IT’S A GOOD START: Trump’s So Scary That 100,000 Federal “Workers” Say They’ll Resign on Tuesday In What Is Supposed to Be Some Kind of Blow to Us.

BRENDAN O’NEILL: The Gaza flotilla: the Woke Man’s Burden.

IS ANOTHER TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD IN THE WORKS? CSX railroad replaces CEO after investor pressure and poor performance as Union Pacific merger looms.

CSX railroad announced Monday that it had replaced its CEO less than two months after an investment fund urged it to either find another railroad to merge with to better compete with the proposed transcontinental Union Pacific railroad or fire outgoing CEO Joe Hinrichs.

The outgoing CEO, who came to the railroad in 2022 after a long career with Ford, focused on repairing CSX’s relationship with its workers and labor unions and unifying the team after a bitter contract fight. But Ancora Holdings, which helped spur major changes at Norfolk Southern, said CSX’s operating performance deteriorated significantly under Hinrichs’ leadership. Hinrichs resigned to clear the way for Steve Angel to become CEO effective Sunday.

Angel, 70, also comes from outside the rail industry although earlier in his career he oversaw GE’s locomotive building unit, so he does have that experience. CSX said he has 45 years experience leading large public companies, including most recently as CEO of Linde and Praxair that provide industrial gasses to other companies.

“We are excited to welcome Steve as our new CEO. He is a visionary in creating long-term value and an expert in guiding companies through significant transformation,” the railroad’s board Chairman John Zillmer said.

CSX has been under pressure from Ancora and other investors since Union Pacific announced its $85 billion deal to acquire Norfolk Southern, which is CSX’s rival in the eastern United States. But both [Burlington Northern Santa Fe] and [Canadian Pacific Kansas City] railroads said they aren’t interested in a merger right now.

* * * * * * * *

Ancora said it continues to buy more CSX shares and hopes to develop a better relationship with the railroad. Ancora holds three seats on Norfolk Southern’s board after running a proxy campaign there to oust the previous CEO at that railroad, so the investment fund had input on the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger.

Earlier: Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern discuss merger to create transcontinental railroad, AP source says.

UNEXPECTEDLY: Jimmy Kimmel’s ratings fall off cliff again after post-suspension viewer bump.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! enjoyed a short-lived ratings bonanza after his triumphant post-suspension return to ABC.

Kimmel’s late night show returned to screens on Tuesday with record-breaking ratings, after he was suspended for five days over remarks he made about Charlie Kirk‘s assassination.

As many as 6.5million people tuned to Kimmel on Tuesday, which was a three times the show’s usual audience and the biggest in over a decade.

But by Thursday, Kimmel averaged 2.3million – a shocking 64 percent drop since the show’s return episode, Fox News reported.

Notably, Kimmel lost 73 percent of the viewers in the coveted demographic of adults aged 25-54, getting just 465,000.

Typically, Kimmel gets about 1.8 million viewers each night on television. The numbers released by ABC do not include viewership from streaming services.

Evergreen:

IT’S COME TO THIS: Even Rosie O’Donnell’s Shrink Doesn’t Understand Why Her Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Out Of Control.

Former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell on “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace” Monday said even her therapist questioned why she was so devastated by President Donald Trump’s administration.

O’Donnell fled to Ireland to escape Trump’s second term, but continues to emotionally opine on the president. She said on the podcast that she could not comprehend why others did not share her emotions, including her therapist, who she said questioned her about them.

“When people say ‘I changed my mind,’ we have to say ‘Welcome back to reality. Let’s all be Americans together.’ Right? Because what’s happening is not only happening to Democrats,” O’Donnell told host Nicolle Wallace. “It’s happening to everyone. And when the Medicaid cuts go in, old people are going to start to die, to die.”

“What he’s done hasn’t even hit us yet. And if he’s not stopped now, we have lost our country,” she continued. “And I don’t know, Nicolle, how it is that some people cannot see it. My therapist said, ‘Why are you so upset?’ And I said to her, ‘Why are you not?’”

Well, probably because her therapist hasn’t spent nearly a quarter of a century mining the “current Republican president is worse than Hitler” trope for all its worth. Or as Mark Steyn once wrote:

When I was on the Rush Limbaugh show a couple of months back, a listener called up to insist that 9/11 was an inside job. I asked him whether that meant Bali and Madrid and London and Istanbul were also inside jobs. Because that’s one expensive operation to hide even in the great sucking maw of the federal budget. But the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle made a much sharper point:

“I wonder if the nuts even believe what they are saying. Because if something like 9/11 happened in Canada, and I believed with all my heart that, say, Stephen Harper was involved, I don’t think I could still live here. I’m not sure I could stop myself from running screaming to another country. How can you believe that your President killed 2,000 people, and in between bitching about this, just carry on buying your vente latte and so forth?”

Over to you, Col. de Grand Pre, and Charlie Sheen, and Alan Colmes.

Bush was so Hitler that even Kamala Harris eagerly sought his endorsement last year, and Barack Obama joked around with him at Jimmy Carter’s funeral.

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: The Mandalorian Isn’t Going To Save Star Wars. 

GODFATHER GLOP: CNN’s Tapper Analogizes Trump To Movie Mob Boss.

Can you imagine Jake Tapper, or any leading light of the liberal media, analogizing, say, Barack Obama to a murderous mob boss?* Rhetorical question. But on CNN’s State of the Union, Tapper did just that regarding President Trump.

Discussing the impending meeting between Trump and Chuck Schumer to discuss the looming government shutdown, Tapper, making a Godfather II analogy, asked Speaker Mike Johnson:

“So at this meeting tomorrow, is President Trump looking to make a deal, or is it going to be like when Michael Corleone met Senator Geary: ‘My offer is this— nothing?” 

Johnson, a very cool customer, didn’t rise to Tapper’s nasty bait. Instead, Johnson responded: “We’ll have to see.”

Of course, if Trump is Corleone, that makes Schumer the utterly corrupt Senator Geary, who was later found in bed with a dead prostitute.

* Actually, I can do just that: CNN Clown to Obama: ‘Go Gangsta Against Your Foes.’

—JammieWearingFool, February 11th, 2010.

The following year, actor Don Cheadle told an interviewer regarding then-President Obama, “I think he inherited an impossible situation. I wish he had not been so much of a consensus-seeker. I just wanted to see a more ‘gangsta’ president.”

In 2014, the Financial Times suggested: Obama needs a gangsta to lay down the law.

And while not specifically gangster and/or gangsta related, this metaphor from CBS Face the Nation host John Dickerson sounds pretty violent as well: “Go for the Throat! Why if he wants to transform American politics, Obama must declare war on the Republican Party.”

—Dickerson at Slate, one of the remaining media redoubts of the Graham family, the former owners of the WaPo, January 18th, 2013.

AND NOW, A WORD FROM HILLARY CLINTON:

But she was just a 53 year old kid at the time https://t.co/P27G3BA6kI

— Adam Carolla (@adamcarolla) September 29, 2025

WHO? Bad Bunny’s ICE comments resurface as NFL fans debate selection of Super Bowl LX halftime show performer.

Bad Bunny was selected to perform the Super Bowl LX halftime show on Sunday, and the choice didn’t exactly sit well with NFL fans during the night.

The three-time Grammy Award winner has emerged as one of the most popular recording artists since he debuted in the mainstream in 2016. But as the Puerto Rican’s popularity has grown, so has his platform. Recently, he used it to express fears about U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Bad Bunny said earlier this month he didn’t book any U.S. dates on his tour over fears that his fans would be detained by ICE agents.

“But there was the issue of — like, f—ing ICE could be outside [my concert]. And it’s something that we were talking about and very concerned about,” he told i-D.

In June, he recorded and posted video of what he described as local ICE raids to social media in Puerto Rico.

“Look, those motherf——s are in these cars, RAV-4s. They’re here in Pontezuela,” he said in Spanish, mentioning ICE working on the Avenida Pontezuela in Carolina, a city east of Puerto Rico’s capital, San Juan.

“Sons of b——, instead of leaving the people alone and working there,” he added.

NFL fans didn’t appear to be eager about seeing Bad Bunny at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.

Related question asked and answered: Why is an anti-American crossdresser being chosen to headline the most American event ever?

That’s why:

Still though, bonus points for being a snappy dresser with a de rigeour septum piercing:

Exit quote:

But how does it feel to be one of the biggest recording artists on the planet and reap massive success in a nation that owns and continuously overlooks the island he calls home? “At the end of the day, my success in the United States I owe to the hardworking Latinos who have helped make the country what it is today,” Bad Bunny says. “I highly doubt the type of gringos I don’t fuck with listen to me. Those were all the people at the Super Bowl who were pissed off about how Latino the halftime show was.”

We’ve come a long way since the earliest Super Bowls; Super Bowl IV’s performers included these little-known heavily pierced and politicized radicals:

Evergreen:

THE WORD ‘FASCISM’ HAS NOW NO MEANING EXCEPT IN SO FAR AS IT SIGNIFIES ‘SOMETHING NOT DESIRABLE:’

(Classical reference in headline.)

PINOT NOIR OVER PORTLAND: Kristof’s Rosy Spin on a City Besieged by Antifa Chaos.

If you asked the finest satirists of the age to parody boomer liberalism, they couldn’t possibly do any better than “Hell does not serve Pinot Noir this good.” https://t.co/PAgliQVGWT

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 28, 2025

AND NOW A WORD FROM BILL CLINTON:

Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union Speech would be called “fascist” by the modern Democrat Party.pic.twitter.com/mUp3Mp1Yt7 https://t.co/Gk3uOWxhT2

— America (@america) September 28, 2025

21st CENTURY HEADLINES: ‘Hollywood is desperate to hire my AI actress.’

If her supporters are to be believed, actress Tilly Norwood is on the verge of Hollywood superstardom. The London-based girl-next-door starlet, they say, is preparing to sign with a major talent agency.

But Tilly is not a success story from the UK theatre schools or a feel-good tale of a working-class actor with a latent skill for acting, like Owen Cooper, 15, who starred in hit Netflix drama Adolescence and became the youngest male actor to win an Emmy.

Instead, she is manufactured by artificial intelligence, and so is completely fake. She, or it, is poised to be the first AI actress to be signed by a real-life talent agency that normally works with humans, according to Tilly’s creator.

Whether that ambition comes true or not, Tilly’s creation is a sign of the challenge for the film industry as it grapples with whether AI talent can replace much more expensive real-life stars.

To paraphrase Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo, she’s not real, but you can’t have everything.

In any case, digital thespians have come a long way since 2015’s Star Wars: Rogue One.

CLUELESS COCONUT: Kamala Harris Has No Idea Why She Lost.

In Harris’s view, these extraordinary circumstances—voters prioritizing the economy—were uniquely unfair to her. “Part of the challenge with this very short campaign was that we had to focus on needs that felt more immediate, like how to deal with the grocery bill or the cost of childcare,” Harris explains with baffling earnestness, as if revealing the secrets of the universe to a room full of child actors.

The failed candidate is most relatable when blaming Joe Biden and the “recklessness” of his decision to run for reelection. Harris is not entirely wrong that Biden, who made her his running mate in 2020 because he was pressured into picking a black woman, set her up to fail. It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Harris when she recalls her maddening interactions with Joe, Dr. Jill, and their cabal of sycophants. For example, she describes her exasperated reaction when, moments after Biden had finished humiliating himself at the CNN debate, she was handed a sheet of talking points instructing her to declare victory and proclaim that Biden had “fought through his cold as he is fighting for the American people.” Girl, we feel you.

On the other hand, Harris was an awful candidate with horrible instincts and a unique capacity for incoherence. She thought picking Pete Buttigieg, a boring gay man, as a running mate was too risky, but not as risky as disavowing her infamous endorsement of taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal immigrants. That was a noble display of “character” that “voters respect.” She thinks Biden could only have picked her as vice president because she was the “most qualified and ready,” then admits she chose Tim Walz because of his loyalty and lack of ambition. If she’s still the most qualified, and the stakes for the country are so high, how will she explain her inevitable decision to leave politics for some comfy corporate board gig?

That sort of thing already happened in November, after Kamala spent the fall vacillating between calling Trump Hitler, seeking the endorsements of several earlier Hitlers, and then conceded to the current Hitler as if her earlier superheated language suddenly didn’t matter anymore:

“SCREW YOUR FREEDOM,” SLIGHT RETURN? Only One Man Can Save California.

There is always the essential man — the great man of history who heeds the call and knows his moment — whether that man be George Washington at our nation’s founding or Donald Trump at our nation’s rescue. Only one man can save the Golden State, only one man has the strength to bring down the tyranny of the California Democrat Party.

That man is Arnold Schwarzenegger. The task of cleaning out the state’s Augean Stables will require a Hercules — a part Schwarzenegger has played before, both on-screen and in Sacramento as a two-term governor of California, elected during a previous state crisis.

There is, however, a problem with this obvious solution. In 1990, the people of California passed Proposition 140, which prohibits candidates from serving more than two terms as governor. So, just as it was a gubernatorial recall election in 2003 that propelled Schwarzenegger into office, it seems that it would require another proposition undoing the failed reform of term limits to return him to the governorship.

Or would it?

What if Schwarzenegger ran for lieutenant governor and acted as the éminence grise of a Bianco or Hilton administration, campaigning on the slogan, “If you want me, vote for him!” Perhaps the brave Bianco or the clever Hilton could suggest this winning idea. No Republican has served as California’s governor since Schwarzenegger’s departure. But perhaps Schwarzenegger himself could change that.

If Californians are fortunate — if America is fortunate — Schwarzenegger will return to Sacramento, ably advising a conservative ally; and all who wish the Golden State well will rejoice to see him crush his Democrat enemies, drive them before him, and hear the lamentations of the Democrat women and their girly men. For the sake of all that is good, let it be so.

No thanks. I loved Arnold’s charismatic screen persona during his action movie heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but he was the quintessential RINO during his time in office…

…And arguably worse after he left: Schwarzenegger to anti-maskers: ‘Screw your freedom.’

Something he was already tacitly saying two years earlier:

Or as Jim Treacher wrote in a now-paywalled Substack in 2021, “An Austrian loudmouth who scoffs at freedom and demands compliance with the government’s dictates… Why do I feel like I’ve heard this story before?”

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:

Hamas Calls On Democrats To Tone Down Violence https://t.co/z8nBm9rDnO pic.twitter.com/JCJpxZSDbB

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 25, 2025

KASH PATEL ACCUSES CHRISTOPHER WRAY OF LYING TO CONGRESS ABOUT CAPITOL RIOT.

ROGER KIMBALL: Comey Indictment: Retribution or Justice?

ERIC ADAMS DROPS OUT OF NYC MAYORAL RACE AMID INCREASING PRESSURE: ‘I know I cannot continue my campaign.’

Mayor Eric Adams is dropping out of New York City’s mayoral race amid escalating pressure to clear the crowded field in a last-ditch attempt to stop socialist Zohran Mamdani’s election to City Hall.

The bombshell move comes after weeks of back-and-forth over whether Adams would bow out of the race, in which he is polling fourth, far behind frontrunner Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and also, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.

“It’s been an honor to be your mayor,” Adams said in a video announcement, according to a transcript obtained by The Post, touting his victories over his first term.

“Although our successes… I know I cannot continue my campaign,” he said.

“I strongly encourage who ever takes over City Hall to continue what we’ve done.”

Adams did not endorse any of the other candidates, and even took subtle swipes at Mamdani and Cuomo — issuing a warning about local government being used to launder radical ideals and urging voters not to elect a mayor who’s flip-flopped on the issues.

So what’s next for Fun City should Mamdani win in November? “They’re Going To Florida” — How Mamdani Will Change NYC.

RADICAL CHIC, THE GERITOL YEARS: Chicago Teachers Union Praises Fugitive Cop Killer Assata Shakur After She Passes Away.

This is fucking insane.

She was a “revolutionary fighter” against America. She was part of an organization that robbed banks and killed cops. She was convicted of participating in the murder of a state trooper. If she’s your hero, you hate America. https://t.co/LEalEqtKEK

— Carl (@HistoryBoomer) September 27, 2025

They do, and they want to pass that hatred on to your kids.

DEVELOPING: Multiple people shot at Mormon church in Michigan and shooter is down, police say.

UPDATE: Mass Shooting, Fire at Church in Grand Blanc, MI, Shooter Down.

NEW: Mormon church in Michigan is on fire following an active shooter incident, leaving multiple victims.

The incident happened at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc.

The shooter is reportedly down.pic.twitter.com/lmKdUIoeIv

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 28, 2025

“This is the Genesee County Sheriff at the scene, updating a little while ago:”

Genesee County Sheriff’s Office calls the Grand Blanc scene “dynamic” as the entire Mormon Church remains on fire after a mass shooting with multiple victims. pic.twitter.com/yEcL6kl5jZ

— Nexus (@nexusdossiers) September 28, 2025

NEW CIVILITY WATCH:

Important to recognize that the left can’t even take two weeks between an assassination and calling for the next assassination

Newsom is demanding the lynching of a government official https://t.co/l82iUjzbCb

— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) September 28, 2025

This comes after Newsom’s comms shop called Miller a fascist previously last Monday: Gavin Newsom Goes Too Far, Compares Stephen Miller to an SS Agent—Hitler’s Notorious ‘Schutzstaffel.’

As Bob Hoge of Red State wrote last week, “Referring to a Jew as a Nazi is widely considered a form of Holocaust denial, as well as antisemitic, because it can — as in this instance — indicate an intent to invert the identities of the perpetrators and the victims of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity.”

POINT: Newsom 2028!

Counterpoint: “In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi.”

In my home state of California, for instance, only 30% of public school fourth graders can read proficiently. Fully 41% cannot even read at a basic level — which is to say, they cannot really understand and interpret written text at all. Eighth graders, as you might expect, look almost as bad.

These numbers have been tumbling downhill in California and more widely across the U.S. for years now, and not just because of school closures during the pandemic. Nationwide, reading scores for fourth graders peaked back in 2015, and while the especially ugly 2022 outcomes were dismissed at first as COVID-19 outliers, scores have fallen further since. The decline is the worst for the kids who were already struggling; the test scores of the bottom 10% of students have dropped catastrophically.

But scores are not slipping everywhere. In Mississippi, they have been rising year over year. The state recovered from a brief decline during COVIDand has now surpassed its pre-COVID highs. Its fourth grade students outperform California’s on average, even though our state is richer, more educated, and spends about 50% more per pupil.

The difference is most pronounced if you look at the most disadvantaged students. In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi. But it’s not just that Mississippi has raised the floor. It has also raised the ceiling: The state is also one of the nation’s best performers when you look at students who are not “economically disadvantaged.”

Consider this the latest chapter of the “Mississippi Miracle,” which has seen the state climb from 49th in the country on fourth grade reading to ninth nationally. This rise has received a great deal of coverage in publications ranging from The New York Times to The New York Post. And yet, it still feels as if what’s taking place in the Deep South still has been grossly undersold.

As Iowahawk notes:

We've spent 30+ years and infinite money on injecting fashionable nonsense into school curricula, based on nothing but the vibes of the Ed school professoriate, and the incontrovertible empirical evidence from Mississippi proves what a total fucking waste all of it was https://t.co/7YSXaCS2Qy

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 26, 2025

UPDATE: Dispatches from the War on Phonics:

I almost feel bad for the "Balanced Literacy" lady who waged the academic war on phonics for 40 years

Not just that Columbia closed your center in total disgrace…but having to live with the knowledge that your life's work ruined millions of childrens' lives 😬 https://t.co/BznwtkGkba pic.twitter.com/Kbxcn6LtEM

— Alex Armlovich (@aarmlovi) September 27, 2025

MORE:

I was surprised to learn these insane politicized reading wars were going on back in the 90's (and earlier) too.
Republicans push phonics (and get results), and then when D's are in power, they undo it.
1997 Atlantic article:https://t.co/yItsOEOv29 pic.twitter.com/9SBJoE32wa

— StewMama- Radically Moderate (@StewMama71) September 28, 2025

MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Green Meltdown: Trump’s Second Term Breaks the Back of Climate Activism.

STACY MCCAIN: How to Become a Good Communist.

Given the extraordinary craziness of our own era, with political violence rampant and apparently increasing, many people have forgotten how crazy things were in the 1970s. Back when I was in middle school and high school, you had all kinds of wacky radicals running around. The nation had gone through a series of crises — the drama of the Civil Rights Era, the assassination of JFK, the Vietnam War, etc. — and a lot of people couldn’t handle the stress and just lost their minds.

You had the Manson Gang murders in 1969, then the Weather Undeground bombers, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and let’s not forget the Peoples Temple and Jonestown. It was during that decade-long national nervous breakdown that JoAnn Chesimard assumed the moniker “Assata Shakur” and decided that the Black Panthers weren’t radical enough for her tastes.

The Black Liberation Army (BLA) emerged as an ultra-violent splinter of the Panthers, in association with other black radicals, spewing Marxist-Leninist jargon as a pretext for killing cops and committing robberies. “According to a Justice Department report on BLA activity, the Black Liberation Army was suspected of involvement in over 70 incidents of violence between 1970 and 1976. The Fraternal Order of Police blamed the BLA for the murders of 13 police officers.” Arguably the most infamous of their crimes was the 1981 Brinks robbery in Nyack, New York, where BLA members joined forces with Weather Underground radicals calling themselves the May 19th Communist Organization. In the Nyack robbery, this radical gang killed Brinks guard Peter Paige and police officers Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown.

Read the whole thing.