Thursday, February 5, 2026
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Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott told "The Charlie Kirk Show" on Thursday that Senate Republicans are going to pass the SAVE Act to mandate voter ID and verification of citizenship to register to vote, and if Democrats want to stop it, they'll have to do a talking filibuster. "The concept that you don’t have to show your ID to vote is foreign," Scott said. "We're going to get this done. The president is on board. He knows we have to use the talking filibuster to get his agenda done."[snip] This is a very important piece of legislation that’s going to save this country," Scott said.
The chief safety officer for a leading self-driving car company admitted during a Senate hearing Wednesday that it hires remote human operators overseas to guide cars in “difficult driving situations.”
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing Wednesday on the future of self-driving cars during which Waymo and Tesla executives testified. Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey pressed Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña on if his company’s remote human operators worked from outside the U.S. and Peña responded that some were based in the Philippines. In his exchange with Markey, Peña acknowledged that his company’s operators do not remotely drive the vehicle but rather
The Trump administration said Thursday that it has finalized a rule that creates a new government schedule that will make it easier for administrations to fire federal employees it views as hindering its agenda.
The rule, dubbed Schedule Policy/Career, converts a wide range of federal policy-related employees into a status similar to that of political appointees who can be fired at will.
The change is expected to impact up to 50,000 federal workers. Unions have opposed the change, arguing it politicizes the federal workforce, which previously was intended to be neutral and expertise-oriented, according to The Hill. “This is not about people’s views or ideas,"
Are demographics really destiny? The 19th-century philosopher Auguste Comte, credited with the aphorism, emphasized that population trends are the most reliable predictors of a country's long-term trajectory. Comte actually said "demography" was destiny, which makes more sense, but the idea that a nation's future can be predicted by figuring out where people are moving is still a solid theory.[snip] there's a lot more to demographics than race or gender. There's the very real and consequential fact of people "voting with their feet." As it stands now, those votes are shifting massively toward red states.
Telegram platform founder Pavel Durov is one of very few tech CEOs who is consistent in his efforts to protect information from the grip of government censorship. Today, Durov used his platform to warn Telegram users in Spain what is pending: [VIA Pavel Durov X Account] – Today, Telegram notified all its users in Spain with this alert:
Pedro Sánchez’s government is pushing dangerous new regulations that threaten your internet freedoms. Announced just yesterday, these measures could turn Spain into a surveillance state under the guise of “protection.” Here’s why they’re a red flag for free speech and privacy:
1. Ban on social media for under-16s with mandatory age verification:
In the past few years people have heard the term “rare earth minerals” or “critical minerals” as they relate to the manufacture of component goods that are vitally important in the lives of everyone. However, the term “rare” is somewhat of a misnomer. The minerals themselves are not rare; indeed, they have been around for hundreds of millions of years in abundant supply. It is the processing of those minerals into stable second stage commodities that has become rare.
As a result of western environmental rules and regulations, U.S, EU and developed nations have outsourced critical mineral processing (the dirty stuff) to China and Asia.
Sen. Tuberville says 6 lawmakers serving
in Congress didn’t legitimately win
their elections… replies
in Congress didn’t legitimately win
their elections… replies
Ever since the 2020 fiasco, Americans have been told to stop asking questions about elections.(snip) If you ask for clarity or an investigation, it’s treated like some kind of traitorous sabotage. And yet, the doubts haven’t gone away. In fact, they’ve only grown since 2020, and nowadays, talking about it is encouraged.President Trump has been openly signaling that major developments related to the 2020 election are coming, particularly out of Georgia. (snip)Sen. Tommy Tuberville is claiming that six current members of Congress did not actually win their elections. And he’s not talking about candidates or “former” officials. These are sitting lawmakers, right here, right now.
Mike ‘Pick Me’ Pence’s Opposition
To The SAVE Act Is Dishonest And Constitutionally Illiterate replies
To The SAVE Act Is Dishonest And Constitutionally Illiterate replies
Former Vice President Mike Pence really wants you to think he is a principled man. He really goes on and on about how he, seemingly alone, stands for those bedrock conservative values that made this country great. His foundation, Advancing American Freedom, even boasts “The Conservative Movement Lives Here.”
He’s a constitutional conservative to his core. Until he isn’t.Let’s take election reform. The SAVE Act, the main provision of which is so overwhelmingly popular with normal Americans that it’s only natural that the denizens of the Washington swamp oppose it with near-religious fervor, has stalled in the Senate. The bill would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) delivered the “read and return” intelligence report to congress that sits at the background of an anonymous whistleblower complaint against Director of National Intelligence, DNI Tulsi Gabbard. [CBS Story] In addition to delivering the report, the ICIG also delivered a declassified letter outlining the framework of the backstory [SEE HERE].
I strongly urge people to take a few minutes and read both links above, particularly the pdf of the ICIG report that frames the complaint. In essence, the same playbook the IC tried to create the impeachment narrative against President Trump (2019), they repeated against DNI Tulsi Gabbard.
Too Many Sperm, Too Few Families
replies
Russian billionaire Pavel Durov has made his frozen sperm available worldwide through his Altra Vita clinic. He claims that he is doing this to alleviate a shortage of “high-quality donor material.” And he adds that his sperm has fathered at least 100 children in at least 12 countries. Then we read of Chinese billionaires going outside of China, where domestic surrogacy is illegal, to quietly have large numbers of U.S.-born babies. Specifically, Xu Bo, a Chinese billionaire, claims to have more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S. More than that, this online gaming billionaire has, for years, broadcast his ambition to build a “sprawling dynasty of children.”
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, Tom Cotton, outlines via his X account that he has reviewed the intelligence community whistleblower complaint being used in a ridiculous effort to impeach DNI Tulsi Gabbard and finds it “not credible.”The entire construct of this CIA-NIC ‘whistleblower’ operation is transparent. We have outlined the basic parameters of the entire fiasco {GO DEEP}. The intelligence community/Lawfare operation is a replay of the 2019 intelligence community/Lawfare operation used to frame Donald Trump during the 2019 impeachment effort.
Armenian-speakers in Los Angeles County utilize California's In-Home Supportive Services program at a rate roughly 700% higher than their proportion of the county's population, an analysis by The Center Square found -- renewing attention to potential fraud concerns in the community amid the ongoing public dispute between CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Gov. Gavin Newsom. A top fraud expert said that The Center Square's data analysis likely reveals organized fraud networks are operating in Los Angeles County's Armenian-speaking community -- with participants allegedly getting kickbacks and funneling large amounts of cash out of the country through cash-based hawala networks.
An in-depth investigation by City Journal is raising questions about whether a Minneapolis-based anti-ICE network is pushing civilians into dangerous confrontations with federal immigration agents after the shooting deaths of two activists in less than a month. (snip) According to City Journal, one group sits at the center of Minneapolis' anti-ICE movement: Defend the 612. The organization oversees a large network of Signal chats that monitor immigration enforcement, coordinate protests, and mobilize rapid-response actions across Minneapolis neighborhoods. (snip) [City Journal's] investigation found that members and "related officials have encouraged protesters to impede law enforcement; pushed civilians toward legally and physically risky confrontations; and helped mobilize a counter-protest that turned violent."
The good news is the process to identify the subversive agents inside the various offices of the administration continues to yield results. The bad news is there’s a lot of them to identify and remove.
Dept of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shares another leaker has been identified and removed. Additionally, she is referring their conduct to the Dept of Justice for criminal prosecution.Both Noem and Gabbard appear to be continuing their methodical approach without fear or favor. Secretary Noem facing down the internal resistors within the FBI, who have been leaking about ICE enforcement operations. Director Gabbard working through the tentacles of the Intelligence Community
An Asian cyber-espionage group has spent the past year breaking into computer systems belonging to governments and critical infrastructure organisations in more than 37 countries, according to the cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks, Inc.. The state-aligned attackers have infiltrated networks of 70 organisations, including five national law enforcement and border control agencies (snip.) The US Cybersecurity Agency said it was aware of the campaign. The agency is working with its partners to stop hackers from exploiting any [identified] vulnerabilities (snip.) Representatives of the FBI and CIA declined to comment. The NSA didn't respond to a request for comment.
A rural Illinois bar owner was gunned down by a convicted murderer in an “execution-style” shooting shortly before opening her business for the day Monday.
Courtney Drysdale, 30, was fatally shot by suspected gunman Julius E. Burkes Jr. just after 11 a.m. as she was going about her normal routine, according to the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office.{snip] Burkes has multiple arrests in previous years, including for battery and alleged stalking.
In 1994, when he was 15, Burkes pleaded guilty to two counts of murder stemming from a killing near Chicago, the outlet reported.
He was sentenced to 37 years in prison but served less than half that, according to the outlet.
For nearly a decade Natalie Starbird has been one of the most influential academic voices shaping how "misinformation" is defined, studied, and ultimately moderated online. Her research helped supply the intellectual framework used by major platforms, government agencies, and NGO's to justify sweeping censorship of election-related speech after 2016 and 2020. (snip) Now, Starbird is applying the same framework to a new domain: immigration. A recently published paper (snip) coauthored by Starbird (snip) does not investigate falsehoods, it investigates political dissent. Specifically how Americans use government data to criticize immigration policy.
Nashville Electric Service (NES) made the live stream of its Tuesday press conference hosted by YouTube private on Wednesday, leaving the video inaccessible to the general public.
The decision came some time after The Michael Patrick Leahy Show analyzed the claims by CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin on Wednesday morning, concluding the top NES executive appeared to falsely conflate the company’s budgeting for tree trimming and vegetation management with the amount it actually spent.
As The Tennessee Star reported on Tuesday, Broyles-Aplin on Tuesday appeared to contradict the NES 2024 annual report she previously signed, which detailed a $7 million cut to tree trimming expenses helped generate a 6 percent decrease to operating expenses.
When your enemy is down, that's a really good time to kick him in the head. And right now, the Iranian mullahs are down. Israel took out their air and cyber defense systems. We took out their nuke program. Their economy is collapsing thanks to President Trump's sanctions; there are no more pallets of cash coming with a nice note from Ben Rhodes. The Persian people are rising up. All our forces are finally in place. It's time to kick them in the head.
Let's take these bastards out of the picture for good – and hopefully, as you read this, that's what is happening.We can't let this opportunity slip away.
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues to dismay. Her attendance at the rancidly partisan anti-ICE Grammy Awards on Sunday was a joke. The 55-year-old Biden DEI candidate was nominated for a Grammy for narrating the audiobook of her memoir “Lovely One,” which she unashamedly believes herself to be.
The baseball world is mourning the loss of a player who made history with the Detroit Tigers. Mickey Lolich, remembered as the Tigers’ hero in the 1968 World Series, has died, the Tigers announced. He was 85. Lolich is the last MLB pitcher to win three games in the World Series. He was named World Series MVP that year. The Tigers said Lolich’s wife informed the franchise that Lolich was recently in hospice care. The cause of death was not released.
Hamas terrorist Muhammad Issam Hassan al-Habil, who, according to the Israel Defense Forces, killed 19-year-old surveillance soldier Corporal Noa Marciano while she was held hostage in Gaza, is no longer with us, the IDF reported Wednesday. The Hamas cell commander was eliminated in an airstrike in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, they announced. The IDF alleged that the savagely violent group violated the fragile ceasefire negotiated by the Trump administration, and that this was the consequence.
So long:
California’s already sky-high gas prices are expected to surge after Valero abruptly shuttered its Benicia refinery amid a spiraling “oil crisis,” a new report claims.
The Benicia refinery began shutting down on Saturday, four months earlier than planned, a former Valero manager told the California Globe Tuesday. Thermal imaging showed the facility went cold as the Crimson Pipeline – which transports crude oil from Southern to Northern California – was also taken offline.
“We are in an unprecedented oil crisis,” oil expert Mike Ariza told the publication.
Valero Energy Corp. announced its plans last spring to pull the plug on its 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery by April,
LA Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered Palisades
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report replies
fire analysis to downplay LA’s failures: report replies
Embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass secretly altered the official Palisades Fire response report to downplay the failures made by the city and fire department when the deadly blaze erupted, a new report said.
Bass, after seeing an early draft of the after-action report, wanted key findings of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings scrubbed or watered down — and even warned then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva the unedited conclusions could expose the city to legal liability, sources close to the Democrat’s staff told the Los Angeles Times.
Bass was cautioned that the self-serving tweaks in with the report was a “bad idea” that could torpedo her political career,