August 19, 2026
MAYBE NOT QUITE A MOON-SHATTERING KABOOM, BUT STILL IMPRESSIVE:
Spotted: Falcon 9 impact site
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5, 2026, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the lunar surface. https://t.co/aqduBYwpmg pic.twitter.com/hE83yvzmIk
— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) August 18, 2026
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Judge Rules Biden ‘Ghost Gun’ Rule Unconstitutional.
TRUMP SAID HE’D RESTORE FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA. Halfway through his second term, the question is whether his actions have matched that promise.
MASSIVE RESISTANCE: DOJ says Duke Law used racial preferences after Supreme Court ruling.
ABOLISH PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS: Teacher unions dedicate money to political activism, lobbying.
Some teachers raise questions about whether union dues are being used to advance causes the instructors actually support.
Todd Loeffler, a California elementary public school teacher for over 25 years, said the cost of joining the union and some of their political tactics turned him off.
“Knowing that our union dues were primarily going to Democratic candidates, it was very difficult,” he told The Center Square.
Another issue was the cost. He initially declined to join his union when he began teaching because the dues were too expensive.
“When I was just hired as a new teacher, I was asked to join the union along with all the other new teachers,” Loeffler said. “We discussed joining the union, but we agreed it was too expensive, and our salary was very low.”
WELL, HE’S RIGHT:
BREAKING: U.S. sanctions International Criminal Court President Tomoko Akane, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling the ICC a “sham of a court.” pic.twitter.com/aS2fnYYYkh
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) August 18, 2026
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Axios — Dems Might Be Commies but, Hey, They’re Sexy! “Using a favorite modern liberal buzzword, Axios is trying to normalize the commie element that’s been stirring things up for the Democratic National Committee. If they can focus on the fact that Abdul El-Sayed is wearing t-shirts to show off his biceps, they might be able to distract some voters from the fact that he’s a far-left, terrorist-loving cancer.”
IYKYK:
"The Death of Expertise" by Tom Nichols.
Hint: it was self-inflicted. pic.twitter.com/okVxAEqL4s— Big Jarhead (@big_jarhead) August 19, 2026
WHEN THE K-12 IMPLOSION AND THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE OVERLAP: Shot: UC-Berkeley math prof says she has to teach fractions to calculus students because standards have fallen so far.
Chaser: SF high school where 94% flunk math has California’s highest Berkeley acceptance rate.
You can guess why.
HMM: OpenAI builds dedicated ChatGPT experience for teens with parental controls and study features.
The ChatGPT for Teens portal will serve as the default experience on the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for users between the ages of 13 and 17 and will come with new safeguards aimed at fostering the safe use of the platform and supporting teens’ critical thinking skills.
OpenAI said that most teen users of ChatGPT use it for homework and help with their studies, so the new platform is intended to allow for study aides without giving the answers away and was designed with Stanford University.
It will feature quizzes and responsible-homework reminders that redirect teens toward collaborative problem-solving, as well as a Study Hours feature that allows teens or parents to set Study Mode as a default during certain time periods.
Those seem like sensible guardrails, but my wife and I wouldn’t even let our kids have social media until they were at least 16 — so this might’ve been a hard No, too.
OLD AND BUSTED: Fake News.
The Hotness? Fake Everything:
We live in an age of fakes. Fake Cambridge professors, fake virus origin stories, fake polls, fake unimpaired presidents, fake ceasefires, fake news. Maybe we are better off asking: what's real? pic.twitter.com/6J49DPwTO4
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) August 19, 2026
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Florida biology teacher’s ‘heinous sex acts’ against teen destroyed his faith in God: suit.
POPE URGES TWO-STATE SOLUTION:
All the Muslims in Judea and Samaria have to do is stop attacking their neighbors, just as all the Muslims in Gaza have to do is stop attacking their neighbors. They refuse.
And who runs one of the two states?
The one whose authority can't even hold an election because Hamas… https://t.co/jv33I23YNV— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 18, 2026
I’d rather go for the one-state solution myself:
THE POPULATIONS OF OCCUPIED COUNTRIES ARE USUALLY SUBJECTED TO PROPAGANDA AIMED AT DIMINISHING NATIONAL PRIDE:
The BBC broadcasts children's programs claiming that Black people built Britain. The BBC loves to spread disinformation. pic.twitter.com/VPbJXZL4we
— RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) August 19, 2026
NICK KRISTOF SHALL FOREVER BE KNOWN AS DOG RAPE MAN: ‘Dog Rape’ New York Times Columnist Delivers Another Dud as Harvard Prepares to Honor Him.
DO NOT TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOLE:
Relatedly, TikTok loves to amplify anti-natal, childfree, and anti-marriage content. You’ll even see Chinese or Russian electrical outlets in some of the backgrounds when the OP is supposed to be “American.” The CCP is deadly scared of its collapsed birth rate, and wants to bring… https://t.co/TocXdm5Vtl
— Payton Alexander (@AlexanderPayton) August 19, 2026
Tweet concludes, “The CCP is deadly scared of its collapsed birth rate, and wants to bring ours down to their level. They view this as grand civilizational competition and so should we.”
Why, it’s as if TikTok maybe a Chinese superweapon or something.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Dyson V15 Detect Cordless Vacuum. #CommissionEarned
THE MULLAHS AREN’T SENDING THEIR BEST: UAE says it detected 2 missiles fired from Iran; both fell into water.
Iran’s firing of missiles at the UAE comes as talks between the U.S. and Iran appear to have fallen apart.
“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” President Trump wrote Tuesday morning on Truth Social.
The president doubled down on his calls to annex the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway dividing Iran and Oman, by posting an image of a map with the strait being labeled as a U.S. territory.
“We control it with the blockade, and I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday when asked about the waterway.
Trolling?
THE NOMENKLATURA OF THE PROLETARIAT:
‘Union electrician’ DSA socialists be having $1.5 million Brooklyn row houses bought for them by their parents. https://t.co/HJr0pAeJG8 pic.twitter.com/88yvqnigEg
— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) August 18, 2026
Guessing he might not do all that much electrical work.
COMMUNIST COSPLAY:
I’m so tired of these DSA types.
It’s always the same exact bio: self-important, bottomlessly entitled rich kids who hate you, want free stuff, and think they can get it doing communist cosplay. https://t.co/xvjhorDWMB
— Coddled Affluent Professional (@feelsdesperate) August 19, 2026
Plus, why do they invariably have such outdated reactionary 19th century white supremacist worldviews? Marx Was an Othering White Male!
