Links - 17th May 2026 (1 - Donald Trump)

Meme - Mark Hamill: "No one is above the law" *hero Luke Skywalker*
Mark Hamill @MarkHamill: "We have now arrived at the "arresting judges" level of fascism" *Recluse Jake Skywalker drinking Blue Milk*1/2

OAG Special Attorney Alina Habba on X - "🚨 Today my office has charged Congresswoman McIver with violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 111(a)(1) for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement."
Rep. Eric Swalwell on X - "A RED LINE has been crossed. Trump is prosecuting his political enemies in Congress. This is just the beginning. We must take whatever we’ve done before to show dissent and go ONE RUNG HIGHER. And save your bullshit documents on this, Alina. You’ll need them when you testify."
Nobody is above the law - unless that helps the left wing agenda

Cynical Publius on X - "The great sin of Donald Trump is that in his second term he rejected all of the "experts" and brought in outsiders to fix the havoc and damage wreaked by the "experts."  And golly gee do the "experts" hate it.  At this point we have a cadre of failed "experts" doing everything they can to sabotage the vitally necessary reform of their sins.  Pretty much everything happening in American politics today can be understood through this prism."
Trust the Experts! Even when they are wrong

Mostly Peaceful Memes on X - "What’s clear from the Maduro raid and today’s strikes is that forever wars were a choice."
William Wolfe 🇺🇸 on X - "The fact that a billionaire real estate playboy who liked to slap his name on steaks and wine has proven to be a better diplomat and military strategist than every other politician and foreign policy expert over the last 30 years is such a damning indictment of the DC establishment I honestly don’t know how they recover."

The Shiny Theory of Trump - "It just seems there has always been a peculiar intellectual contortion that has become fashionable in certain corners of political commentary, and it goes something like this: Donald Trump is both an evil mastermind capable of deceiving tens of millions of Americans while simultaneously being an easily manipulated simpleton, led around by the nose by any sufficiently clever foreign leader with a compliment and a map.  It is, one must admit, an impressive feat—less of logic than of acrobatics.  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and alternating weekends, Trump is cast as a near–comic book villain: a man so cunning he bent an entire political party to his will, hijacked institutions, and hypnotized a voting bloc the size of a large European nation. His opponents speak of him in tones usually reserved for master tacticians or criminal geniuses. Democracy itself, we are told, barely survived the encounter.  Then on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and whenever a foreign policy disagreement arises, he is suddenly recast as a gullible rube—an orange-tinted marionette whose strings are pulled by whichever world leader last flattered him over dessert. Benjamin Netanyahu turns into the Trump Whisperer and mentions something about legacy, and Trump, we are assured, charges headlong into war like Tamatoa chasing a shiny object. One begins to wonder: which is it?... The explanation offered is usually psychological. Narcissists, we are told, are uniquely vulnerable to flattery. This is presented as though it were a kind of master key—insert compliment, turn gently, and out falls foreign policy but this, too, is a comforting simplification. It allows the critic to avoid a more unsettling possibility: that decisions—right or wrong—might be made from a framework they simply disagree with, rather than from manipulation or incompetence.  It is much easier, after all, to believe that one’s opponent has been fooled than to accept that he acted deliberately."

Senator Mazie Hirono on X - "Donald Trump is not, never will be, and has never been a king. #NoKings"
MAZE on X - "Thus no need for No Kings protests. Thank you for this. Greatest self own ever."

Fox News on X - "BEHIND THE PROTESTS: Fox News investigation reveals 'No Kings' demonstrations backed by network of 500 organizations, many tied to socialist and communist groups."

Polling USA on X - "Fox News is surprised that protests organized by communities are, in fact, organized by communities"
Clearly, if organisations support right wing protests, that shows they are inorganic, inauthentic and astroturfed. But if organisations support left wing protests, that shows that they have deep and widespread community support

Cynical Publius on X - "You know, if all those old hippie Democrat white women had not aborted all their babies, they could be spending their Saturdays enjoying their grandchildren instead of protesting imaginary kingdoms."
julie finds hope on X - "You know, I have 5 children and have time to protest with my grandchildren Who are also smart enough to know the emperor has no clothes"
Cynical Publius on X - "You drag your grandchildren out as political props for a wholly fabricated fantasy protest? That is the most evil thing I have heard today. Shame on you."

DK🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 on X - "White No Kings protester tries to explain why there aren’t many Black people there… and it goes off the rails:  She says:  "Black people are afraid to be arrested… they can’t afford lawyers… they can’t afford time off work."  She then adds:  "A lot of Black people don’t have IDs… they don’t drive… they don’t have cars."
Full exchange:
Interviewer:   "Why do you think there’s not a lot of black people here?"
Protester:  "Because a lot of them are afraid of being arrested. And they don’t wanna get arrested. They can’t afford it. They can’t afford the lawyers. They can’t afford the time off from work. And they’re afraid."
Interviewer:   "Do you think black people are less likely to protest because they’re afraid of getting arrested?"
Protester:  "Yeah, I do. Because they know they’ll get arrested more than white people."
Interviewer:   "What about voter ID laws? A lot of people say that suppresses the black vote."
Protester:  "Yeah, because a lot of black people don’t have IDs. They don’t drive. They don’t have cars. They use public transportation."
- Terrence K. Williams"
Left wingers are so racist

Meme - Sauron: "We're in trouble, Saruman. These last few months, Aragorn has continued to deport Easterlings and eliminate the leaders of the Haradrim. Our supporter base is dwindling."
Saruman: "I've got it, Sauron! Let's hold yet another "No Kings" march!"
Sauron: "The first two didn't accomplish anything, but why not? It's not as though the Orcs have anything better to do."

The Open-Book Test the Experts Keep Failing - "Most of the foreign policy intelligentsia thinks of President Trump as a clown. His stances on NATO in 2016 brought out the “professional” soothsayers—those paid to know things the rest of us “normies” aren’t even supposed to consider. They have their “I love me” walls filled with degrees, certificates, and, in some cases, military awards and medals. They catalog overseas postings, thousands of speeches delivered at important conferences attended by important people. They sit on corporate boards, land administration positions, and enjoy sweet sinecures at think tanks, universities, and even CNN and MSNBC—writing editorials meant to convince the rest of us that we should stand in awe of their prowess.  And yet their conclusions often follow the classic line from H. L. Mencken:      “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.”  Right now, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the former real estate developer from Queens is exposing a large portion of this credentialed expert class as fools and court jesters.  Trump has always seemed to conduct what amount to open-book tests for the foreign policy class, who approach global problems much the way my granddaddy taught me some people approach debt. He used to say the only people who never worry about how much debt they carry are those who never intend to pay it back. All they care about is whether they can make the monthly payment to keep the party going. That mindset seems eerily familiar today. We are told we never should have attacked Iran because negotiations would have worked—even though nearly 50 years of negotiations failed to gain a single inch. Iran hid nuclear development from feckless UN monitors and inspectors, and for those who insist they couldn’t have done so, the fact that enrichment reached 60% tells the real story: they never stopped when they said they stopped.  In this scenario, the only real “win” is for those who draw funding, status, and prestige from keeping the party going. They were never going to propose an actual solution. Like the Obama and Biden approaches, the strategy amounted to little more than continuing to send money and hope for better behavior. We saw how that worked out. It likely helped fund the October 7 attacks in Israel and other terrorist activity around the world.  And despite these open-book tests, the failure rate has approached 100%. Perhaps the problem is that all the books were wrong. First NATO, then Ukraine, then the drug interdictions at sea, then Venezuela, then Iran I—which revealed that Iran had been sold what amounted to bargain-bin North Korean, Chinese, and Russian technology that couldn’t stop a paper airplane—and now Iran II... Russia has failed to accomplish in three years in Ukraine what the American military demonstrated it could do to Iran in three weeks.  The experts—and the nations that relied on them—were wrong.  Now Trump has suggested that countries benefiting from an open Strait of Hormuz should take part in securing it. The United States and Israel are doing the heavy lifting; they are simply asking Europe for assistance. But Europe—and increasingly the United Kingdom—has become something like the “sick man” of the modern era: a once-dominant power that has grown accustomed to American protection over the past eight decades. Their response has been reluctance, preferring not to be involved—even as they continue to rely on the stability others provide.  That reluctance masks a harder truth. It is not merely that they do not want to help—it is that they cannot. The continent that once colonized much of the known world and built the foundations of Western civilization now struggles to defend itself, much less project power abroad. There is also a cultural divide. Many in Europe view Americans as hopelessly unsophisticated—too blunt, too forceful, too willing to act. Yet beneath that disdain lies dependence, and beneath that dependence, resentment. They need American strength, even as they criticize it. Trump, for all his unconventional style, is operating in that reality. He is playing the role of global sheriff not because he relishes conflict, but because too few others are willing—or able—to step into the role. Most would prefer endless discussion to decisive action.  But Americans are growing tired of underwriting global security while being treated as an afterthought."

Meme - FischerKing @FischerKing64: "Focus on the '27 year prison sentence.' Democrat politicians and media figures are talking openly about the 'need' to pursue legal remedies against current Trump officials. They want to throw them away for 27 years too - for nothing."
ALX @alx: "BREAKING: Brazilian Tyrant Judge Alexandre de Voldemort has blocked U.S. State Department Official Darren Beattie from visiting Former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27 year prison sentence."
Damn Trump threatening to prosecute his political opponents! He's a Threat to Democracy, which is why to save Democracy, there needs to be a coup to depose him!

What If Trump Actually Wins? - "It seems to me that most political commentary today operates on a very short timeline. Democrats and much of the media have already decided that the immediate consequences of an action should be treated as the final consequences, especially if the action has anything to do with Donald Trump. The conventional wisdom is almost reflexive: war means chaos, intervention means disaster, and initial instability inevitably leads to endless instability.  But that kind of thinking is shallow.  It is what economists and strategists would call first-order thinking.  First-order thinking focuses only on the most immediate and obvious consequence of an action. Second-order thinking asks the more difficult question: what happens next if the mission succeeds? It forces us to follow the chain of events forward rather than assuming the first ripple in the water tells us the entire story. Consider two events that critics have predicted will inevitably end in catastrophe: the U.S. capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and the ongoing military confrontation with Iran. Much of the commentary surrounding both events has been nearly unanimous in one respect. According to the experts and the talking heads, everything will go wrong.  But what if it doesn’t?  What if the operations actually achieve their stated objectives? What if success produces exactly the kind of cascading positive effects that second-order thinking predicts?  Start with Venezuela.  The removal of Nicolás Maduro represents far more than the arrest of one corrupt strongman. His regime has been a criminal enterprise built on narcotrafficking, repression, and the systematic destruction of one of the richest countries in South America. Venezuela’s collapse was not caused by a lack of resources; the country sits on some of the largest oil reserves in the world. Its tragedy was the presence of a corrupt regime sitting on top of those resources and looting them while the population starved. When a regime like that is suddenly removed, the effects begin to ripple outward. Political prisoners walk out of cells. Political factions begin maneuvering for legitimacy. Economic reforms that were impossible under a cartel-state suddenly become conceivable. If a post-Maduro transition stabilizes even modestly, the second-order consequences could include restored oil production, economic recovery, reduced refugee pressure on neighboring countries, and the collapse of a narcotrafficking hub that has poisoned the Western Hemisphere for decades.  Now apply the same second-order lens to Iran.  The first-order fears are obvious and widely discussed: escalation, regional instability, rising oil prices, and the possibility of a wider war. Those concerns are real, but they are not the only possible trajectory.  Suppose the strikes achieve their strategic objectives. Suppose Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is crippled to the point of extinction and the regime’s military capabilities are severely degraded or destroyed. The second-order consequences begin immediately.  Iran’s network of proxy militias—from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen—suddenly finds itself operating without the same financial and logistical backing. Regional powers that have spent decades cautiously balancing against Tehran would find themselves in a dramatically improved strategic position. Countries already drifting toward cooperation—Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Israel—could accelerate that alignment.  In other words, deterrence would be restored. The Middle East has often been stabilized not merely by diplomacy but by the clear demonstration that certain lines cannot be crossed without consequence. A regime that has spent forty-five years exporting revolution and sponsoring terror might suddenly find its ability to do so sharply reduced.  There is another possibility that receives far less attention. Authoritarian regimes are frequently far more fragile than they appear from the outside. Military humiliation has a way of accelerating internal political fractures. Elites begin calculating their futures. Rival factions maneuver for advantage. Protest movements that once seemed hopeless begin to find oxygen. History has shown this dynamic many times.  None of this is guaranteed, of course. History also offers plenty of examples where intervention produced new chaos rather than stability, but the opposite possibility—the one almost never discussed in today’s commentary—is that decisive action can sometimes remove the source of chaos rather than create it.  That is what second-order thinking forces us to consider.  The real question is not simply what happens tomorrow.  The real question is what the world might look like five years from now if the gamble pays off – and I’m not sure it is a gamble, even though the Democrats and media see it that way. I think President Trump sees it as a calculated risk with a huge payoff for the entire world. Based on my observations, I believe one of the most dangerous mistakes in geopolitics is assuming that the future must always look exactly like the past."

Meme - 0Hour1" "This photo has the leftists crying"
"A Classic Franklin Story. Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists *turtle firing RPG at boats from helicopter*"

Andy Ngo on X - "As revenge for the U.S. arresting Nicolas Maduro, leftist writer Seth Harp posted the name, photo, and biographical details of a purported Delta Force commander he believes led the operation. The post went viral.  But Harp identified the wrong military member, putting an international target on the man. Harp defended his actions, saying he can leak "classified material" because he claims to be a reporter."

Werner Zagrebbi🇦🇿 on X - "The New York Times reports that 12 of the ~1500 January 6 rioters have reoffended in about a year's time—calling it a "crime spree". The recidivism rate of the J6ers is 0.8%. The average 1 year US re-arrest rate, by contrast, is 43%. funny how that works"
Hunter Ash on X - "It’s hard to find the exact stat “how many Americans are convicted of a crime in a given year,” but the best estimate is something like 1-3%. So the pardoned J6ers are probably slightly less criminal than the general population. And the NYT calls this a “crime spree”"
It's only a heinous crime if you oppose the Regime

C3 on X - "Want to see a Judicial Coup? Court injunctions:
Biden: 14 in 4 years
Clinton: 12 in 8 years
Obama: 12 in 8 years
GW Bush: 6 in 8 years
Trump: 170 in 4 years and 10 months.
The Judiciary is filled with Leftist activists just like schools. Impeaching corrupt judges is a must."
The fact that so many of them get overturned is the really telling bit

Meme - Harry Sisson @harryjsisson: "Amazing. President Biden just announced that he will invoke the Higher Education Act to bypass the conservative majority on the Supreme Court and their terrilole ruling. He's fighting for student debt relief and won't give up this battle."
Harry Sisson @harryjsisson: "Trump is actively defying a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling against him. This is authoritarian crap. We are in constitutional crisis."
Nobody is above the law - unless it pushes the left wing agenda

Tom Elliott on X - "Comey indicted Martha Stewart & Mike Flynn for far less than this. And Comey's behavior is far worse since he was lying in service of wiretapping the Trump campaign, the results of which would be used to try swaying he 2016 election, and later sabotaging the first Trump Administration. Hatching a fake narrative to set the NatSec state against the duly elected president is as scandalous as it gets."
Glenn Greenwald on X - "The Netflix documentary on Martha Stewart documents how Comey abused his power for careerist aims by prosecuting her for "false statements" in a preposterous case. The prosecution of @GenFlynn was even worse: driven by deceit, political ends, and the most trivial accusations."

DataRepublican (small r) on X - "So how was J6 going to end in overthrow?   Let me explain why J6 alarms your class so much.   It’s projection, nothing more. Your side has spent years engineering color revolutions abroad, so J6 resembled the final phase to you... crowds overrunning a key building to unseat a leader. Except that didn't actually happen.   Plus this time you weren’t in control, so you responded with overwhelming force, prosecuting participants in DC juries molded by NGOs that emphasize "social justice" over evidence.   You cannot describe the actual mechanism through which J6 would have actually resulted in a coup or insurrection, because there was no planning at all involved. Unlike in actual color revolutions.   Now let me explain what real-life sedition looks like.   Sedition starts years before, with allowing foreign NGOs to flood your country and condition your security forces into deflecting. That is exactly what the Seditious Six were doing. That is exactly what the "No Kings" protests are doing. The Trump administration called it out as a color revolution for a good reason.   You won't even blink an eye at the enormous amounts of foreign Communist influence involved in the protests that you so eagerly support. But you will accuse @lecternleader  of treason just for posing for a picture with a lectern."
dale on X - "Well said. Note also how the J6 committee criminally destroyed their own records… Unbelievable."

TMK on X - "Here's a list of all republicans arrested under the Joe Biden administration:
Donald J. Trump Waltine “Walt” Nauta Carlos De Oliveira Stephen K. Bannon Peter K. Navarro Thomas J. Barrack Jr. Matthew Grimes Rudy Giuliani Mark Meadows John Eastman Kenneth Chesebro Sidney Powell Jenna Ellis Scott Graham Hall Shawn Still David James Shafer Cathleen “Cathy” Latham Jeffrey Clark Trevian C. Kutti Robert David Cheeley Harrison William Prescott Floyd Stephen Cliffgard Lee Ray Stallings Smith III Michael A. Roman Misty Hampton (a.k.a. Misty Ann Hampton / Emily “Misty” Hayes) Kelli Ward Tyler Bowyer Nancy Cottle Jacob “Jake” Hoffman Anthony Kern James Lamon Robert Montgomery Samuel Moorhead Lorraine Pellegrino Gregory Safsten Michael Ward Boris Epshteyn Christina Bobb Allen Weisselberg Michael McDonald Jesse Law Jim DeGraffenreid Durward James Hindle III Shawn Meehan Eileen Rice Kathy Berden William “Hank” Choate Amy Facchinello Clifford Frost Stanley Grot John Haggard Mari-Ann Henry Timothy King Michele Lundgren Meshawn Maddock James Renner Mayra Rodriguez Rose Rook Marian Sheridan Ken Thompson Kent Vanderwood Steve Bannon  Tina Peters George Papadopolous
Plus 1265 J6 Defendants
Here's a list of all democrats arrested under the Donald Trump administration:  0"
The cope is that this shows that Republicans are corrupt and Democrats are innocent

Trump administration official physically assaulted at UNGA by 'deranged leftist,' White House says - "she was walking down the hallway at the UN when a woman began berating her and shining a bright light in her face. "It was very disorienting," the official said. "Once I took a step back and regained my footing, it didn’t stop. I realized what was happening. I realized I was being yelled at and that the light was also a recording device."  The official tried to get away from the woman who was screaming derogatory and pro-Palestinian comments at her as she followed closely behind. The official said the woman called her a "fascist" and a "Nazi."   "The insults changed to specific insults," the official said, telling Fox News Digital that she went into the women’s bathroom to get away, but that the woman kept following her.  "Her yelling turned into screaming—hyper-aggressive insults," the official said.   The official tried to hide in a bathroom stall, but told Fox News Digital that the woman was pushing and trying to get into the stall. Once the official was able to close the door, the woman put the camera over the door of the bathroom stall to continue filming the official and screaming.  The official waited for the screaming to stop, and exited the stall, hoping the woman had left, but the woman was waiting for her at the door, and continued to follow her into the hallway, continuing to yell at her and shine the light in her face. Eventually, the official was able to get away."
Proof that Donald Trump incites violence and should be impeached

Links - 16th May 2026 (2 - Canadian Politics)

Alex Zoltan on X - "HAPPENING NOW: More from the 2026 NDP leadership convention. A young woman wearing an oversized keffiyeh makes an impassioned speech against involvement in the Iran conflict, but is quickly rebuked and reprimanded for misgendering the chair who self-identifies as "non-binary.""
Élie Cantin-Nantel on X - "The NDP is cooked. They will never win back the working class. No blue collar person will watch this charade and think that it is normal yet alone think that they belong in it. This is all a bunch of leftist academic gobbledygook."

Collin Rugg on X - "NEW: Far-left Canadians start arguing over "Equity Cards" at the 2026 NDP Leadership Convention.
Woman 1: I was standing here with my gender equity card before you called on the previous speaker. That's my point of privilege...
Woman 2: I want everyone to be mindful that these cards for individuals like myself who identify as a black woman have no value outside of this space.
Good to see Canada arguing over the issues that matter.
Video: @AmazingZoltan"

The NDP’s past, present, and future: renewal challenged as even past voters are unfamiliar with leadership field - "New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute examines the views of more than 1,100 Canadians who voted for the NDP at least once in any of the past four federal elections, finding 44 per cent of them say they don’t know any of the leadership candidates, and another one-in-five are uncertain who would make the best leader... Fully one-quarter of these past New Democrat voters say the party is irrelevant (24%). More say its best days are in the past (40%). Whomever is tasked with the job of rebuilding will likely be focused on returning to the party’s roots as the federal avatar for the working class, something it spent decades building through cooperation with organized labour. One-quarter of past New Democrats in this survey disagree that the NDP is the party of the working class (23%)... While he had garnered some good will, Singh’s leadership marked a clear shift away from the class-first, labour-oriented politics that had long defined the party. While traditional economic priorities such as affordability and pharmacare remained, the party increasingly framed its agenda through lenses of identity, representation, and systemic inequality, with a growing focus on urban, diverse, and younger voters. That evolution broadened its appeal in some metropolitan areas but came at a cost. The party lost support in resource regions and among parts of its traditional working-class base... While 25 per cent of current Canadian voters have supported the party in one of the past four federal elections, just 13 per cent of say they are likely to give them a look in the next one"

Amy Hamm: Avi Lewis claims NDP leadership in front of waving Palestinian flag - "Lewis identifies himself as a proud anti-capitalist and eco-socialist. He has never held elected office... Standing behind Lewis during his speech were at least three people in keffiyehs, symbolic of Canada’s disturbing and growing antisemitism problem. As broadcast on CPAC, one person began to wave a large Palestinian flag behind Lewis about two minutes into his address. Another waved a “renters over landlords” protest placard — held upside down. There was not a single Canadian flag in sight on stage. Lewis’ promise about building a new foundation for the party is at odds with his leadership campaign slogan, which was “return the party to its roots… for the many, not the money.” This weekend’s convention made it clear that the party has little to do with its trade unionist roots: it’s now a party of far-left grievance culture and niche political obsessions. From the “equity cards” handed out to convention delegates, which allowed for persons with various “oppressed” or “equity-seeking” identities to jump to the front of the line and speak before other, lesser-oppressed delegates, to the wild screams of the audience, appearing rapturous after leadership-hopeful Rob Ashton shouted “Eat the damn rich!” in the volume and tone of a 1990s WWE fighter — this weekend revealed that the NDP is comprised of the dregs former NDP leader Jagmeet Singh left behind after consuming the party to support Justin Trudeau . Despite any talk about nationalized grocery stores, electoral reform, expanding (or at least maintaining) the public service sector, and unionizing every single employee in the country, petty squabbles between convention delegates made it clear that party principles will always take a back seat to identity politics and virtue signalling. On day two, a transgender-identified male insisted on speaking after a policy vote (on rescinding the Charter’s notwithstanding clause) had already passed. The delegate complained that a “cisgender woman” spoke first , despite this delegate having held out an equity card based on their gender identity. “Hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience. I’d like to speak, I was rejected,” said the delegate. The chair, lawyer and trans activist Adrienne Smith , responded apologetically before smirking about a request to have delegates form a “straight” line, so equity cards were more visible from the stage. Similarly, on day three, the convention chair and a delegate, both of whom identify as non-binary, got into a tiff over the delegate using the term “madame chair.” After a keffiyeh-adorned delegate ranted about how there should be “no debate” over Canada’s non-involvement in the current Iran conflict, Smith, appearing on the verge of tears, replied with: “I’ll thank delegates not to call me ‘madame chair,’ I’m a non-binary person, my pronouns are they, them, and their.” Watching the convention felt like watching sketch comedy from 15 years ago. But this is real life. This is the federal NDP. What isn’t clear just yet is how many Canadians are paying attention to how outrageous the NDP has become. It’s possible that there are disillusioned (with Carney) Liberal voters who will be willing to move — or move back to — the NDP as they perceive Carney’s government shifting ever more to the right. But I suspect that number will be insignificant. Unless and until the NDP purges its ranks of ideological extremism, it won’t regain relevance. And with Avi Lewis at the helm, this is unlikely to happen."

Ben Woodfinden: Dear Supreme Court, you don't have to do this - "If the Supreme Court of Canada uses this case to limit or defang Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the notwithstanding clause), as the federal Liberals and progressive activists groups are asking, it will be doing something extraordinarily dangerous and anti-democratic, judicially rewriting a foundational provision of our constitutional order and reading things into the Charter that simply don’t exist. And it will be detonating a political earthquake whose aftershocks could rip the country apart... If the Court decides to invent substantive limits on Section 33, it would be a judicial amendment to the Constitution. The text is clear, it imposes only one requirement: that a legislature expressly declare that a law shall operate notwithstanding specified Charter provisions, and that it has to be renewed every five years. There is no requirement that the invocation come after a court ruling. There is no cap on renewals. There is no proportionality test. As the court itself unanimously wrote in 1988 in Ford v Quebec, “the essential requirement of form laid down by s. 33 is that the override declaration must be an express declaration that an Act or a provision of an Act shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in s. 2 or ss. 7 to 15 of the Charter.” For the court to now discover additional requirements would be judicial invention, not interpretation. If various groups and governments want to change this, make the democratic case and use the amending formula. But the argument for Section 33 goes deeper than textual fidelity. The notwithstanding clause was the condition upon which the provinces agreed to the Charter. Alberta’s Peter Lougheed and Saskatchewan’s Allan Blakeney championed it during the patriation negotiations of 1981 because they understood that entrenching a bill of rights without some sort of legislative tool for democratic officials to have a say would hand the final word on the most contested questions of public policy to an unelected judiciary. Without Section 33, there would have been no Charter at all. It was a distinctively Canadian solution: neither the American model of judicial supremacy nor the British model of unfettered parliamentary sovereignty, but something in between. But more basically, judges are not infallible, especially on contested topics like rights. A democratic society needs a mechanism to step in when a court makes an egregious decision. And the track record of our courts proves the point... there is Cycle Toronto, in which an Ontario judge struck down the Ford government’s legislation to remove three Toronto bike lanes as a violation of Section 7 of the Charter, effectively constitutionalizing a right to bike lane infrastructure. The judge denied this is what he was doing, but by essentially using the Charter to weigh in on a public policy question he made himself a legislator and not a judge. These are matters for legislators and the voters who ultimately elect them, and hold them accountable through elections, not matters for judges to decide. These are not aberrations. They are the pattern, and precisely why Section 33 is so important. Quebec goes to the polls in October with the Parti Québécois leading and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon promising a sovereignty referendum within his first term. For the Supreme Court to hollow out the notwithstanding clause in this context would be a massive gift to the separatist cause. Quebec has understood the clause as a guarantee of parliamentary sovereignty, and its ability to defend and assert its distinct values since 1982. To defang it from the bench would confirm every argument the PQ has ever made about the possibility of Quebec protecting its values and culture within Canada’s constitutional framework. Nor would the reaction be confined to Quebec. Saskatchewan and Alberta have both invoked and vigorously defended the notwithstanding clause in recent years, and neither province’s government would accept a judicial narrowing of it quietly. A ruling that weakens the override would unite sovereigntists in Quebec and provincial autonomists in the West in common cause against Ottawa and the court, an unlikely and dangerous coalition that would exist only because the Bench created the conditions for it to arise. A ruling may not come for months, but the justices should be under no illusions. They are being asked to claim a power for themselves that the Constitution does not give them, to rewrite a provision whose plain text admits of no ambiguity, over the objections of the provinces whose agreement made the Charter possible. Please don’t do anything stupid, leave Section 33 alone."

The activists clamouring for us to be ruled by a woke juristocracy - "The Supreme Court held hearings last week regarding Bill 21 — Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits religious dress and symbols from the province’s public-sector workplaces. The ban flouts the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but Quebec, so far, has gotten around that by invoking Section 33, the constitutional override known as the notwithstanding clause. Section 33 was Quebec’s last secure line of defence against cultural annihilation. Indeed, it’s a release valve for any province where the morality of the courts has become detached from that of the people. If you take it away, judges become the highest authority in Canada — which is why legal activists intervening in the case have been trying to convince the Supreme Court to do that all week. In its submissions, the Ontario Human Rights Commission said that Section 33 should not be invoked in a way that “fundamentally undermines the multicultural heritage of Canadians,” which, effectively, would prevent any province from asserting its own identity. The Public Interest Litigation Institute, in conjunction with an omnicause activist, argued that Section 33 can only be invoked in response to court judgments with which a legislature disagrees. The Canadian Labour Congress took that same position — and ended on an even more radical argument: that a legislature’s decision to invoke Section 33 must have a “rational basis” and should be reviewable by the courts, and should not stand where the court finds a “bad faith or animus towards a particular group.” This would defang the notwithstanding clause, potentially allowing judges to bar its use whenever they felt a government didn’t justify their choices with enough evidence. Remember when Ontario Superior Court Justice Paul Schabas ruled that removing bike lanes from a road without evidence was a violation of cyclists’ Charter rights? You could expect the same logic to stand in the way of any provincial government that doesn’t adopt the progressive politics now held by most judges in the country. The South Asian Legal Clinics of B.C. and Ontario, joint with the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, told the Supreme Court that the use of the notwithstanding clause should have to follow international law — such as the prohibition on racial discrimination. This should even include “laws with discriminatory effects of which the state was aware before enacting them but did nothing to address,” they argued. This would apply to practically every law on the books, because just about every rule in existence affects different racial groups to different degrees. Chinese and Indian taxpayers are some of the highest earners in Canada, for example, and are thus most affected by taxation. Asylum seekers are largely non-white, and thus, any benefit for Canadians that isn’t offered to asylum seekers ends up having a discriminatory effect. Submissions by the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights encouraged the court to subject the notwithstanding clause to international law — another direct request that the court undermine the sovereignty of the country. We could see courts barring democratic legislatures that don’t totally submit to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) for Charter challenges involving Indigenous individuals, and whatever else comes down the pipe. Considering how the UN is now talking about ordering western countries to pay reparations for slavery to Africa (but of course not the African and Arab nations that also participated in slave trading), this could go very poorly for us. If some enterprising Black advocacy group used the Charter to try to extract benefits from the state on the grounds that a few slaves existed in Canada in the 18th century, and if a court was sympathetic, the public could find itself without the tool to say “no.” Meanwhile, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) argued for a complete Section 33 bypass. The notwithstanding clause, you see, can be used to “override” rights that are set out in Section 15 of the Charter: race, sex, gender, religion, etc. But it cannot be used to override Section 28, which, confusingly, also protects gender equality. Because Bill 21 disproportionately affects women — not all women, but Muslim women — it should be struck down because it violates Section 28. LEAF was making an argument about intersectionality: any gender protection should apply not just to preserving the balance between men and women, but specific racial and religious subgroups, as well as those who identify as transgender and non-binary. This would be the end of Alberta’s sex-based protections for female sport and female-only spaces, because laws that preserve these discriminate against other gender identities, particularly men who identify as women. LEAF also said that Section 28 should guarantee what’s called substantive equality — that is, equal outcomes between groups. As an example of this, the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, a legal service for minority women, and a group called Women in Canadian Criminal Defence pointed to niqab- and hijab-wearing Muslim lawyers: Bill 21 would infringe on their equality by barring them from working in legal aid. That violation would trickle down to their clients, who might be “women who face intersectional and systemic barriers,” and would be disproportionately harmed by not being able to use their services. It’s a very bad sign that the Supreme Court decided to run a legal appeal like a committee in the House of Commons, giving the illusion of fairness when it was really anything but. This could be the case that ends parliamentary supremacy — the thing that makes Canada a democratic country — and it’s been spammed by interest groups snapping like piranhas for even more race-based law."

Sam Cooper on X - "REPOST: Indicators of Corruption in RCMP, CBSA, and Canadian Government Preceded Toronto Police Narco-Corruption Scandal ⁦@CBCNews⁩ ⁦@globeandmail⁩ ⁦@csiscanada⁩ ⁦@Nat_Div_RCMP⁩"
cbcwatcher on X - ""Our sources revealed that American agencies, including Homeland Security and the DEA, had effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations due to suspected infiltration and corruption. They described intelligence-sharing cutoffs, blocked investigations into Asian organized crime networks, and concerns that reached into the Prime Minister’s office itself. Most significantly, they warned that the Cameron Ortis case—Canada’s convicted intelligence leaker—was not an isolated incident but evidence of systemic compromise.""
Damn Trump blowing up the bilateral relationship!

Charestiste🇨🇦🍁 on X - "53% of Canadians who feel very financially stressed vote for Conservatives while 55% of those who feel very financially comfortable vote for Liberals"

Daniel Foch on X - "Canada has observed the largest decline in happiness in the world (along with the UK)" Wesley Yang on X - "Why is the political party that imposed a decade of economic stagnation, rising crime, spiking housing costs, dysfunction in the healthcare system, overt anti-white discrimination in hiring, a two-tier criminal justice system, the largest wave of mass immigration in the world, and the largest decline in happiness in the world on Canada more popular than ever before?"
Patriotism isn't always good

John Carter on X - "The collapse in the happiness of Britain and Canada has been particularly rapid, and both countries have moved almost in lockstep. That isn't accidental. Canada is culturally joined at the hip to the UK. We're formally politically independent, but the Canadian political elite takes a lot of its cues from Britain. Both countries are under the thumbs of a constipated managerial class religiously dedicated to third world replacement migration, Net Zero sabotage, and social engineering in service of the great goddess Safety, and whose idea of economic growth is inflating real estate assets with money laundering and global favela biopressure."

Mike Lake on X - "Today in Question Period, a member of the Liberal leadership team accused me of misinformation... after I quoted from the 2025 Liberal election platform! Bottom line: the Liberals promised the "strongest economy in the G7." Today, we found out that Canada's economy is actually shrinking - the only G7 economy in that position. The Liberals, apparently, don't appreciate that being pointed out."
Misinformation is whatever left wingers don't like

John Robson: In Mark Carney's Canada, nothing matters - "our record non-pandemic deficit of $78.3 billion piled onto a runaway national debt will be even higher due to blithe fiscal incontinence that sees a parade of press releases cross my screen about subsidizing every possible applicant as an “investment,” as if not even words matter. (A real example from last week: “$797,557 for Eviance (Canadian Centre on Disability Studies Incorporated) for their project, Spotlight on Women Entrepreneurs with Disabilities in Canada. With this federal investment…”) The police also treat policing hate crime as a part-time job while the politicians treat boasting of compassion as a full-time one. And we act as if prosperity didn’t matter.  The prime minister may promise to sweep aside internal trade barriers, and build things at speeds thought impossible. But when he doesn’t actually do it nobody cares. Not even that he’s spent over $300,000 on in-flight catering alone since taking office, plus nearly half a million on hotels. We don’t even care about his attitude of detached entitlement or his carbon hypocrisy, let alone that instead of going to the office to battle a stack of tricky files, he basically spends all his time gallivanting about internationally and exchanging clichés with Keir Starmer. (Of course one could argue that given what he achieves while at his desk he might as well be abroad.)  Or take housing policy… please. It blights lives and menaces social cohesion if the dream of home ownership becomes a nightmare. But we get endless windy press releases and speeches about the government “supercharging” it using its magic powers we all secretly know it hasn’t got, then housing starts go down, and nobody cares. It doesn’t dent the popularity of the politicians who promised it. It doesn’t prompt policy changes. It doesn’t even stop the press releases.  To be fair, as I recently cast onto X about the PCO flubbing access to information, “when rank incompetence meets raw partisan advantage, it’s hard to know which is leading the dance.” But either way, they promise openness by default, then hide everything, and we reelect them so it doesn’t matter.  Also, journalists are hyperventilating about a built-in-Canada mega-defence spend-fest. But I also know defence procurement has been a hopeless mess for decades (DND even spends hundreds of millions renting transport services because it lacks basic logistics) yet nobody is punished and nothing changes because we think planes and ships don’t matter. Or national security. Hence given firm evidence that Chinese Communists are subverting our elections, penetrating our institutions and intimidating our citizens, we do nothing whatsoever. The police don’t swoop. The promised foreign agent registry never materializes. Politicians don’t stop flying to Beijing. Exactly as if being conquered doesn’t matter.  It might seem mild by comparison. But note also that no matter how much evidence accumulates that our health-care system, far from being the envy of the world, is unreasonably expensive while condemning large numbers of Canadians to pain, suffering and even death while on waiting lists, there is absolutely no discussion of repealing the Canada Health Act, as if all that suffering didn’t matter.  By the same token, it doesn’t matter how badly our school system underperforms, or how much emphasis politicians and pundits place rhetorically on preparing the youth of today for the world of tomorrow, nobody is seriously interested in vouchers, charter schools or anything else that might actually improve outcomes. Instead it’s all DEI, which rather obviously makes things worse.  Speaking of woke over worthwhile, what Selley thought might actually jolt us out of Neverland in December was a guy charged with stalking Jewish women being denied refugee status over seven years ago but not deported. And nobody cared. Not about security, not about the rule of law, nothing."
Canadian Complacency means the only thing that matters is spiting the US

Carney definition of 'capital' recognized by nobody else on earth: PBO - " B.C. Premier David Eby was just about to sit down with his fellow premiers on Thursday when he declared that Alberta separatists are “traitors.”  He might have been able to dismiss it as an intemperate aside, but he soon reiterated the comment on social media, writing “there is an old word to describe going to a foreign power and asking for their assistance in breaking up a sovereign country — it’s treason.”  The word “treason” has been getting a lot of play in Canadian politics of late. But the crime is a very high bar under Canadian law.  As per the Criminal Code, “high treason” applies only to those who “levy war against Canada,” or assist someone else who does. And even the crime of regular treason requires some element of violence. It’s defined as using “force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province.” Or, failing that, you can be convicted of treason for giving secrets to a hostile power that are “prejudicial to the safety or defence of Canada.”  All of this is why the only convicted traitors in Canadian history (and there’s only been a handful) are people who participated in armed rebellions against state authority. Métis leader Louis Riel being the most famous.  Eby was responding to reports that members of the Alberta Prosperity Project, one of the main proponents for Alberta independence, had been meeting with officials from the Trump White House.  However, the discussions don’t appear to have veered past the treason threshold of plotting a foreign-backed armed insurrection. APP co-founder Jeffrey Rath said they’d primarily been sussing out the idea of securing a $500 billion line of credit from the U.S. government if secession is successful."

Erskine-Smith says he’ll resign as MP when Ford calls provincial by-election - The Globe and Mail - "Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith says he’ll resign his federal seat as soon as a provincial by-election is called in the Toronto riding of Scarborough Southwest, although Ontario Premier Doug Ford hasn’t yet set a date for the race.  Mr. Erskine-Smith’s leap into provincial politics sets the stage for his presumptive run to lead the Ontario Liberal Party – a move that will have reverberations at Queen’s Park, where Mr. Ford hopes to win a fourth term.  The provincial vacancy in Scarborough Southwest was triggered by the surprise resignation of Doly Begum, who was the Ontario NDP’s deputy leader. Ms. Begum was named on Tuesday as the Liberal candidate in the federal riding of the same name, which was vacated this week by ex-minister Bill Blair, who resigned to become Canada’s next high commissioner to the United Kingdom."
Damn Poilievre wasting money on an unnecessary by-election, money that could be used for healthcare!

Ottawa travel warning puts workers, travellers in Mexico on high alert - "Cartel violence, kidnappings and tougher federal advisory turning business trips and mine rotations into high‑risk assignments for workers in Mexico "
Meme - "Just a reminder that the media told Canadians over & over again to avoid traveling to the US & to choose Mexico instead."
"Better golf! Better weather! Why Canadians should go to Mexico instead of Florida"
"More Canadians head to Mexico for winter getaways"
Left wingers are still deluded that they are in more danger from ICE than the cartels

Notalia on X - "The fact that I see Liberal signs on lawns is astonishing.  It advertises that you think the state of Canada is not only acceptable but preferable.  It means you accept out of control immigration from countries that hate women, you accept endless Liberal scandals, you want housing costs to remain out of reach for anyone born after about 2000, you think giving the government money will fix the climate scam you've been sold, you want food prices through the roof, you think tampons should be in men's washrooms, you think men should be in women's sports.  You're advertising you're a fucking moron.  That's astounding."
Plus no GDP per capita growth

Black Fathers Weren’t Removed from the Home; They Left.

Black Fathers Weren’t Removed from the Home; They Left.

"We can no longer blame systemic shadows for the internal work Black men are unwilling to do...

I’d always blamed the United States government for the fatherless experience of so many Black children, people like my cousin and his four siblings. I was raised hearing that it was the crack epidemic of the ’80s that ripped so many Black men from their families, that mass incarceration separated innocent men from their children, and that the unavoidable allure of a life of poverty anchored with the welfare system was too good to be true to some Black women. My childhood was full of fables about the Black welfare queen, a woman who willingly excommunicated the devoted Black man in her life in exchange for government cheese and a subsidized studio in a project dwelling. 

Somehow, my uncle hit the victim lottery all three times, even doubled back a few times to be sure. He was another Black man denied the freedom to father, victimized by his own Black woman working in conjunction with an unjust system. 

I was an adult before I learned the length of these lies. In reality, parental absence was never as taboo as I was taught, particularly of the paternal variety. From 1880 through 1960, the rate of paternal absence averaged around 30% for black children ages 0 to 14, in comparison to 10% for white children over the same years. Now, we can attribute a great deal of this to the migration patterns of Black people post-slavery, where millions left the South, lured by the prospect of financial prosperity, mainly the Northern migration (1840–1890), Western migration (1840–1970), and Great Migration (1916–1930). Additionally, parental mortality was common in the nineteenth century, the assumed life expectancy of Black adults was just shy of 35. 

However, with geographical and medical stability came further familial destabilization. Paternal absence among black children rose from 32% in 1960 to 53% in 1980. On the heels of the 1965 Moynihan report, “The Negro Family: A Case for National Support”, which critics felt fingered the single mother as both the victim and the villain in the growing absence of black fathers, social commentators were hesitant to hand the blame over to black men. Instead, sociologists sought culprits outside the community, i.e., white supremacy, which was an easier evil to explain. It was obvious that this system was squeezing the life out of black fathers; where were the jobs; what about police brutality; not to mention child support, another name for the war on Black men. However, timelines fail to support the assertion that the phenomenon was a recent one...

Before Reagan ever took office and took up the task of doubling prison populations, before the first reports of crack emerged in cities like Los Angeles in 1981, half of all black children lived in single-parent homes, the gross majority of those homes headed by women. This number continued to climb, in 1990 reaching 63%, and even increased throughout the early 2000s despite record low unemployment rates for Black men and prison admission rates declining upwards of 24%. At the same time, the myth of the welfare queen was being taken to task by decades of research debunking the rumored welfare-loving single mother mockup. Not only did single black mothers experience shorter stints of government dependence than recipients of other races, but their children were no more likely than anyone else’s to enter the welfare system themselves, challenging the depiction of the single-family government-funded home complete with three generations of Black women and children. For years, we faced Washington while Black men packed their bags behind our backs...

It became clear to me that this was a matter of shitty men and the circles that surrounded them, not some secret system holding Black men’s arms behind his back...

The same data that speaks to high mass incarceration rates speaks to the fact that most Black incarcerated individuals had absent fathers. The same data that speaks to the prevalence of inner-city violence indicates that most perpetrators and their victims share the experience of fatherlessness. The same research that speaks to mass illiteracy, high school dropout rates, and underperforming Black students in the classroom indicates that most children with academic and behavioral struggles are raised in fatherless homes with limited parental input, involvement, and supervision. 

Our focus is so much on defending the imaginary morality and poor decisions of men, we can’t be bothered to see how the children are suffering. Our response to this growing phenomenon has been just as troubling as our accountability avoidance; complete with an odd argument suggesting that absent black fathers, unlike those of other races, were somehow absent yet extremely active. So active, in fact, that we could contend their absence wasn’t really all that relevant to begin with, just another ploy by the white man to tarnish Black men’s reputations. However, the 2013 CDC report cited in this argument doesn’t say anything remotely suggestive of that...

Black non-coresidential fathers, i.e. those who lived apart from their children, were less likely to see or speak to their children regularly, host their children in their homes, eat meals with them, ask them about their day, take them to activities, or help with homework. The report ended with a poll asking these absent Black fathers to rate their own parenting, the majority answered with “very good job”. The cognitive dissonance is deafening...

Black men weren’t removed from the homes, they got up and left. They made the same choice in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and 2000’s that they continue to make today...

There is no Black anti-father task force picking the world’s best Black dads up from soccer practice, never to be seen again. The real conspiracy is they simply don’t desire to be there."

Links - 16th May 2026 (1 - Voting & Elections in the US)

@amuse on X - "FLASHBACK: One single bureaucrat working in the Census Bureau rigged the 2020 Census to give Democrats more than 10 additional seats in Congress. Shockingly Congress has done nothing to fix the corrupted system."
@amuse on X - "The Algorithm That Rigged the Census: How One Bureaucrat Stole the House and Billions in Funding
The 2020 census was marketed as an “actual enumeration,” a neutral count of people for apportionment and funding. It was not. The same official who helped block a basic citizenship question in 2018, John M. Abowd, then the Census Bureau’s Chief Scientist, pushed through a new, opaque methodology in 2020 called differential privacy. The new system deliberately injected mathematical noise into every block count in America, turning the census from a headcount into a model with knobs. The knob that mattered most was a single parameter, epsilon, a secrecy shroud known only to a small inner circle. Abowd argued that a single added question about citizenship posed an intolerable risk to data quality because there was, he said, not enough time to test it. Then he rushed an untested algorithm that altered every count in every neighborhood. The irony is so sharp it cuts: the man who warned that one question might distort the census approved a method that guaranteed distortion."

Meme - Steven Eisenberg @SteveEisenb...: "@Delta @AmericanAir - if I ever fly with you again, I will not show ID."
americanair @AmericanAir: "Adults 18 and over are required to show identification at the airport."
Dark Discourse @DarkDiscourse: "I'm black and don't have the knowledge or ability to acquire an identification. What would you recommend?"

Fox News on X - "Pennsylvania Democrats openly admit to counting illegal ballots in McCormick-Casey race"
Elon Musk on X - "The radical left is at it again. Same playbook:
1. They accuse anyone who says illegal votes are being counted of being a far right wing conspiracy theorist.
2. It turns out to be happening …
3. They AGREE it’s happening, but now that’s actually GOOD!!
4. They use lawfare and Dem election officials to force illegal votes to be counted.
This needs to stop."

Bucks GOP on X - "🚨🚨🚨#BucksCounty Democrat Commissioners violate the rule of law and ignore PA Supreme Court ruling!  Democrat Commissioners Diane Marseglia and Bob Harvie voted today to count illegal ballots, against PA Supreme Court ruling, in an attempt to aid former Senator Bob Casey.   "...precedent by a court doesn't matter anymore in this country. And people violate laws anytime they want. For me if I violate this law, it's because I want a court to pay attention to it." - Diane Marseglia   Thank you to Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo for making a motion to uphold the law!   Our attorneys are working with attorneys from the PAGOP and RNC to address this matter."

Brits shocked after realising how Americans actually place their election votes - "Brits are 'shocked' to learn how some American's can deposit their vote in the street, after Selena Gomez demonstrated in a viral video... Upon seeing the video, one British viewer noted: "I’m sorry do Americans just..drop their ballot into a random box on the street????"  And it seems as though in some states, it's absolutely a thing!"
Why do the racist Brits believe in voter suppression?!

Meme - Pop Crave @ @PopCrave: "Selena Gomez has voted early in the 2024 Election."
@WZG1889: "I'm sorry do americans just..drop their ballot into a random box on the street????"
Batersky @SilkyStrzalek: "ive seen news of one being burned down so apparently yes?"
@WZG1889: "can't tell if i'm being dumb but surely anyone can just...fiddle with the ballots then??"
Matthew (votes Labour) @matthew1471: "They solved this problem.. there's a warning sticker on it saying not to do that.. cmon"
Dan @DaddyDjenepo: "Can't wait to put a sticker on myself that says "stabbing me is a felony". That'll stop them."

Meme - Jamie Hinkle @jamiehinkle_: "In #loudoncounty VA/ from a parent:  Is it strange that a teacher in the hallway gave my daughter  a voter registration form and told  her to fill it out on the spot and give it back to her? It has highlighted sections to complete. She told the teacher she is only 16, and she said she needed to do it anyway. My daughter told her she wanted to take it home first, and the teacher said she had to bring it back today. I have serious trust issues with LCPS and election integrity. Am I just being crazy to think this is not right?"

Shaun Maguire on X - "Didn’t every single long vote count go towards the Democrats? At least one of which had ballots disappear?"

Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 on X - "Stacey Abrams admits the $2 billion Joe Biden’s EPA gave her was used to buy votes of people in Georgia by purchasing them new appliances. MSNBC does their best to whitewash this but can’t hide the huge pile of fraudulent spending Abrams facilitated."

Election 2024: Cybersecurity head says there's no chance a foreign adversary can change results - "Nearly a month out from Election Day, the head of the nation’s cybersecurity agency is forcefully reassuring Americans who have been swept into the chaotic churn of election disinformation and distrust that they will be able to feel confident in the outcome.  State and local election officials have made so much progress in securing voting, ballot-counting and other election infrastructure that the system is more robust than it has ever been, said Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. As a result, she said, there is no way Russia, Iran or any other foreign adversary will be able to alter the results.  “Malicious actors, even if they tried, could not have an impact at scale such that there would be a material effect on the outcome of the election,” Easterly told The Associated Press"
Cyber-Security Experts Warn Election Was Hacked - "Cyber-security experts across America are raising the alarm of wide-scale election fraud securing Trump’s victory — and the data is compelling.  Two open letters penned by computer scientists and hacking experts have detailed how the USA’s election software was compromised and the relatively simple hack which could have then been used to fix the results in the seven swing states"
It's only a hacked election if the left loses. Election denial is only wrong and Dangerous to Democracy when the left wins

Libs of TikTok on X - "BREAKING: New York’s highest court just STRUCK DOWN the NYC law that would’ve let over 800,000 noncitizens vote. The court rejected Democrats’ argument 6–1, declaring voting is a right reserved for U.S. citizens only."

Governor Tina Kotek on X - "Our immigrant communities are Oregon communities. Immigrants are integral to the culture and success of Oregon. I will uphold Oregon's sanctuary promise laws -- laws that were passed with almost unanimous bipartisan support in the 1980’s."
Updated findings show nearly 1,260 possible noncitizens were registered to vote in Oregon since 2021

Libs of TikTok on X - "Mesa County, Colorado Postal worker Vicki Lyn Stuart and an accomplice were arrested on voter fraud charges. They allegedly stole ballots, forged signatures, and illegally cast them. But Democrats say voter fraud in mail-in voting is impossible…"

Sheri™ on X - "“I’m black. I’m a veteran and I have 6 FORMS of ID. “The idea that a black or brown person can not get an ID to vote, is insulting” “I refer to this as a Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations” ~Wesley Hunt~"

How non-citizens are getting voter registration forms across the US — and how Republicans are trying to stop it - "Welfare offices and other agencies in at least 46 US states are providing voter registration forms to migrants without requiring proof of citizenship, leading Republicans and conservatives to call for swift federal action to stop the handouts.  Every state but North Dakota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming gives applicants for either welfare benefits, driver’s licenses, or in some cases, mail-in ballots federal voter registration forms without demanding proof of citizenship.   There is currently no requirement on federal voting forms to provide proof of US citizenship, though it is illegal to falsely claim one is a citizen or for a non-citizen to cast a ballot in a federal election.  But millions of migrants with humanitarian parole, refugee or asylum status are eligible for benefits that would bring them to the offices where voter registration takes place...   The left-leaning Campaign Legal Center has opposed the SAVE Act as a “shameful” measure that will “undermine trust in the electoral process,” dismissing concerns over non-citizen voting and declaring it has not taken place “at any meaningful level.”...  federal prosecutions, state investigations and audits have shown in recent years that thousands of non-citizens are being registered...   Hundreds of non-Americans have since been caught after casting ballots in races ranging from the local to the presidential, and subsequently purged from voter rolls."
I like how making voting more secure is supposed to undermine trust in the electoral process

ONLY IN AMERICA 😀 on X - "Democrats want ICE agents to present ID to ensure they’re actually agents… But don’t want voter ID to make sure voters are actually American? Rotflmao! 🤣"

Meme - "How conservatives deny people their right to vote:
Require Citizenship
Require Identification
Can only vote 1 time
Must be alive"

Libs of TikTok on X - "So lemme get this straight… In August, 2020 The FBI had documents detailing how the CCP created fake ID’s to cast fake mail-in ballots for Biden and then FBI Director Chris Wray covered it up then testified there were no plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election?"

Meme - "REMEMBER THERE ARE NO BLUE STATES
STATES HARRIS WON VS. ID REQUIREMENT
ONLY STATES THAT DON'T CHECK ID"

Arnold on X - "My plan would restore power to the people and restore confidence in our democracy.
74% want Election Day to be a holiday.
75% believe gerrymandering is a major problem.
83% support requiring an ID to vote.
Get to work, Congress. Give the people what they want and need."

Dustin Grage on X - "🚨 BREAKING: Minnesota Elections Director Paul Linnell admits that illegal aliens can vote in state elections with a driver’s license.
REP. ANDERSON: “So the answer to my question is yes. Under that scenario, someone could. They get their driver’s license, again, because we give them to anybody here. They register to vote, it doesn’t match with the Social Security number, so they’re flagged. But they come in as long as they have an ID, which is that driver’s license, and they sign that they are, you know, eligible to vote, they can vote, and they’re then no longer flagged.”
PAUL LINNELL: *word salad*
REP. ANDERSON: “Okay, so the answer is yes to my question.”"

Charlie’s Voice Rising on X - "🚨 CAUGHT ON CAMERA — AGAIN. Michigan State Police just confirmed what everyone suspected:  A Hamtramck councilman — Abu Musa — was filmed handing bundles of absentee ballots to a driver… who then tried shoving them into a dropbox like nobody would notice.  The dude literally stood there jamming stacks of ballots that didn’t fit, glancing around every two seconds like a guilty kid caught in the cookie jar.  And here’s the wild part: 🔁 FOUR days later… it happened" again.  Now look at the numbers: On August 5th, Musa “won” his primary with 1,129 votes. But get this: 843 were absentee. Only 286 came on Election Day.  Remove those questionable absentee ballots and… he drops all the way to 5th place in a 12-person race.  Oh — and Musa is already under investigation for not even living in Hamtramck… Plus he was named in the 2023 election-fraud probe but somehow never charged.  This looks worse every time new footage surfaces."

Democrats Declare Gerrymandering Bad Until They Need To Gerrymander Again | Babylon Bee - ""Sure, California, Illinois, and other deep blue states have been gerrymandering Republican voters out of power for decades, but this is bad because now Republicans are doing it, and we just hate it when they do stuff we've been doing forever," Wu said.  "NO CAP!" shouted Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett."

New York Democrats Gerrymandering Elections - The Atlantic
From 2021. Of course, the writer is ignorant about how much gerrymandering Democrats already did at that point, because gerrymandering is only bad when Republicans do it

Andrew Follett on X - "Democrats currently enjoy VERY favorable maps. No federal judges care! New England states vote about 40% Republican and the region has literally 0 GOP US House members. Republicans send fair-minded judges to courts, bc we're good. Dems send partisan hacks, bc they're evil."
Physics Geek on X - "I'll repeat: Dems gerrymander maps to their hearts content when they have control and judges say "Hey, it's within their power, no problem." GOP gerrymanders maps when they have control and judges say "THE HORROR! THE HORROR! STRUCK DOWN!""

Blake Neff on X - "If you need to grasp why civil rights law is such a disaster, this is a good start: California changing its House maps to elect Democrats will be fine, because it just targets Republicans, while Texas's new House map is getting thrown out, because it's "racist." Repeat this reasoning, thousands of times, in courts all over the country. Turns out, the Constitution just mandates left-wing victories on everything. Who knew!"

Praying Medic on X - "The Supreme Court has handed Republicans in Texas a win by striking down lower a court block on the state's new congressional district map. Kagan, Sotomayor & Jackson dissented."
Theo Wold on X - "All three of the liberal justices dissented from the order allowing Texas to use their new congressional map.  But these same justices all voted with a unanimous court back in February to allow California to use its new maps.  The three liberal justices are simply progressive activists wearing black robes."

The Associated Press on X - "BREAKING: A judge says that Trump can’t require citizenship proof on the federal voter registration form, siding with Democrats and civil rights groups."
Ron DeSantis on X - "You have to be a citizen to vote but you can’t verify the citizenship of a voter? Make it make sense."

Ohio uncovers over 1,000 noncitizens 'appearing' registered to vote, sends cases to DOJ for prosecution
Mike Lee on X - "Noncitizens sometimes vote Far more often than many on the left have been willing to admit Congress must address this by passing the SAVE Act—now! Spread the word if you agree"

🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸 on X - "And here it is:  Twenty years in the making.  The State of Georgia:  Dominion Rigging Systems declared the wrong winner for the May 22, 2024, DeKalb County, Georgia, District 2 Commission primary.  The election board decided to conduct a hand recount to ensure accurate results.  The issue only came to light because a candidate received no votes, not a single one in the precinct where she and her husband lived and voted. When she reported the problem to the DeKalb Election Board, they ordered a machine recount, which produced the same results once again.  A subsequent hand count revealed that the voting system had shorted the candidate 3,049 of her actual 4,078 votes—over 74% of her total. The system had given 1,456 of her votes to one opponent and failed to count another 1,805 votes.  “Play it again, Sam.”  📝 Dominion Rigging Systems sold and renamed as "Liberty Vote" doesn’t mean shit. Ban, dismantle, eliminate, and excommunicate every single voting machine across America."
Bob Mck on X - "Doesn’t somebody need to refund Fox News their lawsuit $ for saying those Dominion machines were rigged."

Sólionath on X - "The 14th Amendment was proposed for the purpose of giving citizenship to former slaves, and the senator who introduced the amendment explicitly stated that it would not apply to the children of aliens."

Governor Gavin Newsom on X - "Donald Trump's puppet DOJ has no business screwing around with next month's election. Sending the feds into California polling places is a deliberate attempt to scare off voters and undermine a fair election. We will not back down. Californians decide our future — no one else."
AAGHarmeetDhillon on X - "Lol calm down bro. The @TheJusticeDept under Democrat administrations has sent in federal election observers for decades, and not once did we hear that this was voter intimidation from states such as California. Do you really want to go there? Isn’t transparency a good thing?"

Right Angle News Network on X - "BREAKING - A video of Democrat Katie Porter handing out free stuff to young students waiting in line to vote at UC Irvine is trending, showing exactly why California Democrats like Gavin Newsom oppose having people monitor their polling locations."

Texas flags 2,700+ potential noncitizens registered to vote on state voter rolls
"This never happens"

Dustin Grage on X - "THEN: Tim Walz signs “Driver’s Licenses for All” law, allowing illegal aliens to obtain free government-issued photo IDs.
NOW: Minnesota election officials confirm that illegal aliens can vote in state elections using those driver’s licenses.
But I was told this can’t happen?"

Study: 10% to 27% of Non-Citizens Are Illegally Registered to Vote - "In the 2008 presidential election, 82% of non-citizens who admitted that they voted stated that they voted for Democrat Barack Obama, while only 18% said they voted for Republican John McCain. Showing this was not a fluke, Richman found in multiple surveys conducted from 2006 to 2022 that 73% to 82% of non-citizens supported Democratic candidates.  Those outcomes accord with the promises and actions of Democrat politicians to give wide-ranging welfare and full amnesty to people who immigrate to the United States legally or illegally"

~~datahazard~~ on X - "Low IQ republicans flooded the 2020 zeitgeist with stupid conspiracy theories instead of the real problem of unprovable mail-in ballots. Homelessness NGOs harvested hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots from transients in 2020. This one single-site NGO in Philly had thousands  of hobo-ballots delivered to their single downtown Philadelphia address.  No one knows who filled out those ballots."

Crémieux on X - "Between 2004 and 2014, nine American states implemented strict voter ID laws. Voter turnout was not affected."

End Wokeness on X - "Dems: "Requiring ID to vote is insane!!"
Countries that require an ID to vote: UK Italy Chile Spain Malta Brazil Israel Latvia Russia France Mexico Austria Ireland Poland Greece Croatia Finland Estonia Belgium Sweden Bulgaria Portugal Hungary Ecuador Slovenia Slovakia Romania Denmark Germany Lithuania Argentina  Columbia Botswana Zimbabwe Luxemburg Netherlands South Africa Czech Republic (Just to name a few)"
Left wingers want to emulate Europe and other left wing countries after all

MAZE on X - "Before the 2016 election Obama repeatedly said that you're not supposed to cast doubt on the legitimacy of an election. Right after the election Obama launched the Russia hoax to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. Perhaps the biggest scandal ever in American politics."

Links - 16th May 2026 (0.66)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This was probably not the text that tripped the spam filter:

Paul Labana: Ex-doctor fined $2000 for Dicey Riley's nipple assault - "A former Wollongong Hospital ED doctor will cough up $2000 in fines for nipple crippling a police officer and punching a security guard after being kicked out of an Irish pub.  "Let go of my f---ing nipple you c--t," the cop said to Paul Surrinder Singh Labana as he escorted him to the police station... Defence lawyer Patrick Schmidt said there was no doubt the security guards were operating under law and that this whole incident could have been avoided by letting his client use the bathroom.  Mr Schmidt noted Labana had also suffered PTSD and anxiety."

I replaced the URL with an archive.ph URL, so it should work. It seems Blogger hates the Illawarra Mercury.

Links - 16th May 2026 (0.33)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Meme - cubs @cubsjaw: "I told my IRL friends about African dry sex and it seems to have been the final nail in the coffin for the one non-racist friend in the group. Successful convert"
iver - lavabit.com: "You told them about African what now?"
CentrismBestrism @probablycenter: "In Africa, Wet pussy is considered whorish. So they make it dry with sand. Sand causes tears that transmit aids."
The high rate of AIDS in Africa is the fault of colonialism and white supremacy

Meme - Bessie Braddock @BraddockBessie: "The difference is, we don't venerate Henry III.  We don't revere him as holy & beyond reproach.  We don't think it's acceptable to kill people for drawing or sharing pictures of him.  There are no countries passing pro-paedophile laws based on what Henry III did.  Shit analogy 👇"
Lily @unejam_: "Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old and the marriage was consummated when she was nine"
CremantCommunarde #Resist...: "And Eleanor of Provence (aged 12) was married to Henry Ill of England (aged 28) in January 1236."
This was in response to Iraq allowing 9 year olds to marry

Meme - "so horny i let him explain his PC build
wow your solid state hard drive is so cool let me suck your dick"

Meme - doomer @uncledoomer: "our grandfathers would see maybe one woman this hot in a lifetime, and paint her on the side of a plane and carpet bomb the shit out of each other. you see a dozen stepsisters stuck in dryers hotter than her before breakfast and wonder why nobody wants to die in a trench anymore"

Meme - "Ugly sweater: *Feel the joy* *two hands below breasts*"

Meme - "Why does the bear have absolute bazookas??"
"cleans better *breasts*"

Meme - RazörFist @RAZ0RFIST: "Politics from 2015-2025. Distilled to a single King of the Hill scene."
"Hey, can you give me some money?"
"No"
"Fascist"

Links - 16th May 2026 (0)

Ed: This was previously unpublished due to "spam" so I split it into 2 posts to try to narrow the problem down. This post was again flagged, but was reinstated on appeal (but apparently got hidden again). This was originally from 21st May 2025 (2). This is to split it again to confirm what has tripped the filter.

Travel news: Want to join the Mile-High Club? This company encourages it - "A California-based hot-air balloon company is offering mile-high flights – with amorous Mile-High Club privileges – over the Temecula countryside.  Guests can enjoy the views with a whole basket to themselves – and a privacy screen separating the pilot compartment from the passenger cabin.  The pilot, who Magical Adventure Balloon Rides promises will be wearing protective hearing gear and focused solely on flying, ascends the balloon to 5,280 feet (about 1,610 meters), which is about 2,000 feet higher than a typical recreational flight.   While intimate clinches are usually thoroughly discouraged in the skies, the company invites you to bring your own bedding and music playlist. A complimentary Champagne breakfast is included to fuel your frolics, of whatever sort.   Pricing for two passengers starts at $1,400. If your mantra is “the more the merrier,” each additional adult in the larger 10-person basket is $159."

What to do if you wake up with a Banksy on your wall - "if Banksy chooses your wall for one of his drawings, you could be seriously in the money."

Suspect in 14-year-old Jackie Strahle's death arrested in Illinois - "A man facing initial charges in relation to the homicide of a 14-year-old girl that occurred at the end of January is in custody after more than a weeklong search.  Evrinn "Zo" Worlds, born in 2006 and from Springfield, is charged with the felony of abandoning a corpse and a misdemeanor charge of tampering with physical evidence. According to a Greene County Sheriff's Office news release Friday, Worlds has been taken into custody and is awaiting extradition in Madison County Jail in Illinois.  On Jan. 28, deputies discovered the body of a young girl, later identified as Jackie Strahle of Springfield, at 5622 W. Farm Road 140... a witness said Worlds lived at the Farm Road 140 address and was believed to be in a relationship with Strahle. The document recounts the discovery of Strahle's body wrapped in large sheets of insulation, with a large black trash bag around the top of the body and black sleeping bag, black sheets and a red sheet around the lower body. According to an autopsy report, it is believed Strahle was shot one time.  A second witness mentioned in the probable cause statement arrived at the house the evening of Jan. 27 and found a "frantic" Worlds, who allegedly said he had shot Strahle and didn't know what to do. The second witness called a ride to leave the residence and advised Worlds to report the incident, though not before allegedly observing the body in the upstairs of the house... The abandonment of a corpse charge is punishable by up to four years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $10,000. The tampering with evidence charge stems from Worlds allegedly concealing the body with the purpose of obstructing the investigation. This charge is punishable by up to one year imprisonment and/or a fine up to $2,000."

Meme - "Not sure if this is the correct forum, but I heard a rumor years back that the ZANU and ZAPU rebels in Rhodesia often were found to have the rear sights on their AK's maxed out to 1,000 meters, thinking this would give them "more power". I never really paid much attention and just filed it away along with all kinds of other gun myths. However, today I was reading on the history of interarms and saw the picture below, with the biafran soldier apparently having his K98 set to 2,000 meters. It brought that story back and I had to ask: does this story have any sand? Are there any cases of poorly-trained armies getting confused with sight settings?"

After 40 hours of sniping, I just now learned you can zero your scope. : r/BattleBitRemastered - "This reminds me of something I read from the Bush War
> Rhodies recover enemy rifles after each engagement
> They keep finding rifles with the rear sight dialed in to the highest setting, practically fucking indirect fire
> They are extremely confused by this
> Eventually they ask a prisoner about it during interrogation
> Literally none of them know what the sights are for, they think that choosing the bigger number makes the gun shoot harder
Warfare in Africa is truly unbelievable"

Thread by @SirEvanAmato on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "This stuff drives me up the walls.  American couple visits Europe and thinks 2 weeks is enough to accurately glimpse local life.  They then return to the US, complaining about why it sucks and how Europe is so much better.  DELUSIONAL thinking on all accounts 🧵
I used to be all for people traveling, but unless you do it for genuinely EXTENDED periods of time, it’s impossible to get a glimpse of real culture.  My first time in Europe, I lived in Spain for 6 months.  I came back to the US totally convinced Europe was heaven on earth… Later, I spent about two years in France.  First 6 months, great.  The latter year and a half, the cracks started to show…  To be clear, I didn’t travel or sight-see barely at all during this period.  I stayed pretty much in one place, spoke the language, and had a real job that felt truly local.  It was as “authentic” as you could get. The more time you spend actually living real life in Europe though, the more you realize how much American “freedom” is actually legit.  For ex, say you want to throw something in the trash.  In the US, you just throw it in the trash.  In Italy, you have to do the “raccolta differenziata” and divide waste into paper, plastic, organic, or tin/glass.  This then gets collected in small bags administered to you by the gov  (which are tracked by RFID so you can be fined if you put the wrong thing in the wrong bag). Have something bigger that won’t fit? Like a Swiffer mop? You’ve got to drive to the dump — but not just any dump, the local dump assigned to you based on your legal place of residence (which you must register with the gov).  But even THEN, it’s not easy… Many dumps still do a version of the “raccolta differenziata”, so you still have to divide things even there! I chose the Swiffer ex for a reason — I once saw a man forced to break it up (idk how) into the rubber handle, the small metal pole, and the dust-collecting piece itself
So in America, you can say “I need to throw away this Swiffer” and do just that.  In Italy, you have to load it into your car, drive through traffic to the dump (bringing your gov-issued medical card to access it, not just your ID), take it apart by hand, and then drive back home. I know this is just one silly example, but it perfectly demonstrates the sort of thing you’d never experience even if you came to Europe for 6 months.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Europe  BUT… You are absolutely delusional if you think even 6 months here gives you an accurate view of local life.  I’ve lived here for the better part of the past decade — in Spain, France, the UK and Italy.  I worked here.  I got married here.  I had a child here.  And I’m STILL learning…
It is peak American arrogance (and unironically, privilege) that makes something think they “get it” after such a short trip  (fwiw, the couple in question also believes the US is “descending into fascism”…)
But it also makes you reconsider the “importance” of travel. While OF COURSE travel opens up your eyes to other parts of the world and ways of doing things, it’s largely overrated.  Precisely bc it makes you *think* you understand, when it reality you don’t… Want study abroad students to become socialists?  Send them to Europe for 3 months.  Want them to join the “far-right”?  Send them to Europe for 3 years.
Again, to be clear, I LOVE Europe.  I love foreign languages.  I love the beauty and charm of the Old World.  And I love the people who live here.  BUT (as obvious as it should be) everything comes with trade-offs. There are great things about living in the US. There are not so great things about living in the US.  Same goes for Europe.  But in either place, you can find abundant reason to be happy.  Neither the US nor Europe provides the magic bullet to happiness …and I guess that’s the point of this schizo thread.
 Travel (and the idea of moving abroad) promise to bring you happiness.  They promise to provide the right conditions in which you can be happy.  But in reality, no country can do that for you. Your happiness doesn’t depend on the country you live in.  It’s determined by how you choose to live life where you’re at.  So love your hometown a little bit more.  Invest in your local community.  And above all, understand that YOU are responsible for your own happiness"