November 25, 2025

2026 PREVIEW: The ‘ShamWow guy’ is running for Congress in Texas.

Offer Vince Shlomi, the once-prominent infomercial pitchman, is running for Congress in Texas, according to a filing with the state’s Republican Party.

Shlomi is running for the seat held by Republican Rep. John Carter, 84, who has served more than two decades in Congress. Carter announced earlier this month he’d run for re-election, so Shlomi has an uphill battle against an entrenched incumbent.

The former pitchman, best known for his role selling the “ShamWow” towel, told Fox News that he wants to “destroy wokeism” in Congress and that he’s been motivated by the “political infighting in the country” to run and “make America happy.”

Local businessman Raymond Hamden is also running for the nomination, so maybe Carter isn’t quite as entrenched as the story claims.

Posted at 10:39 am by Stephen Green

HMM:

TL;DR: It would be very difficult, but not impossible, to block Starlink over Taiwan. But Starlink engineers would almost certainly work in real-time to defeat any attempt.

Elon Musk really is our not-so-secret superweapon.

Posted at 9:37 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Elissa Slotkin Is a Classic Study in Dem Doublespeak. “The 2025 Democrats are, as we’re all aware, the Borg now. Everyone must be assimilated, and that’s why we see Elissa Slotkin tacking hard left these days. She’ll probably be hosting drag queen bingo at elementary schools in the new year.”

Posted at 9:06 am by Stephen Green

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939: Germany wants to build Europe’s strongest army – a new conscription bill is moving that closer.

The coalition government is hoping a new bill agreed upon last week will help make this a reality, bolstering Germany’s forces in the face of the perceived threat from Russia and a significant shift in US foreign policy.

The sweeping new reforms will see Germany attempt to boost its numbers to 260,000 soldiers, up from around 180,000 currently, in addition to an extra 200,000 reservists, by 2035.

In the first instance, the drive will focus on voluntary enlistment, with greater incentives for those who sign up, including a monthly starting salary of €2,600 ($3,000) – an increase of €450 from the current level.

If the new quotas are not met, the government will have the option of mandatory call-ups, where necessary.

From next year, all 18-year-olds will receive a questionnaire about their interest in serving. For men, answering this will be compulsory. From 2027, men aged 18 will also have to undergo mandatory medical examinations.

“1939” jokes aside, West Germany’s Cold War-era Bundeswehr was a large and capable force. There’s no reason, aside from will, a unified and richer Germany couldn’t do the same.

Posted at 8:35 am by Stephen Green

YEP:

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Homeschooling Hits Record Numbers.. It’s not for everyone, but at this point sending your kids to public school looks like parental malpractice.

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:18 am by Glenn Reynolds

MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Elon Musk’s zeal for truth reveals the online frauds aiming to divide us. Key bit:

We’ve heard a lot in recent years about “misinformation” and “disinformation” on the Internet, which officials in both the United States and the increasingly totalitarian European Union have used as an excuse to censor ideas they don’t like.

Inevitably, the ideas they dislike are those coming from their political opponents.

But Musk on Friday didn’t censor people for lying. He revealed them as liars.

Rather than repression, he chose illumination. . . .

Musk chose transparency over “security,” and in so doing he ripped the masks off tens (hundreds?) of thousands of fake accounts that have been doing real harm to America’s political discourse — without silencing anyone.

More effectively, too: Censoring deliberately divisive accounts makes it look like you’re hiding something.

Exposing fake ones makes clear who’s doing the hiding.

Learn from Elon. He’s a smart guy.

But read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION WITH THESE PEOPLE: Just the News does a deep dive into what Matt Taibbi called “a stunt”, namely, the plea to U.S. military servicemembers to join the “Resistance” against Trump.

It’s one thing to say that POTUS is issuing “illegal orders,” but if you say that, you need to be able to show what you’re talking about. But Just the News pointed out that Democrats had made the allegation, but when asked for an example, whiffed badly:

“When asked to give an example of a current illegal order by Trump, [Rep.] Crow did not give one, saying, “He has a history of doing this, and if we wait until the moment that he gives a manifestly unlawful order to a young soldier, then we have failed them. We have to start that conversation now and get people thinking about the distinction, which is exactly what we did.”

Crow wasn’t the only Democrat to make the baseless allegation and then later admit they had no idea what they were talking about:

“[Rep.] Slotkin said on Sunday on This Week on ABC “to my knowledge, I — I am not aware of things that are illegal” that had been ordered by Trump, “but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela.”

The methodology of mendacity seems to have permeated the mindset of Democrats for quite a while. I’m reminded of the episode when then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid flat-out lied, claiming that Mitt Romney “never paid taxes.”

When caught out, The Washington Post noted that Reid expressed no contrition, and glibly replied: “Romney didn’t win, did he?”

No action is immoral if it obstructs Bad Orange Man.

Posted at 7:59 am by Charles Glasser

LAVISHLY: How Minnesota Welfare Dollars Support Somali Jihad Terrorism.

I’ve covered Al-Shabaab before.

As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.

If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing.

Those may have been its stated goals, but I assume the real goals were to line the pockets of leftwing activists and the homeless industrial complex.

Yes.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related:

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

FROM MARY CATELLI:   A Diabolical Bargain.

Growing up between the Wizards’ Wood and its marvels, and the finest university of wizardry in the world, Nick Briarwood always thought that he wanted to learn wizardry. When his father attempts to offer him to a demon in a deal, the deal rebounded on him, and Nick survives — but all the evidence points to his having made the deal. Now he really wants to learn wizardry. Even though the university, the best place to master it, is also the place where he is most likely to be discovered.

Posted at 7:00 am by Sarah Hoyt