A View from the Beach

Saturday, November 14, 2026

Flotsam and Jetsam - Trains, Boats and Planes

Though not trains, as far as I've seen, yet. Yesterday was not a good day for transportation. First, an oil tanker t-boned a river cruiser tied up at the dock and disembarking passengers in New Orleans, causing it to sink and role on its side. Just as that story started to make become clearer, the US government shut down the nations entire air travel control system, grounding all planes, citing, initially, unknown problems with the communications between controllers and pilots. TheBlaze @theblaze, "WATCH: The moment an oil tanker CRASHED into a cruise ship in New Orleans this afternoon." At Insty, Driscoll had a long tweety post. Fox reports New Orleans boat crash called ‘miracle on the Mississippi’ as everyone is accounted for, officials say. "The Coast Guard confirmed all passengers and crew were rescued after the docked vessel capsized near the Port of New Orleans." I wonder if the river pilot was on his cell phone during the accident, like the guy who missed the turn leaving the Port of Baltimore, and drove a ship requiring 20 ft of water into a 12 ft shoal. But more likely, an equipment failure, like the one that took out the Key Bridge. The oil tanker was totally pointed crossways to river traffic, awfully close to a big bridge.

Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy, "The @FAAnews issued a nationwide ground stop for all U.S. airports following a communication issue impacting all Air Route Traffic Control Centers. FAA technicians are investigating the issue. We will provide immediate updates as we have them." Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein, "We are 2 hours into the FAA ground stop and still have no clue what’s going on. I miss Pete Buttigieg." Spence @CurryAlert, "The last major ground stop was in 2023 when Pete was the transportation secretary." Insty, says I’VE BEEN HEARING THAT IT’S OUTDATED FOR SEVERAL DECADES: Duffy Blames Outdated System After Nationwide Flight Ground Stop.
"Even Ari Emanuel (Rahm’s brother) is throwing shade at Pete Buttigieg for blowing a chance at reform. Though to be fair, Buttigieg was on paternity leave for a lot of that time." At Althouse, "This isn’t another 9/11. This is a telecommunication outage." "Said Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of homeland security, quoted in "Live Updates: F.A.A. Declares a Rare Nationwide Ground Stop Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of homeland security, says Trump administration officials do not suspect foul play. He added that officials did not know the cause and said it would 'take some time' to restart airport operations" (NYT). "There was no indication as of yet that this was a nefarious attack against us. It’s just a telecommunication outage as of right now." At CBS, FAA lifts nationwide ground stop that disrupted thousands of flights; "White House says no indication of "nefarious act"" Late reports suggest the servers running the ATC system became overloaded, and started doing bad shit. Almost like a DNS type attack, although, as of yet, there is no hint of outside involvement. The ATC system is a classic hard problem. The current system, though extremely safe, is very antiquated, and hard on people. It desperately needs to be modernized, just how do you do that, and keep the damn planes flying? Who wants to be up in the air when they make the switch?

wretchardthecat @wretchardthecat, "If we assume that some of the unusual events of the last few days are related: 1. China naval drill off Taiwan; 2. Iranian spy roundup in the UK; 3. Uptick in hacking of European targets, esp France; 4. Sinking of Russian warship in the Gulf of Finland; 5. Evacuation of US bases in the UK; 6. FAA nationwide grounding order; 7. Revelation of NVIDIA spying; 8. Microsoft outage then we are possibly witnessing the results of unsustainable complexity or a grim clandestine fencing match that is being played down by officialdom. The challenge for the analyst is never to get ahead of the data, but not to fall behind it either." Eric S. Raymond @esrtweet, "I'm about to propose a term for a dangerous failure mode that every software engineer should be thinking about today. And another for its consequences. Hot-state dependency: A condition in which a system's ability to function depends on organizational relationships, accumulated state, or operational knowledge that exists only in its current running configuration and cannot be reliably reconstructed following interruption..."

At WaPoo, Marc Thiessen opines The midterms won’t define Trump’s legacy. "Iran will.
Reagan lost the Senate and won the Cold War. The president can follow his lead." At PJM, How JD Vance Charlie Sheen’ed His Career — and Why the 2028 GOP Race Is Now Wide Open. I don't see it as quite that bad, but I think he's opened the lanes for Marco Rubio and Ron DeSantis considerably. Stephen Miller at PJM, What If JD Vance Doesn’t Run? Buck Throckmorton at Ace's THE MORNING RANT: Ron DeSantis Separates Himself from Legacy GOP with Attack on “Corporatism.” Matt Margolis a PJM hears Sen. Kennedy Warns the GOP to Stop ‘Urinating on Our Hands’ Before the Dems Take Over. I think he meant that rhetorically... And Stephen Kruiser's Balkanization Plans Are Much Clearer After Last Week and What's One More? Maybe We Can Give Thune to The Democrats. EducatëdHillbilly™ @RobProvince, "Just a reminder that most of the campaign staff for Romney & Bush & the rest of the old guard now write for Bulwark & Lincoln Project electing DSA Democrats… so were they ever really republicans? Or conservatives at all? Because they’ve gone 180 on every core value they pretended to have in the last 10 years." Hat Hair's John Sexton hears Sarah Longwell State the Obvious: Western Lensman @WesternLensman, "The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell at Democrat conference: "You may know us, we're the Never Trumpers. At least we were ten years ago. Now we're just kind of libs just like the rest of you." Yes, we know." Quote Heath Mayo @HeathMayo, "When you see the immediate ridicule that people like Mitt Romney and Nikki Haley still evoke from the base voters of the Republican Party today, it’s easy to see why the GOP is quickly becoming unserious and uncompetitive nationally with no clear path to grow itself back. When..." At Hat Hair Capt. Ed asks Are You Ready for ... Pence 2028? Seriously? PJM's Cathy Salgado finds one bright spot, a Maine Republican Flips House Seat Red.

Matt Margolis says Nobody Roasts a Scandal Like John Kennedy, and Nvidia’s Spy Mess Proves It Again. "I mean, I'm not — I'm not naive. I'm not Bambi's baby brother. I know people have affairs. I don't recommend it, but if you do, if you do, you ought to make sure it's not with a Chinese spy," Kennedy said. "I mean, check their LinkedIn page, for God's sakes." GayPenguins @GayPenguins1, "Nvidia is really, really fucked if they make their new interim CEO permanent. Not because she is a woman but because it would be such a strategic downgrade to go from an electrical engineer who actually understands the technology behind what he's selling at a fundamental level to an MBA. ..." Killa Runa X @Killa_RunaX, "textbook semiconductor history: finance executives are great at stabilizing a crisis, terrible at deciding which 5-year chip architecture to bet $20b http://on.intel proved what happens when spreadsheets replace silicon intuition at the top.spreadsheets love cutting r&d for quick gain; only engineers keep innovation in the lane." Tim Worstall at It’s all obvious or trivial except.... notes AI May, Or May Not, Be Improving Productivity, depending on how you define productivity. From WaEx, I’m sure it’s a coincidence that Howard Lutnick’s sons have $362 million in Nvidia.

Ace listened to MAHA Consultant Calley Means: Susie Wiles Was Running a Buckraking Operation Out of the White House and Letting Big Pharma and Big Ag Write Policy If They Just Hired Her Lobbyist Daughter, "There may be reasons Susie Wiles was fired. Apparently her old lobbying firm, Ballard Partners, racked up $186 million since she was installed as chief of staff."

Texas Monthly reports on How Texas’s New Leaders Could Ground SpaceX "Elon Musk’s company relies on an exemption to the state constitution to send its rockets aloft—a measure that the incoming attorney general will be asked to rule on."

Matt Margoli, I Totally Voted for This: Trump Moves to Make Federal Agencies English-Only. Peter St Onge, Ph.D. @profstonge, "Monthly deficit hits $400 billion - monthly, not annual. At this pace the deficit will be more than the entire pre-Covid federal *budget*" Quote "E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. @RealEJAntoni, "Fiscal year is off to a rough start as Oct deficit jumps to $404 billion, up 42.1% from Oct last year 52 cents of every dollar the federal gov't spent last month was borrowed - yikes!" Deep Leaks @DeepLeaksHQ, "Stephen Miller says the scale of welfare fraud is SO MASSIVE that eliminating it alone could balance the ENTIRE federal budget "The amount that has been fleeced from us is in the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars." "We could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the treasury went to individuals who were properly, lawfully, correctly eligible to receive them." This should infuriate EVERY taxpayer." At Twitchy, MN Department of Human Services Learns the Hilarious HARD Way X AGREES With Trump on 'Somali-fraud.'

Capt. Ed, Bessent to IRGC: 'F the Iranian Leadership,' and the WSJ Too. From Ace, Scott Bessent: I Had to Move to a Military Base Because the IRGC Is Sending Assassins to Kill Me At My Home Because Treasonous "Journalists" at the Wall Street Journal Showed Them Exactly Where I Live. "It's time to start publishing "journalists'" home addresses, and the bars they get drunk at, and the homes of the men and women they cheat on their wives with. Oh wait we can't do that -- "journalists'" lives are too precious to risk, unlike normal Americans' lives."

Open Source Intel @Osint613, "Report: Finland out of NATO. No NATO bases in the Baltics. All of Donbas handed to Russia. Those are among Moscow's demands at informal peace talks in Abu Dhabi, per a leaked proposal obtained by Bild. In return, Russia would pull its nuclear weapons from Belarus." Classic Trump negotiation strategy. Ask for the moon and stars, and hope they settle for the moon.

Amy Curtis at TownHall says Hakeem Jeffries' Plan for Affordability Includes Returning DACA Recipients to the US and Paying Them. Hat Hair's Dave Strom hears Traitor! Jeffries Gets Blasted by Leftists at Democrat 'What's Next' Conference and predicts The Filibuster Is Toast If Van Hollen Is Leader. Well, it's toast anyway. At Althouse, "Why would you fire the manager when you just won the World Series?" "Said Angus King, the independent Senator from Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, quoted in "Van Hollen Says He Will Challenge Schumer for Senate Majority Leader/Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has emerged as a favorite of Democrats seeking an alternative to Senator Chuck Schumer, who says he has the votes to win" (NYT)." Ace doesn't approve of the New Democrat Plan to Solve the "Housing Crisis:" Let's Inflate the Housing Market By Pouring Government Cash Into It and Letting People Who Can't Afford a Mortgage Buy Homes Until They Default "Say.... wait a minute... Isn't this how they created the 2008 housing market collapse the crashed the world economy? And then blamed on Republicans? Well, since they got away with it once, I guess it's time to crash the world economy again. For Great Justice. And... "Affordability.""

At RedState Rusty Weiss says Dems Aren't Even Sworn in, and AOC Already Has SCOTUS in Her Sights — But She Has a Big Math Problem and hears Democrats Are Panicking Over the 2030 Census, and the Explanation Gives the Game Away. "Gov. Ned Lamont, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) appeared with advocacy groups to warn that the administration’s new counting rules would leave roughly 250,000 state residents out of the tally used to divvy up U.S. House seats and federal funding. "The 250,000 estimate appears to reflect the state’s non-citizen population that would fall outside the new apportionment base," the Connecticut Centinal writes." Deep Background explains The Quiet Coup on the Constitution - Inside the Popular Vote Compact. "Would Arizona Really Hand Its Electoral Votes Over to California?" Matt Vespa at TownHall finds a Dem Top Pollster Isn't a Fan of the Electoral College, but Finds This Alternative to Be Intolerable. Matthew Zeitlin @MattZeitlin, "i know i'm supposed to be pro popular vote and pro national popular vote compact but, like, really? are we really going to see states award their electoral votes to a candidate who didn't win that state? can you imagine this actually happening?" Nate Silver @NateSilver538, "While I'd support a constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College with the popular vote, the interstate compact thing is an unforgivably terrible idea, one of the worst ideas that otherwise smart people think is a good idea, absolute Pandora's Box among other things." Newsweek reports Idaho Election Officials Find 2,675 Ballots Left Out of Results. Tim Meisburger at Da Chronic explains Why I Deny Elections "From my perspective as an election assessor, the Democrats’ promotion and implementation of these insecure election processes looks like a comprehensive strategy to enable election manipulation. Their use in our elections makes the process unverifiable, and the candidates elected last week who promoted these processes or opposed reform should probably be considered illegitimate until new, verifiable elections can be held." Rick Moran at PJM celebrates The Jumping Corpse of Calaveras County: Dead for Months, He's Winning a Race for County Supervisor "The situation became very weird when the Giudici campaign workers decided to make the argument that voting for a dead guy was better than voting for his opponent."

At Althouse, Why is Talarico saying this and what does it mean — especially the comparison to LBJ?, ""The American people cannot wait two years for change so we must work with President Trump. If President Trump wants the same plaques, and portraits, and busts as LBJ, we can help make that a reality. We should make the final two years of his presidency the most productive of any presidency in American history." I hear that as: We should humor Trump where we can.... and that is where it has to do with his screwy ego. We did it with Lyndon Baines Johnson, and we can do it here."

Matt Vespa hears Joe Biden Reveals the Moment When He Knew His Presidency Was Over. When Nancy Pelosi shivved him in the back.

Ace cites Paul Sperry: Security Experts Warn That Islamists Pilots Present an "Insider Threat" to Air Safety, "This is one of those "duh no shit really" reports, but bear in mind that the entire Islamocommunist-captured establishment denies this obvious fact, so it's critical that the obvious be reported and documented. At Real Clear Investigations."

BA's Cam Edwards reports SCOTUS Asked to Resolve Bizarre Verdict in YouTube Prankster Shooting.

At the ChiTrib, Supreme Court to consider President Trump's asylum executive order. Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson, "Secretary of State Marco Rubio just delivered the most brutal indictment of Third World Mass Immigration and Open Borders I've ever heard. “They tell us that we are compelled by a sacred legal obligation to give up our power, to surrender our sovereignty, to submit to the whims of our enemies, to allow our cities to descend into violent anarchy, to welcome in any foreigner from anywhere in the world who arrives at our doorstep without permission, to transform our towns into refugee camps for the entire planet.” “And beyond our borders, too, they would have us believe that we must allow our rivals to act against us with impunity, that those who flood our country with drugs and crime and death should be met with little more than the occasional and polite complaint.” “There is nothing, there is nothing in our history or the history of any other great nation that requires us to recognize the authority or legitimacy of any of these ridiculous ideas.”" John Sexton hears Trump Threatens Mexico With More Tariffs Over Migrant Caravans.
PoIiMath @politicalmath, "You will not hear a single objection from the "buy banned books" crowd about how France is going to jail an acclaimed author for saying words." Matt Vespa wonders Is Sunny Hostin Serious With These Remarks About Lincoln and the Slaves? Some people are so addicted to blathering they don't even hear what comes out of their mouths.

The Free Bacon advocates Send ICE to Harvard "If university administrators won't restore order on campus, dispatch ICE to disperse the foreigners disrupting undergraduate education."

And still more from the Wombat at In The Mailbox: 11.13.26.

Rule 5 Saturday

This week's Rule 5 wonder in Kassyalice:

Model, social media influencer, personal trainer, and Instagram star best known for posting fitness and lifestyle content on her kassyalicee account. She has amassed over 190,000 followers on the platform.

She launched her Instagram account in May 2021.

I think Barbie played with her...

She became verified in April 2025. She is the founder of THE MODEL BODY CLUB, a fitness platform that helps women achieve their fitness goals through workout programs and meal plans. She also has a popular TikTok account with 110,000 followers.

She is from London.

She's a thin one alright. A former track and field competitor, she often posts pictures of food. She should eat a little more of it, and maybe do something about that tapeworm.

Beach Report 11/13/26

A cold and blustery day, with temperatures in the upper 40's and 15-20 kt wind out of the northwest, so basically straight down the beach. No rain today, nor is any forecast, but it sure looks possible.

The tide was stupid high, so I couldn't get past the rocks between Calvert Beach and Matoaka cabins.

The beach was pretty sandy for the most part, but I did manage to spot this 1 1/8 inch Snaggletooth lower, the best of 4 teeth.

Flotsam and Jetsam - Vance Eased Off Iran Team, Huang Hung Out Dry

At Hat Hair Capt Ed says Whoa: Trump Boots Vance From Iran War "This morning, Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that he had a new assignment for his vice president, which has more to do with vice than with being president. Trump has tasked Vance to put his "complete and total attention" on corruption in Democrat-run states, which Trump insists is a much higher priority than negotiating with Iran. In fact, Trump declared in the same post that we don't need a deal with Iran at all..." PJM's Cathy Salgado cites Trump: No Iran Deal, Vance Off Foreign Policy to Focus on Domestic Corruption. I'm guessing this is part of Vance's (and maybe Trump's) plan to differentiate himself from Trump by 2028. At WaT Joe Curl opines Vance does not have a chance in 2028, "The vice president bailed on his boss the moment the midterms went sideways" and Vance-Hegseth rivalry hits crescendo over Iran war, GOP election losses. Rick Moran at PJM thinks Trump's Iran Strategy Could Be a War Winner if He Sticks to It, the Anaconda strategy. Keep squeezing until they can't breath.

Ben Kew @ben_kew, "JUST IN: Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of NVIDIA after reports of two extramarital affairs, including with an alleged Chinese spy." Sundance at CTH, Nvidia Board Announces Jensen Huang Resignation – Interim President/CEO Appointed, a woman. So NVidia will go out of entrepreneurial mode and into protecting market share mode. Not what we need. I'm sure the Chinese are happy how this worked out for them. Anxious anxiously whines about a Scoop: Lutnick stalled Trump's Nvidia–China chip curbs after Oval talks Ombre de Oliver looks at The Bubble of Jenson’s Huang. "Jenson’s Indiscretions With His Huang Is NOT The Big Story, NVIDIA’s finances is the big story." At Althouse, "The ouster of Huang is portentous for the alliance between the Trump administration and the so-called 'tech right,' or the leaders of Silicon Valley’s recent conservative inflection" and "The lesson in the Jensen Huang scandal... middle-aged men need to slow down with testosterone replacement therapy...", "Feel the TRT oozing..." Northern Barbarian @xnoesbueno, "The world’s going to shit. AI may destroy us or make slaves of us or turn us into desperate predatory hordes. Even before the Democrats can manage that. But in the meantime, this delightful app never fails to make me laugh my ass off." Quote Katie Miller @KatieMiller, "Miles Taylor cheated on his wife with the Secretary’s Executive Assistant while he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security." Quote Miles Taylor @MilesTaylorUSA, "So will Trump give back the $25M Nvidia put into his ballroom while its CEO was dating a Chinese spy?" Brivael Le Pogam @brivael, "Prediction. Screenshot this post, we'll talk again in five years. They're going to pull it off. Jensen Huang is going to be pushed out of Nvidia. And here's what happens next. Elon hires Jensen and puts him in charge of Terafab. He's already said it publicly: hiring him would be an honor. And Terafab is the project made for him. A chip factory Musk wants to be the largest ever built, one terawatt of compute per year, from design to packaging under one roof. Terafab's challenge is to do in a few years what the industry took decades to build. There's only one man on Earth who knows every layer of that stack. They execute like absolute maniacs. Musk brings speed, capital and appetite for risk. Jensen brings thirty years of mastery of the stack: architecture, software, customers, supply chain...." zerohedge @zerohedge, "Elon please hire Jensen." Elon Musk @elonmusk, "That would be an honor." VIA @Via00Via, "Translated from Japanese, "Shocking】The story of Elon Musk getting a massive AI facility running 100,000 GPUs up and running at an absurd pace is absolutely wild lol Reporter: “How many years does it take to finish an AI facility?” Elon: “The contractors told me 18–24 months.” Reporter: “So you’re looking at a two-year wait.” Elon: “I decided to build it in six months.” Reporter: “Huh? lol” Elon: “If we wait, we’ll lose the race.” Reporter: “What about the location?” Elon: “We used an old appliance factory.” Reporter: “Did you have enough power?” Elon: “We only had 15 megawatts.” Reporter: “How much do you need?” Elon: “150 megawatts.” Reporter: “That’s ten times less than you need lol” Elon: “So we rented generators.” Reporter: “Did that solve it?” Elon: “Then we didn’t have enough cooling equipment.” Reporter: “Nothing but problems lol” Elon: “We added batteries too.” Reporter: “Just leave it to the contractors.” Elon: “I slept on-site and did the wiring myself too.” Reporter: “A global billionaire wiring cables!?” Elon: “Getting it finished is what matters.” Reporter: “You’d go that far…” As a business leader, this really hits home..." Gizmodo reports a High Ranking Republican Joins Dems To Back Nationwide Data Center Moratorium, "Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said a moratorium should be one of the priorities for Senate Republicans in the next six weeks."

Ken D Berry MD @KenDBerryMD, "He's right, and I've been warning doctors about this. If you don't get your sh*t together, there will be one hourly-wage doctor supervising an LLM that's treating a thousand patients, and a lot of doctors looking for work. The AI got 83.2% right on 304 New England Journal of Medicine cases. Generalist doctors got 36.1% right." Quote Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis, "Microsoft's diagnostic AI solved 83% of 304 complex New England Journal of Medicine cases. Generalist physicians with reference materials solved 36%. We need to get this technology into clinics safely and fast. We need to stop making people wait for the right answers."

Capt. Ed at Hat Hair thinks it's Too Grifty to Check: Khanna, Wife Dumped Nvidia Shares Before Scandal Broke. Did he give her the heads up?

Dave Harsanyi at WaEx, argues Pete Hegseth doesn’t deserve to be impeached. Frank Gaffney @frankgaffney, "SECURING AMERICA: 11/11/26 Frank is joined by George Rasley and Rod D. Martin to discuss the effort to impeach Secretary Pete Hegseth, the U.S. campaign against Iran, expected congressional opposition, Hegseth’s defense reforms, and strategic issues involving China. George describes the impeachment effort as politically motivated and argues that a lasting outcome against Iran requires ending the rule of the Islamic Republic rather than settling for temporary tactical gains. He warns that the incoming Democratic Congress will pursue sustained investigations and other challenges to the administration, criticizes Senate Republican leadership, and notes the need for action in the remaining legislative window. ..." Frank Gaffney @frankgaffney, "Hegseth Pentagon Procurement Reform Rod D. Martin says that Pete Hegseth is replacing the cost-plus contracts Eisenhower warned about—contracts that reward every form of waste and delay—with fixed-price, long-term deals that give suppliers the predictability to hire workers, expand production lines, and rebuild the shipbuilding and industrial base the United States has allowed to atrophy since the end of the Cold War." PJM's Stephen Kruiser suggests Impeachment Should Distract the Dem Idiot Caucus From Worse Things. At Twitchy, Temu Mark Kelly Tells Pete Hegseth ’Tick Tock, Get Ready A**Hole’. Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh, " OMG. Dem Rep. Yassamin Ansari is now pushing to launch lawfare investigations against the TROOPS who followed orders underneath SecWar Pete Hegseth She straight-up said it: "People down the chain at the Pentagon who carried out these orders NEED to be investigated." Mask off. They hate our servicemembers. @PeteHegseth is FULLY standing behind the troops. They have to get through him first!" Hat Hair's Beege Welborn asserts A Military Isn't Much Good When Soldiers Are 'Scared They Might Have to Shoot Somebody'. It's about the British, but it applies to the US too. At Twitchy, The Media Thought They Had a 'Gotcha' — Then Pete Hegseth Showed Them What Leadership Looks Like: Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh, "AWESOME! SecWar Pete Hegseth just gave a MEDAL to the sentinel who reprimanded someone that laughed out loud near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Veterans Day, in Hegseth's group "We love soldiers. We love standards. Well done, Specialist. Carry on Patriots."DEPT. OF WAR OFFICIAL: “As shown in the photos, Secretary Hegseth welcomed the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, to the Pentagon where he proudly awarded Specialist Iglesias the Joint Service Commendation Medal for the execution of his duties at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on November 11, 2026." He carried out his duties. It doesn't matter if you're a regular visitor or with the SECRETARY OF WAR. Standards are standards and Pete knows it." Green Beret Nap Time @GBNT1952, "A US Army Specialist admonished a group with the Secretary of War at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for not maintaining appropriate silence and respect, and Hegseth, like a true leader, accepted the reprimand and then gave the soldier a medal for doing what was expected of him despite the potential for reprisal from the highest ranking official in the Pentagon. This is what honorable leadership looks like. I’ve seen multiple Democrats hypothesize that Hegseth would use his position to punish the young soldier, and they could not have been more wrong. Scoundrels always try to tear down men of honor because they know they can never measure up. I can’t tell you how proud this makes me as a veteran. God Bless Secretary Hegseth. DOL, Sir!"

Clay Travis @ClayTravis, "The Washington Post is attacking Marco Rubio for attending his son’s college football games on US government planes. For security reasons Rubio must travel on these planes. So his only option is don’t go to his son’s games or use government planes. This is a nasty, unfair attack." From WaT, White House says proposed Dem probes may be ‘blatant criminality’ It's a stretch, but Democrats have been know to stretch the letter of the law in their efforts to get Trump too. Don Surber hears Trump warns Democrats. "You can investigate us, we can prosecute you." Insty calls it A POTENT THREAT SINCE SO MANY OF THEM ARE CRIMINALS: NYPo's Michael Goodwin says It’s Stephen Miller time in the Trump admin — threatened media and Dems are already spreading misinformation. Matt Vespa shares the video: Here's What Caused a CNBC Host to Laugh a Dem. Rep. Off the Set "Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) was laughed off the set of CNBC’s Squawk Box when he tried to gaslight the hosts into believing the Trump White House weaponized the Department of Justice (DOJ). That’s a flat-out lie. The politicization of the DOJ began under Obama and peaked under Joe Biden. We know about Arctic Frost, Plasmic Echo, and the ongoing surveillance operations against the Trump family and its officials." PJM's Vicky Taft notes Democrats Doctored Evidence to Try to Dirty Up Trump in Epstein Probe. RNC Research @RNCResearch "Democrat Rep. Al Green announces another attempt to impeach President Trump: “As early as next week, I will call for a vote to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America." Democrats have no plan to help Americans." Catturd ™ @catturd2, "The only thing saving our country the next two years is Donald J Trump."

J.R. Dunn at Am Think sings Thune's requiem. "If he somehow prevails, he’ll be in no position to lead the party in any meaningful sense." From Da Wire, House Republicans Pick Jim Jordan To Lead Them After Election Wipeout. "I am battle-tested on the oversight front, and I know the Democrats' playbook." TownHall's Kurt Schlichter warns Red State GOP Organizations Need to Get Their Act Together. PJM's Scott Pinsker explains The GOP’s War Plan for Shattering the Democratic Party Coalition in 5 Easy Steps "Group 1: Black voters. Lately, they’ve been barometers of Democratic enthusiasm. In 2024, their numbers dropped and Republicans won; in 2026, it was the opposite. Of all the Democrats' voting blocs, blacks have been the most loyal — and, very often, the most taken for granted. It’s something they’re sensitive about, which is a useful nugget of information. How to attack: Bombard their echo chambers with stories about the DSA’s lily-white complexion, hostility to Christianity, and indifference to black suffering." Shipwreckedcrew @shipwreckedcrew, "The GOP got out organized and crushed in 2008 and 2018. Both times it responded by adopting the practices pioneered by Dems. It needs to do that again for 2028, or nothing else will matter. The Dems revealed a sophisticated networking system built on the back of their existing NGO network - they just repurposed it for messaging and get out the vote efforts. The turnout last week is going to be the “new normal” for them. GOP needs to build something similar — fast." Quote Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter, "We have got a lot of problems, and fat and lazy Republican organizations are one of them… My new @townhallcom will annoy all the right people."

At Da Signal, Questions Mount Over Texas Election Data as Republicans Call for Answers "Gina Hinojosa received 1.7 million more votes than Beto O’Rourke in 2022; James Talarico got nearly as many votes as President Donald Trump won in 2024." Was it real turnout, or mail in fraud? Or something else? Rasmussen Reports @Rasmussen_Poll, "Reminder: A curious Texas election story from last week below Almost like someone forgot to 'deprogram' this race. Texas certifies voting systems only from two vendors: Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Hart InterCivic - ."

From the Breitbart Bus Dig, How the Fed Model Shows Tariffs Boost Growth, "Tariffs can boost U.S. economic growth over the long term even when foreigners absorb just a tiny fraction of their cost, according to the Federal Reserve’s main economic model. The Federal Reserve Board’s large-scale model, known as FRB/US, indicates that a broad 10 percent tariff on non-oil goods can leave real GDP about 0.28 percent higher after ten years if foreign producers absorb just over one percent of the total tariff bill. Business investment also ends up higher." Remember, all models are wrong; some models are useful.

The Kyiv Independent reports Ukraine captures first Indonesian prisoner of war as Russia steps up foreign recruitment. Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis, "Bloomberg: “Russia has effectively abandoned attempts to replace the dollar with China’s yuan under the pressure of US secondary sanctions, underlining the difficulties facing other nations looking for an alternative global currency.” As I’ve long explained, surplus countries don’t acquire USD assets because Washington forces them to do so. It is their need to acquire USD assets that forces the US to accommodate." Sundance hosts Remarkable Video – Kremlin Allows Media to Record 30 Minutes of Discussion Between Putin, Witkoff and Kushner. "I can tell you from experience in studying Russian’s close up over a long timeframe, President Putin is frustrated at the remarks from the U.S. side because Russia doesn’t culturally engage in ‘blah, blah, blah.’ You see this when Putin talks about the “grey zones” that are stunningly antithetical to the mindset of any Russian."

Beege Welborn hears With Yet Another Famine Looming, The Atlantic Wants You to Know Trump Is Starving Somalia.

Hat Hair's John Sexton reports The Effort to Chuck Chuck Schumer Continues. At Shooting News Week, Surprise! Dems Immediately Drop Affordability Agenda in Favor of Banning Guns, Limiting Rights. At WaT, Abdul El-Sayed’s art of deception. "Will he represent all Michiganders?" Capt. Ed notices Colorado Governor Finally Does Math – and the Left Is Furious "Polis released his budget on the eve of the midterm elections—one day after the legally mandated deadline to do so—and proposed $600 million in state Medicaid cuts. He called Medicaid's growth "unsustainable" and told reporters it was on track to "crowd out everything else, including education."" Dave Strom says Behold the Reality Behind the 'Compassion.' From the Scuttlebutt, Consequences. I fit as well here as anywhere else.

PJM's Matt Margolis asserts Ilhan Omar’s Days in Congress May Be Numbered as DOJ Closes In

Matt Margolis