LA Mayor Bass is to restoration as Gavin is to bullet trains

"President Trump last week ordered his EPA chief Lee Zeldin to override the L.A. mayor's foot-dragging on reissuing building permits, so fire victims can rebuild. City Hall's ineptitude during the fire was astounding. Mayor Karen Bass deserves credit for returning Malibu to its roots as a Trailer Park."  Argus Hamilton, May 11, 2026

‘Spencer Pratt’s Rhetoric Is Dangerous,’ Warns Karen Bass To The 30 Angelenos Who Haven't Been Stabbed To Death By Hobos | Babylon Bee parody   "LOS ANGELES, CA — Mayor Karen Bass struck back at mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt on Wednesday, warning the surviving Angelenos who hadn't been stabbed to death by a hobo that his rhetoric was dangerous.

"'Spencer Pratt wants to clean up our streets no matter who it hurts, even if it means locking up dangerous stabbing hobos," Bass said to jeers from the crowd. "But not me!"

"Bass went on to explain how Pratt, a former reality TV star, had vowed to "clean up her mess" — a statement she called a literal death threat. "If people start blaming me for the city's problems, they might start stabbing me instead of each other," she said." . . .More...

LA Mayor Promises Full Investigation Into Why She Was Allowed To Become LA Mayor | Babylon Bee again   "LOS ANGELES — In the wake of total devastation brought about by the LA fires, Mayor Karen Bass has promised her constituents she would authorize a full investigation into why she was allowed to become mayor of Los Angeles.

""I have no idea what I'm doing and I need to figure out why people thought I could do it," Bass said in a statement. "This whole thing has really been unfair to me."

"According to new polling data, voters are pointing the finger at each other, assuming that someone else was responsible for voting for Karen Bass. "I didn't vote for her!" said LA resident Jennifer Garner. "Ugh, I bet it was Ben. That guy's the worst."

"Bass previously questioned why any special interest groups would rally around her to become mayor. "This wasn't an idea I had," she recounted. "They came to me and asked me to be mayor. I will not rest until I discover who is responsible for me saying 'yes.'"

"Her office has promised to use every resource at its disposal to find out why she was allowed to become the mayor. The scope of the investigation includes questioning "the elites" about why they chose her and interrogating voters on why they could possibly think she was qualified for the job.

"At publishing time, Karen Bass had reprimanded herself for becoming mayor by suspending herself with pay until such time as the investigation could be concluded."

Los Angeles Voters, The World Is Watching

Issues & Insights   

"The entire California Democratic machine is made of political parasites who should be ridiculed out of public life. Pratt’s takedowns are a good start."

"New York City and Chicago voters made the most injudicious decisions possible electing Zohran Mamdani and Brandon Johnson to be their mayors. Both democratic socialists are inept yet destructive, unserious yet dangerous, demagogues who spew venom and traffic in incendiary divisive rhetoric. Their deranged policies will bankrupt their cities, financially, morally and culturally. Will Los Angeles voters do the same?

Actually, they already have. The question is, will they repeat their mistake and reelect Karen Bass? The current mayor is a Fidelista and a member of the Venceremos Brigade, a Cuban “enterprise that had a goal of encouraging the health and survival of a despotic, evil regime.” She reportedly was the group’s Southern California leader.

Or will voters carry City Council member Nithya Raman, whose “socialism could drag LA” to a “Marxist 19th century” dystopia, into the mayor’s office?

Reality television star and angry Palisades fire victim Spencer Pratt is making a splash as an outsider whose fed-up-with-it rhetoric resonates among many. He’s polling at 22% to Bass’ 30% and Raman’s 19% for the June 2 primary. The fact that Bass and Raman are polling anywhere north of low single digits is not encouraging.

The media, always invested in the most far-left candidates, have done everything they can to make Pratt look like a lightweight fool, but his loud honesty about the real-life trials of living in Los Angeles — the squalid homelessness, a perpetual public safety crisis, incompetent and unaccountable governance, to name a few of the many difficulties — rings truer every time he speaks. Pratt is the rip-sawing candidate the city needs to wake it from a progressive slumber that’s leading to decline.

Even if he doesn’t win, he’s giving California Democrats exactly the rude treatment they deserve. His artificial intelligence-produced videos are appropriately brutal, portraying Bass as a clown, a comic book villain and an incompetent who lists last year’s fires — which took Pratt’s Pacific Palisades home — as one of her accomplishments she’s running on.

Gov. Gavin Newsom also takes his well-earned lashes as an out-of-touch French royal eating cake, as does former vice president and failed (thanks be to God) presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who is presented as a useless lush. The entire California Democratic machine is made of political parasites who should be ridiculed out of public life. Pratt’s takedowns are a good start.

At What Point Do We Stop Tolerating Bernie Sanders [and his politics of envy. TD]?

 How many of Bernie's voters own Hamas scarves such as we saw on the streets after the Oct 7th murders of Israeli families?

The American Spectator  

"I’m sure as hell suggesting he shouldn’t be the ranking member of any committees, and he absolutely shouldn’t be in control of the politics of the Democrat Party, of which he isn’t even a member."

"The old line has it that you get what you tolerate.

   "It’s a good life lesson which isn’t all that often applied to politics — at least, not in polite circles of our politics. We’ve had tolerance preached to us nonstop since we were children, or at least those of us who are Generation X and younger have, and so the idea that you get what you tolerate isn’t supposed to apply.

   "Somehow, it’s a racist or bigoted idea that you can refuse to tolerate the things you don’t want imposed on you. When, for most of us, it’s really just a question of standards.

   "And you should have standards in your life. Standards are important. Upholding them almost always results in things being better.

   "For example, it’s a standard that you shouldn’t have trash lying around in your yard. Or that you wouldn’t put up with crime in your neighborhood. Or that you wouldn’t share a house with a junkie or a child molester. Upholding those kinds of standards is a stance which immediately and consequentially improves your living conditions — or, better yet, keeps them from declining.

   "But we’re told that tolerance is a societal virtue. And perhaps it is, in the right context.

   "For example, a society should be tolerant of people from different ethnicities and demographics; that part is simple neighborliness.

   "Different cultures? Perhaps less so. Experience has shown us that some cultures will meet high standards for cooperation, productivity, and moral rectitude — and others perhaps don’t.

   "Tolerance isn’t a suicide pact, after all.

   "And what experience has also taught us is that tolerance of certain ideologies isn’t a good idea at all.

   "For example, there is an ideology based on the most indefensible of the seven deadly sins — envy, which St. Augustine called “the diabolical sin”; “From envy,” he wrote, “are born hatred, detraction, calumny, joy caused by the misfortune of a neighbor, and displeasure caused by prosperity.” . . .  More...

Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wields far more power than New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But the progressive champions have the hearts of Democratic voters across the country.

Bernie's accomplice: AOC Celebrated Amazon's Pullout; Cuomo Said It Cost 25K Jobs

Uncle Paul's Parodies

Reclaiming The Human Home

 Lars Møller - American Thinker  

"It is to declare, in brick and stone and careful proportion, that we are no longer ashamed of who we are—that we remember the Judeo-Christian roots of our culture and intend to pass them on, not as relics, but as living gifts to the future." 

"Since the slaughter of WWI, Europeans and Americans have waged a relentless campaign against their own civilization. A self-loathing spirit has seeped into every corner of culture, repudiating the Judeo-Christian roots that once gave the West its distinctive shape: the dignity of the person, the sanctity of place, the longing for transcendence. This erasure has been particularly brutal in architecture.

"Modernism, the aesthetic arm of a revolutionary and totalitarian impulse, originally set out to annihilate five thousand years of building tradition. It replaced the classical idiom—streets that invited conversation, façades that whispered continuity, roofs that sheltered memory—with glass-and-steel machines that scream contempt for the very idea of home. However, revolutionary avant-gardists—self-proclaimed “liberators”—were impatient to create a new humanity without special ties and break down the familiar and beloved. Removing the monuments of the past in our cities became for them a matter of sociocultural cleansing—and an ideological imperative.

"Into this wasteland stepped Sir Roger Scruton (1944–2020), the philosopher who taught us that beauty is not a luxury but a necessity of the soul. In works such as The Aesthetics of Architecture (1979) and Beauty (2009), and later as chairman of the UK government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, he insisted that the built environment is never neutral. It either nurtures oikophilia—the love of home—or breeds alienation. Architecture, for Scruton, is the art of settlement. It must be scaled to the human body, rooted in a particular place, and generous enough to welcome generations yet unborn. When it fails these duties, it does not merely look ugly; it wounds the psyche, severs the thread of collective memory, and turns citizens into transients in their own cities.

"At the heart of Scruton’s philosophy lies the conviction that beauty and human scale are inseparable. A building should not dominate or intimidate; it should invite. Streets must be “shared spaces” where people linger, children play, and neighbors recognize one another. Traditional vernacular architecture—knowledge passed quietly from master to apprentice across centuries—embodies this wisdom. It respects proportion, uses local materials that weather gracefully, and frames views that connect the dweller to the landscape and to history." . . . More...

. . . "Only when our streets once more speak of welcome, our roofs shelter memory, and our squares invite gathering will we have begun to heal the wound that modernism inflicted. Only then will we cease to be exiles in the very places that we call home. Roger Scruton showed us the way. It is time—past time—to follow." . . .

We must crush Iran now so it can't come back and spread terror

 Douglas Murray

"A great scholar of the Islamic world, Bernard Lewis, was once asked the main difference between the Islamist and Western mind. He replied that whereas we in the West think in two-year electoral cycles — four years at most — the Islamist mind sees a decade as the very shortest measure of time."I was reminded of that comment this week as a tentative cease-fire went into effect in the Middle East. It is too early to know whether the latest cease-fire will hold. But it is early enough to know that it should not. Not if America is going to achieve any of its objectives in the region.

One of the first stated objectives of this war has been the overthrow of the revolutionary Islamic government in Iran. That objective has not been achieved. It is true that one of the first strikes of this war killed the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But his foul Islamic regime, with its terrorist armies at home and abroad, remains in power. It is still able to terrorize the people of Iran, the region and indeed the world.

"The historic joint US-Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear program has undoubtedly set that program back massively. But it has not completely destroyed it. All parties agree that the regime in Tehran still has stockpiles of enriched uranium.

"And while it looks like the majority of Iran’s stockpiles of ballistic missiles have been decimated, they have not been wiped out entirely." . . .More...

How to Tell If Any Singer Is Lip-Syncing

Slate

True strength speaks softly—Clint Walker proved that the greatest legacy isn't fame, but the quiet dignity of staying decent when no one is watching.

  Humanity - Quora  

"The studio learned what everyone who knew Clint already understood: his principles weren't negotiable."

"At 6'6", he was impossible to miss but it was his habit of thanking the caterers and remembering every crew member's name that made him unforgettable.

"They called him the Quiet Giant, and not because Clint Walker towered over nearly everyone in Hollywood. It was the way he carried that height—with humility, kindness, and a steadiness that made him larger than any screen could contain.

"Before the cameras, before the cowboy hat and the hero roles, Clint was just Norman Walker from Hartford, Illinois—a kid who grew up during the Depression learning that dignity wasn't about what you had, but how you treated people when you had nothing.

"He worked the jobs nobody writes movies about. Merchant marine. Oil fields. Construction sites. Boxcars on the railroad. His hands grew calloused, his back grew strong, and his character grew unshakable. Years later, when fame found him, he'd say: "You learn what matters when you've got blisters instead of headlines."

"Hollywood didn't come looking for Clint Walker. It stumbled into him by accident.

"1954. Las Vegas. Clint was working as a doorman and security guard at the Sands Hotel—just another job, another paycheck. But someone saw him standing there—that frame, that quiet confidence, that presence—and thought: That man belongs on screen.

"Within months, he was screen-testing. Within a year, he was Cheyenne Bodie—the stoic, justice-driven cowboy who'd anchor Warner Bros.' first hour-long Western series, Cheyenne (1955-1962).

"The show became a phenomenon. Clint Walker became a household name, his chiseled features and imposing presence defining what an American hero looked like to millions of viewers every week.

"But something unusual happened: fame didn't change him.

"While other stars demanded private trailers, personal assistants, and deference from everyone on set, Clint Walker showed up early, drove himself to the studio, and helped move equipment if the crew was short-handed.

"He learned every crew member's name—not just the director and producers, but the grips, the sound technicians, the craft services workers. He treated extras with the same respect he showed leading actors. After every meal, he thanked the caterers personally." . . . More...

The Four Horsemen of the new antisemitism

 Victor Davis Hanson   

Yet few of Israel's critics could ever explain exactly what the Jewish state was supposed to do after suffering mass murder in peacetime from an enemy that had abducted more than 240 hostages —to the cheers of most Gazans.

"Few predicted that blaming Israel and the Jews who support it would flare up in the early 21st century —and in America of all places, where there are nearly as many Jews as there are in Israel.

"After all, Israel is the only consensual society in the Middle East. It holds regular elections and maintains tripartite judicial, executive, and legislative checks and balances.

"Free speech is found in the Middle East only in Israel, where religious apostasy, criticism of one's own country, gender equity, and tolerance of gays are guaranteed in marked contrast to all its neighbors.

"It was once common knowledge that Israel had survived the huge numbers of its enemies because its tiny population was better educated, freer, more adept at Western technology, more tolerant of dissent —and because it enjoyed the goodwill and bipartisan support of the United States.

"True, the recent affluence of the Gulf States has presented a thin veneer of Westernism that has fooled many in the new anti-Israel media. But just because Qatar did not censor a celebrity newsman's broadcast from Doha does not mean Qatar is a free society. After all, no Western journalist would dare schedule a broadcast from Qatar with a Qatari who had condemned the regime for its intolerance or announced his religious apostasy from Islam.

"So why and how did millions of Americans begin to express hatred for Israel and, albeit more subtly, the Jews who support it?

"There are four converging fronts in this perfect storm.

"Demography

"First, in demographic terms, the US Muslim population is expanding exponentially, due almost entirely to recent immigration and higher birth rates than the American norm (e.g., 2.5 —8 versus 1.6 —1.7)." . . .More...

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution, a professor of classics emeritus at California State University at Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.

Douglas Murray: The New York Times feeds anti-Jew hatred with a horrific lie   "In a piece that has already been widely debunked, Kristof claimed that Israeli prison guards routinely use rape as a method of torture on Palestinian prisoners. The piece portrayed Israeli prison guards and soldiers as rapists, sadists and akin to Nazi prison camp guards. Perhaps even worse.

"Kristof’s most grotesque claim is based on an anonymous source who is described as a “journalist” from Gaza. According to this source, while being held in an Israeli prison in 2024, the Gazan man was stripped naked, blindfolded and handcuffed. Then “a dog was summoned.” The dog’s handler — who we are helpfully told was speaking Hebrew — then encouraged the dog to “mount him.”

"The “source” goes on to claim that he “tried to dislodge the dog, but it penetrated him.” During this time, the Israeli guards were allegedly taking photos and filming the assault while laughing and “giggling.” . . .

"So here we get to the true question: Why would anyone make such a claim? And why would a purportedly serious newspaper publish it?

"The reasons are several-fold. The first is that the New York Times story landed just a day before an anticipated report on Hamas’ use of sexual violence on October 7, 2023." . . .

Variety Gets Wrecked for Attacking Critics of the 'Diverse' Cast of Nolan's Odyssey

Amy Curtis   

"It's not just a handful of online people, although they're easy targets on which Hollywood can deflect the blame for its failings. Audiences don't want these films because they are not good stories. They're thinly-veiled political messages wearing beloved IPs as a skin suit." 

 

                                 Siraj Hashmi posted: "Once we get this, we’ll call it even."

"Not too long ago, the Left was pulling its hair out over Hollywood casting. They argued that movies, TV shows, and even voice-over gigs had to have casting that was not only diverse but also reflected the characters, too. That is, if a character is gay or trans in the show or movie, the actor had to be gay or trans. A straight actor was no longer acceptable in those roles. In the same vein, only Black voice actors could voice Black characters, etc.

"Hollywood also instituted DEI rules for awards, meaning they didn't care about rewarding creativity, solid filmmaking, or excellent performances anymore. Instead, you would only get awards if your project checked all the right boxes. It's part of why Hollywood has been hemorrhaging cash at the box office and audiences are skipping the movie theatre.

"Director Christopher Nolan, who most recently won the Oscar for 'Oppenheimer,' is releasing an adaptation of Homer's 'The Odyssey' in July. The film has been a focus of controversy because Nolan is using a translation by British-American classicist Emily Wilson, which uses "contemporary language that strips away archaic, patriarchal interpretations of the original text." In short, a feminist-lens retelling of a man's epic journey.

"That's strike one.

"The casting is another problem, the revelation that Lupita Nyong'o would be playing Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra. Helen of Troy, a Greek woman described as having white skin and blonde hair. Suddenly, it seems, representation no longer matters.

"But it's not the fault of the woke casting directors or Hollywood executives that the film is getting backlash. No, that blame lies with the audience for wanting a fair and accurate adaptation." . . .More...

Why many stopped calling them "Democratic", preferring the more soulless "Democrat"

 Why everyone hates the Democrats right now, explained in 3 charts  

"If there’s one thing a large majority of Americans have consistently agreed on this year, it’s that the Democratic Party sucks." . . .

Democrats Spit on Democracy, Midterm Voters Should be Scared

Kamala Harris Dials Up Democrats' Radical Assault on Rules of American Democracy   . . . "I've written often about the mounting radicalism of progressive plans to bulldoze central props of our constitutional order. . . " Then the paywall...

This Podcast Interview Only Reminds Us How Lucky We Are That Trump Beat Kamala Harris   

"Yeah, this is the mother lode of bad ideas. Also, as someone pointed out, this woman lost the popular vote to Donald Trump, so this Electoral College thing is a bit funny. She lost all seven swing states too, with 89 percent of all counties shifting toward the right in the last election. Lady, the nation heard you and rejected your candidacy outright."

They get crazier with every word - Silvio Canto, Jr.  About Jamelle Bouie, late of MSNBC:    . . . "So why is it always about race for Jamelle’s side?  I don’t know, but maybe it’s because they have nothing else to offer except telling black voters that only a black Democrat is capable of representing them.  And worse than that, they want The Supreme Court to guarantee that a black Democrat is going to have a seat in Congress.

"Memo to Jamelle:  You are out of touch with reality.  I guess that’s why I feel optimistic about the November elections, because Jamelle is not the only one saying these weird things on the other side." . . .

They get crazier with every word - American Thinker

A Society Without God Is a Society Without Truth

 The American Spectator  

"There is no better time than the run-up to America’s semiquincentennial — when we will celebrate the assertion of the self-evident truths that birthed the nation — to find Him once again. Frankly, America’s survival for another 250 years depends on it."

AI-generated image, ‘Ten Commandments, American society’ prompt, ChatGPT

"Next Thursday evening, Jews will celebrate the holiday of Shavuot. This holiday, which occurs seven weeks and one day after Passover (hence the name Shavuot, which literally means “weeks”), commemorates perhaps the most transformative event in all of human history: the revelation of the Word of God to the ancient Israelite nation. It was at Mount Sinai, congregated at the base of the smoking and trembling mountain, that God promised the Israelites they would be a “kingdom of princes and a holy nation” if they accepted and maintained fidelity to His covenant. In unison, before they had even received the Ten Commandments, the Israelites responded, “All that the Lord has spoken we shall do!”

"The Divine Revelation at Sinai fundamentally changed the relationship between mankind and truth. Before Sinai, mankind had understood truth as inherently subjective, subject to the ever-changing whims of the volatile gods. Now, after Sinai, there could be no such moral confusion. The one, true God — He who had created the universe and fashioned mankind in His image — had revealed His Will. Moral relativism and idolatry were now out. Moral objectivity and monotheism were now in. For the first time, there was a fixed barometer by which to judge man’s moral conduct, devise laws and political institutions, and live one’s day-to-day life more generally.

"Because of the breadth and depth of its impact and lasting influence, the Divine Revelation at Sinai was the logical starting point for what we now call Western civilization. Writing thousands of years later at another inflection point in human history, Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 31: “In disquisitions of every kind, there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasonings must depend.” In the United States specifically, and in Western civilization more generally, it was long obvious what those “primary truths” and “first principles” actually meant: the Word of God Himself. Such a properly anchored and oriented society is uniquely suited to improve mankind’s lot and advance human flourishing.

"Crucially, only such a properly anchored society can claim to comprehend the truth — let alone assert that certain truths are “self-evident,” as we recall every Independence Day. Because when God falls by the wayside, truth does as well. Recent events underscore the point.

"In a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month, Gregory Conti, a politics professor at perennially top-ranked Princeton University, lamented: “Several years ago, one of my colleagues at Princeton University hosted a lecture on religion and free speech. The talk didn’t seem to be landing with the students. Finally, he realized why: The speaker had made repeated reference to the Ten Commandments, and several students didn’t know what they were.” Conti noted that Princeton students are often smart and driven, but they lack basic religious literacy — even the difference between the Old and New Testaments. In short, many of America’s future leaders do not even recognize the “primary truths” and “first principles” upon which our civilization rests." . . .More...

Pete Hegseth rights a grave injustice

"The military’s COVID vaccine mandate was a national security disaster, and Hegseth is finally correcting a historic policy failure."

 Don Brown - American Thinker  

"These were highly trained pilots, Marines, sailors, and soldiers — the backbone of our force — developing heart inflammation after taking a shot the government swore was harmless."

"Pete Hegseth just did what too many in Washington have refused to do for years: he launched a dedicated Pentagon task force to deliver full backpay and benefits to the thousands of U.S. service members discharged for refusing the experimental COVID-19 vaccine — and to fast-track reinstatement for those who still want to serve.

"This is long-overdue justice. And it’s about time.

"Biden foolishly turned the U.S. military into a big guinea pig cage to experiment with a largely untested “vaccine” in support of the governmental-pharmaceutical complex, and to further pad the profits of Big Pharma at the height of the COVID era. The whole jab scam became a game of Russian Roulette for Big Pharma profits, with our service members looking down a political gun barrel, not knowing which chamber was loaded.

"This COVID jab scam marked one of many internal attacks launched by the Democrats to threaten or destroy combat readiness, from its obsessive forcing DEI down the throats of the troops, to witch hunts looking for imaginary “white nationalists” in the ranks, to ramming men wearing panty hose and high heels into combat units and then advertising these individuals in sick, perverted recruiting posters and commercials.

"Let’s be blunt. The average active-duty service member is in their 20s or early 30s — the demographic least threatened by COVID-19. Yet the government, in lockstep with the pharmaceutical industry, pushed the mantra of “safe and effective” with religious fervor. It was a lie.

"We now know what the FDA itself has finally admitted: the mRNA shots carry a documented risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, especially in young males. A 2021 JAMA Cardiology study documented 23 cases of myocarditis in military personnel shortly after vaccination — far higher than expected rates. Pentagon data later showed the incidence was roughly 2.6 times higher in the weeks following vaccination." . . . More...