#JOURNALISM:

I MEAN, COME ON, HE’S NO DADDY YANKEE:

DO NOT TRUST CONTENT FROM THE CIA:

Or The Guardian.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: ‘We’re Not Criminalizing the Unhoused’: How a Homeless Encampment and Drug Dealers Are Destroying a Local Condominium Complex and Turning Its Residents’ Lives Upside Down.

From Prince George’s County, “which has the highest Democratic vote-share of any county in the United States, at 86 percent.”

“The dilapidation of this community was caused directly by the county,” said Phil Dawit, Quasar’s managing director. “The reason it’s so bad now is that everyone let it fester.”

This report is based on emails from county officials, interviews with residents of the Marylander, invoice records and maintenance logs, and dozens of hours of video footage, much of it from the body cameras that Quasar executives wore when they visited the condo.

It reveals a Kafkaesque battle between law-abiding citizens and the left-wing bureaucrats who abandoned them, as officials in a deep blue county vowed to be “compassionate” and avoid “criminalizing the unhoused.”

The costs of that compassion fell predominantly on poor, non-white condo-owners who saw the value of their homes evaporate as vandalism from the encampment pushed the complex into disrepair. That in turn made banks unwilling to finance security upgrades—without which the condo was more susceptible to crime—and caused inspectors to deem many units “unfit for human habitation” after the heating system was vandalized.

The county is now taking the condo to court to enforce an evacuation order against those units. If a judge rules in the county’s favor on Thursday, the residents who for years were terrorized by a homeless encampment will become homeless themselves.

“The people working hard and following laws are on their way to being homeless,” Dawit said. “Meanwhile, the homeless encampment gets to do whatever it wants.”

Read the whole thing.

SHOT:

CHASER:

In 2026, we are beginning to develop consequences for the left. They’re shocked at this genuinely unprecedented development.

BIG SHIFT:

I’ve always felt that the Moon made more sense because it’s closer, but going directly to Mars is doable, as Bob Zubrin demonstrated with his Mars Direct architecture back in the 1990s. But I think Elon has now decided that he can’t leave his rear area open to occupation by hostile forces.

#JOURNALISM:

OUTKICK THE COVERAGE: Super Bowl LX Was Forgettable And If Casual Fans Boycotted They Didn’t Miss Much. “If you boycotted the Super Bowl, you’re not alone. The New England Patriots offense also did for most of Sunday night. The Seattle Seahawks are the Super Bowl LX champions and reign over the entire NFL because they overmatched Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and the Patriots offense in a 29-13 blowout. The truth is this game had only a couple of moments when it was in doubt.”

JOSH BLACKMAN: Seven Pages Of Nixon Grand Jury Testimony Reveal The Real Threat Of the Deep State. Nixon’s enemies within his own administration were spying on and trying to subvert the elected President. “The biggest takeaway is that an Air Force officer, Yeoman Radford, who worked in the White House, was a mole. No, not for the Soviets, but for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He would routinely make copies of documents from Nixon administration officials and share them with people in the Pentagon. Radford would pilfer documents from Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig and make copies of them. . . . The purpose of this espionage was to check the incumbent president from taking actions that the deep state opposed. You have to read through a lot of background to get to this shocking takeaway. Here is the key excerpt, where Nixon reveals to the prosecutors about the deep state ‘can of worms’. . . . Do you see what happened? Nixon was fully aware that there was a deep state in his own administration. He employed the ‘Plumbers’ to plug those leaks. But he would only reveal the depth of the deep state before a secret grand jury investigation. The Watergate Prosecutors, who were part of the DOJ deep state, did not want Nixon to talk about the Pentagon deep state. And for five decades, this testimony was sealed, until Rosen reported on it.”

ICYMI:

ROBERT SPENCER: Mamdani Has a Terrific Idea for How the U.S. Should Handle the Immigration Issue. “Hizzoner started out, however, by magnanimously invoking the wisdom of a different religion, in an apparent effort to throw his critics off the scent and dispel growing suspicions that he is a far more hardline Muslim than he ever gave any hint of being during his campaign.”

WELL, BYE:

Related:

WHADDYA MEAN NOT TONE POLICING THE RIGHT? THAT’S CRAZY TALK.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY:

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: With Purge, Xi’s Military Control Rises—and so Do the Region’s Risks.

The investigation of the officers, Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli, marks one of the most consequential political military purges in China’s armed forces in decades. Zhang, a Politburo member and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, and Liu, chief of staff of the commission’s Joint Staff Department, sat at the apex of China’s military system. Their sudden removal for alleged disciplinary and legal violations has hollowed out the military’s most important governing body and no doubt shaken the armed forces’ senior leadership.

The immediate effect is stark. The seven-member Central Military Commission has been effectively reduced to just two figures—Xi Jinping himself and political commissar Zhang Shengmin.

Zhang Youxia’s downfall is particularly striking. Long viewed as untouchable, he was a red aristocrat with revolutionary pedigree, deep personal ties to Xi, and rare combat experience. He was among the oldest senior commanders to have fought in China’s 1979 war with Vietnam. Unlike much of today’s Chinese military leadership, whose experience is shaped overwhelmingly by exercises, simulations and political work, Zhang had seen the realities of combat. He was widely regarded by observers as one of the few generals who was likely capable of telling Xi what he needed to hear, not simply what the party leader wanted to hear.

With this move, Xi has reinforced a central truth of Chinese civil-military relations: the military is not a national army; it is the armed wing of the Communist Party and ultimately an instrument of Xi’s personal authority. The purge confirms that no pedigree, no combat record and no past loyalty confer immunity when control is at stake.

Exit quote: “A military preoccupied with internal discipline campaigns, loyalty checks and political rectification is unlikely to press aggressively for major external operations. Over time, however, the risks begin to accumulate.”

Stay tuned…

JOURNALISM:

Related:

They’ve been scraping along the seafloor of the Marianas Trench for a while.

PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY:

KURT IS A GENIUS:

RULE OF LAW: A Earthquake Ruling From The Fifth Circuit Court Of Appeals On An Important Immigration Issue — Detention of Aliens Without Bond Is Lawful.

Until Friday evening, the effort by the Trump administration to engage in “mass removals” of illegal aliens — a Trump campaign promise — has suffered from two primary hampering factors: 1 ) limited bed space in detention facilities that created a bottleneck; and 2) a practice in place for nearly 30 years that illegal aliens arrested in the interior of the country were almost always released back to their lives while being given a Notice to Appear to initiate removal proceedings against them at some time in the future. . . .

The math said that nearly 1.2 million illegal aliens released on bond would not appear for their removal hearing before an immigration judge.

Late on Friday night, the Fifth Circuit’s 2-1 decision in a closely watched case held that the Trump Administration has the authority under the immigration statutes to detain — with no bond hearing required — any illegal aliens taken into ICE detention at any location in the country.

Stay tuned.