Awww, isn't that sweet? The Ladies of Greenwich Invisible and their hubbies travel west to lend support to their fellow aging radica-boomers in Stumptown

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(I (just) coined “Radica-Boomers, but Victory Girl came up with “Gran-Tifas”, and that’s nice, too.

UPDATE: Democratic Socialists of America are ll in on forming choir sing alongs as a means of bringing their message to “the people”.

Culture is Collective Action

The 2025 DSA Convention featured a panel on “Building DSA’s Cultural Organizations,” featuring panelists who started DSA sports leagues, choirs, and more. They made the case that these cultural organizations can become institutions of collective action. 

Hmmm. Biden didn't pardon himself, did he?

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Biden didn't want intel disseminated showing Ukrainian concerns over family's 'corrupt' business ties: records

Ratcliffe declassified an intel report revealing Ukrainian officials viewed Biden family business deals 'as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power'

Then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015 told the CIA he would "strongly prefer" an intelligence report documenting Ukrainian officials’ concerns with his family’s ties to "corrupt" business deals in the country "not be disseminated" — and so it wasn’t, according to a newly declassified email and records made public by the agency. 

CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified the heavily redacted records, which he said he believes is an example of "politicization of intelligence."

Fox News Digital obtained the declassified documents, which were discovered during a CIA review of historical agency records.

A senior CIA official briefed Fox News Digital on the declassified documents and intelligence report, stating that the intelligence was discovered along with an email showing that Biden "expressed a preference to not share the report."

CIA officials discovered and declassified an email dated February 10, 2016, with the subject line stating: "RE: OVP query regarding draft [REDACTED]." The email was sent to the CIA.

The classification of the email was listed, and crossed out, as "SECRET."

"Good morning, I just spoke with VP/ NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated. Thanks for understanding," the email states, signed by a redacted name, but with the title of "PDB Briefer." 

The "PDB" is the presidential daily brief.

The report in question included intelligence revealing that Ukrainian officials viewed the Biden family’s alleged ties to corrupt business practices in Ukraine "as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power."

"Intelligence officials agreed that, at the time of collection, it would have met the threshold [for dissemination], but based on the Office of the Vice President’s preference, the information was never shared outside of the CIA," the official said.

The CIA, during its review, confirmed that Biden’s request was granted and that the intelligence report "had not been disseminated."

The senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that it was "extremely rare and unusual" and "inappropriate to go outside of the intelligence community and inquire with the White House on the dissemination of a particular report for what appears to be political reasons."

The newly declassified intelligence report, which Biden sought to keep private, had a subject line of: "NON-DISSEMINATED INTEL INFORMATION: Reactions of [REDACTED] Ukrainian Government Officials to the Early December Visit of Senior United States Government Official."

The document states the date of the information came in December 2015. The document was created in 2016.

At the time, Biden was vice president and was running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration.

The intelligence document stated that "officials within the administration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed bewilderment and disappointment at the 7-8 December 2015 visit of the Vice President of the United States to Kiev, Ukraine."

"These officials highlighted that, prior to the visit, the Poroshenko administration and other [REDACTED] Ukrainian officials expected the U.S. Vice President to discuss personnel matters with Poroshenko during the visit, and had assumed that the U.S. Vice President would advocate in support of or against specific officials within the Ukrainian Government," the intelligence states.

"After the visit, these officials assessed that the U.S. Vice President had come to Kiev almost exclusively to give a generic public speech, and had not had any intention of discussing substantive matters with Poroshenko or other officials within the Ukrainian government," the intelligence states.

"Following the visit of the U.S. Vice President, [REDACTED] officials within the Poroshenko administration privately mused at the U.S. media scrutiny of the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corrupt business practices in Ukraine," the intelligence states. "These officials viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power."

Biden, on Dec. 9, 2015, gave a speech in Ukraine, in which he discussed corruption in the country.

"And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption," Biden said in the speech. "The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform."

In that speech, Biden also said Ukraine’s "energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals."

"It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income," he said. "Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities.  Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains."

At the time, Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden had a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month.

Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

"I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.' … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’" Biden recalled telling then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. 

Biden recollected the conversation during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.

But during his first term, President Donald Trump was impeached after a July 2019 phone call in which he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations into the Biden family’s actions and business dealings in Ukraine, specifically Hunter Biden’s ventures with Burisma and Joe Biden’s successful effort to have former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ousted.

At the same time as that call, Hunter Biden was under federal investigation, prompted by his suspicious foreign transactions. 

Trump was acquitted in Feb. 2020 on both articles of impeachment against him — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — after being impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019. 

Meanwhile, the declassified intelligence report had a "warning," noting that "due to the extreme sensitivity, this report should be distributed only to the renamed recipients. No further distribution is authorized without prior approval of the originating agency. Violation of established handling procedures are subject to penalty, including termination of access to this reporting channel."

It added that "any discussion of or reference to information in this report [REDACTED] is strictly prohibited. Any references to this report in derived or finished intelligence should include this warning."

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry against Biden during his presidency, and found, after years of investigating, that he engaged in "impeachable conduct," "abused his office," and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family." 

Dixiecrats ride again

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Democrats in 2025 are looking to their forebears in 1861 and Governor Wallace in 1963, standing in the schoolhouse door, defying federal officials trying to enforce federal law.

They are even resorting to the same excuses they did when they were defending slavery and segregation: state sovereignty and states' rights. 

At least they are acting consistently with a brand they established long ago, although I have to note that in many of the intervening years, they have been very inconsistent about applying this principle. Their attitude is more "states' rights for me, but not for thee."

There is a serious flaw in the "state's rights" argument, for which [I] have a modest amount of sympathy in some cases. And it is this: these states are in open rebellion against the enforcement of federal law, and not merely in a refusal to cooperate with federal officials in the execution of their duties. 

We can have an argument about the level of cooperation that is required, especially when the states get an awful lot of federal support in the law enforcement realm, but I don't see how states can actively impede federal officials in the execution of their duties without it being a violation both of their responsibility as members of the federal union and as a matter of federal law. 

….[S]tates like California, Oregon, and Illinois have declared open season on federal officials and federal property--they are tolerating attacks on the federal government and even abandoning federal officers when they are being violently attacked. 

The latest example is Chicago's police standing down, allowing what amounted to a terrorist attack on Customs and Border Patrol agents. They radioed in for help, and the dispatcher alerted officers of the request for help using police code 999. The Patrol Chief ordered officers to drive away rather than provide assistance. 

Code 999, by the way, means Urgent help needed / Officer down. Never in the history of policing, as far as I am aware, has a police department ordered its officers to abandon their fellow law enforcement officers when they are under attack. No doubt individual officers have displayed cowardice and failed to help their compatriots, but it apparently is now official Chicago policy to invite people to attack federal officers. 

This is where we are now, and I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. The Democratic Party has been fairly clear about its belief that no rules apply to them, and that the Constitution is an outdated document written by colonialists who should be shunned. In New York City, the statue of Thomas Jefferson was removed because the author of the Declaration of Independence was no longer welcome there, which tells you everything you need to know. 

The Democrats have embraced rage, political violence, and are at the point of, or inching toward, actual insurrection against the federal government. 

You could call it a tantrum, but it is far more than that. It is the inevitable result of a political philosophy that has its roots in Jacobinism (hence, one of the major left-wing magazines is literally named "Jacobin"), and the goal is revolution. No doubt they would prefer it if the people who lean toward federalism in the real sense of the word, and as outlined in The Federal Papers, simply surrendered and allowed the left to destroy the country without resistance. 

But if we insist that the Constitution means what it says, and that federal law enacted in a legal manner be enforced, they are perfectly willing to take to the streets and achieve their goals through violent means. 

Local officials, knowing that they would lose a straight-up conventional war, are happy to allow Antifa and other violent groups do the dirty work as they open the way for them to attack federal officers. The locals will refuse to assist the federal agents, deny them even the most modest protection, or even the ability to use city bathrooms, and will run the other direction as Antifa uses increasingly violent means to get their way.

Already, Antifa has shot at and killed officers who are enforcing immigration laws. They have been destroying property in the cities where local officials refuse to police their own streets, and now they are falling back on the "states' rights" arguments. They are going the full George Wallace. 

We will no doubt hear about January 6th again and again to justify the claim that Republicans are the real insurrectionists, but the fact is that every day is January 6th x10 for the Democrats. People are getting shot, riots are happening daily, and local officials are defending it all and asking for more of it. 

The country is more divided than ever, and I wish I knew what we could do to heal the rifts. But we are at a point where Democrats openly applaud the murder of conservatives, fantasize about killing their colleagues, and forcing mothers to watch their children die, and do everything they can to amp up the political temperature. 

Bluesky is filled with kill lists, and Democrats are filming themselves saying the most disgusting things. This is how they talk to each other. 

I would ask the simple question, "How do we live in the same country with these people?," but I think the answer is that they don't even want to live here if we do. 

They claim they are doing all this to be kind. I would hate to see them when they are being mean. 

The fact that she wore a Bat Flu mask to showcase her wokeness earlier this year at a public forum, and did without one while screaming at police last week probably says it all

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Eman Abdelhadi, an associate professor in the university’s Department of Comparative Human Development, was arrested Friday and charged with two counts of aggravated battery to a government employee, a Class 3 felony, and two counts of resisting/obstruction peace, a Class A misdemeanor, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office told Fox News.

….

The professor previously made headlines over her foul-mouthed critique of UoC at a socialist event.“F–k the University of Chicago, it’s evil, you know it’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space? I kind of had a little bit of disdain for people who spent their time doing that,” she said during her July address.

There are some amusing, albeit unsympathetic comments on her brave heroism over on her X page; here’s just one of them:

Headline we thought we'd never see

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Washington Post Editorial Board: Democrats' Shutdown Demands Are Irresponsible


The U.S. national debt stands at $37.9 trillion, a figure that dwarfs the annual gross domestic product of every other country. It has grown dramatically since the pandemic. In the 2019 fiscal year, the federal government spent $5.47 trillion but took in only $4.26 trillion. Five years later, spending clocked in at $6.75 trillion as revenue failed to keep up with this dramatic expansion of government...

Yet Democrats have demanded that Republicans agree to extend the covid-era insurance subsidies without proposing any way to pay for it. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this will cost $350 billion over the next decade. These temporary benefits were included in the American Rescue Plan of March 2021 and extended the next year in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act until the end of 2025.

John sexton: “But this may be my favorite part of all, in which the Post recounts the failure of the Affordable Care Act to be affordable.:

The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable. President Barack Obama’s signature achievement allowed people to buy insurance on marketplaces with subsidies based on their income. The architects of the program assumed that risk pools would be bigger than they turned out to be. As a result, policies cost more than expected.

To salvage the program, Democrats expanded subsidies to entice more people to buy plans. Many poor families wound up getting insurance for free, and the rolls grew: 24 million people now have coverage through the ACA exchanges. 

Sexton: “As I pointed out here last week, Dems' emergency spending on Obamacare succeeded in roughly doubling the number of people enrolled in the program. And that was largely thanks to a jump in the number of people eligible for free insurance. After fifteen years, Obamacare has barely worked as a marketplace but it has always worked as a giveaway. That was always part of the design. It was a single payer starter project which could be expanded by simply shoveling more government money into it over time. That's what Democrats are trying to do now with this shutdown.

“Again, I can't believe this is the Washington Post, but this next paragraph ought to be plated in bronze and set in stone outside the building so Post staffers see it on the way in to the office every day.”

This is how entitlement programs work. Once you habituate people to some generous government handout, they grow dependent on it. And it becomes politically perilous, if not impossible, to fully claw it back. Conservatives fought so hard to stop Obamacare 15 years ago because they anticipated fights like this one.

The editorial ends in the somewhat dejected conclusion that Republicans might eventually give in to Democrats' demands.

The likeliest outcome of the shutdown is that both sides agree to spend more money without paying for it, let alone being honest with voters about the tradeoffs too many have ignored for too long.

And then there’s this:

Dems’ Claims on Health Care Cuts Contradicted by Facts; Federal Safety Net Spending at Historic Highs

Price cut

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Cutler Road as “improved”

20 Cutler Road, which I mentioned here last month when it came on at $6.295 million, has dropped to $5.995. It was purchased for $3.5 million in April, just ahead of the foreclosure auctioneer’s hammer, dolled up a bit, and returned to the market. I applaud the would-be flipper for removing the FEMA tarp from the sunroom on the left, but I’m still not awfully impressed with the final product.

Circa april ‘25