THE MARKET HAS SPOKEN:

Hearing from tradesmen that one of their main job criteria is bureaucracy.

Employers will hire them away from other employers with the promise of same money, but not having to deal with all the app shit.

The compliance/app regime is getting that bad, even out in the field.

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) July 16, 2026

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Commie Call Is Coming From Inside the Democrats’ House. “Until President Trump upended the political tradition apple cart in 2016, the Democrats used to be better at playing a more subtle long game in politics. Since then, they’ve been singularly focused on being consumed by hatred for the man who denied their alcoholic Ice Queen the presidency that they felt she was entitled to.”

CHANGE: Warren Buffett stops Gates Foundation donations, will give $6 billion to family foundations. “Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett said Tuesday that he stopped donating money to the Gates Foundation after revelations about interactions between the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”

For a guy who spent a lifetime picking winners and dumping losers, he sure held on to Gates for a long time.

SHE’S SERVED HER PURPOSE, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, SHE KNOWS IT:

Notice how Nithya Raman just completely disappeared after they blocked us out of the general election?

She's not campaigning at all. Like a pickpocket disappearing into the crowd. Just a ghost. I told you her campaign was a scam. Colluding with Bass from the start.

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) July 15, 2026

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Our Love/Meh Relationship With AI.

“People wanted more than just text,” former CEO Eric Schmidt later said of the company’s moonshot effort to design, build, and launch the first image search engine as quickly as humanly possible. “Google Image Search was born” on July 12, 2001, Schmidt later recalled.

Google Image Search immediately became one of the company’s most-loved and most-used tools, and constant refinements over the last 25 years helped keep it that way. I moved on from Google years ago — mostly because I despise the company’s business practices — but when the copycats fail, I find myself back on GIS.

Then this week — on Image Search’s 25th birthday — Google just had to go and ruin it.

Say it with me now: “By adding AI nobody asked for.”

But this isn’t really about Google, Image Search, or even AI. It’s about tools.

Much more at the link.

CCP TOOL: Trump blasts Hochul over data center moratorium.

Hochul imposed a one-year moratorium on new data centers this month as national backlash to their explosive growth has increased in recent months. Trump, for his part, expressed support for data centers and encouraged states to embrace them.

“One of the biggest Driving Forces in the Future for Jobs, are Data Centers. They are big, strong, bold, and Money Machines for the State in which they are built. Governor Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has terminated all Data Centers being built, or to be built, in New York State,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“These Companies are now being sought in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and many other States. Both the Taxes and the Jobs amount to LIQUID GOLD!” he added. “New York State has made a terrible decision. All of this Income, and other Benefits, will be going to Red States, and some Blue, where Data Centers are sought as Cash Cows, with Lower Taxes and Record Setting Jobs.”

“They must pay for their own Water and Power, and any leftover goes back to the State and local Community. Data Centers are tremendous WINS for the States and Communities that are lucky enough to get them,” he added. “New York should change its Policy, IMMEDIATELY.”

But what would Comrade Xi say?

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN:

Things are going so well that even anti-gun publications are basically being forced to write headlines that come across as pro-gun.

The data is so undeniable that even they are struggling to spin it as a negative. pic.twitter.com/bLUZmEtCKA

— National Association for Gun Rights (@gunrights) July 15, 2026

SCOTT PINSKER: The Political Castration of Chuck Schumer — and the Rise of GOP Superman Brandon Gill.

FASTER, PLEASE: 5 Cases This ATF Needs to Make Right… Right Now.

Joe Biden’s ATF didn’t care about the law. They didn’t care about right or wrong. They didn’t care about evidence or proper procedure or telling the truth while asking the court for a search warrant while under oath. They didn’t even care about what was legal. All they cared about was terrifying gun owners, splashy headlines and making arrests regardless of the law.

Guns are bad, Joe Biden’s ATF believed. This untruth was reinforced by a team of anti-gunners working inside the White House and by others whom they collaborated with outside of the public eye.

While Biden napped, his ATF hit hard. They lied, kicked down doors, seized personal property for no legitimate reason, and they even took an innocent man’s life. In other words, they killed a man solely because of their own piss-poor planning.

ATF’s new director Rob Cekada is a good man who tells the truth and understands guns and gun owners, but the task in front of him is massive. He will certainly need help to fix the horrors Biden’s ATF left on his plate. If he can make the fixes, he will become a hero. If he ignores them, he will become just another in a long line of milquetoast ATF leaders who weren’t up to the job.

Here’s where he should start.

Full details at the link.

VOTE LIKE YOUR LIFE, LIBERTY, AND PROPERTY DEPEND UPON IT: DDHQ forecasts Democratic House, 50-50 Senate in November.

And bring friends.

SIGNPOSTS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT:

Reminder: the year Fidel Castro took power, Cuba had the same GDP as Greece. The year he died, Cuba had the same GDP as Sudan. In other words: Socialism. Fails. Every. Time. https://t.co/oXrbQ7UTNl

— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) July 15, 2026

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): When you realize its goal is to cement losers into power, it never fails. The purpose of a system is what it does.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG:

Needs to change. https://t.co/dZdE0Hv5ua

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026

UPDATE (From Ed): How racist is Gone with the Wind? So racist that Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award, for..Gone with the Wind:

ICYMI: Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test.

SAY IT LOUD AND PROUD: The West Is a Superior Civilization (And I Don’t Care If That Offends You). “The West has experienced wars, harbored atrocious dictatorships, and served as the birthplace of a great many foolish ideas, including the wokism that ravaged civilization in this century. But what has made this civilization great is its ability to recognize those deviations and try to correct them, or at the very least condemn them. Many of the misguided ideas the West has produced are themselves products of freedom. And freedom is, for us, an unquestionable good. We embrace it knowing exactly what it exposes us to, and we prefer it that way. That is one of the greatest distinctions between the West and other civilizations and cultures.”

NICE WORK, FELLAS:

Update: Another mysteriously nonfunctional X embed, so you get a screencap and this handy link.

TAX THE RICH: A How-To Guide to Crippling a State.

SCHLICHTER: James Talarico Has Got a Secret.

I don’t know what that blasphemous little imp’s secret is, but he’s got one. Don’t be fooled by that creepy smile on his creepy face; there’s something wrong with James Talarico. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t ever want to see his browser history, and I’d sooner have somebody from The Lincoln Project babysit my kid. It’s just a vibe, but there are rumors out there, and unfortunately, no one has shared the specifics with me. I don’t know exactly what they are, but we have no moral obligation to default to a presumption of normality regarding Democrat Senate candidates this cycle. After all, we just lived through Der Platnerdämmerung.

Is it related to his gender ambiguity? He’s already famous for apologizing for his white male identity. Well, let’s just say we can be pretty confident that Talarico has never beaten up or assaulted one of the many ex-girlfriends he’s tried to convince us were his girlfriends. This is because, to the extent they actually ever were his girlfriends, they all look like they can kick his butt. And he looks like he might dig that.

Let’s call out the pink donkey in the room. There’s widespread speculation that the guy is in the closet, and anybody who’s lived a few years has known guys in the closet, and well, this dude gives off vibes like he’s in the closet. I don’t know if he’s in the closet. I do know that if he is in the closet, he should have come out and been honest about who he was. If he’s lying about that, what else is he lying about?

Indeed.

And I don’t know whether this was intentional or not — but great callback, Kurt.

DON’T TRUST CHINA. CHINA IS ASSHOE:

Elite Pakistani bomb disposal squad operator killed while defusing IED, after Chinese bomb defusal kit turned out be fake.

— WLVN (@TheLegateIN) July 14, 2026

WHICH WILL BE PURCHASED IN BULK BY WELL-HEELED SUPPORTERS AND NGOS, AND VIRTUALLY NOBODY ELSE: Joe Biden Slurs His Way Through Video Announcing New Memoir.

JON CALDARA: A glimpse into Colorado’s future with Weiser at the helm.

The national media is focused on the anti-Semitic socialist who won the Democratic primary to replace [Democrat Rep.] Diana DeGette. More important to Colorado’s future, though, is what happened in the legislative primaries.

Several Democratic lawmakers lost to candidates even further to the left. Even if Democrats don’t gain a single legislative seat this fall, the legislature itself is going to become more progressive.

Given the anti-president environment that usually accompanies a midterm election, and the hefty anti-Trump hate in Colorado, don’t be surprised if Democrats expand their legislative seats to a veto-proof majority.

We’ll likely have a progressive academic as governor paired with the most left-leaning legislature in Colorado history.

And you’ll find yourself casually browsing real estate listings in Texas.

Much more at the link, none of it good.

DISPATCHES FROM THE OCCUPIED ZONES:

The end result of social transformation without representation. https://t.co/FdUzCJxZDr

— Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) July 15, 2026

OH MY: Federal Judge Makes Unprecedented Move In Maduro Torture Case. “On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles in Miami awarded $314 million in damages to three U.S. citizens who were imprisoned and tortured by Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela before being freed in a 2023 prisoner swap.”

CHANGE: Putin Was Xi’s Role Model. Now He’s the Junior Partner. “Four years of war and economic isolation have reduced the Russian president to a supplicant in a relationship growing more imbalanced.”

Beijing has kept Russia’s war economy running: buying its oil at a discount, supplying the components its defense industry needs and providing the financial infrastructure that allows Moscow to weather Western sanctions. U.S. and European officials have called on Beijing to pressure Moscow to end the war, to little effect.

Xi appears to understand the lesson from the 1960s, when Soviet heavy-handedness toward China as the “younger brother” helped fracture that earlier alliance. For now, Xi is careful to treat Putin with respect in public even as he seeks to extract concessions in private.

Still, the May visit couldn’t be more different from the two men’s first meeting in 2013, when Xi chose Moscow for his first foreign trip as Chinese leader. Xi expressed his admiration for the Russian leader, calling him his “role model,” according to people with knowledge of the conversation.

What Xi admired, the people said, was Putin’s ability to command a seat at the world’s top table despite running an economy highly dependent on oil and gas—rather than a diversified one like those of the U.S. and China.

Now, Putin’s Ukraine war didn’t just bog down Russia. It handed Xi the leverage to finish a structural power shift that was already underway, turning what was once a partnership of near equals into a relationship China now dominates in almost every dimension.

Many of us had hoped 20 years ago or longer for a Russia free and strong enough to serve as a bulwark against China.

Putin delivered this instead.

SCENES FROM YEAR FIVE OF THE SEVEN-DAY SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION:

Russian Novosibirsk. The line to buy fuel is huge.

The person filming says he's driving about 60 km/hour, so you can imagine how long the line is.

There are reports that fuel is only available at some gas stations in the city. pic.twitter.com/Gt62t74gIu

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 14, 2026

Lines like that, and they aren’t even communist anymore.

I’M EXPECTING A CONTROLLED EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Here’s What’s Riding on Thursday’s Starship Flight Test. “There is so much more riding on Starship Flight Test 13 than the first 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites, which are designed to deliver fiber-like internet speeds anywhere on land, air, or sea.”