AND ACCUSE YOU OF FASCISM FOR WANTING TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO REBUILD:
Democrats will burn your house down with incompetence, not issue the permits to rebuild it, and raise your taxes in the meantime, while attacking you for having to go live in a hotel.
You can't imagine how depraved that is. pic.twitter.com/KxinQo4XuS
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 13, 2026
BLUE CITY BLUES: Starbucks cuts more jobs in Seattle.
Starbucks is moving forward with a new series of 61 staff reductions in its corporate headquarters in Seattle.
All the layoffs are in the company’s technology department and are a result of a reorganization within that group, according to a notice filed with the Washington State Employment Security Dept on May 8.
Starbucks officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Starbucks announced last month that it is moving some Seattle technology teams to Nashville as part of the opening of a regional office there. The company has said its main office will remain in Seattle.
Company officials have said that the new regional headquarters will employ 2,000 employees, but have not said how many jobs will be moved from Seattle to Nashville.
Starbucks has around 3,000 corporate employees in Seattle.
For now.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Blue Origin may need external funding to hit ambitious launch targets.
Chief Executive Dave Limp told employees at a recent all-hands meeting that the company would require outside investment if it were to significantly increase its launch cadence, according to details of the meeting from two people who attended.
He said it would “take a lot of capital” to achieve the number of rocket launches Blue Origin has targeted—more money than would be available with “just one investor,” the people added.
Blue Origin has set ambitious launch targets after reaching orbit with New Glenn, a 98-meter-tall heavy-lift rocket, for the first time in January 2025. It is competing with SpaceX for large commercial contracts and to develop a lunar lander for Nasa’s Artemis program.
Blue Origin is considering fundraising as SpaceX, which dominates the space launch market, gears up to list on the public market as early as June, with a valuation in excess of $1.75 trillion.
Limp told employees Blue Origin would have to demonstrate strong economics but that external funding was one option “on the table,” the people added.
Where’s Jeff Bezos?
HANG IN THEIR KEIR, JUST LONG ENOUGH TO DRAG ALL OF LABOUR WITH YOU: The Starmer Drama Continues. “A rift is actively tearing the Labour Party to pieces. CNN reports that some 100 MPs signed a letter warning against a leadership contest — which Downing Street swears it didn’t organize. Yeah. Sure.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Colorado’s one-party rulers steadily chip away at democracy.
If democracy is truly hanging by a thread, then surely Colorado’s Democrat majority is heroically defending it. I mean, they say that’s their job one, next to banning ketchup packets (Senate Bill 146, seriously).
Which leaves me confused.
Because from my tiny little “just-a-citizen” brain perspective, they seem to spend an awful lot of time removing voters’ power, hiding meetings, dodging taxpayer consent and nullifying ballot initiatives.
Maybe I’m missing the advanced theory of democracy taught only in elite government seminars and overpriced Aspen retreats.
Take Senate Bill 150. It strips away two-thirds of RTD’s publicly elected board seats and replaces them with appointees.
Silly me. I thought democracy involved electing people.
But apparently true democracy is when insiders choose insiders to protect the public from the dangerous unpredictability of… the public.
Then there’s House Bill 1326, which exempts the all-powerful Public Utilities Commission from open meetings laws.
Again, I’m sure there’s a sophisticated democracy-enhancing explanation for this.
Perhaps democracy works best when the public cannot actually watch government decisions being made. Sort of a “trust us you peasants” model of self-government.
Read the whole thing.
THAT CAN’T BE GOOD: A Russian ship sank in mysterious circumstances. It may have been carrying submarine nuclear reactors to North Korea.
A Russian cargo ship likely carrying two nuclear reactors for submarines, possibly destined for North Korea, suffered a series of explosions and sank in unexplained circumstances, about 60 miles off the coast of Spain, a CNN investigation has found.
The extraordinary fate of the Ursa Major has been shrouded in secrecy since it sank on December 23, 2024. But it may mark a rare and high-stakes intervention by a Western military to prevent Russia from sending an upgrade in nuclear technology to a key ally, North Korea, CNN reporting suggests. The ship set sail just two months after Kim Jong Un had sent troops to assist with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.A flurry of recent military activity around its remains has deepened the mystery around its cargo and destination. US nuclear “sniffer” aircraft have flown over the sunken ship twice in the past year, according to public flight data. And its wreckage was also visited a week after it sank by a suspected Russian spy ship which set off four further explosions, according to a source familiar with the Spanish investigation into the incident.
The Spanish government has said little, only releasing a statement on February 23 after pressure from opposition lawmakers. It confirmed that the ship’s Russian captain had told Spanish investigators the Ursa Major was carrying “components for two nuclear reactors similar to those used in submarines,” and that he was unsure if they were loaded with nuclear fuel.
Not good, but still probably better than North Korea getting them.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:
BREAKING:
Eric Swalwell buddy billionaire Stephen Cloobeck has been arrested on felony charges for attempting to keep a witness from testifying.
Cloobeck was allowing Swalwell to shack up at this mansion and film campaign videos there, before publicly turning on him when the… pic.twitter.com/4NSnID2BCq
— john jackson (@pvtjokerus) May 13, 2026
CLINTONISM ON STEROIDS: James Comey and the Deep State’s ‘Plausible Deniability’ Shell Game
GET OFF MY LAWN: Chrome Secretly Installing AI On Your PC. “It’s not just Microsoft is stuffing everything full of AI, whether or not its users want it. It is now Google as well with Chrome. Apparently, they’re stuffing AI into Google Chrome. They did not ask people. And according to Futurism, fury is erupting after Google Chrome sneakily installs a 4 gigabyte AI model on users’ PC.”
IF ONLY SOMEONE COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING: Gooder and Harder, NYC: Mamdani’s Plan to ‘Nickel & Dime’ You to Death.
REALITY BITES: Mamdani Drops NYC Property Tax Hike Plan.
The democratic socialist mayor is expected to formally abandon his proposal to raise property taxes nearly 10% after months of backlash from homeowners, business leaders, and even fellow Democrats worried the move would further damage New York’s struggling economy.
Mamdani’s executive budget instead will rely heavily on billions of dollars in additional state aid negotiated with Gov. Kathy Hochul to help close the city’s budget deficits, multiple outlets reported.
Hochul and Mamdani announced Tuesday that Albany approved another $4 billion in support for New York City, bringing total new state assistance to nearly $8 billion over two years.
So the state will bail out the city.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Seattle Teachers Union’s Brand-New President on Leave for Abuse Allegations.
TELFORD’S REPLY ASSUMES A FACT NOT IN EVIDENCE:
@jonfavs partisan passion routinely overwhelms his intelligence.
But also, he’s not a serious person. pic.twitter.com/i2MnZcYduM
— Erik Telford (@ErikTelford) May 13, 2026
If Favreau has ever been anything more than a partisan bile machine, I’ve yet to see it.
DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE DISTRICTS: ‘Crazy ass Uncle Tom’: Democrat State Rep. Juandalynn Givan says Clarence Thomas ‘sold us back into the hands of the master.’
State Rep. Juandalynn Givan (D-Birmingham) called U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Associate Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” and the “one who sold us out in Africa” after a recent redistricting ruling on Monday.
…
Givan criticized Thomas, a black and respected conservative jurist, for ruling to “take away two damn congressional seats” from Democrats.“This mf’er, this man, this Uncle Tom, this Uncle Tim…and I’m so pissed and I said this today…this black man right here, I don’t know what kind of black he is. I don’t know what damn plantation this man came from. I don’t know what slave ship he was on. I don’t know what part of the slave ship he was on,” Givan said on Facebook on Monday.
What a shame she’s a state representative and not subject to the upcoming congressional redistricting.
REMINDER: THIS IS THE REPORT THAT NICK KRISTOF’S LIES ABOUT ISRAELI RAPE DOGS WAS SUPPOSED TO SMOTHER.
"Heads were decapitated. Pelvic bones shattered. Even after death, sexual assault continued. A grotesque, medieval obsession with sexual organs pervaded the crime scenes at the Nova Festival and in the Kibbutzim near Gaza." https://t.co/PVnt58O3yl
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) May 12, 2026
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Future Republicans Need a Trump Style Guide for Dealing With the Press. “His less-than-presidential moments quickly became my favorite parts of the whole show. It was a revelation to see a Republican politician refuse to roll over and let the media run roughshod over him.I had been writing about MSM bias for almost two decades at that point and was sick of watching all of the kowtowing going on in the upper echelons of the GOP.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE:
Starship launch next week! https://t.co/Vo2VL5AxPf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2026
I’m expecting an earth-shattering kaboom, and hopefully only the intended one.
LONG OVERDUE, BUT POP PLENTY OF CORN ANYWAY: Rand Paul announces Senate hearing with Fauci will have testimony from ‘COVID coverup’ whistleblower.
The statute of limitations expired on Monday and former President Joe Biden pardoned Fauci, which shields the former chief medical advisor to Biden from criminal referral for allegedly lying to Congress about gain-of-function research. Paul said he isn’t deterred by the expiration or Biden’s pardon.
“Today is the deadline to charge Fauci, or he walks away from one of the biggest cover-ups in American history without ever facing a jury. I have spent years building this case. I referred him to the DOJ. I forced the hearings. I grilled him under oath. The American people were lied to about the origins of COVID, gain-of-function research, and the Wuhan cover-up,” Paul said in a post on X on Monday.
In another post, he said that even if the DOJ doesn’t pursue charges, he wasn’t going to be “letting up.”
Stay tuned…
WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY…:
Replacing the judiciary branch with a version that specifically agrees with your policies is certainly not something a fascist would do, right? https://t.co/DopPeEQ0gT
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) May 13, 2026
PERSPECTIVE:
🚨 Trump vs Obama: Reflecting Pool Renovations
OBAMA (2010-2012):
💰 $34M
⏰ 2+ YEARS
⛽ $5.85/gallon
🇦🇫 Afghan War – 10th YearTRUMP (2026):
💰 $13M
⏰ 2 WEEKS
⛽ $4.50/gallon
🇮🇷 Iran – 10th WeekGuess which one the media CRIED about? pic.twitter.com/6iWl2fPTvG
— Alec Lace (@AlecLace) May 12, 2026
BEWARE THE HELPFUL CHATBOT: ‘Will I be OK?’ Teen died after ChatGPT pushed deadly mix of drugs, lawsuit says.
“It disguises danger through language that borrows trappings of authority and indicia of expertise—dosages, measurements, references to chemical processes and derivatives, etc.—even promising ‘complete honesty’ and ‘no-BS answer[s]’—to tell [Nelson] exactly what he wanted to hear: that he was safe enough to continue using,” the lawsuit alleged.
Chat logs shared in the complaint paint a stark picture. Over time, ChatGPT logged context that should have made it clear that Nelson was struggling with drugs, his parents alleged, such as noting that the “user has a major substance abuse and polysubstance abuse problem” and mentions that they “love to go crazy on drugs.”
As Nelson’s drug interests expanded, the chatbot explained how to go “full trippy mode,” suggesting that it could recommend a playlist to set a vibe, while increasingly recommending more dangerous combinations of drugs. The teen clearly feared taking lethal doses, “often” prefacing “his messages with ‘will I be ok if’ or ‘is it safe to consume,’” the lawsuit noted.
Chatbots tell users what the models expect they want to hear.
IT’S CUTE THEY STILL THINK WE CARE ABOUT THEIR MEANINGLESS CREDENTIALS:
"he won two Pulitzers writing for the NYT"
::laughs in Walter Duranty::
The fact that you think this is a flex is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) May 12, 2026
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