Home » Open thread 4/25/2026

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Open thread 4/25/2026 — 27 Comments

  1. To cover a quickly receding hairline?

    And down the memory hole with the pink knitted hats of January 2017.

  2. Trump has canceled the envoys to Pakistan….good. I think it’s time for more kinetic action.

  3. Another Mike, re the CA voter ID initiative, that is good news. But the battle just started The first thing that happens is the Attorney General gives the initiative a totally misleading title on the ballot. Next, there will be a massive campaign against it, funded by the government unions and assorted leftists.

    Consider donating to the reform California organization. A small amount of money will go a long way to pass the initiative.
    ReformCalifornia.org

  4. Could be intentional misdirection, but Pres. Trump’s remarks don’t look like he’s ready to start attacking again.

  5. sdferr, if we’ve taken out every military target that has been identified, what are we going to bomb?

    Yes, we can go onto dual use targets, but one of our goals is to leave an infrastructure that a new government will have to build on.

    Israel, who does have a stated goal of replacing the Islamic regime, can continue to target IRGC positions.

    The current blockade is said to be strangling the IRGC economically. At some point, they will likely strike with whatever remaining missiles/drones they have in secure/hidden locations which we can take out.

    While that option is playing out, we can concentrate on removing whatever coastal weapons the IRGC has left and opening the Strait of Hormuz.

    What makes the IRGC speed boats problematic is the amount of civilian fishing vessels that are around the Strait. Drones that are stored in garages and ballistic missiles that may still be left in hardened silos still have to be found. Without a ground operation, the only way to identify these targets is when they use them.

  6. if we’ve taken out every military target that has been identified…

    My problem with the ceasefire is that it seems to be complete, and that would include targets of opportunity. A Mossad asset in country risks his life to relay information that the IRGC has commandeered a building where they are repairing damaged military assets – lots of them. And we do…nothing? After all, there’s a ceasefire.

  7. Brian your list of remainders, together with particulars unmentioned seems to me an adequate set of strategically significant cases to show we’ve not run out of military targets, not by a long shot. Plenty left to do to achieve the required surrender on our terms. Which, I suppose, is where the conflict is headed. Give it time.

    And just so, Mike, right you are.

  8. Barry M @1:58PM— Not to be nitpicky, but Bass is mayor of LA not DC. This does not, however, mean that she is not a dedicated Commie and should be no place close to the levers of power any place in the USA.

  9. Oops. Thanks Mike…
    – – – – – – –
    Next up: Solving a problem called Tom Barrack…

    “America’s Ambassador to Turkey Is Undermining U.S. Interests”—
    https://schanzer.pundicity.com/31392/america-ambassador-to-turkey-is-undermining-us
    H/T Powerline blog.

    + Bonus (from an Iranian analyst):

    ‘What Tehran calls “humiliation” is the collapse of its playbook;
    ‘The truth is that Iran’s usual approach to managing pressure, raising tensions to extract concessions, no longer produces the same outcomes…’—
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/426060

  10. Theres a replacement huang whose even worse you can always do worse

    We apparently haveng taken out all the drone platforms and missile launchers even small boats

    The siege strategy seems to be successful

    Jonetta cole of spelman was another venceremos alumni

    Then theres nick mirosch sic who has legacy ties through his uncle camilo pjneiro

    The sultan is a rascal who seems to speak with forked tongue

  11. https://x.com/ihtesham2005/status/2048016720372302055
    Surprisingly good note on the MIT free Linear Algebra course run by the same professor for 61 years.
    I think I might take it, as a refresher.
    —-
    I feel Trump is preparing a counter punch, but is waiting for some Iranian punch to trigger a response. Also guess he’s not happy with any current plan to use direct force to get the uranium. Whacking those trying to Bloch the Straight seems like a good, but slow process. While Dems claim the US lost, and impatient Reps wonder if the Dems are right for once.

    The frauds & NGO stuff & especially the SPLC rightly dominate this week’s news.

  12. I’m hearing reports of shots fired at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where Trump is scheduled to speak. Trying to find a news site that doesn’t overwhelm me with pop-up ads…

  13. There were shots (four, from Katie Pavlich ear-witness) report, apparently in the lobby outside the ballroom. She now says that the shooter is deceased, killed by LEO(s?). President and his guests were safely husteled out by Secret Service.

  14. @sdferr:the shooter is deceased

    The shooter appears to have been arrested, but, 48 hours and all that.

    President Donald Trump said the suspect involved in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner security scare has been apprehended, praising Secret Service and law enforcement for their response.

    “Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job. They acted quickly and bravely,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

    “The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON,’ but will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement,” he added.

    Trump said a final decision on whether the event will fully resume is expected shortly.

  15. Here’s video from C-Span. The room was very noisy and the President didn’t react after the shots, and it was several seconds before SS surrounded him.

    Wide Shot of Loud Bangs and President Trump Evacuation
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIZh8nHZ4m4

    Interesting that the legacy media doesn’t mention shots in the title of their youtube videos– just ‘President evacuated from room’.

  16. @Brian E:Interesting that the legacy media doesn’t mention shots in the title of their youtube videos– just ‘President evacuated from room’.

    Did that with Butler too. We don’t hate them enough. But for some reason still rely on them for news.

  17. Brian E. —

    Thanks for the link to the video from C-SPAN. The comments were an education. And this is at the C-SPAN YouTube channel, formerly known as an island of sanity in the swamp of Democratic Party lunacy.

  18. I’m reminded of this poem:
    _______________________________

    A SHORT HISTORY OF THE SIXTIES

    Bang! Bang! Bang!
    And always in the head.
    Click, and we’re watching TV.
    The Plane, the Widow, the Mass.
    We drive with our lights on.

    Henri Coulette, “The Family Goldschmitt” (1971)
    _______________________________

    Happily, very happily, the Bangs have not connected.

    The repetition bothers me. And I know that the other side, not just the nuts, wants it.

  19. “South Africa is Finished—How They Destroyed a First World Country in Thirty Years”

    While President Trump has essentially stopped taking in refuges from all over the world, in view of the increasingly imperiled situation of whites in South Africa, he has made it a point to admit thousands of white South African refugees.*

    Linked below is a very interesting analysis by a very observant, informed, and articulate white South African clinical psychologist (Hard, given the UK interviewer’s accent, to get this psychologist’s name, but it sounded something like Yacoub/Yaku Fansai?) of how South Africa has—step-by-step–been transformed from the flourishing First World country that Nelson Mandela inherited/became head of, into the corrupt, decaying, and dysfunctional state it has become today.

    Among other observations, this psychologist believes, based on his experience, that the South African government is taking incremental steps to build toward a genocide targeting whites.**

    Interesting little fact, that South Africa exports more copper than it mines. Where does all this additional copper come from?

    Well, of course, it’s from all of the copper wire used in municipal power, street lighting, and traffic light systems that South African thieves are ripping out of the ground (look on YouTube and you can see videos of them ripping out this copper wire in broad daylight, and walking away with thick strands of copper wiring over their shoulders) and selling it for scrap.

    Just one little example of why South Africa is descending into chaos, decay, and decline.

    • See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-afrikaner-refugees-south-africa-b2963928.html

    ** See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J6_LGStf5g

  20. @Tom Grey: Surprisingly good note on the MIT free Linear Algebra course run by the same professor for 61 years.
    I think I might take it, as a refresher.

    That would be the one, the only, the incomparable Professor Gilbert Strang!

    Several years ago I did his MIT OpenCourseware in Linear Algebra. His lectures are delightful, clear and concrete. He approaches Linear Algebra with a missionary zeal. He really is out to change that corner of the world and any students willing to learn.

    https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-06sc-linear-algebra-fall-2011/

    A beautiful man and still alive at 91.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Strang

  21. I don’t usually do recommendations but when–among all of the crap in TV– I find an interesting series that I think is very well done, well, I want to alert people ot it.

    The Series is called “Dark Winds,” it is broadcast on AMC, or AMC+, it is based on Tony Hillerman’s well known series of novels set in the Southwest, and it follows two Navajo policemen as they solve crimes on the Navajo Reservation in the 1970s.

    It’s very atmospheric, I find it’s look into Navajo beliefs and culture very interesting, the scripts are very well written, and above all, I find the acting done on a very convincing level.

    You really “buy into” the characters and the situation, and hate to see each season of episodes end.

    I’m really looking forward to next year’s upcoming season.

  22. My wife and I frequently go to local estate sales on the weekend. It’s most interesting to see some of the more grand homes on the lakes, and the things that never wear out—like Singer sewing machines—can be had occasionally for reasonable prices.

    Today we happened upon this one:

    https://open.substack.com/pub/jameslileks/p/everything-in-your-life-has-a-price?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

    There were a few books by James Lileks on the piano—that’s when I started to suspect. Then I remembered the look of the place from the street, and, yeah, it matched my memories of his descriptions in The Bleat.

    I now have a copy of Modern Library’s anthology of John O’Hara stories “signed” by James Likeks. And I feel bad about not buying one the books he wrote that had been there on the piano.

  23. @ Jim Melcher > “I now have a copy of Modern Library’s anthology of John O’Hara stories “signed” by James Likeks. ”

    What an amazing story!

    Especially your last sentence, which made me tear up when I got to that point in James’s post.

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