"With the state staring down a budget deficit in the billions and more Californians switching to electric vehicles, Democratic lawmakers are searching for new ways to shore up declining gas tax revenue.
"Californians paythe second-highest gas price in the nationbehind only Hawaii. In January, the average price was $4.23 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.
"On Thursday, state legislators advanced Democrat Lori Wilson’s bill, AB 1421, which would direct the California Transportation Commission and the state Transportation Agency to continue studying options for a mileage-based tax, rather than implementing one.
"Opponents of the proposal were out in force Saturday, with activists gathering at Cal Expo in Sacramento to collect signatures opposing a raft of new Democratic tax measures, including a potential mileage charge." . . .
I haven't checked yet. Did Joy Reid call the movie racist?
"Our lying, garbage media pulled out all the stops and once again whored out their credibility, hoping that a ‘failure narrative’ would become self-fulfilling." John Nolte of Breitbart
"In all honesty, it’s a sight as beautiful as the morning sunrise. A joyous display to behold. Just like a morning sunrise scramble with extra cheese and home fries. Or a tasty hollandaise on an eggs Bennie. They thought a documentary on Melania Trump would fail. After all, she is the wife of the most hated orange Voldemort of the century. No daytime talk shows want to give her a platform. And no fashion designers are drooling at the chance to use her as a clothing hanger for one of their fugly designs.
"Admittedly, in the fashion department, Melania smokes all of them. She does a much better job herself and with her chosen stylists.
"To start off the weekend of Melania shade, Owen Gleiberman of Variety called Melania a “cheeseball infomercial of staggering inertia”: . . . More...
"Over and over, Trump supporters were taunted by the corporate media about empty theaters, an imminent box office humiliation, and zero advance ticket sales.
"Well, reality has once again debunked these serial liars.
"The far-left Deadline reports that Melania will close the weekend box office in third place with an $8 million opening, a “result that would mark the best start for a docu in the last decade.”
EntTelligence showed Melania presales overindexing in rural areas with populations under 500,000. Again, license fees plus marketing on this pic equals $75M, but Amazon can afford it, even though those figures don’t make sense for a traditional motion picture studio’s P&L. Are MAGA groups driving sales? Maybe, but that will be sussed out as the weekend goes on. Know this: This isn’t an Angel Studios release fueled by some semblance of fan sales or an Amazon Prime super-ticket." . . .
"The film pulled in $7 million domestically over the weekend, making Melania the highest-selling non-music documentary in more than a decade, according to media reports.
"The documentary was filmed during the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025. Amazon reportedly acquired the project for $40 million. " . . .
"COLTS NECK, NJ — After putting out a new song titled “Streets of Minneapolis” as a show of support for anti-ICE protesters, musician Bruce Springsteen issued a statement threatening to keep releasing songs until deportations were stopped.
The news quickly spread across the country, with frightened Americans buying up canned goods and preparing to take shelter due to Springsteen’s threat to continue putting out new music unless the trump administration ended all ICE operations.
“I can do this every day, and nobody wants that,” Springsteen said in a video posted online. “If you want to prevent me from releasing any more songs, it’s very simple. Just stop arresting and deporting illegal alien criminals. Let them all stay and keep assaulting, raping, and murdering people, and I’ll hold off.”
Springsteen’s tone took a far more terrifying turn, however.
“If Trump and his group of fascists insist on upholding the laws of the United States and protecting the American people, I’ll just keep going,” he said. “I’ll do a ‘Streets of…’ song for every city in this country. None of you will be safe until Trump agrees to stop keeping you safe.”
The new song, which decries the enforcement of laws and serves as a rallying cry for violent migrant criminals everywhere, was only the tip of the iceberg, Springsteen said. “Believe me, no human being wants to hear what I’m capable of. Mark my words. Stop the deportations… or else.”
Go here to read the rest. Elon, please! Isn’t there a Mars shot we could put him on?"
. . . "Under the mayor’s plan, if a federal immigration enforcement operation is underway in the city, officers will be sent to the location to document the activity “with in-car and body-worn video, verify the identification of apparent federal agents, and secure scenes of potentially unlawful acts to gather evidence for prosecutors,” KOMO News reported." . . .
"Imagine if anyone you ever passed in the street and looked at funny could one day throw the switch that wrecked your life. Because that’s basically all you’d have to do to get doxxed.
"Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling got doxxed for something she said onTwitter.4
"Pro-Palestinian students have gotten doxxed for theirviews.5
"A few years ago, a kid in California even got doxxed for posting Instagram footage of a few shoplifters who presumably didn’t appreciate the publicity and took their petty revenge thisway."6
"The average doxxing victim, in other words, is anybody who does anything to irritate someone else. Which makes escaping doxxers nearly impossible unless you never say or do anything in public again."
FYI:Once doxxers have your info, they have to offload it. They typically use the dark web or anonymous forums and hate sites like 4Chan for this. They may also post yourpersonally identifiable information(PII) on social media platforms like Facebook, Telegram, or Discord, tagging your family and friends to amplify exposure. . . .
"How To Prevent Doxing"A page full of info on the subject. Some links are advertisements to security sites but their information is wise and useful. However, the Tunnel Wall makes no recommendation as to which security you should choose. TD
"So, here’s to remembering Claudia Cardinale — and also Olivia Hussey and the other notable names in film that Turner Classic Movies beautifully helps us remember each year."
"I’ve long been a huge fan of Turner Classic Movies. The two primary hosts since the channel’s inception about 30 years ago have been the late film historian Robert Osborne and his successor, Ben Mankiewicz. Both have been perfect choices. In recent years, the channel has added secondary hosts, including the splendid Alicia Malone and Dave Karger, both consummate professionals.
"I appreciate TCM’s fairness and largely commendable job of not cowering to political correctness, wokeism, and cancel culture, and generally resisting the winds of the zeitgeist. Though I suspect the managers are largely liberal, and I know that Mankiewicz hails from a Democrat family (his father Frank was the excellent press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy), they’ve remained impressively non-partisan and have avoided the culture war. Exceptions include their series for the fall 2024 political season, which they slanted with left-wingers, even absurdly bringing in Stacey Abrams. They showed their cards there. I must also note that my family blocks the channel during Pride Month. On one occasion, my youngest clicked on TCM and witnessed something sexually graphic and very inappropriate. (I guess porn isn’t considered porn if it celebrates the “L” in LGBTQ.)But overall, the work done by TCM is rather remarkable and, best of all, commercial-free. For most of the year, TCM is superb.
"Among the examples of that is a touching compilation done annually by TCM at year’s end, which I catch while watching the wonderful offering of Christmas films. It’s called “TCM Remembers.” It typically runs about five minutes long, packing in names and faces of actors/actresses who died over the previous year, showing them at their best, oftentimes in iconic images (think of, say, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s). More recently, the network started including not just those known for acting but editors, producers, composers, cinematographers, costume designers, even cartoonists and stuntmen and makeup artists.
Blocks away, the sidewalks outside the lefty mayor’s digs on East 88th Street are squeaky clean.
"Zohran Mamdani has only been the Mayor of New York City for a month, and on his watch, at least a dozen homeless people have died in the freezing cold after Mamdani implemented a policy prohibiting the clearing of homeless encampments and forced sheltering. Now trash is piling up in the city, . . . Meanwhile, Mamdani is bragging that things have never been better in the Big Apple." . .
"Well, it looks like the honeymoon was a short one.
"People are already mad.
His neighbors on the Upper East Side are spitting mad about the failure to clear the snow and the garbage. And if the UES is bad, you know that other areas have to be bad too.
"Actor Michael Rapaport documented some of the mess and wasn't shy about expressing himself . . .
"But it's pretty funny that it's not even a full month, and even alleged supporters are expressing remorse." Can we say we told you [that] you were going to have issues?"
Joe Rogan rips Colbert for stoking 'mass psychosis' with vaccine song ... Shields then mentioned a June 2021 skit on Colbert’s “Late Show” featuring “The Vax-Scene,” a dance troupe dressed as vaccine syringes. "The vax thing, you’re like oh my God this is so hard to watch!” Shields said.
"In superhero lore, the good guys wear masks to protect their families from the reprisals of vengeful, lawless evildoers. And, in the real world, ICE and Border Patrol agents wear masks for the exact same reason.
"Because the sad truth is, there’s an unknown number of extremists who’ll commit murder for ideological gain: they walk amongst us every day.
"And that’s dangerous, because the venomous vitriol against ICE and Border Patrol agents is unparalleled in modern history. Network comedians are literally cracking jokes where the punchline is that ICE agents are even worse than Nazis:
"Remember the quaint, lowkey era of 2024, when Donald Trump was “literally Hitler”? We used to hear it all the time. Ah, those were the days.
We’ve now reached the point where the Trump administration is WORSE than Hitler!
"Which, of course, is a fair and reasonable comparison: Adolf Hitler killed 11 million people in the Holocaust and plunged the world into the bloodiest, deadliest war in history, and Donald Trump’s border control agents arrested sex offenders in Minneapolis.
"Just like looking in a mirror, isn’t it?
"Given this hyper-polarized backdrop, you could understand why ICE and Border Patrol agents would prefer to keep their identities — and their families' last names — out of the public domain.
"But we also know that our legal system demands certain disclosures in court documents, and eventually, a media outlet would reveal their names to the entire world. It was just a question of when.
"If we care about social stability and the well-being of the next generation, we need to change course. We must stop rewarding moral outrage—especially when it means support for violence."
"When we talk about political violence, we almost always assume that its perpetrators are young men. That makes sense: men are statistically more likely to engage in physical aggressionand getarrested for violent crimesat higher rates. At the same time, many are dealing withrising unemployment, decliningeducational achievement, and growingsocial disengagement. Given all that, researchers may reasonably assume that young men are driving greater tolerance for political violence.
"New data complicate that assumption. A recentsurveyby the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers found that under certain conditions, women were more likely than men to express support for political violence. The findings were so counter to the prevailing narrative that they surprised even the researchers.
"It makes sense, though, when you start to recognize where these women’s impulses come from. The rise of what I call “punitive femininity” is downstream of the toxic political culture online, a culture that is transforming the sex long viewed as more restrained and less prone to violence.
"To investigate toleration of political violence, NCRI use data from a survey of 1,055 respondents, weighted to be representative across sex, age, race/ethnicity, and education. The survey asked participants whether they sawany justificationfor the targeted murder of President Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. It recorded responses on a seven-point scale ranging from zero (“completely unjustified”) to six (“highly justified”).
"Among left-of-center respondents, 67 percent expressed at least some justification for the murder of Trump, an 11-point increase over NCRI’searlier 2025 study. Fifty-four percent of right-of-center respondents expressed some degree of justification for murdering Mamdani.
"Strikingly, justification for killing Trump and justification for killing Mamdani were strongly correlated. This implies that support for political murder is not merely partisan but reflects a generalized tolerance for political violence." . . . More...
"Leavitt argued that current violent crime trends are due to left-wing justice policies that affect cities no matter if they are in a Republican or Democrat state, pointing to Jackson, Mississippi, and Birmingham, Alabama, as examples."
. . . " "Trump’s announcement outlined specific parameters for federal involvement in local protests. Federal forces will guard federal buildings but will not assist with state or local property protection unless requested. The president warned against attacks on federal officers or property, stating violators “will suffer an equal, or more, consequence.”
"The president emphasized that federal assistance would only be provided if local governments “use the word, ‘PLEASE,'” and warned that ICE, Border Patrol, or military forces would be “extremely powerful and tough” in protecting federal property. He referenced an incident in Eugene, Oregon, where “criminals broke into a Federal Building” while “Local Police did nothing.'” . . .
"A leading left-leaning think tank is urging more spending on police, the latest sign that many Democrats want to shake the “defund the police” label and strike a tougher tone on crime, even as they condemn President Donald Trump’s aggressive use of federal law enforcement.
“'Voters barely believe Democrats even care about fighting crime or respect police,” according to a slide presentation prepared by a sister group for the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank that has long served as a political and policy workshop for leading Democrats." . . . More at The Washington Post . . .
About half of U.S. adults (51%) say some immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported, compared with 32% who say all should be deported. Some 16% say none should be deported." . . .
" If successful, Cole’s lawsuit could get hospitals out of this business STAT. Board of education elections could throw the Church of LGBT out of the classroom."
"Late Friday night, Benjamin Ryan tweeted, “1st Detransitioner to Take a Medical-Malpractice Lawsuit to Trial Wins $2 Million Judgment.
" 'Fox Varian sued her Westchester, NY, area psychologist and plastic surgeon for the gender-transition mastectomy she got at 16.”
"An independent, he was one of only two reporters to cover the trial because the Westchester courthouse is 20 miles from Manhattan. It would take a whole 45 minutes to drive there. The verdict made me smile because I predicted this back when I was still blogging.
"A cow can’t sue the butcher shop, but a woman can sue her butchers. Two women in separate suits are suing doctors who sliced and diced them in the name of transgendering.
"The first case was reported by Just the News, which said, “A young woman who regretted her gender transition helped shut down the U.K.’s central provider of pediatric ‘gender affirming care’ this summer through litigation that prompted more scrutiny of the National Health Service-run Tavistock clinic.
" 'An older American detransitioner is following Keira Bell’s lead, suing mental health professionals for allegedly rushed, sloppy and categorically false evaluations that authorized her for a taxpayer-funded double mastectomy despite the red flags she presented on mental health.
" 'Though she’s not a minor, Camille Kiefel’s lawsuit could make providers think twice about treating gender dysphoria in youth with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, as well as surgical removal of healthy breasts and genitals for all ages." . . . More
"In other words, the scientists behind the Doomsday Clock got it exactly wrong. Appeasement made the world less safe, and Reagan’s anti-communist policies made it safer than it’s ever been since the Atomic Age began."
"The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock,” which is supposed to be an expert assessment of how close the world is to a nuclear holocaust, ticked down to 85 seconds to midnight this week.
"Are you scared? You shouldn’t be. The clock has proved to be a terrible measure of doomsday, but a near-perfect measure of the left’s grip on power, reliably moving away from midnight when Democrats are in the White House, and closer to Armageddon during Republican administrations.
"First, look at the reasons behind why it ticked closer to midnight this year.
"One of those listed was the bombing of Iran’s nuclear weapons sites last year. So, according to these “experts,” crippling a radical Islamic regime’s ability to build a nuclear bomb is making the world less safe?
"Then there’s the fact that the bulletin includes “climate change” as an indicator of annihilation. What does a supposedly warming planet have to do with launching nuclear bombs? And why does it matter if the Trump administration “stripped back” (to use the New York Times’ words) public health infrastructure?
"This year, the “experts” include “another frightening development: the rise of nationalistic autocracies in countries around the world.” They don’t say what countries they are referring to, but given the primal screams from the left, we’re sure this is meant to suggest that the U.S. is now under a “nationalistic autocracy.”
"Want more evidence that the Doomsday Clock is just a leftist propaganda tool? Look at how the clock has changed over the past decades." . . . More...
"BEIJING - Pairs Figure Skating, a staple of the Winter Olympics ever since its inception, is angering dozens of people around the world with its bigoted implication that there are only two genders.
"I can't believe they're forcing this sort of backward garbage on China, the most progressive country on earth!" said NBC Sports Reporter Fajik Perkins. "Pairs Figure Skating perpetuates the outdated myth that gender is binary. I'm literally shaking right now."
"Gender experts say there are over 358 genders and counting, and people of non-traditional genders are demanding answers." . . . More...
