CHRISTIAN TOTO: Kimmel, Clooney Have Some Serious Explaining to Do.

The 46th president lacks the mental acuity to serve a second term, Clooney wrote in The New York Times. He had seen Biden up close during a June 2024 fundraising event, and it wasn’t pretty.

The media has been protecting Clooney ever since. Journalists refused to ask the Oscar winner why he waited so long before publicly sharing the president’s mental decline.

And it’s not for lack of media access.

My theory is that Clooney turned against Biden, not because he was senile, but because he was so senile that he didn’t recognize George Clooney.

YOU GOTTA PUMP THOSE NUMBERS UP, THOSE ARE ROOKIE NUMBERS IN THIS RACKET: 100 Days, 142,000 Deportations.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG:

USATODAY's crossword puzzle wants you to fill in Lia Thomas as the answer to a "NCAA champion swimmer."

Lia Thomas is a man. He cheated to get his NCAA championship.

USATODAY is promoting a cheater and a liar.

Lia Thomas did not earn his medal. pic.twitter.com/lA7Jyo4OIr

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 15, 2025

SKYNET IS A LEFTY: Worldcon Uses AI To Hunt Wrongthink. “The World Science Fiction Convention, the same people who thought it was a dandy idea to have a Worldcon in communist China, have stepped in it again. This time, the scandal is using ChatGPT to hunt wrongthink.”

GET ‘EM SKEERED AND KEEP THE SKEER ON ‘EM: DOGE Still Hard at Work Cutting Fraud and Waste.

OH:

Secretive 89-year old Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, who has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into a galaxy of liberal dark money groups in the last 2 decades, is being sued for sexual harassment by a 30-year old former employee.https://t.co/QVZKWgYzrW https://t.co/EbpH0D7odk pic.twitter.com/nKUKrVGu5p

— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) May 15, 2025

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Trump Team Ain’t Playin’ Around: More Hanky Panky Busted at the CFTC.

Remember back to last week when I told y’all about the work-from-home fraud that Caroline Pham, acting chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), had released a statement on?

The post was fun in itself because I got to use the Trading Places clip where Aykroyd and Murphy ruin the Dukes to explain what some of it is that the CFTC helps regulate.

When I first started writing that, there hadn’t been much information available about why ‘staff members’ had been put on leave, which naturally led to speculation about trading irregularities and that sort of thing. Later information revealed the worker phoning it in from a foreign country and the union leaders who’d facilitated it.

Which was pretty bad and apparently cost the government a fortune in wrongfully claimed salary, etc., not to mention the fraud itself.

Good on her, I said.

Little did I know Ms Pham is a tiger and, thanks to brother Bingley alerting me to another email he got this morning, she’s on the horn about another far more egregious case of actual wrongful government prosecution, CFTC false statements, and just malicious incompetence.

Much more at the link.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…: Same Day a Democrat ‘Outs’ Herself as a Swinger, the Media Plays the ‘Dumb Blonde’ Card on Pam Bondi.

PRIORITIES:

Interesting morning so far. I'm looking at a spreadsheet that summarizes all of the infrastructure construction and repair projects for 13 Navy bases in the mid-Atlantic region. I posted Monday about how the Navy needs many billions of dollars just to move our shore…

— Rich "Corky" Erie (@RSE_VB) May 14, 2025

Full text:

Interesting morning so far. I’m looking at a spreadsheet that summarizes all of the infrastructure construction and repair projects for 13 Navy bases in the mid-Atlantic region. I posted Monday about how the Navy needs many billions of dollars just to move our shore infrastructure just from “awful” to “below average”. Here’s some numbers for you.

Total number of projects – 184 (pier replacements, weapons magazines, shore power for subs, drydocks, etc.)

Total cost – $ 13,026,832,000 (Yes, $13 Billion)

Number of projects briefed up the chain of command in hopes of getting funded – 34 (and not all those will be funded)

Number of projects listed as “MUST FUND” – 5

All that’s interesting and sad, but THIS will get your blood boiling (and send @johnkonrad and @cdrsalamander to mars):

Of the 5 projects out of 184 listed as “MUST FUND”, 4 of them are CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS. In the face of potential war with China, your Navy is telling you what their priorities are.

A Navy that invested in child development centers is not a Navy invested in sinking the other guy’s ships and smashing his ports and airfields.

I know which kind of Navy I’d prefer, but the top brass doesn’t seem to agree.

THAT WOULD BE NICE, BUT THIS CONGRESS DOESN’T SEEM TO HAVE ANY PRIORITIES: Here’s An Idea…Congress Should Prioritize Taking the Anti-Gun Politics Out of the Banking Business.

WHEW: ISIS Attack Thwarted at Army Facility Near Detroit, Michigan.

EVERYONE KNEW…

In every meeting, huh? That’s a lot of meetings & a lot of people. Everyone knew. https://t.co/IkwOqkImAM

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 14, 2025

…but nobody would admit who was running the country.

JOANNE JACOBS: Honors for none.

In high school, I had to pay attention because I was in “Level 1” classes that were challenging. My classmates were all smart and motivated. Even in math and science, not my strong suits, it was fun.

Ditching honors classes in the name of “equity” is a bad idea, writes Rikki Schlott in the New York Post. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto Unified will dump honors biology classes and place all freshmen in the same “foundational” course, she notes. “Honors English has already been sidelined.”

The board voted for “de-laning” in January, but it’s become an issue this week, because Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman in the area, tweeted against the idea: “It is absurd that [the] Palo Alto School district just voted to remove honors biology for all students and already removed honors English,” Khanna wrote. “They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence.”

Lefties usually hate excellence, so good on Khanna for calling out this insanity.

MAY BE? Three New Jersey Dems May Be Stripped of Committee Assignments After ‘Storming’ ICE Facility.

Well this is a horrifying story — a free speech advocate was arrested for saying something she never said, and was falsely accused of racism, until an out-of-control prosecutor finally admitted there was no support for the claim. https://t.co/OmN7KXe1NI

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 15, 2025

More:

I never thought I’d end up in handcuffs and a jail cell for something I didn’t say.

But last May, police in New Haven, Conn., arrested me — because a parking attendant falsely claimed I had used a racial slur against him nearly a year earlier.

I denied it. I asked the cops to check the parking lot’s surveillance video.

They didn’t — and the state charged me first with disorderly conduct, then with three counts of breach of peace in the second degree.

It took almost a year, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and endless stress before the nightmare ended on March 27, when the prosecutor finally dropped all charges.

Why? “Insufficient evidence,” “inconsistencies,” “credibility issues,” video that “clearly contradicted” the accuser’s claims — and a possibility that I wasn’t even the right person.

The judge dismissed the case.

If this can happen to me — a First Amendment advocate with resources, legal counsel and a public reputation to defend — it can happen to anyone.

Maybe that’s the point, to put the Fear of the State into people without Lauren Noble’s resources.

THIS COULD PROVE TO BE THE BIGGEST DEVELOPMENT FROM TRUMP’S MIDDLE EAST TOUR: Who Needs China? Saudi Arabia Steps Up As Big Buyer Of AI Chips.

The Saudi AI projects could be worth $3 billion to $5 billion in annual chip sales and $15 billion to $20 billion in total spending over a multiyear period, BofA Securities analyst Vivek Arya said in a client note Tuesday.

“Sovereign AI nicely complements commercial cloud investments with a focus on training and inference of LLMs (large language models) in local culture, language and needs, and could be 10%-15% or $50 billion-plus annually in the longer-term $450-$500 billion global AI infrastructure opportunity,” Arya said.

He added, “Sovereign AI could also help address limited power availability for data centers in U.S., plus offset headwinds from restrictions on U.S. companies shipping to China.”

While Nvidia and AMD are the main beneficiaries of the Saudi AI ventures, other companies in the AI ecosystem will benefit as well, Arya said. That includes AI stocks Broadcom (AVGO), Coherent (COHR) and Marvell Technology (MRVL), he said.

Keeping the Middle East’s oil kingdoms oriented toward the West instead of China might be as much about chips as it is about planes and ships.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: No Comfort in Dems Admitting We Were Right About Biden’s Mush Brain. “There is no sweetness with this vindication, however. Being right doesn’t erase all that went on leading up to having it be proven. The damage done to the Republic while it was being run by a drooling moron and his commie handlers is going to be difficult to undo. President Trump is doing his best, but the Biden puppet presidency was an absolute wrecking ball.”

SEIZING IS EASY, FARMING IS HARD:

90% of farms seized from the Boers by the Bantu commies are lying derelict.

Nobody told the Bantus that farms require hard work, so they didn't bother.

This was a catastrophe for the farm animals, most of which had to be euthanized. pic.twitter.com/jHNJA6IKM6

— Wanjiru Njoya (@WanjiruNjoya) May 15, 2025

Maybe Commies collectivize farms because force is the only way to get people to work under Communism.

JOE CUNNINGHAM: The question Democrats won’t answer.

If President Trump were this existential threat and our democracy hung in the balance with the 2024 election, why did the party and its leaders continue to back such an unpopular sitting president most of the country thought should not have run in the first place? What does it say about a party if it knew ahead of time the consequences of a Trump election yet backed candidates who were almost predetermined to lose? Why, in the face of such peril, would no leader stand up earlier and ask, “Are we sure we are putting our best foot forward?”

The answer is simple but comes in two parts:

1. Trump was never an existential threat.

2. Having a meat puppet in the Oval Office suited Democrats just fine, each one figuring they could get whatever they wanted from the autopen.

ICYMI: Gavin Newsom Twisted So Hard Right That He Might Get Impeached.

THIS SEEMS LIKE KIND OF A BIG DEAL:

🚨 April shocker: U.S. Treasury posts $258B surplus — 2nd largest ever.
• Tax receipts surged to $850B
• Customs duties (Trump tariffs) doubled to record $15.6B
• Borrowing needs down $53B this quarter

For a gov’t hooked on deficits, this is a rare fiscal win—driven by new…

— Quantus Insights (@QuantusInsights) May 14, 2025

April is a good month for federal receipts because of Tax Day, but the second-biggest ever — with Trump’s tariffs accounting for only a small fraction — deserves more attention.

THIRD TIME’S THE CHARM? Germany Will Build Strongest Conventional Army in Europe.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the strongest conventional army in Europe by giving it all the financial resources it needs to become so. Merz also said he would introduce a new volunteer military service.

“Strength deters aggression. Weakness, on the other hand, invites aggression,” Merz said in his first statement to the Bundestag as chancellor, laying out his coalition government’s priorities, Die Zeit reported.

European allies have stressed the urgency of growing and improving their military capabilities to counter an increasingly belligerent Russia. The Trump administration has also urged NATO allies in Europe to shoulder more of the burden for their own defense.

Big words from Merz but we’ve heard them before.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU DESPISE THE MEDIA…: CNN Finds the Weirdest Way to Spin Lower Egg Prices to Make Donald Trump Look Bad.

COLONIALISM, STRAIGHT UP:

The city council of Providence, Rhode Island, is hosting a flag raising ceremony at the City Hall.

What flag, you ask? A Palestinian flag…

Providence, RI has been conquered. pic.twitter.com/pSXC6RuK1v

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 14, 2025

THE 2028 GAME IS AFOOT: Gavin Newsom Twisted So Hard Right That He Might Get Impeached. “That’s a joke, obviously. Democrats never impeach their own, even after they become liabilities; they just exile them to the political wilderness. You and I have spent the last week or so watching them attempting to do just that to a sitting Democrat senator, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman. If Republicans had the same ruthless instincts, John McCain’s last public appearance would’ve been around 1990 — on the side of a milk carton.”