News roundup
(1) Nick Kristof of the Times writes a poorly-sourced article accusing the IDF of rape. It is cleverly timed to coincide with an enormous and well-documented report on Hamas sexual violence against Israelis:
The commission on Hamas sexual violence against Israelis “has examined over 10,000 photographs and videos of the attack totalling more than 1,800 hours of visual analysis.”
Conversely, someone told Nick Kristof that Zionist dogs are trained to rape Arabs, so he wrote that. https://t.co/d2sVSwz7cZ
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) May 12, 2026
Governor Kay Ivey on Tuesday celebrated the United States Supreme Court’s decision to vacate the court-ordered congressional map, allowing for the use of the 2023 Alabama-drawn congressional map.
“I will continue to say: Alabama knows our state, our people and our districts best. The United States Supreme Court’s decision is plain common sense and enables our values to be best represented in Congress,” said Governor Ivey. “For years, we have fought for this outcome, and I am proud to celebrate this win for Alabamians.”
Following last week’s successful special session and this victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, Governor Ivey is now taking the next step by calling a Special Primary Election for the affected congressional districts, the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th.
(3) AOC has “way bigger” ambitions than merely running for president:
“What’s funny about that is that they assume my ambition is positional; they assume my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that,” she said, speaking to the students in the audience. “My ambition is to change this country.”
“Presidents come and go. Senate, House seats, elected officials come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights, all of that,” the congresswoman, 36, added.
If you don’t think she could be the nominee in 2028 or 2032, think again.
(4) Trump would like to cut the federal gas tax, but he has to get it through Congress.
(5) A mayor in California, Eileen Wang, pleads guilty to being a Chinese agent.
(6) Fraud – of a familiar type – uncovered in the student visa program.
AOC
“If you don’t think she could be the nominee in 2028 or 2032, think again.”
Oh, Dear Lord, Hear my Prayer. Thank you for your gift.
Ace originally misstated OPT as a program where government pays the salaries of the student workers. That is not actually true, and good on him for the correction.
Employers hire them at a big discount, for several reasons:
1) They don’t have to pay benefits
2) They don’t have to pay payroll taxes
3) The salary does not have to be competitive
The fraud here seems to be that some of these employers don’t actually have real OPT positions, just fake ones that let foreign students stay in the US longer than they could otherwise. I’d imagine there’s some kind of bribe from the student involved.
For legitimate purposes, what’s in it for the student is job experience, longer time in the US, and a higher chance of getting H1-B.
Kristof has been a slithy tove before in the hatfill case, but this another level of blood libel from the Times
Will the possums do something positive in self interest (magic eightball says maybe
Honestly ocasio cortez makes my head hurt, she is so ignorant (and evil)
Are the justice democrats still running her, with the founder of the subhanda bose cult
She was certainly part of the hamas caucus in the house
As someone else put it’ why does the times get a white house press pass platforming these lies
1) Hoorray for Alabama. The South continues its rise.
3) AOC thinks she is the 2nd coming of Barack Hussein Obama, but surprise! The hoi polloi are slow but not stupid. She is in it for the bucks, that’s all. A pig at the trough.
4) As to reducing the federal gas tax, our government cannot continue on debit financing forever. We will all eventually have to cough up the bucks to pay for federal largesse.
Turnabout. They say…
https://x.com/seanmdav/status/2054318213408714894
Certainly a twist
https://x.com/SaysSimulation/status/2054217216350921071
I wasnt expecting in the urban milieu of baltimore
The plot thickens as it were
The awful part is that there are people who will read Kristof and actually believe that Israelis are training police dogs to rape prisoners.
OT: if someone with more technical knowledge could give some commentary. Is this true? False?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXNdZCZicT7/?igsh=bTJlejI5cHIybHM3
Good commentary on the timing of the Kristof rubbish (via powerline Pick):
https://evebarlow.substack.com/p/undeniable
Kate said, “The awful part is that there are people who will read Kristof and actually believe that Israelis are training police dogs to rape prisoners.”
Those people have a name: They are called Democrats.
AOC? Appearance matters with a presidential candidate; a bald man has not been elected since Ike, and an overweight woman hasn’t got a prayer. AOC is not overweight now, but Hispanic women tend to gain weight as they get older – I should know: the first Mrs. Sgt. Friday was Hispanic and she started packing on the lb’s almost as soon as the ring was on her finger. A fat, dishonest, argumentative Puerto Rican woman is not going to be elected president, absent massive election fraud.
Yes Watt, exactly. Thanks for posting.
AOC is no Barack Obama.
Obama was a disaster as a president, but he was a smart, charismatic, Pied Piper of a politician.
It wasn’t hard to read his radicalism, if one knew where to look. But much of his cunning was to conceal himself as a moderate.
There is no mystery to AOC.
Thank you for your gift.
I don’t know about that. The scary thing is that AOC could be competitive. Who would be best against her? I would take Rubio, Vance is smart, but I wouldn’t rate him highly as a politician. Rubio seems friendly and, well, normal. Normal might sell well after Trump and against AOC.
Not linking to the Jerusalem Post anymore because of all the pop ups I get when I go there. But if you want to proceed at your own risk, you’ll find an article with these quotes:
And this is my problem with the ceasefire.
Richard Cook:
Nitrate in groundwater? Is that your concern? Nitrate contamination in groundwater can be a problem that has nothing to do with the Data Centers. It is a problem that existed before Data Centers became the latest cause celebre.
Discharges of pollutants to surface water and to the ground are regulated in most states and on a federal level. The degree of regulation and rigor of compliance and enforcement is most likely a local and state variable.
@Richard Cook
Most data centers are designed to recirculate water, they are closed loop systems. There might be some evaporative cooling, but that is just water and isn’t mixed with the interior cooling. If nothing else, cost would probably favor closed systems. Solar panels are probably a bigger long term problem, last I heard they were just stacked up when decommissioned, there is no cheap way to dispose of them. Turbine blades are also a problem.
Best not trust a politician talking about such things, they have ulterior motives.
“…poorly sourced…”
Um, er…huh??
Nonetheless, I smell more than a faint whiff of a Pusillanimous Pulitzer Prize—yes, another Pusillanimous NYT Pulitzer—wafting from the fetid fever swamp of West 40th Street, coming down the pike…
(4) Trump would like to cut the federal gas tax, but he has to get it through Congress.
Not a good idea, considering the deficits we are running. Cut spending, like they did with AID.
Better said it is a really stupid idea. And I voted for Trump three times.
Here’s something wild:
__________________________________
Israel reportedly set up a secret military base in the Iraqi desert in February in order to support its aerial campaign against Iran.
According to a Saturday report in the Wall Street Journal, citing US officials and other sources, Israel built the base shortly before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran started on February 28, to serve as a hub for logistics to support the Israeli Air Force.
It also housed special forces troops and search-and-rescue teams poised to act if any Israeli pilots were downed, the report said.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-have-built-secret-base-in-iraqi-desert-to-support-iran-air-campaign/
__________________________________
I’ve got to wonder what sort of secret network Israel has been building to support an Iranian resistance.
I once programmed for an Israeli tech company. They wore me out!
@ huxley > “I’ve got to wonder what sort of secret network Israel has been building to support an Iranian resistance.”
I notice you didn’t say “if.”
@ Watt > “Good commentary on the timing of the Kristof rubbish”
I think Eve Barlow is a little passionate about October 7 and the poisonous hatred of Jews that has been uncovered among Americans and Europeans.
As she should be.
I agree with one of the commenters:
“I propose every holocaust museum across the globe includes October 7.”
@ miguel > “Turnabout. They say…”
I’m going to drop your link into the thread about Democrats and Power, with this observation that I have seen around the internet:
When Republicans are elected, they are in office.
When Democrats are elected, they are in power.
Here’s the content at that link:
https://x.com/seanmdav/status/2054318213408714894
— John Galt III
In moments like this, I often remember something that Al Gore once said. He had been asked who he hoped the GOP would pick in a Presidential election, and he replied (not an exact quote): “I don’t do that anymore. I used to believe that if the Republicans would just nominate Ronald Reagan, we’d be home free. So I don’t do ‘hope they pick’ anymore.”
Independent Israeli report accuses Hamas of ‘systematic’ sexual violence during October 7 attacks – Video
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2026/05/independent-israeli-report-accuses.html
om and Charles R. Harris
Thank you for the response. My concern was getting accurate information about this subject. I have a feeling there is a lot of outside money financing information warfare efforts against data centers. This has the same feeling as the left/progressive/communist effort against nuclear plants.
HC68 – You’re absolutely correct. Democrats wanted Trump as the nominee in 2016, 2020, and 2024, and then went 1 for 3 against him.
The only way that someone as radical as Obama could have become president was against a reeling party that had started unpopular wars, had a president with an approval rate in the 30s, and presided over a financial crisis in the months before the election.
Let us pray that there is no financial crisis, but otherwise 2028 is shaping up to look an awful lot like 2008. If you think AOC couldn’t win, you’re kidding yourself.
Yep, no doubt AOC will run for president and yep, she could win.
Another damning indictment of the American electorate.
Don’t be shocked if her running mate is Mamdani.
“The only way that someone as radical as Obama could have become president was against a reeling party…”
Even before the introduction of the 22nd Amendment it was incredibly unusual for the same party to hold the White House for more than two terms with different candidates without a VP running as the incumbent President at some point. Reagan and GHWB were the first to accomplish it in over a century. Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama managed it despite being significantly more popular than W.
Being the first black candidate for president had nothing to do with BHO’s election according to our resident genius, CC™-R.
LOL, truly risible, Ahab.
Besides the utter lack of proof or even circumstantial evidence for Israeli forces making dogs mount Arab prisoners, one thought that crosses my mind is “is it even possible to train a dog to do that?”
And the accusation is clearly not that the dogs simply mount prisoners but that they somehow rape them.
As Abe Greenwald wrote in his daily Commentary newsletter yesterday, Israel is not really the target. Jews are the target. Israel is the weapon. (By which he means anti-semites are trying to use Israel to stir up hatred and violence against the Jewish people everywhere.)
The only way that someone as radical as Obama could have become president was against a reeling party that had started unpopular wars, had a president with an approval rate in the 30s, and presided over a financial crisis in the months before the election.
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Obama’s a perfectly banal Democratic pol, just less responsive to public opinion than Bilge Clinton. (The AutoPen Administration was even less responsive). The time commitment and the death toll from the current war in Iran is a tiny fraction of that in Iraq. If there’s a crisis in the market for Treasury issues, the responsible party will be that refusing to countenance any spending reductions. Which isn’t Trump.
Democratic voters are almost completely insensitive to who the candidate is and absolutely uninterested in personal accomplishment in their primary contests (much less general election contests). Nominating AOC will costs them some votes on the margin, no more. She’s more articulate than JoeMentia or Kamala Harris, dunderhead though she is.
“…Iran’s active missile sites include 30 along the Strait of Hormuz,..”
If they know that, then they probably know where they are.
If they know where they are, then they can destroy them.
Donkeys are being eviscerated, they may not even be a national party by ‘28.
That Obama seems banal now is a testament to how far he moved the Dems towards their own leftward flank.
That Obama seems banal now is a testament to how far he moved the Dems towards their own leftward flank.
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The only original elements in his thinking were (a) spite, (b) secretiveness, and (c) shticks you might expect from someone who came of age in a particular historical moment (the green energy fixation, toadying up to Iran). That was true in 2008 and it was true ten years later. A critic of Obama referred to him as ‘post-American’. Perfectly ordinary for professional class Democratic voters.
Eight years of innoculation of any and all of BHO’s actions from any critism or scrutiny by the “you are a racist” was BHO’s primary purpose.
BHO can’t just go away or fade into irrelevance.
The scary thing about AOC is that she has a shot if she makes it to the general.
Kamala came too close to winning. She was a failure in the 2020 primary yet Democrats rallied around her in 2024 despite not having a primary.
Democrats only turned on Joe Biden because it became obvious he was a potato and would lose. They didn’t care he was a potato, that didn’t matter to them, they just cared because everyone knew he was a potato and hence he would lose.