SOME SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Duckworth Fires Staffer Who Helped Illegal by Impersonating a Lawyer.

AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CP:

RE: Ragebait

Look, people need to understand how this works.

So I'm going to show you under the skirt. The below screen shot shows my last few X payouts. Full transparency.

I don't do this for a living, I have an actual full-time job that is not X, I never ragebait, I never… pic.twitter.com/gIRgMUMZe8

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) November 17, 2025

More:

I don’t do this for a living, I have an actual full-time job that is not X, I never ragebait, I never engagement farm and I always just shoot straight with what I think is happening.

I know ~250,000 followers sounds like a lot, but it’s really not. Not when you consider how many accounts have millions of followers.

Now look at what they pay me and multiply that exponentially for the really big accounts who, BTW, are also raking in dough on YouTube, podcasts, TikTok, etc.

So next time you get fed some theory about “I know who really killed Charlie Kirk” or “Trump is an Epstein pedo” or, really, anything else that is fringe and conspiratorialist and inflammatory, realize that those people really don’t care about you or the truth.

They only care about the money.

You have been warned. This is my public service message for the day.

Indeed.

UNDERREPORTED STORIES: Has Mexico Had Enough? “This isn’t the first protest against cartel violence, but it may be the first to reach the center of government.”

CHANGE:

Yes, all the front loading and warehousing of imports are gone. Now businesses are ordering domestically which means more orders and more employment. https://t.co/zMr445PtzL

— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) November 18, 2025

NICE: Outside of the Spotlight, North Carolina Mountain Towns Are Rising From the Mud.

HEH:

When I retire, I'm going to reverse mortgage the homestead to some private equity buyer and live like an absolute king, just to make sure the house won't be available for purchase to some whiney retard who would have been happy to see me thrown out of it for their own benefit. https://t.co/lKkJwNz7RO

— Some Welder 🇺🇸 (@SomeWelder) November 17, 2025

System-builders never seem to take into account that the first thing people do with a new system is figure out how to game it.

This is also known as the Law of Unintended Consequences, and it’s as immutable as the Law of Gravity.

MARK PULLIAM: Are Blue States (and Rogue Judges) Itching for a Civil War? “What else could explain their brazen defiance and rebellion, calculated to cause chaos and division?”

Civil society is how humans escape from the anarchy and predation of the state of nature. Public safety is, therefore, the primary goal of government. This requires laws to protect our rights, and law enforcement to make sure that the laws are obeyed and offenders are punished. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that insurrectionists seeking to overthrow or de-stabilize a democratically-elected government focus on promoting law-breaking and undermining law enforcement. This is exactly what left-wing Democrats are doing by creating “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens; suspending enforcement of laws against drugs, vagrancy, petty theft, prostitution, etc.; de-funding the police; and installing Soros-funded prosecutors, who thwart the enforcement of laws.

Opening our national borders, restricting gun ownership, providing shelter for illegal aliens, condoning urban lawlessness, refusing to punish criminals, and punishing self-defense all represent the left’s campaign to undermine the rule of law and create anarchy, chaos, and fear—leaving confused citizens clamoring for change. The left also seeks to create a constituency of moochers dependent on the welfare state, who will eventually demand socialism to provide for their needs. This is sometimes referred to as the Cloward-Piven strategy.

With this in mind, the motivation for the soft-on-crime policies in blue states and blue cities (and the open-borders agenda of the Biden administration) becomes crystal clear. Blue city mayors actively encourage crime as a strategy to create chaos, induce a sense of helplessness, and foster submission to a cradle-to-grave welfare state. The fruits of this strategy are apparent in the election of avowed socialists in New York City and Seattle. The Democrat Party is becoming indistinguishable from socialism, so the rest of the blue cities, especially Chicago, are well on their way to joining NYC and Seattle.

But it begins with creating an epidemic of crime.

Read the whole thing.

I SUSPECT THERE ARE AN AWFUL LOT OF DOGS THAT DIDN’T BARK:

Someone needs to collect data on all the scholars who retired early because of wokeness; courses not taught; projects shelved or never started; readings removed from syllabi; mediocre readings added for protection from wokeness; etc. etc. Wokeness has had calamitous consequences. https://t.co/R0hTrN2QQq

— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) November 18, 2025

ETHNIC CLEANSING IS TO BE IGNORED AND TOLERATED WHEN MUSLIMS DO IT: Congo Jihadis Massacre Catholic Hospital Patients as Fighting Rages On.

LUXURY BELIEFS ON DISPLAY:

Patton Oswalt is the perfect modern No Kings Democrat who has absolutely no idea what’s happening around him, who has no idea how bad his political ideology is because all he cares about is that his bubble makes him feel like a good person https://t.co/ybjJphi8zN

— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) November 17, 2025

CHANGE: Ford to start selling certified used cars on Amazon.

The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker on Monday said the deal allows customers to browse local dealers’ pre-owned Ford vehicle selections on Amazon Autos, and complete most paperwork online. Shoppers can then schedule a time to pick up their auto in person.

The program will debut in Los Angeles, Seattle and Dallas and add other locations over time, Ford said.

The vehicles come with a manufacturer-backed warranty and other benefits, the same as if they were sold directly through a dealership.

Ford notes that the only step of the purchase process that cannot be completed online is the retrieval of the car: “No Amazon Prime delivery for cars!” the company said in a press release announcing the partnership.

Someday — probably soon — self-driving cars will deliver themselves.

SARAH ANDERSON: This Is What Dictatorship Looks Like: The Story of Marggie Orozco. “She wasn’t trafficking kilos of fentanyl or robbing a bank, and she didn’t kill anyone. On July 28, 2024 — the day Venezuelans went to the polls to vote for a new president — Orozco simply recorded a private voice message in a WhatsApp group to share with her neighbors, urging them to go vote against Nicolás Maduro that day.”

MAKE ARMS SALES STEALTHY AGAIN: Trump says the U.S. will sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

“I will say that we will be doing that, we’ll be selling F-35s, yeah,” the president said when he was asked by reporters in the Oval Office if the U.S. would be selling the fighter jets to the Saudis. Mr. Trump said the Saudis “want to buy” them, and they’ve “been a great ally.”

The president aims to lock in major business and national security deals with Saudi Arabia during the crown prince’s visit.

Mr. Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have fostered close relationships with the Saudis and the crown prince in particular, viewing them as critical partners for both security and business in a turbulent Middle East.

For a so-called “failed” jet, everybody sure seems to want some.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Can We Get Back to Nuking the Dept. of Education? “Sec. McMahon has been pretty clear about being OK with actively working to phase out her own job. The time to do that is now. Republicans will almost certainly never have an opportunity like this again. Even if they do, they may not have a leader who has the iron will that President Trump has.”

CHANGE: Robert George resigns from Heritage Foundation board over Kevin Roberts video.

George said in a Facebook post that he would resign from the board because Roberts did not fully retract his initial video when he issued an apology.

“Kevin is a good man,” George said. “He made what he acknowledged was a serious mistake. Being human myself, I have plenty of experience in making mistakes. What divided us was a difference of opinion about what was required to rectify the mistake.”

George said he was saddened to leave Heritage and prays the think tank “will be guided by the conviction that each and every member of the human family, irrespective of race, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, is ‘created equal’ and ‘endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.’”

“The anchor for the Heritage Foundation, and for our nation, and for every patriotic American is that creed,” he said. “It must always be that creed. If we hold fast to it even when expediency counsels compromising it, we cannot go wrong. If we abandon it, we sign the death certificate of republican government and ordered liberty.”

There are still plenty of good people at Heritage. Here’s to hoping they can fix whatever has gone awry there.

ICYMI: Iran Just Made This Yuge Non-Bombshell Claim.

2028 PREVIEW: Cruz dodges question on 2028 presidential run.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, declined to rule out a presidential run in 2028 as buzz around his possible ambitions made headlines.

Axios on Monday reported that Cruz was “laying the groundwork” for a presidential bid as he continued to attack Tucker Carlson, a close ally of Vice President JD Vance. The same day, Cruz fielded a question from Fox News’s Harris Faulkner about his aspirations.

He declined to answer directly and instead told her that “I got a job. It’s representing 31 million Texans, and it’s fighting every day for 31 million Texans,” The Hill reported.

Cruz might make a damn fine president — but he might be even better on SCOTUS.

DON’T MESS WITH A GUY WHO’S BEEN PLAYING THE MEDIA FOR DECADES: Trump Shreds Reporter Who Wouldn’t Let Him Finish His Answer.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION, NEW YORK CITY?

Keep in mind that the biggest recent experiment we have in rent control is that removing rent control increased supply and REDUCED prices. https://t.co/A47uBdZkyP

— Alex Tabarrok (@ATabarrok) November 17, 2025

This one line from the linked article is worth repeating — endlessly, if necessary: “It was not just that the law was repealed, but also that it was replaced with nothing.”

HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: This Black College Is A ‘Criminal Enterprise,’ Ex-Top Official Says In Lawsuit.

It is one of four similar lawsuits filed in the last few months against the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, its president Heidi Anderson, its provost Rondall Allen, and its diversity, equity, and inclusion czar Jason Casares, that all follow a similar pattern: A faculty member allegedly discovers wrongdoing at the university, and then is retaliated against by the university’s DEI office.

Claims from the suits paint a picture of a university with almost no academic standards, that admits 90% of applicants and looks the other way at cheating and truancy to avoid worsening its 17% on-time graduation rate and keep the federal student loan money flowing.

The lawsuit filed July 28 by Sandeep Gopalan, a Rhodes scholar who until recently was the school’s vice president for research and vice provost for academic affairs, said that after he claims to have exposed a scheme by Anderson and other top administrators to steal thousands of iPads, the university axed Gopalan’s program and Ph.D. students in retaliation.

The students were funded by a $4.6 million grant from the federal Department of Education that Gopalan had secured and the university had no ability to terminate, but it dismissed the scholars anyway, falsely suggesting that the Trump administration had cut off funding to the historically black college, he said.

More at the link, which you can be sure is somehow racist.

ICYMI: Welp, So Much for Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan.

BUBBLES POP: I looked into CoreWeave and the abyss gazed back.

You may not have heard of it because it’s not doing the consumer-facing part of AI. It’s a data center company, the kind people talk about when they say they want to invest in the “picks and shovels” of the AI gold rush. At first glance, it looks impressive: it’s selling compute, the hottest resource in the industry; it’s landed a bunch of big-name customers such as Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta; and its revenue is huge — $1.4 billion in the third quarter this year, double what it was in the third quarter of 2024. The company has almost doubled in share price since its IPO earlier this year, which was the biggest in tech since 2021. So much money!

But as I began to look more closely at the company, I began feeling like I’d accidentally stumbled on an eldritch horror. CoreWeave is saddled with massive debt and, except in the absolute best-case scenario of fast AI adoption, has no obvious path toward profitability. There are some eyebrow-raising accounting choices. And then, naturally, there are the huge insider sales of CoreWeave stock.

After I unfocused my eyes a little, I realized CoreWeave did make a horrible kind of sense: It’s a tool to hedge other companies’ risks and juice their profits. It’s taking on the risk and the costs of building data centers that bigger tech companies can then rent while they build their own data centers which may very well wind up competing with CoreWeave. What’s more, it’s part of a whole stable of companies that are propping up demand for the behemoth of the AI boom: Nvidia.

I don’t think CoreWeave’s weaknesses are a secret. It just seems like a lot of investors are ignoring them.

To be fair, there’s nothing wrong with riding the bubble, provided you’re savvy enough to get off before it pops.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS [VIP]: Dear Hollywood: Have You Tried Not Sucking?

BECAUSE OF COURSE: Air Force wants a $500,000 counter-air missile, despite cheaper options.

“WOMEN’S RIGHTS” IS JUST ANOTHER BULLS*** JUSTIFICATION FOR LEFTY BRUTALITY: UN Women’s Rights Official Denies Hamas Crimes, Blocks Israel.