
— Louis vil LeGun (@LouisvilleGun) October 20, 2026
HAHAHA:
>"International Law" is just how we explain the United States Navy to children and invalids,
absolute banger; chisel this in marble https://t.co/u8w07kGRoT
— ⓘSome Dogs have thumbs (@MorlockP) October 23, 2026
IT’S NOT THAT THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT’S IN THE VIDEOS, IT’S THAT THEY HOPE YOU DON’T KNOW.
Did you happen to catch the part of the plot where Democrat governors will declare the Constitutionally-elected Presidency invalid and seize control of American governance?
That's literally in the videos, idiot, and I am not exaggerating.
Go watch the videos and report back and…
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) October 23, 2026
IF YOU STILL THINK TEXAS IS GOING BLUE: Matt Margolis over at PJ Media rounds up a bunch of common sense. Like the survey that on one hand put State Sen. James Talarico two points up on Attorney General Ken Paxton, while on the other showing a majority of surveyed Texans want the GOP to control the Senate. There’s more, go here.
JAY BHATTACHARYA: Launching a Second Scientific Revolution.
CRIMINAL MASTERMIND:
She wrote a check?
— MountainMama (@mtnmamapatriot) October 23, 2026
Previously: Feds Arrest Corrupt Virginia Dem — and Her Family Members, Too.
I DID NAZI THAT COMING: Mein Home Team Goose-Stepped in It With a Throwback Profile Pic.
BUCKLE UP:
Yes, he is.
1. The videos explicitly name the Illinois governor as one of the two that were willing to buy into the illegitimacy memo.
2. He’s co-chair of Governors Safeguarding Democracy which apparently liked the memo and presentation.
3. I believe Democracy Funders Network…— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) October 22, 2026
“A republic, if you can keep it,” the wise man once said.
WELL, THAT’S NOT GOOD: Porsche Warns Hundreds of Owners Not to Drive as Wheels Could Detach.
ROCKET REPORT: SpaceX says no thanks to Space Force launches.
The Space Force recently tried to book rides for three future satellite missions, but SpaceX declined to offer its services, Politico reports. No other rocket companies offered to take them either, the publication reported. A top Space Force official, Brig. Gen. Eric Zarybnisky, the acting portfolio acquisition executive, acknowledged growing pains for the government and space industry as demand for rockets increases. “Temporarily, there are some things we’ll need to work through, again, as we get new providers flying,” he said. SpaceX has been declining to sign new Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch contracts for all kinds of customers.
No one else has capacity … The three Space Force missions that didn’t find a ride were listed through the National Security Space Launch initiative. Two of the missions were for the Space Development Agency. The agency is a branch of the Space Force that’s building a network of hundreds of military satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide expanded data services, and missile warning and tracking capabilities. Other potential launch providers, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin, are both working through setbacks with their launch vehicles. Zarybnisky remained optimistic that Blue Origin and ULA will work through their technical problems and that new competitors will get up and running in time.
Previously: How in the Actual Hell Can We Be Running Out of Space Rockets?
