Invisible American Lasers Now Destroying Iranian Weapons and Infrastructure

 Ward Clark   

"The Pentagon and the military contractors have been experimenting with laser weapons for some time now. But we are now seeing them used in the field against real targets, and the initial indications are that they are working." 

Video: Golden Dome US Space Force | AiTelly

"Technology is a great force multiplier. We learned that, and our Iraqi opponents learned that, in 1991, in Operation Desert Storm, which was one of the first well-publicized mass uses of smart-weapons. We are still seeing that proved true today, with the use of high-tech weapons against Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and in Iran itself.

Now, in the latest example of Iran's lessons in "you had no idea who you were messing with," American forces are using powerful infrared lasers to target Iranian weapons and equipment. 

The US military has been deploying lasers in the Strait of Hormuz to knock out regime hardware, taking out “drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles,” the Department of War recently confirmed.

The US project to harness laser power has been 50 years in the making and outstrips the capabilities of any other military on Earth.

“We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [i.e. explode] the drone itself,” Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, which works with the military, told The Post.

The best part is the control system.

Somewhat surprisingly, the laser weapons are operated by soldiers using reconfigured Xbox game console controllers.

“The video games industry figured out what the best controller was and now the US military is saying, ‘Well, why reinvent the wheel with a specialized control system where you can just use an Xbox controller or something really similar to do the job?'” . . . More.

 Ward Clark hails from Alaska’s Susitna Valley, where he maintains his rural household in one of America’s last free places. 

UPDATED: ‘Dancing on Her Grave’: Kennedy Slams Sunny Hostin’s Cannibal Killer Boast

  PJ Media 

"And sitting on a jury should be sacred," [Kennedy] continued. "But for her, she didn't seem to care at all, and it's almost as like she's recounting the story with absolute glee." 

Wikisimpsons

"When Sunny Hostin took a victory lap on The View for helping a notorious killer avoid a murder conviction, Kennedy made sure somebody remembered the woman he killed.

"Daniel Rakowitz, the man New York tabloids dubbed "The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park," killed Monika Beerle and cut up her body in a bathtub. He then cooked her remains into a soup, ate some of it, and passed out portions to homeless people in the park.

"Back in the early 1990s, The New York Times reported that a single holdout juror "was principally responsible… for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict." Hostin cheerfully claimed the credit. "That was me," she declared. "And it was because I saw clearly that he was psychotic."

"Then she walked her stunned co-hosts through the killing as if she were pitching a true-crime podcast. "He did not mean to kill her, and once he killed her, he panicked," Hostin said. "He chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime…"

"A man who sets out to commit the perfect crime understands that he committed one. Hostin's own version of events pokes a massive hole in the insanity defense she fought so hard to deliver.

"Hostin’s co-hosts were understandably shocked by the admission, but it was Kennedy on The Five who really went after her." . . .

. . . "That's the point Hostin keeps missing. Monika Beerle was a human being with a real future, and the man who butchered her ended up in a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison cell. She spent nine days in a jury room making sure of that, and more than three decades later, she still wants applause for it. I’m not sure many people see it the way she does. But then again, after the reactions to Lindsay Clancy murdering her three children, who knows?"

But wait! There's  more! Update:  Ruh-Roh: MASSIVE Receipt Shows Sunny Hostin LIED About Being a Holdout Juror... Shocking, We Know   "Earlier this week, Sunny Hostin spent Tuesday on The View treating a 35-year-old cannibal trial like a personal origin story, casting herself as the lone holdout who dragged 11 angry jurors to a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity verdict for Daniel Rakowitz, the so-called Butcher of Tompkins Square Park. 

This sounds like a horrible movie plot from the get-go, yeah? Anywho ...

That version lasted about as long as it took someone to pull the 1991 clips. 

The Daily News from the day after the verdict names Asunción Cummings, before the TV glow-up — as the juror annoyed with the holdout, arguing the defendant knew what he was doing. Other contemporaneous accounts pointed to an unemployed man who liked the $15 a day and the free meals. 

It would appear Asunción Cummings (Hostin) was ANNOYED with the holdout juror ..."

Exclusive | Sunny Hostin's claim that she was lone holdout in NYC cannibalism trial shot down by sources, reports from the time

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey to New Moms: ‘Hi, I’m Here to Help’

"If we’re going to insist that ‘it takes a village,’ let’s agree that the government isn’t that village."

Aubrey Harris  

"Any time the government shows up to our door and offers to help, we should be suspicious. Especially when it comes masquerading as our community."

Uncle Paul's Parodies

 "It takes a village,” I was assured even before my daughter was born. 

A village to provide for a child. A village to help with the child. A village to educate the child. A village to instill morals into the child. For a phrase popularized by Hillary Clinton, nominally hailing from some remote place in the massive continent of Africa (no one is quite sure where), “it takes a village” certainly gets a lot of traction. At this point, saying the words feels akin to invoking some great and intractable rule of the universe.

"It wasn’t just the mom-themed social media posts my algorithm magically figured I needed to see — it was my mom, my sisters, the lovely women who came to my baby shower, and even the grandmas in the grocery-store checkout line. 

"Presumably, most of us say “village” and mean something along the lines of “a community — friends or family — I’ve chosen and would trust with my life.” Statistically speaking, that kind of community is more dream than reality for most young families today. So, because nature abhors a vacuum, something must step into that community’s place.

"Enter Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts. 

"Last week, the governor’s office published a proposal to allocate an additional $2 million to an existing program that sends nurses to mothers’ homes during their postpartum period with the aim of making that program universally available. 

"The program wouldn’t be mandatory, by any means. Anyone who opted in would have a nurse stop by their home to answer questions about basic childcare, screen for postpartum depression and anxiety, and evaluate the home for risk factors like substance and physical abuse. The proposal also suggests allocating an additional $250,000 toward a program dedicated to addressing maternal mental health.

"All of this, of course, comes in the wake of the Lindsay Clancy trial.

"Whether Lindsay Clancy was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she killed her three children or not, the whole incident has led to a veritable storm of internet folk pontificating on the subject of postpartum mental health in the public sphere. Suddenly, we’ve decided postpartum anxiety, depression, and psychosis are national problems amounting to an epidemic caused by our society’s systemic failure to support mothers (a devastating side-effect of the patriarchy, the pink-clad hordes will tell you). (RELATED: Lindsay Clancy, Motherhood, and a Culture That Has Forgotten Sacrifice)

"Surely, the only remedy is yet another government program; specifically, a program that has the government inviting itself into your living room." . . .More.

Aubrey Harris is a graduate of Hillsdale College (2023), the former Intercollegiate Studies Institute fellow at The American Spectator and current columnist. She writes Spectator P.M. Newsletter for American Spectator subscribers where she rambles on current events, historical topics, and life in general. When she isn’t writing, Aubrey enjoys long runs, solving rock climbs, and rattling windows with the 32-foot pipes on the organ

Gavin Newsom Pretends He Governs California, As He Cosplays at the UN Over Climate Change

Jennifer Oliver O'Connell 

"I feel stupider having had to listen to this gasbag of a speech. However, it will be useful as opposition research. The benefit: It is loaded full with fodder for anyone running against Newsom in 2028, with eight years of provably horrible governance and all the receipts to back it up." . . .

"California Governor Gavin Newsom is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly to make fake agreements with world leaders and pontificate about his favorite grift: climate change. 

"Newsom claims he won't run for president in 2028 if former VP and failed 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris chooses to. Yet another hedge by the king of hedges, because while he says one thing out of his mouth, his actions telegraph his true plans. So, what have been Newsom's actions this week? Cosplaying at being presidential while insulting the sitting one, photo ops with fellow communists and world leaders, and signing memorandums of understanding with those who are still all-in on the Green New Scam.

"Thus, climate change and a renewable future comprised much of Newsom's five-minute snooze address before the assembly. Newsom's moments were already filled with maligning President Donald Trump and pontificating about how much smarter California is. His speech continued in that vein of slander and criticism." . . .

. . . "But why let facts get in the way of a good yarn? The most personally offensive part of this yarn: The man who ended the livelihoods of thousands of independent professionals through Assembly Bill 5 claims that California's "entrepreneurial spirit" and "regulatory system" created Elon Musk and Tesla. How much was he smoking when he came up with that one? Particularly since Tesla and Elon Musk are no longer in California, in part thanks to California's regulatory system!"

Remember the "Millennium Scare"? The Kovid Kuarantine with its footstep stickers in stores? Now it's AI

"AI safety and the geopolitical AI race are often discussed as if they were separate issues. They are not." 

China is why America must win the AI race - Dimitris Eleas   . . . "The issue with AI is that you can’t reverse it now or put it back in the box. And the problem is not what American AI companies will do; I believe that when bitter rivals agree on the need for restraint, this will happen. But such responsible restraint cannot be considered in isolation from what China is willing to do. Can the West ignore the rise of China? (A population of 1.4 billion, rare earth minerals of 44 million tons, exports of $3.77 trillion, government debt 94% of GDP, etc.) The Chinese do everything they can to beat America.

The Communist Party governs through a centralized political system capable of directing enormous economic resources toward this new battlefield. Whatever one thinks of that system of directed capitalism, its ambitions in Artificial Intelligence -- or in space, where China has also made major advances -- cannot simply be wished away. " . . .

Dimitris Eleas is a New York City–based political scientist, writer, and independent researcher focused on international relations and political philosophy. His letters have appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

UPDATE: America’s Last Remaining Maskers  

"The mask-mandate-enforcing lesbian bar, the “Afromystic,” and Violet Affleck are all crazed (one of the bar’s original founders even left to go to clown school), but the only real difference between them and our nation’s public health apparatus is that they have just been more stubborn in keeping up their insane demands. Our public health bureaucrats were able to keep America’s schools shuttered for up to two years; these people have kept up the jig for six years." 

PJ Media

What Made AI Researchers Freak Out—The ‘Incident’ In Plain English  

. . . "Human judgment: The hard part is weighing the evidence and gaming out what happens when we react without thinking through the consequences. When politicians stump for regulation, the question is whether they mean American regulation that leaves the U.S. in a worse position if something goes wrong while doing nothing to stop the actual global risk. When someone says we need to protect open-weight AI, the question is how we keep it free and open without giving any bad actor with enough computing power the means to build a superintelligence. And when someone says America simply needs to plow ahead and win the race, the question is what “winning” actually means. Because getting there first could change the balance of power, but getting there at all could be a mistake none of us come back from."

AI, white supremacy, Global warming, global cooling, population explosion, nuclear destruction, Donald Trump; stolen land! Democrats and "Young Skulls full of Mush" seek contempt for what Reagan once called "a shining city on a hill". TD

Abbott orders a halt on all data center permits  

"In June, Abbott ordered state regulators to audit data center companies prior to approving permits to ensure they “pay for their electric infrastructure instead of shifting costs onto Texas families and small businesses, reuse their own water, reduce the cost of electricity for Texans, do not disrupt residential neighborhoods to preserve Texas’ quality of life, and pay their own way and eliminate reliance on outdated taxpayer-funded incentives,” The Center Square reported."

There is no lynching epidemic in the US

Ayanna Presley, Joy Reid, Maxine Waters, Sunny Hostin, Jasmine Crockett, et al: what do these women, all Democrats, want and who chooses them all to speak to America?

 Washington Examiner  

"And there is no spate of “modern-day lynchings.” There are just wildly irresponsible racemongers trying to gin up discord and anger before the midterm elections."

. . . "Fifty-nine Democrats have signed a letter written by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) demanding the Trump administration investigate the “numerous incidents of Black people found hanging across the country.” Pressley maintains it’s a “national crisis” and “we CANNOT stand by while strange fruit hangs from trees across the country. We’re demanding a federal investigation NOW so we can stop modern-day lynchings.”

"One of the signees, possible presidential hopeful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, added that the administration must address these “widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror.”

"Big media joined the fray. The Associated Press notes that Fortune’s death “stirred distressing memories of the grim history of lynching across the U.S. South,” though reporters knew well that the hanging was a criminal act perpetrated by another black American.

"Not only is there no lynching epidemic in the United States, but there likely hasn’t been anything approaching a lynching since James Byrd Jr. was murdered in 1998 in Jasper, Texas, by three white men. Two of his murderers, John King and Lawrence Brewer, were executed, and a third, Shawn Berry, was sentenced to life in prison.

"The last incident of a lynching by hanging was Michael Donald, in March of 1981, 45 years ago, in Mobile, Alabama. Donald had been kidnapped by Ku Klux Klan members, beaten and strangled, and hanged from a tree. All three participants were caught. One of them was executed.

"Pressley’s cynical campaign only belittles the deaths of Donald and Byrd, not to mention the thousands of others who had been victims of lynchings in our past.

"All 10 hanging deaths cited by Pressley have been investigated. Eight of the cases have been ruled suicides by police departments. Of the two remaining incidents, one is still being investigated by a coroner's office, and the other case is still open due to conflicting autopsies." . . .

Journalists cry First Amendment foul over Trump’s press ban while shrugging at government-imposed oversight of CNN and CBS.

The State’s Assault on Press Freedom the Fourth Estate Ignored | The American Spectator

   . . . "What it’s not? Unconstitutional. Trifling? Sure. Spiteful? Yes. Petty? Definitely. It does not amount to a law abridging the freedom of the press. Not every outlet gets a seat in the White House press room. Conservative outlets understand this better than liberal ones who offered no protest when the Biden, Obama, and Clinton administrations avoided interactions with reporters from conservative outlets." . . .

Trump tells CNN 'You should not be here' as White House ban persists | AP News   . . . "In any case, the tense moment was a stark reminder of how dramatically the bitter conflict between Trump and news outlets whose coverage he objects to as “fake news” has escalated in just a few days." . . .

Abdul El-Sayed Called on Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood To 'Purge the Media and Police' Shortly Before Islamic Government Arrested Reporters for 'Insulting Islam'    "Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed demanded in 2012 that the repressive Muslim Brotherhood "purge" media and police in Egypt after the radical Islamic group seized control of the country. A brutal religious crackdown on the press was soon to follow." . . . What say you, CNN and MSNOW?

Fox News Pulls The Plug As Trump’s Media Ban Takes Unexpected Turn  . . . "The presidential television pool consists of five networks — CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Each network takes turns serving as “pool chair,” meaning it provides video coverage of presidential events designated as pool events. The networks share the same video feed to conserve resources while maintaining television coverage to all five outlets.

"On Monday morning, Fox News D.C. Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who currently serves as the rotating chair of the presidential television pool, informed pool members that coverage 

would be suspended, writing in an email: “This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.”

“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place,” Boughton said." . . . 

AF Branco

Give Us a Monopoly or Everyone Dies!

Ann Coulter  

"The fact that a former Anthropic employee, Jacob Coxon, is all over the airwaves claiming AI could “kill us all” suggests that the incumbents are losing the AI arms race and desperately need regulation to slow the growth of emerging competitors."

AF Branco

"Does unregulated AI pose a threat to humanity? Absolutely! But only assuming humanity is defined as “the billionaire owners of AI companies intent on crushing their competition.” [Ed.: I don’t think that’s the definition.]

"You don’t need to be a super-smart AI machine to know that large corporations love government regulation. Compliance is a fixed cost for them, but often an insuperable barrier to new entrants. Regulations allow the incumbents to maintain their market dominance by blocking up-and-coming rivals.

"University of Chicago Economist George Stigler won a Nobel Prize in part for pointing this out 50 years ago. It wasn’t just a theory. Stigler’s argument has been demonstrated over and over again. In fact, it seems so obvious, I’m not sure he even deserved a prize. But people probably think the same thing about gravity, our heliocentric world, or selling books over the internet. Today, those seem obvious, too.

"As Stigler said, regulation is fantastic for oligopolists, and also great for the politicians they buy. It’s only a disaster for consumers. That is precisely why these unwarranted gifts to greedy companies are always preceded by florid scaremongering.

"From 1938 to 1978, existing airlines warned that allowing others to compete with them would cause planes to fall out of the sky. The industry would be under so much pressure to offer low prices, they would sacrifice safety to cost-cutting. In fact, since deregulation, not only is flying a lot cheaper, but fatal plane crashes have declined exponentially.

"Licensed taxi drivers predicted that ride-share companies like Uber would be a “sexual haven for predators.” Getting into an Uber would be like “swimming in a sea full of sharks—one day you are going to get bitten.” They lost, which is why today it’s possible to ride in a car that doesn’t reek of curry and body odor and to end up with a driver capable of finding Grand Central Station.

"At least those demands were direct: Don’t let anyone compete with us. But all regulation imposes costs that are going to be harder for startups to bear." . . . More.

Clancy holdout juror gets doxxed, and subsequently harassed

Olivia Murray - American Thinker

"One of the jurors reportedly identified in the Lindsay Clancy trial is a supporter of Karen Read, the woman acquitted last year in the death of her boyfriend, Boston police Officer John O'Keefe."

"Well, the name of the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial is out there because he had the audacity to buck the “white savior” feminists and form his own opinions (based on evidence) while black. They hate when white men rebuff their politics, but when a black man does it? How dare he—doesn’t he know his place?

"Last week, a Boston NBC outlet figured out who the juror was, and while it didn’t name him specifically, it did publish very personal and private details about his life, running the article under this headline: “Domestic violence allegations raise questions about holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy trial.”

"First of all, the irony is just astounding: The same people vindictively skewering a man who was simply accused of domestic violence want a woman who freely admitted that she strangled her three children to death to go free. That’s the dispute at the center of the doxxing debacle.

"Secondly, though, it was only a matter of time before the internet was able to figure out exactly who he was based on the NBC “investigation.” He’s now being harassed and excoriated across the web, all because he simply showed up to do his civic duty and refused to budge on his conviction: The woman who “viciously killed” her own young children deserves to be convicted for her crimes." . . .

. . . "If your information is available anywhere in electronic form, data brokers and people-search sites compile your name, home address, phone number, and the names of your relatives, then sell the package legally to anyone with a credit card, police departments and private operators included." . . .

Expect to see this woman soon to be before a crowd with a bullhorn. TD 

Forget About Affordability, Dems Plan An Impeachment Bonanza Next Year

Democrats to the murderers in Iran and Hamas: stay strong and resist America under Trump; we're coming to the rescue! TD

Issues & Insights 

"But the pent-up desire among the radicals who control the Democratic Party to exact revenge on Trump and destroy his administration is so all-consuming that affordability will be the last thing on their minds."

"After spending months harping on the nation’s affordability “crisis,” Democrats have recently let slip that their real goal, if they get a majority in Congress, will be to impeach as many Trump administration officials as time allows over the next two years.

"They will market it as “holding the administration accountable,” but the goal is far more sinister – to purposefully cripple the administration, regardless of the danger it poses to the nation.

"In the past few days, articles in the Atlantic and MS NOW – two eminently reliable mouthpieces of the Democratic Party – said the party is considering a raft of impeachments of Trump Cabinet officials, if not Donald Trump himself.

"The latter, they point out, is politically difficult. No matter how much Trump haters would love to see him impeached for a third time, it almost certainly won’t lead to his conviction and removal, and could serve only to reenergize Republicans just before a presidential election. (Rep. Al Green, for one, doesn’t care, and has already introduced another impeachment resolution.)

"But why not go after Cabinet officials? Among those already on the list are War Secretary Pete Hegseth (Republican Rep. Thomas Massie decided to help Democrats on his way out by filing articles of impeachment against Hegseth), Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The left has also been calling to impeach Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for more than a year.

"In other words, Democrats are going to target any Cabinet official who has been effectively defying the left’s policy agenda. And they intend to weaponize impeachment to settle policy differences.

"The thinking is that, at the very least, these impeachments will effectively stop work at those agencies. Or they will lead to the departures of these officials. (Democrats point to the fact that the mere threat of impeachment – which would have gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled House – pushed Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi out of their roles.)

"But if Democrats gain control of the House, which looks likely, they can – and likely will – proceed full bore to start a raft of impeachment proceedings." . . .  More.

Justly sickened by the mass slaughter of a generation, the college generation of England swore not to go to war again for anyone. History records that evil nations took heart at the British position and were emboldened to act as they did. Churchill wrote later that many of these same rebels, when seeing the evil of Naziism became gallant soldiers against Hitler. 

One must only hope today's keffiyeh-clad useful idiots will lose their ignorance before any more babies in Israeli cribs will be burned alive. The Tunnel Dweller.

The Gathering Storm

King and Country debate  "The King and Country debate refers to a contentious session of the Oxford Union Society on 9 February 1933, during which the motion "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country" was proposed, debated, and carried by a majority vote of 275 to 153.[1][2] This event, occurring mere days after Adolf Hitler's appointment as German Chancellor on 30 January 1933, encapsulated the pervasive pacifist sentiments among many British students scarred by the First World War's devastation, yet it ignited fierce backlash for appearing to repudiate national loyalty amid rising European threats.[3][2]

. . . "In Nazi Germany, the outcome of the 1933 Oxford Union debate was exploited in propaganda to depict Britain as decadent and unwilling to defend itself, thereby bolstering perceptions of German superiority and encouraging aggressive policies. A prominent Nazi youth leader referenced the vote in a conversation with British MP Robert Bernays later that year, expressing satisfaction at what he interpreted as evidence of British pacifism and moral decline.[2][22] This usage aligned with broader Nazi efforts to undermine Allied resolve, though direct influence on Adolf Hitler's strategic decisions remains a matter of historical interpretation rather than documented causation.[3]" . . .