UNFORTUNATELY THE REASON WON’T BE “WAS PUT IN A CORNER AND FORCED TO READ BOOKS ON ETHICS UNTIL SHE ACQUIRED A MODICUM OF RESPECT FOR HONOR AND DUTY”:  Susan Wild absent from Ethics Committee meeting after Gaetz leaks to press.

Seriously. How long are we going to let people be scum who disrespect their oaths and act as they please without even shaming them?

 

IT’S ALL A LIE:

#JOURNALISM: Another media feeding frenzy gone wrong.

No matter how much you despise the media, it’s never enough.

OPEN THREAD: It’s nighttime here, but it’s morning in America.

THE LEFT’S INFATUATION EXPLAINED: From a friend on Facebook: “They like Mangione because he resembles them: shiftless, over-educated, vain, narcissistic, emotionally fragile.”

THE “CONSPIRACY THEORISTS” HAVE RUN UP A PRETTY GOOD TRACK RECORD:

DRAWING THE LINES AT VIOLENT CRIMES? Meh.

Just The News is reporting that NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced he will “work with President-elect Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan to deport illegal immigrants in his city who have committed violent crimes.”

“We’re not going to be a safe haven for those who commit repeated violent crimes against innocent migrants, immigrants and longstanding New Yorkers,” Adams told reporters at a press conference. “That was my conversation today with the border czar, to figure out how to go after those individuals who are repeatedly committing crimes in our city.”

I suppose half a loaf is better than none, but I’m betting NY District Attorney Alvin Bragg will define “violent crimes” downwards. Not to mention the truck-sized hole that “repeatedly” means. Stab a cop once? No problem. Stab a cop two or three times, maybe not so much.

KRUISER: Just Sayin’ — I Never Asked to Be Pardoned for Crimes I Haven’t Committed.

The people being mentioned as being in need of “Get Out of Jail Free” cards in the next month haven’t been publicly lobbying for themselves, but it’s an almost certain bet that they’re jumping up and down screaming, “Me next!” behind the scenes.

As Scott wrote last week, Adam Schiff, Liz “I’m Just Like Lincoln” Cheney, and alleged physician Anthony Fauci headline the group of people most in need of an assist from President LOLEightyonemillion.

Schiff and Cheney are sweating bullets because they were members of the J6 House Soviet Select Committee on Daddy Issues, a pathetic un-American charade that only succeeded in wasting the taxpayers’ money.

Anthony Fauci is on the list for being Pol Pot, M.D. during the pandemic, of course. Four years later, we’re still waiting to see if he told the truth about anything other than the spelling of his name in 2020.

Read the whole thing — and I might have to steal “Pol Pot, M.D.”

WHOSE EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ROBOT FOR KIDS IS IT, ANYWAY? Startup will brick $800 emotional support robot for kids without refunds.

Embodied blamed its closure on a failed “critical funding round.”

The company didn’t provide further details about the pulled funding. Embodied’s previous backers have included Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, and Vulcan Capital, but we don’t know who the lead investor mentioned above is.

When it first announced Moxie in April 2020, Embodied described the robot as a “safe and engaging animate companion for children designed to help promote social, emotional, and cognitive development.” It advertised play built around “best practices in child development and early childhood education”; changing weekly themes, like empathy, friendship, and respect; and activities like meditation, reading, and drawing with the bot.

But soon, none of those features will be available, making the pricey children’s toy virtually useless. According to Embodied, Moxie can’t perform core functionality without cloud connectivity. Worse, owners apparently have an uncertain and limited amount of time until the devices are bricked.

Teach your kids the value of on-device functionality before you buy them a cloud-enabled emotional support robot.

Either that or tell them to play in the yard with the dog.

BIDEN’S PARTING GIFTS:

Full story here.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: Gray Swans, Regime Collapse, and the Kremlin.

Last week, 50-plus years of the Assad family’s Ba’ath Party rule ended after an 11-day lightning campaign by rebel forces that nobody saw coming. Could Vladimir Putin’s regime suffer a similar fate? Authoritarian regimes appear strong, invincible even, right up until the moment they disappear in a gray swan event.

In a Substack essay this week, Charles Hugh Smith defined a gray swan event as “an event that is known and possible to happen, but which is assumed to be unlikely to occur.” The most recent example is the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria last weekend. People are right to marvel at how quickly it came undone but only after nearly 14 years of civil war. And there had been very little movement since March 2020.

Nevertheless, a gray swan appeared from nowhere two weeks ago, and 11 days later, Assad was history.

Much more at the link.