Not worth it (except for engineering)

NBC News: "Poll: In a dramatic shift, Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost - The latest NBC News poll shows two-thirds of registered voters down on the value proposition of a degree. A majority said degrees were worth the cost a dozen years ago."

Appropriate musical interlude. 

TDS only strengthened Trump

That's the upshot of this article by Jason Willick in the Washington Post: "Georgia’s prosecutor drops a Trump case. If only Garland had done the same. - The decision to bring a flawed Jan. 6 case led to presidential immunity."

Maybe the voices urging caution shouldn’t have been stigmatized as riot apologists. Leonnig and Davis report that some lawyers in Garland’s department believed that while Trump “behaved reprehensibly by pushing a lie,” the evidence that he “plotted to defraud the American public seemed thin.” It was a “great story,” one said, “but not a great criminal case.”

Bad cases make bad law, as the saying goes. The first case criminalizing a president’s official acts should have been overwhelming and airtight. Instead, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department jammed the Supreme Court with a legally vulnerable prosecution of Biden’s top political rival on a rushed election timeline. It was foreseeable that this would disturb the justices. Their sweeping immunity opinion, in turn, has given Trump leeway to take more radical actions in his second term.

Congratulations, Democrats: you created a king. 

He rode his bike until the lights came on

Twitchy: "NYT Finally Exposes Walz's MN Fraud Fiasco: $1B Stolen from Safety Nets, Somali Schemes Ignite Firestorm." 

The New York Times reported something critical of a Democrat?  Wow!

Great job, hair pick

PJ Media: "Klobuchar Humiliated Herself and Accidentally Destroyed Biden." 

Yet they have "Tolerance" bumper stickers

Jonathan Turley: " 'Fight Fiercely Harvard': Harvard Club of New York Cancels Dershowitz Book Event." 

Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on the lack of ideological diversity at the school. I respect Kennedy and I do not view him as anti-free speech or intolerant. Yet when I noted the statistics on the vanishing number of conservative students and faculty in comparison to the nation, Kennedy responded that Harvard “is an elite university” and does not have to “look like America.”

The problem is that Harvard does not even look like Massachusetts, which is nearly 30 percent Republican.

Hey, I'm in that 30%!  I've said this many times before but the Left has no interest in "dialogue" - they only want monologue.  Sheesh, look at the dozens of YouTube channels of conservatives risking life and limb to challenge the positions of the Left.

LARPing for Luigi

Legal Insurrection: "The Purpose of the ‘Illegal Orders’ for Military Narrative is Beginning to Take Shape - “It’s about the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis after World War II — and following orders is not a defense. So these soldiers have to pay attention”

Sasha Stone (natch) has a similar take here. 

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody

The detritus of Biden's Afghanistan disaster

Hot Air: "Shooter Identified as Illegal Afghan National."

That's right: if you read the full post at Hot Air, this was an Afghan rushed into the country with zero vetting after Biden's pullout from Afghanistan, all so he could say he ended the war on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

That f'n guy.  Worst President ever.

What a way to start Thanksgiving, normally the best holiday of the year.

48-hour rule applies

Red State: "Investigators Say National Guardsmen Shot Near White House Were Ambushed in Targeted Attack." 

But they sure feel good about themselves

Reason: "The U.N. Has Now Held 30 Climate Change Conferences That Have Accomplished Almost Nothing." 

Speaking of grifters

Twitchy: "NYC Mayor-Elect Mamdani Says ‘Free Stuff’ Is Coming but First He Needs $4 Million to Fund His Transition." 

Kafkaesque

California regulation or inspectors looking for a bribe?  You make the call.

Now that everybody is above average

Megan McArdle: "The signs of educational decline are now impossible to ignore - UC San Diego report shows students are not prepared for college, especially in math."

That’s what happens when you silence the alarm instead of responding to it: The fire burns out of control. It should be a warning to the growing number of politicians who think they can fix other problems — like soaring rents or rising electricity costs — by simply freezing prices. The prices are telling us that there’s too little supply to meet demand, or that something (such as renewables mandates or too few natural gas pipelines) is driving up supply costs. Freezing prices doesn’t fix that any more than a courtesy A gives students what they actually need to succeed in college.

This is the end result when your primary goal is to not hurt anybody's feelings. 

The new secessionists

Victor Davis Hanson: "Insurrection Chic - Democrats now celebrate the very nullificationist tactics they once decried, embracing a neo-Confederate defiance of federal authority to undermine a president they despise." 

Imagine believing this

Twitchy: "Jen Psaki and Katie Couric Say the ‘Sycophantic’ Press Is Throwing Softball Questions at Trump." 

Margaret Atwood: "banned" into riches

T. Becket Adams: "Margaret Atwood, Patron Saint of Non-Martyrs - Come down off the cross. We could use the wood." 

Everybody's a victim. 

Parents choose homeschooling

Reason: "Homeschooling Hits Record Numbers - Last academic year, DIY education grew at nearly three times the average rate it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research." 

It's pretty funny at this point

Hollywood in Toto: "‘Acolyte’ Creator Plays The Fascist Card (Yawn) - Leslye Headland attacks 'Star Wars' fans for daring to dislike low-rated show"

Damn you, Trump for [checks notes] not watching this terrible Star Wars series!  

Temu Obama never answers questions

Hakeem Jeffries is the Karine Jean-Pierre of Congress: he never answers the question he's asked.  It doesn't matter if it's a yes/no question or "what's your favorite ice cream?"  He won't answer.

Maybe - just maybe! - the mainstream media is catching on: "'Shame On You': Jeffries Loses It on CNBC When Pressed on ObamaCare."

ICYMI: "CNN Asks Hakeem Jeffries About Soliciting Money From Epstein AFTER He Was Convicted." and "Hakeem Jeffries Goes Full Obama-Spin When Asked About Epstein Donating to His Campaign." 

New gif for your future Hakeem replies pic.twitter.com/0KMglxsTwS

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 21, 2025

Quite suddenly, this is an issue of concern

Washington Post: "How billionaires took over American politics."

What changed? Republicans long characterized Silicon Valley as a bastion of liberalism. But over the past half-decade, many of tech’s wealthiest titans rebelled against the Biden administration’s criticism and policing of their industry. Last year, many tech barons threw their support behind the GOP, which they saw as more aligned with their often-libertarian ideals and their companies’ economic interests. Trump and his party actively wooed influential tech leaders, embracing cryptocurrency and promising to limit AI regulation. His vice president, JD Vance, formerly worked as a venture capitalist in San Francisco, forging ties to Thiel, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

Let me get this straight: the Democrats alienated billionaires with their policies and class warfare while the Republicans listened to their concerns and forged personal relationships?

Those monsters.

The unicorns will provide!

Red State: "Magic Fairies and Pixie Dust: Listen to What Mamdani Says About Funding for 'Free' Buses in NYC."

It's sure nice that Mamdani is giving precise details on his spending plans now that the election is over.  Great job, NYC.

Fang Fang's boyfriend is running

NBC News: "Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell enters crowded California governor's race."

He went on Jimmy Kimmel to announce his candidacy.  Gee, I wonder if Trump came up.

40 million people, and the two most likely individuals to become governor of California are a dude who fell for a Chinese honeypot and a woman who poured scalding mashed potatoes on her husband’s head.

Cooked. Absolutely cooked. pic.twitter.com/m5Qbf22Awh

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 21, 2025

The clowns are out again

Federalist: "Theater Kids In Congress Vaguely Urge Military To Disobey Commander-In-Chief." - "More mush from the wimps. Donald Trump is very bad, because mumble mumble mumble." 

ABC is about to make another contribution to Trump's library

I don't know all the details of what constitutes defamation so I often depend on the lawyers over at Power Line or Legal Insurrection.  John Hinderaker is pretty sure there's a case against Joy Behar on "The View":

On paper, it is hard to imagine a clearer case of defamation. Behar’s only defense would be the supposition that it is open season on Donald Trump–liberals can say anything they want about him, without recourse, because we all hate him, right? But that is not, technically speaking, the law.

In the past, a producer has whispered to those demented hens to "clarify" their remarks before they land in hot water but I guess that didn't happen this time.  

Extra - PJ Media: "Joy Behar Just Put ABC on the Brink of Another Huge Trump Lawsuit." 

Take the mainstream media with you

Ace: "Hollywood Is Dying and Good Riddance."

What's funny about both the American press and Hollywood is that they're both in Year 10 (since Trump came down the escalator) of their own self-destruction.  You would think that with all the accumulating evidence that Americans no longer want their respective products they would change direction but, no, they're too wedded to their sense of moral vanity.

Don't change now and learn how to code.

Defenders of democracy

Hot Air: "House Rebukes Rep. Chuy Garcia Over Dishonest 'Coronation' Scheme." 

Epstein claims his first Democrat

Boston Globe: "Senator Warren tells CNN that Harvard should cut ties with Larry Summers over Jeffrey Epstein emails." - "He was a treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and a top economic adviser in the Obama administration." 

The updated headline for this story is now "Ashamed Larry Summers to step back from public commitments amid Senator Warren criticism." 

You'll be shocked he didn't answer the question

Shocked and surprised, I say.  Twitchy: "Chuck Schumer Quizzed on Why the Biden Administration Didn't Release the Epstein Files." 

Extra - PJ Media: "The Most Important Question About Epstein Files the Dems Don’t Want You to Ask."

Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for two years under Joe Biden, yet the Epstein files remained sealed. Now that they’ve tried weaponizing selective emails against Trump, the question becomes unavoidable: if they were really about transparency, where was their urgency when they had the power to release everything?

We all know the answer.

We sure do. 

"How many packs ya want?"

Reason: "Cigarette Taxes Are Costing States Billions in Lost Revenue - Punitive levies drive black markets, fuel criminal enterprises, and—perhaps counterintuitively—help people evade the tax man."

Obligatory Goodfellas reference:

Field of weeds

Watts up with that?: "Green dreams turn to rust." - "The Napa fiasco isn’t just an accident—it’s the logical destination for a sector riddled with hype, corporate churn, regulatory quicksand, and political FOMO. “Build it and they will come” has turned into “build it, and ten years later, call a demolition crew.” 

Trump's Presidential library is going to be plated in gold

Looks like another donation is incoming: "Trump says he will take legal action against BBC, despite its apology." 

Straight fire

Twitchy: "Bill Maher Has a Socialism vs. Capitalism History Lesson That Mamdani Voters and Dems Will Ignore." 

The Lefty Awards

The Ringer: "Can You Win Best Picture If You Flop? - ‘One Battle After Another’ won’t turn a profit. ‘Sinners’ was a bona fide smash. Does any of it matter come Statue Season?"

Antifa love letter "One Battle After Another" will win best picture for the same reason that Steven Colbert (finally) won an Emmy and Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and Bad Bunny will sweep the Grammys.

There's a reason why nobody watches these award shows anymore. 

They don't care

Sasha Stone: "The Left's Gender Cult is Worse Than Anything in the Epstein Files." - "So I don’t want to hear it now. I don’t want to hear them pretend to care about children under SNAP benefits or potential victims of Epstein and his black book of mysterious billionaires, oligarchs, and foreign nationals. As long as hundreds of thousands of children are still sucked into the cult, they can’t pretend to care about them. They do not care." 

This woman is straight out of central casting

NY Post: "Katie Wilson — a 43-year-old socialist who still lives off parents’ money — wins Seattle mayoral race."

The 43-year-old, who moved to Seattle in her 20s with her now-husband, admitted last month that she relies on her parents, both New York professors, to help with childcare expenses.

The money goes toward day care for Wilson’s 2-year-old, which costs $2,200 per month, she told KUOW.

Wilson also dropped out of college just six weeks before graduation — but debt-free, thanks to her generous parents, the outlet said.

This female-Mamdani, nepo-baby AWFL is like something from a piece of conservative fiction: a life-long parasite with zero real world knowledge but boundless ideology.  This know-nothing recently declared that her solution to food deserts is to (somehow) deny the ability for supermarkets to close.

“Access to affordable, healthy food is a basic right. We cannot allow giant grocery chains to stomp all over our communities, close stores that will leave behind food deserts,” Wilson said.

Oh brother.  Good luck with this loon, Seattle.

The walls are closing in

Twitchy: "Investigative Reporter Unearths Another 'Bombshell' Connecting Trump with Jeffrey Epstein."

What a scoop!  Surely somebody would have noticed the sitting President attending a meeting with Epstein.  In Paris.

Journalism!

BBC backtrack

BBC: "BBC apologises to Trump over Panorama edit but refuses to pay compensation." 

I've seen this movie before.  That's what CBS and ABC said, too. 

I thought we were fighting the Orange King

Fox News: "California to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses given to immigrants amid Trump admin pressure." 

Somebody help this girl

Or woman, really.  Federalist: "Kelsea Ballerini’s ‘I Sit In Parks’ Exposes The Heartbreak Of Buying Girl Boss Lies."

This story is kinda sad: the country music star voices her regrets at not starting a family while she pulls on a vape.  The song closes with her wistfully (jealously?) noting that her friend's baby is due in June. 

It's called journalism

Ace: "To Honor Veterans Day, the Repulsive Traitor Media Launches a Military-Cemetery Race Hoax."

It's Newsweek, so only like a dozen people saw this story anyway.

Dude totally called it

October 11th: "Senator John Kennedy recently said that he believes Schumer will ask eight Democrats in the Senate to vote to end the filibuster to extricate him from this stupid standoff."

PJ Media: "Sen. Kennedy Perfectly Called How the Shutdown Would End Weeks Ago." 

These "renegade" Democrats were chosen carefully: "And, the Democrats who crossed over to reopen the government were not exactly profiles in courage. Every single one of them either plans to retire or won’t face voters for years." 

This is a crazy story

Red State: "The End Is Near. Tehran Faces Evacuation As Water Supplies Reach Zero and the City Sinks Into the Desert."

They're (nearly) out of water and the depleted aquifers are causing Tehran to sink at a rate of about 5 inches/year.  That's a lot! 

Invest in popcorn futures

 

is there a more perfect portrait of the average mamdani voter than “I arrived thinking everything would be free” https://t.co/7jxFLx2sBR

— Mike Solana (@micsolana) November 8, 2025

Good

PJ Media: "Thune Will Keep the Senate in Session Until a Funding Deal Is Struck." 

The decline of Aaron Sorkin

The Continental Congress: "What Would it Look Like for Hollywood to Moderate its Politics?" - "I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the Variety op-ed assuring me that “no, really, The Social Reckoning is not a left-wing movie, you fascist dope.” 

They had 38 days to write something down

Twitchy: "A Fuming Chuck Schumer Did NOT Like a GOP Senator's Questions About His Proposal So He STORMED OFF."

This is incredibly telling: the Democrats haven't even written down the ransom note to re-open the government.  It's another "we need to pass it to find out what's in it" proposal.  Clown show.

Scope creep

NY Times: "The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart. - The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration."

Instead of focusing on the environment, the Sierra Club went woke then broke.

You can vote your way into socialism but you have to shoot your way out

Washington Post editorial: "Zohran Mamdani drops the mask - The mayor-elect divides New Yorkers into two groups: the oppressed and their oppressors."

Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.

People’s lives, in Mamdani’s world, can be improved only by government: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” The crowd cheered, of course, but a thinking person might wonder whether it’s good for the institution that has a monopoly on violence to insist that nothing is beyond its purview.

As the editorial concludes, Mandani won among newcomers and the "educated" while long-time New Yorkers were skeptical of his promise of free stuff and his message of victimhood. 

Conjunction junction, what's your function?

I saw this video today and, man, what a rush of nostalgia.  At the risk of dating myself, "Schoolhouse Rock" was the defining learning experience for Generation X.

So sexy

Outkick: "Sydney Sweeney Turns On America With Something Bigger Than Her Boobs."

Jim Treacher: "Sydney Sweeney Rejects the Premise." 

Never give these clowns an inch because it will never be enough.

Republicans lose the messaging war

Byron York in the Washington Examiner: "Fighting the government-closing Democratic filibuster."

If they do press on, if they do keep the government closed, Democrats will be acting with confidence that comes from a number of polls that show more people blame Republicans for the shutdown than blame the Democrats, who actually caused the impasse. Two polls out just before the election, one from the Washington Post and the other from NBC News, both found that more people blamed Republicans for the shutdown than blamed Democrats.

That seems odd, given the plain facts of the case: Democrats are filibustering the government-opening bill. But it makes more sense after looking at media coverage of the standoff. In a new report, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters studied broadcast newscasts for October and noted that “the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have hammered both congressional Republicans and President Trump with a wall of negative shutdown coverage, while largely shielding Democrats from blame for the now-historic gridlock.”

This is maddening.  Of course the mainstream media was going to cover for the Democrats!  Have Republicans forgotten all the alternative media skills that won the last election?  Go on podcasts, flood social media, hold daily press briefings.  For heaven's sake, stop depending on the media to play fair. 

At least we can still laugh

 

Zohran Mamdani Horrified To Discover He Now Has A Job https://t.co/wvmNh6NjJ8 pic.twitter.com/MHYO3AiqCT

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) November 5, 2025

The song remains the same

I saw this story linked through Real Clear Politics and knew it would yet the latest rehash of the same tired "solutions" to fix Social Security.  Washington Monthly: "How Democrats Can Save Social Security—and Win Elections."

Spoiler alert: it was.  Here comes raising the income cap, once more with feeling is taxing financial transactions and capital gains, stop me if you've heard about means-testing again.  These remedies are at the heart of every single "fix" for Social Security and there's nothing new under the sun.

Social Security is supposed to be a universal system with benefits proportional to what people paid into the system.  The Left insists on turning it into a welfare program and will not offer any solutions that do not lead to that end.

Blue states hiding their SNAP rolls

PJ Media: "I'm Sorry, But HOW MANY Illegals Get Food Stamps?"

Lots.

Illegal immigration in England

Spiked: "A stabbing in suburbia - The senseless murder in Uxbridge demands a reckoning on illegal migration."

You may have noticed… it is never the elites who pay the price for their own feckless virtue-signalling. Poor and working-class communities have borne the brunt of the small-boats crisis, simply because the hotels and rental properties are cheaper there. One analysis found that a quarter of all asylum seekers housed by the Home Office had been placed in just 10 local authorities, nine of which are among the most impoverished in the country. Illegal migration is a class issue. The bin man slain on a once-safe street is perhaps the grimmest symbol of this.

Sacrifices need to be made...by you.

It's "clown nose off" time

"How did we get to this terrible state?" asked the guy who set the standard.

Extra - Hollywood in Toto: "Jon Stewart Betrays 9/11 Work with Fawning Mamdani Interview"

"How did we get here?" lamented the navigator https://t.co/Uf1QT1wALw

— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) November 1, 2025

If only *somebody* had warned us this would happen

Remember when Obama said Republicans would stop calling the Affordable* Care Act "Obamacare" once it became successful?  I 'member.

Boston Globe: "A $33,000 increase for a Vermont family? Obamacare marketplace insurance prices slated to skyrocket."  

It's a shame nobody warned Americans that the individual mandate was unworkable and the resulting insurance pools would not have enough healthy, young participants to make it economically viable.  If only.

* not affordable.

Extra - Washington Post: "The unaffordability of Obamacare comes home to roost - ACA subsidies are a Band-Aid for a fundamentally broken health care system." 

Tiresome

Red State: "Michelle Obama Takes Victimhood As Currency to Another Level in Latest Interview."

Good heavens.  I'm old enough to remember the absolute tongue-bath given to the Obamas by the mainstream media, Hollywood phonies, and a huge chunk of the public.  Michelle Obama is the Meghan Markle of first ladies.