Archive for 2025

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART DROPS:

 

HE’S RIGHT, OF COURSE:

Flashback: Modern Politics and the Ichneumon Wasp. “The moribund Left knows who is boss and is selling the only thing they have remaining: access to media and cultural institutions, which suits the Islamofascists just fine. A division of labor has been established in which the Left provides the paralyzing injection on Western society leaving the jihadis a clear field within which to operate.”

Related:

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

Related:

 

Finally, a Schumer divided against itself cannot stand!

UPDATE: Neither can a CNN divided against itself:

UPDATE (10/3/25): Return with us now to those lazy, crazy days of Brat Summer:

COMPETITION IS GOOD: Amazon gets serious in grocery battle with Walmart, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s by copying wildly popular UK model.

Amazon Grocery will combine products previously labeled as Amazon Fresh or Happy Belly — both existing brands sold by the company — under one name, along with new offerings.

The line features more than 1,000 high-quality food items rated four stars or above. Products include milk, olive oil, meat, and seafood, with most items priced under $5.

They will be sold online and in the retail giant’s physical stores — including its smaller-format Amazon Fresh locations and larger Whole Foods stores, which it acquired in 2017.

In the UK and Germany, private-label groceries — products made and branded by the supermarket itself rather than national names — dominate shopping baskets. At chains like Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Aldi, store brands can make up more than half of all grocery sales.

By contrast, in the US, private label has historically been smaller, with national brands like Kellogg’s, Kraft, and PepsiCo holding most of the shelf space.

Amazon is betting that the UK-style model can take hold in the US as well.

Considering what’s happened to grocery prices since Bidenflation set in four years ago, it just might.

IMPRESSIVE: OpenAI Valuation Reaches $500 Billion, Topping Musk’s SpaceX.

OpenAI has completed a deal to help employees sell shares in the company at a $500 billion valuation, propelling the ChatGPT owner past Elon Musk’s SpaceX to become the world’s largest startup.

Current and former OpenAI employees sold about $6.6 billion of stock to investors including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp., Dragoneer Investment Group, Abu Dhabi’s MGX and T. Rowe Price, a person familiar with the transaction said. That boosted the US company’s price tag well past its previous $300 billion level during a SoftBank-led financing round earlier this year.

That rapid rise underscores the investment frenzy surrounding the leaders of a technology with the potential to transform industries and economies. Sam Altman’s OpenAI is one of several companies including Nvidia Corp. now leading a global push to build data centers and develop artificial intelligence services, an undertaking that’s expected to cost trillions of dollars. Though it has yet to turn a profit, the US startup is helping fuel that infrastructure boom by inking mega-sized deals with the likes of Oracle Corp. and SK Hynix Inc.

OpenAI is estimated to have lost around $5 billion last year, and perhaps another $8-9 billion by the end of 2025.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump Is Weakening Some of the Dems’ Preferred Hate-Mongers. “The institutions like the mainstream media we can save for another day. Today we’re looking at two organizations that the Democrats have used in different ways to aid and abet their radicalism: Antifa and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).”

THEY KEEP MOVING SOUTH: An Ammunition Maker Picks Georgia for New Factory.

Reader John Steakley adds:

I.e., ‘near Daniel Defense.’ The Daniel Defense facility is literally right across I-16 from the new Hyundai plant employing 8,000 people. Both are just outside Savannah. Fort Stewart is nearby, and Kings Bay nuclear sub base is just down I-95 about an hour in Camden County. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Camden County, GA, ALMOST landed a spaceport.

Almost. Maybe next time.

Land is cheap, it’s a right-to-work state, there are long-term military investments and high-tech auto industry investments, and the Port of Brunswick and Port of Savannah aren’t far away. Southern South Carolina is just across the Savannah River in case Georgia ever gets too restrictive and companies want to move to a friendlier venue without really moving very far.

I’m not saying that coastal Georgia is the next Research Triangle, but I think it’s on the starting run of large expansion in factories and jobs. Underwood Ammo sees that.

Seems like it.

BLUE STATE BLUES: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to close NY offices over AG Letitia James’ ‘corrupt and dangerous business practices.’

A source in the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees government-sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, told Fox News, “We are shutting down the two New York offices for Fannie and Freddie as a result of Letitia James’ corrupt and dangerous business practices in the state.”

“We’ll still employ New York residents, and we’ll still continue to do mortgage loans in New York, of course. But we are going to eliminate our physical presence. And to the extent that we have leases, we are going to be subleasing those,” the source added.

That’s just a taste of what will happen if Mamdani becomes mayor.

FA, MEET FO:

So many photogs, zero police.

JAW, JAW, IS BETTER THAN WAR, WAR: Treasury Sec. Bessent: Expecting ‘Pretty Big Breakthrough’ With China.

“The most important thing we are going to see is a meeting, a pull-aside meeting with President Trump and party chair Xi in Korea toward the end of the month,” Bessent said.

Bessent underscored the importance of the two leaders’ in-person engagement, adding, “What gives us great comfort is the respect that the two leaders have for each other. So it will be helpful for them to be able to speak in person and set the framework for trade going forward.”

Bessent expressed optimism for his own parallel trade talks with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng. “I think with President Trump’s leadership and his relationship, the respect party chair Xi has for him, that this round, which would be our fifth round of talks, should show a pretty big breakthrough,” he said.

Trump posted Wednesday on his Truth Social platform that his priority at the upcoming talks will be soybeans, as China has stopped buying the product grown in the U.S. over the last several months.

Also: Trump open to talks with Kim Jong Un ‘without any preconditions’ ahead of South Korea trip.

JOEL KOTKIN: The far-Left is devastating Portland. Its childless hipster residents couldn’t care less.

As recently as a decade ago, Portland was widely seen as a model American city, a European wannabe built around dense apartments, mass transit and every conceivable form of political correctness. Now it is the latest place to be invaded by Donald Trump’s National Guard, and of course the political establishment is screaming its head off.

Yet whatever you think of Trump’s over-the-top move, Portland probably had it coming. No city better epitomises the increasingly radical spirit of the progressive Left. This has devastated its once vibrant downtown; liberal long-time Congressman for the area, Earl Blumenauer, has suggested that parts of it look “like Dresden in World War II”. In 2023, downtown Portland suffered the highest office vacancy rate in the nation.

This year that honour goes to Seattle, which suffers from many of the same pathologies. These cities are increasingly out of sync with the more conservative mood in the country. . . . Attempts to harass federal immigration agents (these are “sanctuary cities”) by Antifa activists are a key reason behind Trump’s moves in Portland and could also be employed in Seattle, another major Antifa centre. The ICE raids are fodder for violent groups like Antifa, deemed by the extremists as justification to attack law enforcement.

It will only get worse for these cities, and for their political establishments.