March 9, 2026

ITS ORIGIN AND PURPOSE, STILL A TOTAL MYSTERY: Suspected terrorist defiantly flashes ISIS salute after he’s busted for tossing explosive device near Gracie Mansion.

One of the accused terrorists busted for lobbing explosive devices near Gracie Mansion flashed a sick salute honoring ISIS as he was led in shackles from a police precinct Monday.

Emir Balat, 18, was seen holding up his right index finger — a universal salute for the terror group — and grinning at the press while being led by a cop and an FBI agent.

Balat, wearing a black T-shirt and beige pants, made the gesture before one of the officers flanking him slapped down his hand.

Balat, whose parents are reportedly from Turkey but who became naturalized citizens in 2017, was arrested Saturday along with 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi after a homemade “Mother of Satan” bomb was thrown at protesters outside New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Upper East Side residence.

Related:

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

WE’RE WATCHING DOWNFALL, BUT WITH MASS NOTIFICATION SYSTEMS AND PCs TO CRANK OUT AI SLOP IN THE AYATOLLAH-BUNKER:

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

JOHN HINDERAKER: Lies, Damned Lies, and Journalism. “So the Tomahawk didn’t hit the school, it hit the naval base. And the video indicates that at that point, the school had already been struck. By what? We don’t know, but the one thing we know for sure is that it wasn’t the Tomahawk. My guess is that the military investigation will conclude that the school was struck by an errant Iranian missile, but by that time the left-wing press will have firmly implanted the assumption that it was ours.”

The Western press happily carries water for the mullahs. You cannot despise them enough.

Posted at 1:28 pm by Stephen Green

GONE IN 60 SECONDS: Noem’s deputy director of ICE bought thousands of vehicles that officers can’t use.

A former Trump administration official wasted millions of taxpayer dollars given to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to purchase thousands of employee vehicles that the agency cannot use to arrest illegal immigrants, according to three sources.

ICE’s top brass are quietly searching for a way to amend the remainder of a massive order of pick-up trucks and SUVs that were ordered last year and slated to be wrapped with the agency’s name, logo, and motto, as well as storing away many vehicles that have been delivered to ICE facilities across the country, the Washington Examiner has learned.

“ICE has never had marked vehicles,” the first person familiar with the purchases said in a phone call. “In talking to people, they’re like, ‘We don’t want to use these, we can’t.’”

The saga is the latest controversial expenditure of taxpayer money within the Department of Homeland Security and speaks to the different ways political appointees at the department have tried to approach operations versus how career law enforcement officials have historically done so.

Over the past year, assaults against ICE personnel have risen 8,000%, according to the DHS, and federal police have opted to hide their faces and identities while working in public. They have frequently switched license plates on rental vehicles to avoid detection by activists, who track the license plate numbers of suspected ICE vehicles in massive crowdsourced databases.

Despite the growing number of ways ICE employees have sought to protect their identities, ICE’s former deputy director, Madison Sheahan, placed a bulk order for vehicles clearly marked with ICE’s logo.

Exit quote: “‘If leadership would have been consulted — leadership being the executive assistant directors, do you need marked vehicles, the people that have done this job would have said, ‘We don’t need marked vehicles, because you’re not going to use them,’ the first person said.”

UPDATE Why would ICE need unmarked cars? Oh, right:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

BATTLESWARM: Iran Strikes Day 9. “Back before American journalists became self-licking ice cream cones, war reporting used to include maps, unit movements, logistics, combat reports from journalists embedded with U.S. units, etc. The BBC still seems to do a little of that, but I’m not seeing that from American outlets, maybe because it’s hard work. They don’t even seem to be bothering to tell ChatGPT to do it for them. Hence these roundups to fill the gap.”

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

METAPHOR ALERT:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

TERRORISM IS MOSTLY RICH KIDS LARPING:

Posted at 12:24 pm by Glenn Reynolds

BUT OF COURSE:

Posted at 12:19 pm by Glenn Reynolds

POSTMODERN FEMINISTS ONLY SUPPORT WOMEN WITH NEUROTIC DELUSIONS OF OPPRESSION, OR “WOMEN” WITH A Y CHROMOSOME:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Stephen Green

ENDORSED:

Posted at 11:55 am by Stephen Green

MATT TAIBBI EXCLUSIVE: The FBI’s Secret Stash Finally Uncovered.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation task force has begun excavating the separate set of books FBI keeps using an inaccessible “prohibited access” file designation, according to multiple government sources. Though an internal fight over how to handle the files continues, embattled FBI Director Kash Patel has assigned personnel to examine decades of hidden history, Racket News has learned, with some files already turned over to Congress.

“This is it — the deep state,” one of the sources said.

Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, whose work with whistleblowers and pressure across years was key to prying prohibited access files loose, expressed cautious optimism.

“If it weren’t for whistleblower disclosures to my office, the very existence of the FBI using ‘Prohibited Access’ files for some investigations would have remained in the dark,” he said. “I’ve asked Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel to turn over certain Prohibited Access records to Congress. I’ve received some, but am still waiting on others. I urge the DOJ and FBI to keep digging – which previous administrations apparently didn’t make any effort to do – so that the facts can come to light. The FBI’s secret stash of records is scandalous.”

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green

NOT A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH, THIS IS MAMDANI’S NYC:

Then there’s this… which is still not a Python bit:

You can’t make this stuff up, and in America’s blue zones, you don’t have to.

Posted at 11:24 am by Stephen Green

WHACK-A-MULLAH:

Posted at 10:53 am by Stephen Green