December 12, 2025

IT’S FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: His Dirty Bomb Was a Filthy Lie “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn how not to frighten away the police, where not to hide things from the police, and why roller skates aren’t the best way to flee the police.”

Posted at 3:21 pm by Stephen Green

GUMMINT IS AMERICA’S BIGGEST AFFORDABILITY CRISIS: What Reagan told America in 1981 is even more true in 2025. But will Dems or the MSM ever level with American people on this issue? I’m back up on Substack.

Posted at 3:18 pm by Mark Tapscott

UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Obama administration ICE chief says Trump deportations are ‘remarkable accomplishment.’

Former acting ICE Director John Sandweg told MSNOW on Thursday, “I got to say two things quickly. One is that the way in which the White House structured this immigration enforcement operation with Stephen Miller running the policy, with Tom Homan being the border czar, but very interested … ,” the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

He also said, “There’s always a little tension between the department and the White House, but especially so when you have three, you know, cooks in the kitchen, so to speak,” likely referring to the Department of Homeland Security.

Sandweg added that he’s aware that “there’s frustration at these numbers, but I have to tell you, this is a — it is a remarkable accomplishment. These numbers are stunning to me.

“When I look at, let’s say, 600,000 deportations this year, those are all from the interior. And I think this is a critical distinction. When you’re doing the immigration enforcement, you divide the world into the border and the interior. And during the Obama Administration, when there were 400,000 deportations, the reality is about 250,000 of those were people caught right at the border. And it’s not as impactful because those are people trying to get into the United States. This is all people in the interior.”

Amazing what you can do when you try.

Posted at 2:50 pm by Stephen Green

RAVING AND DROOLING: Sharon Osbourne nearly mailed Roger Waters a box of poo for his attack on Ozzy after his death.

In the new interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she ultimately decided not to send a similar parcel to Waters.

“Even that is a waste, to send shit to him. It’s a waste because he’s really insignificant,” she explained. “But I just thought, anybody that passes has a family… you don’t do that.”

Later in the interview, Sharon went on to say that she thought Waters’ comments on the podcast were actually aimed at her, instead of Ozzy, and alleged that they could have stemmed from anti-Semitism. Waters has previously strongly denied any accusations of being anti-Semitic, and has not yet commented publicly on the comments made by Sharon in the new interview.

And yet oddly, these reports just keep happening: Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters accused of antisemitic behavior including swastika confetti, ‘Jew food’ remarks: report.

 

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

SKYNET SMILES: Europe faces Robocop-style dystopia by 2035, EU police claim.

Angry mobs of unemployed citizens riot in the streets against the hordes of service robots that have stolen their jobs. Police officers armed with “robo freezer guns” and “nano net grenades” shoot down swarms of drones deployed by terrorists to attack electricity and water supplies.

This is not the plot of a new Robocop sci-fi film but what may await Europe in the next 10 years, according to a report from the EU’s police agency.

The 48-page Europol document details how law enforcement will need to tackle robots and unmanned systems (drones, satellites and remote-controlled boats) in a dystopian vision of the future.

Experts have dismissed the predictions as fanciful but the EU believes its report outlines “plausible future scenarios”.

While the EU scares its subjects over Robocop scenarios, it’s fully prepared to implement futuristic dystopian strategies of its own: Chat Control: The EU’s Plan to Read Your Messages — All of Them.

In Europe, the controversy surrounding what is popularly known as the “Chat Control” project — proposed EU regulation officially aimed at combating child sexual abuse material — has, for months, been crystallizing massive opposition on both technical and civic fronts.

The core principles of the legislation are clear:

“Detection software would be embedded in the messaging app or the operating system to scan chat content and automatically forward any material flagged as prohibited to law enforcement agencies.”

The automatic scan of private content (texts, images, videos) sent through messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram, or prompts sent to AI platforms (e.g. ChatGPT) would take place “client-side,” before its encryption, meaning directly on your phone, tablet or computer. Welcome to 1984. In the first proposal for a Chat Control project in 2022, such scanning was mandatory. In the current proposal, it is optional — but strongly recommended.

Whenever there is a desire to expand control over European citizens, “terrorism” or pedophilia is invoked. It is a clever tactic: who would want to be perceived as supporting terrorists or sympathizing with pedophiles?

Of course, however, that does not seem to be the regulation’s true objective. The real issue appears to be the government’s desire to control, regulate, police and monitor European citizens down to their smallest gesture.

Exit quote: “I happen to be the happy father of an 18-month-old girl. For professional reasons, her mother and I do not always live together, and we constantly exchange photos of our daughter — up to ten times a day. All it would take is for an algorithm to flag a single image, just once, for us to become suspects, quietly entering countless criminal databases, justifying surveillance, official intervention, and more. Even East Germany’s Stasi never dreamed of such power.”

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

COL WAR II: Communist China Still Infiltrating Texas. “Communist China is always looking to steal technology from the West through its ‘Thousand Talents’ espionage program, and this week brought two more instances from Texas.”

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green

SOMALI PIRATES UPDATE:

Full interview here.

I’m so old, I can remember flying with large amounts of cash was a surefire way to trigger the authorities: Carrying A Lot Of Cash Through TSA Comes With One Unpleasant Risk.

If you’re like lots of folks, paying for something means pulling out your card or phone and tapping away. Same thing goes for traveling abroad, even in countries typically overlooked by travelers in lieu of big-name destinations like Italy or Spain, cash seems to be less and less common. Nonetheless, cards aren’t universal. As a traveler, having some cash is still a good backup in case your cards stop working — just don’t carry too much. If you’ve got over $10,000 on you when you’re trying to cross country borders, you’re going to have to declare it to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The idea of carrying $10,000 in your wallet may seem ridiculous to plenty of people. Especially considering that a cash amount of $50 to $100 per day per person is considered generally reasonable for a vacation. But if you do have loads of cash on you for some reason, $10,000 is the United States’ threshold for declaration. Within the national borders of the U.S., like crossing from state to state, you don’t have to declare your money. However, when traveling in or out of the U.S., you do.

And: More Than $100K Seized After K-9 Officer At Dallas Love Field Airport Sniffs Out Bag.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

KIMBERLY STRASSEL: Rise of the Mamdani Clones. “After the 2024 humiliation, the left is back. It could hurt the party in 2026.”

The left’s zeal is also propelling candidates into open and battleground races—no matter the general-election risks. Maine Rep. Jared Golden clung to his rural Maine district by less than 1 point as Mr. Trump won it by 10 last year, and only via a pragmatic voting record. The primary to replace him features two avowed progressives, racing to the left. And progressives are stacking up cash and endorsements in primaries to take on the most vulnerable Republicans in battleground states from Pennsylvania to Arizona and Wisconsin. In the contest to challenge vulnerable Republican California Rep. David Valadao, school-board activist Randy Villegas is using a Sanders endorsement and dollars to outpower moderate state Rep. Jasmeet Bains.

The risks of the Sanders takeover were further highlighted in Texas this week, when former Rep. Colin Allred was pressured out of a Senate run, to clear the decks for uber-progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Mr. Allred, a former NFL linebacker, lost to Sen. Ted Cruz last year by 8 points, significantly outperforming Kamala Harris. Democrats have their best shot at a statewide office in Texas in years, given the general electoral climate and a bloody GOP primary between Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Ms. Crockett still must beat state House member James Talarico, but backing for her is pouring in and Democrats face the real prospect that their “best” shot will be in the hands of a freshman Democrat who has clawed her way to notoriety through creative slanging matches.

Lost in all this maneuvering was the release of a recent report from a center-left group, Welcome, which Semafor reports “consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is ‘out of touch’ ” on issues ranging from transgenderism to climate—everything the reascendant progressive left stands for.

Well, they are. But that doesn’t mean the GOP can play dead and expect to win.

Posted at 12:46 pm by Stephen Green

OPEN SOURCE:

Full story here, complete with instructions on how to follow the ships yourself.

Posted at 12:32 pm by Stephen Green

TIME MAGAZINE’s 2025 MAN OF THE YEAR CONTINUES TO KNOCK IT OUT OF THE PARK: Washington Post’s AI-generated podcasts rife with errors, fictional quotes.

The Washington Post’s top standards editor Thursday decried “frustrating” errors in its new AI-generated personalized podcasts, whose launch has been met with distress by its journalists.

Earlier this week, the Post announced that it was rolling out personalized AI-generated podcasts for users of the paper’s mobile app. In a release, the paper said users will be able to choose preferred topics and AI hosts, and could “shape their own briefing, select their topics, set their lengths, pick their hosts and soon even ask questions using our Ask The Post AI technology.”

But less than 48 hours since the product was released, people within the Post have flagged what four sources described as multiple mistakes in personalized podcasts. The errors have ranged from relatively minor pronunciation gaffes to significant changes to story content, like misattributing or inventing quotes and inserting commentary, such as interpreting a source’s quotes as the paper’s position on an issue.

Which means that the WaPo’s AI is currently behaving like most flesh-and-blood journalists at the WaPo. And as Glenn wrote last year after Google’s AI declared that we are all National Socialists now (classical allusion), “Of course, the thing about AI is that AI keeps getting better, while people stay about the same.  (Indeed, there’s some evidence that the average person is getting dumber, which if true will only close the gap faster.)  At a sufficiently advanced level of technology, AI will be super-effective at manipulating people, and they won’t even know they’re being manipulated.” So AI should continue to clear the gap between man and machine at the WaPo surprisingly quickly.

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

KRUISER: Dems Would Last Maybe 5 Minutes in the Civil War They Think They Want. “All of the posturing and potty-mouthing in front of friendly audiences has given the Democrats the mistaken impression that they actually are tough. It’s mostly amusing, especially given the fact that fey soy boy Gavin Newsom is their highest polling ‘fighter’ right now.”

Posted at 12:15 pm by Stephen Green

THIS:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds