x01 Archives

Blurb:

Keir Starmer has attempted to dampen the latest round of speculation about his leadership, insisting that one of his potential rivals, Andy Burnham, is doing a “really good job as mayor of Manchester” and warning colleagues not to waste their time briefing against each other.

The prime minister gave his backing to Burnham on Thursday night as he travelled to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, after the Greater Manchester mayor repeatedly failed to rule out challenging Starmer for his party’s leadership during interviews on Thursday.

Burnham’s comments reignited speculation over the prime minister’s future, with his party languishing in the polls and days away from a tax-raising budget that could define the rest of his term in office.

Starmer said: “Andy’s doing a really good job as mayor in Manchester and we work very closely together.”

Blurb:

Over the course of billions of years, the universe has steadily been evolving. Thanks to the expansion of the universe, we are able to “see” back in time to watch that evolution, almost from the beginning. But every once in a while we see something that doesn’t fit into our current understanding of how the universe should operate. That’s the case for a galaxy described in a new paper by PhD student Sijia Cai of Tsinghua University’s Department of Astronomy and their colleagues. They found a galaxy formed around 11 billion years ago that appears to be “metal-free”, indicating that it might contain a set of elusive first generation (Pop III) stars.

Before we get into the discovery itself, some context is necessary. Population III (Pop III) stars are considered to be the first generation of stars that formed early in the universe’s history. Importantly, they have essentially no “metal”, which cosmological terms means any element other than helium and hydrogen. Since those heavier elements can only be formed in stars themselves (or in the supernovae they create), by definition the first generation of stars can’t contain them.

Blurb:

A vote to condemn the “horrors of socialism” passed on a mostly party-line vote Friday, with 98 Democrats voting against it and 199 Republicans voting for it.

The bill passed 285-to-98. No Republicans voted against the bill, although 20 Republicans did not vote.

On the Democrat side, it was far from unanimous, with 86 members voting in favor, and 98 against. Two Democrats voted “present” and 27 did not vote.

The resolution, sponsored by Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., reads, “socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide,” and recognizes “many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues.”

Blurb:

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a new generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone.

Hanaway is arguing that the decision endangers women by allowing unchecked mail-order distribution without basic medical safeguards.

The suit, joined by Kansas and Idaho, seeks to block the September 30 approval of the generic product from Evita Solutions and restore pre-2016 safety standards for the drug, including requirements for in-person medical evaluations to detect life-threatening conditions like ectopic pregnancies.

Hanaway, a Republican, said the lawsuit supports Missouri’s ongoing multi-state challenge against the FDA’s rollback of safety protections mandated by Congress for mifepristone, which is used in the abortions. The abortion pill has killed multiple women and injured countless thousands.

Blurb:

The recently called Special Session of the Nevada Legislature ended late last night. The Governor called the session to deal with crime, jobs, and healthcare. One of the bills, SB5, creates a new statewide healthcare grant program in the amount of $60 million from the State General Fund to address provider shortages and bolster Nevada’s healthcare infrastructure. It establishes a competitive, metrics driven grant process administered by the Nevada Health Authority.

Once the session started, it was discovered that Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro had inserted a carveout for Planned Parenthood into the bill. Nevada Right to Life worked quickly to raise awareness, communicate concerns, and get an amendment moving, working alongside legislators who were also appalled by the deal. Together, we ensured the issue was addressed immediately. We thank Governor Joe Lombardo for negotiating an amendment to ensure abortions are not funded through SB5.

Blurb:

The Hysa Organized Crime Group (HOCG), also known as the Albanian Mafia, has been accused of operating casinos on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The news comes from a joint action with the United States Treasury and the Government of Mexico. The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have been working with their North American counterparts to investigate HOCG’s actions.

Blurb:

“AI-powered digital twins mark a major evolution in the future of manufacturing, enabling real-time visualization of the entire production line, not just individual machines,” says Indranil Sircar, global chief technology officer for the manufacturing and mobility industry at Microsoft. “This is allowing manufacturers to move beyond isolated monitoring toward much wider insights.”

A digital twin of a bottling line, for example, can integrate one-dimensional shop-floor telemetry, two-dimensional enterprise data, and three-dimensional immersive modeling into a single operational view of the entire production line to improve efficiency and reduce costly downtime. Many high-speed industries face downtime rates as high as 40%, estimates Jon Sobel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Sight Machine, an industrial AI company that partners with Microsoft and NVIDIA to transform complex data into actionable insights. By tracking micro-stops and quality metrics via digital twins, companies can target improvements and adjustments with greater precision, saving millions in once-lost productivity without disrupting ongoing operations.

Blurb:

The National Education Association (NEA) is training teachers to advance gender and racial ideology in classrooms, and to fight Republicans and parent groups who ‘harm us all’ by trying to stop that agenda, according to leaked materials for an upcoming training event.

Participant handouts for the NEA’s “Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice and Transgender Advocacy” training accuse the right of using an “arsenal of racist dog whistles” and “transphobic tropes” to “whip up fear” and cause harm, parental advocacy group Defending Education (ED) discovered. The materials coach teachers on how to indoctrinate children into progressive dogmas, including gender ideology and pronoun use, among other woke principles.

Blurb:

Earlier this week, the American people were “reliably” informed by the left-wing press that the full grand jury that indicted disgraced former FBI Director James Comey did not see the final indictment.

“Judge grills government over apparent lapses in Comey indictment,” ABC News’ Peter Charalambous, Alexander Mallin, Katherine Faulders, and Nicholas Kerr wrote on November 19. According to the quartet, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan “told a judge … that the full grand jury that indicted Comey did not see the final indictment — only the foreperson and another grand juror did.”

It was the same claim made by The Guardian’s Sam Levine, who headlined his piece: “Full grand jury didn’t see final Comey indictment, prosecutors admit.”

Blurb:

Concha joined Fox News’s Hannity on Thursday to discuss the video, which features Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA). The lawmakers, all military veterans, warn of “threats to our Constitution” and repeatedly tell military and intelligence personnel to refuse unlawful commands, though they do not specify what orders they consider illegal.

Concha said their message undermines the principle of civilian control of the armed forces.

“The president is called the commander in chief for a reason,” Concha said. “He gives a command, and the military follows that command — no ambiguity, no interpretation, no debate. That’s how it’s always been and how it should be.”

Concha questioned what would happen if service members decided mid-mission that they believed an assignment might be unlawful.

Blurb:

 

 

There’s a great, laughable irony about a group that claims to want to save the planet, and is willing to resort to thuggery when anyone questions their methods. But the climate-panic group Extinction Rebellion (ER) is one such group. At a recent meeting in Hampton, United Kingdom, an event called “Climate Reality – What’s causing climate change and what can we do about it,” one attendee stood up and questioned not the ER message, but their methods.

 

What happened then? They silenced him, threw him out, and beat him up.

After the usual cycle of ‘doom, death’ and despair’ followed by the standard ‘if we just spend a lot of money on renewable energy, we’ll save the planet’ narrative the floor was opened for questions.

A few questions in, a gentleman stood up and said that while he agreed with the urgency of the message, the tactics of Extinction Rebellion alienate people rather than persuading them. The panel began interrupting him, urging him to “ask his question or stop” in a rather patronising tone. He calmly continued, explaining how such tactics damage public support. This clearly irritated one of the speakers, a schoolteacher-turned-activist who had moments earlier described how “exciting and fun” activism could be.

Blurb:

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) warned Bill and Hillary Clinton Friday that if they continue to ignore deposition subpoenas regarding their history with Jeffrey Epstein, he will initiate contempt proceedings.

The House Oversight Committee is conducting a review of the federal government’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, focused on potential mismanagement of the case, the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death, his trafficking network, and possible ethics violations by elected officials.

Comer sent a letter to Clinton attorney David Kendall, emphasizing that the Clintons are required to comply with House subpoenas and appear for scheduled in-person depositions.

According to the chairman, Democrats and Republicans on the Oversight Committee approved a motion to issue the subpoenas back in July.

Blurb:

 

 

The Democrats continue to embarrass themselves over the Jeffrey Epstein matter.

I reported on Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s (TX-30) shameless efforts to link Republicans to Epstein donations to deflect from the fact that the convicted sex offender donated to Democrat Delegate Stacey Plaskett, the non-voting delegate from the Virgin Islands.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump has offered a preview of his highly anticipated meeting with New York City’s newly elected socialist mayor.

Trump’s meeting with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) in the Oval Office Friday afternoon is proving to be one of the most highly anticipated sit-downs of his second term. Trump described Mamdani, a staunch progressive and outspoken critic of the president, as “a little bit different” but remained optimistic about the meeting.

‘I give him a lot of credit.’

“He’s got a different philosophy,” Trump told Brian Kilmeade Friday. “He’s a little bit different.”

One of the focal points of Mamdani’s campaign was affordability, an issue that has also been a pillar of Trump’s administration. Although their respective solutions to address affordability are at odds, Trump maintained that the two New Yorkers are ultimately “looking for the same thing.”

Blurb:

The Trump administration is urging Ukraine to sign a new peace proposal by Thanksgiving or risk losing U.S. support, according to Friday reports from The Washington Post and Axios.

U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll delivered the message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.

He presented a version of the 28-point plan drafted by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Officials told The Post that the plan includes steep concessions from Ukraine to bring an end to the three-year war.

They include a major reduction of its armed forces and the ceding of territory that Russia has not taken by force.

Blurb:

The Trump administration is threatening to hit Pennsylvania where it hurts, warning the state it could lose tens of millions in federal dollars after a suspected terrorist managed to snag a commercial truck license.

Federal officials say Pennsylvania broke safety rules by handing out non-domiciled Commercial Driver’s Licenses to foreign nationals who shouldn’t have qualified. In a letter to state leaders, the Department of Transportation said Pennsylvania issued CDLs to migrants without verifying their legal status. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the agency will withhold $75 million in federal funding unless Harrisburg cleans up its CDL program quickly.

The fight erupted after the arrest of Akhror Bozorov, an illegal migrant from Uzbekistan accused back home of ties to terrorism. Bozorov, who authorities say spread jihadist propaganda online and recruited for extremist groups, picked up a Pennsylvania-issued CDL before immigration agents arrested him this month.

Blurb:

Parents at a North Carolina high school are unhappy with school officials who allegedly gave them a questionnaire about their prejudices — with “right” and “wrong” answers.

Now, they’re blowing the whistle on Piedmont High School in North Carolina, which allegedly distributed the “quiz.”

According to a report from Libs of TikTok on social media, several screenshots purport to show the test from the Unionville school, with one student’s answers to them.

“A parent confirmed that their child was explicitly told there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers, and that the assignment will affect their grade,” the Thursday post stated.

Blurb:

As more candidates throw their hats in the ring ahead of the 2026 midterms, yet another Democrat has joined the fray to succeed one of the most infamous governors in America.

Anti-Trump Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell announced on Thursday that he will be running for governor of California in 2026.

‘I love California. It’s the greatest country in the world.’

Swalwell, who spearheaded Trump’s second impeachment, made the announcement on a segment of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” a show for which President Trump has repeatedly expressed his distaste.

Blurb:

 

The Zohran is meeting with President Donald Trump today. It’s not until 3:00 this afternoon, and I’ll be well into the bourbon by then, but I’m sure the content that comes from the meeting will be delightful if you ignore the fact that the incoming mayor of the most important city on the planet is a commie theater kid. My gut says he gets Zelenskyy’d as he attempts to lecture Trump on international law and how there will be no more deportations under The Zohran’s eye.

I hope they discuss economics, because The Zohran gave a clue on how he is going to get money for his free buses in New York City. All it will take is for them to raise taxes on everyone else in New York STATE so that he gets the cash.

REPORTER: How are you getting the $700M to make the buses free if the Governor is not for raising taxes?

THE ZOHRAN: Through the raising of the state’s corporate tax.”

REPORTER: But she said no…

THE ZOHRAN: The most important fact is that we fund it, not the question of how we do it.

Blurb:

Using those specific words doesn’t really leave much to the imagination does it?

The Times of Israel reports:

Cornell grad student union adds resistance ‘by any means’ to anti-Israel resolution

Cornell University’s graduate student union has added support for Palestinian armed resistance “by any means necessary” to a resolution calling for a boycott of Israel that the union will discuss on Thursday.

The union, Cornell Graduate Students United — UE Local 300, in October issued a draft of the resolution to members, titled “International solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.”

The resolution said Cornell was rooted in “US settler-colonialism and an imperial project of white supremacy bent on profiting from the erasure of the Palestinian people.”

Blurb:

The construction industry’s use of illegal labor force has been revealed by the Trump administration’s “Operation Charlotte’s Web” in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Construction has reportedly come to a near halt in Charlotte as the Trump administration’s immigration campaign remains in full swing.

Reports of stymied construction projects have flooded social media during the first week of the immigration enforcement operation.

A man who claims to be a subcontractor in the construction industry in Charlotte posted a video blasting ICE for chasing off the workers he usually encounters every day.

In other social media posts, Mexican restaurants are closing up shop since so many illegals are no longer out and about in the town. In one, an ice cream shop owner said he has told his Hispanic employees to stay home.

Another man hyperbolically complained that “no one is safe,” despite that immigration agents are only seeking lawbreaking illegals.

One man working at a Charlotte barber shop told agents he became a naturalized U.S. citizen ten years ago, but can’t say it to the agents in English.

Blurb:

The Council on American‑Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil‑liberties group, filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott after he designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations. CAIR called the designation “unconstitutional and defamatory.”

Abbott’s proclamation, which bars the groups and affiliates from acquiring land in Texas and authorizes heightened enforcement actions, drew immediate backlash from CAIR, which blasted the designation as “unconstitutional and defamatory” and accused the governor of targeting American Muslims for their advocacy.

Blurb:

Listening to Gavin Newsom talk about “free and fair elections” is like listening to Yoko Ono sing. It just doesn’t sound right. In both cases, it’s very wrong.

But Newsom, born without the encumbrance of integrity, insists on lecturing Republicans about election integrity.

“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” the leftist California governor stricken with political delusions of grandeur gloated on X this week after a federal court panel in a 2-1 ruling blocked Texas from implementing a mid-decade revision to its U.S. House map. Republicans have appealed the decision, which the dissenting judge excoriated as “the most blatant exercise of judicial activism” he has witnessed in his 37 years on the federal bench.

Blurb:

Dartmouth students stroll campus in May 2025; Katie Lenhart/Dartmouth. Copyright owned by Trustees of Dartmouth College

“Overwhelmingly, people want politics kept out of the classroom.”

That according to Vanderbilt University political science professor Josh Clinton, co-director of the Vanderbilt Unity Poll, which recently queried 1,033 adults from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10 about pressing higher education issues.

“They don’t want professors using the classroom to push political views, and they don’t want politicians trying to dictate what happens in higher education. People want education to be about education,” Clinton said in a news release regarding the results.

Blurb:

From our watchtower here at the Media Research Center, we have identified a recent and nasty trend emerging from the Elitist Media. It’s called “Trumpwashing”: that phenomenon wherein the media withhold covering some Democrat scandal until President Donald Trump opines on it, with President Trump’s statement being covered as if it were the scandal, rather than the underlying and until now suppressed Democrat event.

The latest instance of a Trumpwashed scandal: the video, published by six Democrat members of Congress calling on members of the Armed Forces and Intelligence Agencies to disobey unspecified “illegal” orders. The media held their tongues on the video until Trump spoke up, and the rest is history.

As an evidentiary sample, we submit for your consideration the totality of the Trumpwashed report aired on NBC Nightly News (click “expand” to view full transcript):

Blurb:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed Friday that he would not “betray” his country as he publicly pushed back against a U.S. plan that would end the war on terms widely seen as favorable to Russia, even at the risk, he said, of alienating Washington.

In an address, Zelensky said he would present “arguments” and “alternatives” to the 28-point proposal drafted by the Trump administration, which stunned Kyiv and its European partners when details leaked earlier this week.

That draft plan, seen by AFP, would reportedly require Ukraine to cede territory, drastically reduce the size of its military, pledge never to join NATO and hold snap elections. Russia, meanwhile, would not only be allowed to keep the land its forces have seized but also receive sanctions relief and rejoin the G8.

Blurb:

A woman was set on fire on the train in Chicago by a man with 22 prior arrests.

“She had severe burns all over her upper torso and half of her scalp was burnt off. She was lucid and conscious and talking.”

No worries that silver-spooned landfill Pritzker says the state is safer than ever and he doesn’t need the National Guard.

We shouldn’t have to live like this.

Blurb:

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) has publicly beclowned herself for the second time in a week by falsely accusing several Republican politicians of taking money from “somebody named Jeffrey Epstein.”

“Folks who also took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein, as I had my team dig in very quickly—Mitt Romney, the NRCC, Lee Zeldin, George Bush, McCain-Palin,” Crocket declared on the House floor on Tuesday.

Federal campaign finance records show that Epstein donated primarily to Democrats, including two current sitting members of Congress, Delegate Stacy Plaskett (D-V.I) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both of whom have retained the donations, despite scrutiny.

Even worse, newly released documents from Epstein’s estate include text messages between Plaskett and Epstein that show he advised her on what questions to ask President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen during a 2019 congressional hearing.