MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR WESTERN COUNTRIES TO WIN WARS IS THE GOAL:
Something at work here is the bizarre international legal regime of today, which makes it basically impossible for Western countries to win wars.
At any other point in history, including some as civilizationally advanced as our own era, Israel would simply have said: "An ancient… https://t.co/mOzTSQmwV0
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) May 25, 2025
OPEN THREAD: Ring out the weekend.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Announcement: The Babylon Bee Is Now A Full-Service Restaurant And All Our Writers Are Compensated Entirely With Tips.
ANNOUNCEMENT: The Babylon Bee is no longer a satire website. After months of strategy meetings and lots of thinking really hard, we have decided to pivot to becoming a full-service restaurant empire. In light of this change, all our writers and other staffers will now be known as “waiters,” “busboys,” and “food-making guys,” and will be compensated entirely in “tips.”
This compensation plan, created without any kind of intent to avoid income taxes or otherwise skirt federal tax laws, is ultimately the best compensation structure for our employees. After lengthy discussion with our staffers, they expressed their desire to be compensated with tips rather than salaries or hourly wages, citing factors like being better motivated by tips and a sense of satisfaction when a customer tips them.
Heh, indeed.™
GAVIN NEWSOM CANNOT ESCAPE HIS EMBARRASSING LEGACY ON HOMELESSNESS:
California Governor Gavin Newsom would very much like to be president. As one of the Democratic Party’s more charismatic leaders, he certainly has a shot. But Newsom’s presidential ambitions are burdened by the sorry state in which his leadership has left California — the cost of living is sky high, crime is out of control, and the middle class is disappearing. His constituents are voting with their feet, the largest percentage finding refuge in the two states Newsom loves to ridicule: Texas and Florida
Homelessness is perhaps the greatest albatross around the governor’s neck. With 187,000 homeless persons, California has one-quarter of America’s homeless population. A staggering two-thirds of homeless Californians are unsheltered. (RELATED: Will California Go Forward or Backward on Homelessness?)
But Newsom wants to assure every decent American that California’s homelessness crisis is not his fault. At least, that seems to be the subtext of his recent statement calling out California’s cities for not doing their part. “Local leaders asked for resources, [and] we delivered the largest state investment in history,” the governor announced. “The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”
But “resources” and “investments” aren’t the issues here, of course. In December of 2009, SF Weekly had this classic Fox Butterfield-esque line: “Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, [San Francisco’s] homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s.”
Flashback: Gavin Newsom’s 10-year plan to end San Francisco homelessness marks 20-year anniversary.
OH, THAT WAR ON MEN: Jake Tapper Says Liberal Podcaster Made Racism Jab After He Revealed Son Wants To Be a Cop: ‘This Is Why You F**kers Are Losing Elections.’
Tapper and his Original Sin co-author Alex Thompson joined Scott Galloway on The Prof G Pod on Thursday, and Tapper at one point recounted how a left-leaning podcaster made a racism jab about his son after Tapper revealed he wanted to go into law enforcement.
“My son is now 15 years old, and he’s a gamer. He’s a football fan, starting linebacker on his varsity football team. The Democratic Party has no way of communicating with him. They have no entree into his world,” Tapper said during a discussion on the Democratic Party’s struggles to reach young men.
The CNN anchor would not name the podcast he was referring to, but said he received an odd reaction after revealing his son’s intentions, simply saying it was a “left-leaning podcast that shall remain nameless.”*
Tapper and Thompson have visited numerous podcasts across the political spectrum while promoting their book, which focuses on former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline in office and the efforts taken to keep it hidden from the public.
“Their joke was about my 15-year-old son, ‘Oh, how does he feel about minorities?’ Like the idea that he wants to be a policeman, therefore he’s, he’s racist, my son. And like, you know, that was the big laugh. And then I got dragged in the comments and all that stuff and, and I thought to myself, ‘This is why you fuckers are losing elections,’” Tapper said.
“One hundred percent,” Galloway agreed.
Tapper argued terms like “toxic masculinity” are thrown at young men who have “worlds” that don’t center on politics.
“He’s 15. He thinks about World War II and gaming and playing linebacker, that’s his world,” Tapper said about his son. “You’re deciding he’s a racist because he wants to be a cop. And why does he want to be a cop? He wants to be a cop because he wants to help people, you know, and he thinks that’s the best way he can help people. And that’s how the Democratic Party talks to men, not just white men, but men.”
The New York Post notes today that, “This group is now the loneliest in the US, poll reveals — inside the shocking ‘epidemic:’”
A new Gallup poll has revealed that American men are the loneliest people.
To conduct their poll, researchers collected data from 2023 to 2024 — and discovered that US Gen Z and millennial men are the loneliest (25%) compared to only 18% of American women in the same age group.
That means that one in four American men under 35 feel more isolated than their peers in other countries — including France, Canada, Ireland and Spain.
* * * * * * * *
This common feeling of isolation “is the coming to a head of a set of forces that have been in existence in boys’ and mens’ lives for generations,” psychologist Michael Reichert, founding director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “How to Raise a Boy: The Power of Connection to Build Good Men” told Fortune Well.
And what exactly is causing today’s generation of young men to feel so secluded from the outside world?
According to experts, it’s from a variety of things.
Justin Yong, a New York City psychotherapist, told Fortune that men are disconnecting from the rest of the world thanks to toxic digital occupiers like gaming and porn that “give this short term dopamine hit and relief that replaces real intimacy and acts as a barrier to being vulnerable to how they might be feeling.”
Another ongoing issue among young men is “societal norms around what it means to be a man,” Yong told the outlet.
“The problem, of course, is that when they became less authentic, they alienated themselves from even their important relationships, feeling that they had to hide a part of themselves because the world didn’t want that from them… Beginning at age 4,” Recihert said.
Fortunately, Democrats have a plan to reach this group:
Because Gorillas in the Mist-style communication between the far left and the rest of the country has always worked so well in the past.
* As with Original Sin, which is loaded with unnamed sources, lest Tapper and Thompson cause Obama and Biden-era retreads potential jobs in future Democrat administrations, Tapper doesn’t want to risk a lefty podcaster being shamed, either.
SUPPORT IMMUNE HEALTH: ForestLeaf Colostrum Powder 50% IgG Highest Pure Concentration. #CommissionEarned
BAD NEWS FOR PHONE ADDICTS: Being Bored Could Actually Be Good For Your Brain, Scientists Reveal.
REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES:
.@MayorofSeattle Bruce Harrell has released a statement written by @jamiehousen, his director of communication, condemning the Christians for holding a worship event at a public park in the city. The event was violently attacked by Antifa and Trantifa.
The mayor says he is… https://t.co/TJvxoW6fzF pic.twitter.com/i6AKpfRiNe
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) May 25, 2025
They have an absolute right to pray in public places and the city has a duty to protect them from violence.
If it won’t do so, they have the right to protect themselves. Next time, show up with axe handles and shotguns.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Researchers Reveal Two Simple Eating Habits That Lower Weight.
USA TODAY: George Floyd’s legacy under siege as racial justice efforts lose ground, memorials removed.
While some work to preserve memories of the movement, others have found symbolic and substantive ways to try and erase it.
One by one, memorials to Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement have come down in recent years, including in Washington; Des Moines; Indianapolis; Salt Lake City; Santa Barbara, California; and Asheville, North Carolina.
Well, I hope they’re using tried and true methods that were approved by good ol’ Popular Mechanics magazine in June of 2020: How to Topple a Statue Using Science. Bring that sucker down without anyone getting hurt.
Additional helpful suggestions were published in June of 2020 as well: Professor of ‘art crime’ instructs protesters on better way to topple statues that offend them.
Exit questions:
WE CAN HOPE: Medical errors are still harming patients. AI could help change that.
Over 20 years ago when Helen had her heart attack, I took her to the ER. The “expert system” — not even any sort of AI back then — on the EKG machine said “possible recent MI.” The two cardiologists ruled that out as false positive because Helen was slim, athletic, and young. They were wrong, the machine was right. It was months before she was properly diagnosed. So I believe this.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: These Are the 15 Midsize SUVs With the Most Cargo Room.
READER FAVORITE: Toniiq Ultra High Strength 1500mg NAD+ Supplement. #CommissionEarned
SHE’S NOT BIG ON GIVING THOUGHT: Maybe Justice Sotomayor Hasn’t Given Much Thought to the Historical Lessons of Gun Confiscation in America.
MAYBE WE SHOULD LOOK MORE CAREFULLY:
I’ve seen a few claims making the rounds on the Big Beautiful Bill that require correction.
The first is that it doesn’t “codify the DOGE cuts.” A reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that passes with 50 votes, is limited by senate rules to “mandatory” spending only — eg…
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) May 25, 2025
I’ve seen a few claims making the rounds on the Big Beautiful Bill that require correction.
The first is that it doesn’t “codify the DOGE cuts.” A reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that passes with 50 votes, is limited by senate rules to “mandatory” spending only — eg Medicaid and Food Stamps. The senate rules prevent it from cutting “discretionary” spending — eg the Department of Education or federal grants. The DOGE