Tuesday Links - 1 September

Meg Storm at Megyn Kelly is first with What We Know About 3 Secret Service Officials Put on Leave Amid Investigation into ‘Potential Misconduct’

Three employees in the U.S. Secret Service communications office were reportedly escorted from the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters Monday amid an investigation into the possible disclosure of classified or sensitive information to the press.

Miguel Gonzalez - Castrated Brits.

I have nothing to say that denigrates more what passes for pride in the soon-to-be the Caliphate of Al-Britannia as they are doing a wonderful job themselves.

The Other McCain - How You Got Hasan Piker: It Started With Cowardice in the Public School System

What a Gordian knot of misunderstanding! What Piker is sharing here is not, however, a fringe extremist belief, but rather what has become a mainstream view of American history. We hear similar things said by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Again from Miguel Gonzalez - The Only Ones & Mag Dumps.

Now imagine if a civilian like us does mag dumps with that same carelessness. We would be brought up in charges and crucified in effigy everywhere.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 29 August 2026: Terry Thomas Chocolate Clockwork Orange Edition

China is secretly fueling America's datacenter rage. (Axios)

The guys pushing for all the datacenters are making it easy for them, though.

William Teach at Pirate's Cove - Bummer: Democrats Aren’t Talking About Global Sizzling

See? Trump Derangement Syndrome is more important to them than ‘climate change’.

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog - Turkey: We Put Out A Warrant For Netanyahu’s Arrest. Israel: Enjoy Greece Having Our Cutting Edge Weapons.

The conflict between Greeks and Turks is much, much older than the Turkish state itself, stretching back not only to the early days of the Ottoman Empire, but to the Byzantine Empire (more Hellenic than Roman, especially at its height), which controlled almost all of the land occupied by modern Turkey.

Wombat-socho - FMJRA 2.0: Embracing The Suck

Not a good week for Senators fans. First we get swept by the Angels in a two-game set at RFK, then it was back on the road to New York, where we lost two out of three to the Hated Yankees.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds - Goodbye, Dolly.

Helen and I made a pilgrimage to the memorial for St. Dolly of Sevierville, by which I mean the ad hoc demonstration of love in front of the Dolly Parton statue at the Sevier County Courthouse.

Again from Wombat-socho - Rule 5 Sunday: More Coffee, Please

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane - The Word Cloud Gap

I thought it would be interesting to have students in my Sociology of Guns seminar complete the Let’s Talk Guns project and compare their responses to the others I have collected.

Paul Vallas at Chicago Contrarian - Chicago’s Ongoing Budget Circus

With neither the will nor expertise to address the spending side of the city’s financial crisis, Mayor Johnson resorts to blaming his critics in the City Council

Most People Call this Breaking and Entering

Professional Journalists™ (so called) don't like to disparage "teens." The Left will count this as a "teen, tragically shot," even if it is ruled to be justified self-defense. Oh, and he was a legal adult. Deputies: Teen shot and killed after entering someone else's home early Sunday - WYFF

Based on preliminary interviews and evidence gathered at the scene, investigators determined that the deceased individual had entered the residence during the early morning hours. The homeowner encountered the individual inside the residence and fired a weapon, striking the individual, who the Coroner's Office identified as 19-year-old Xavier Felix Rivera-Goucher from Campobello.

That he was 19-years-old does technically qualify as his being a teenager, but it also means he was a legal adult.

So how would you respond to a legal adult, who you don't know, in your home during "early morning hours?"

Chesnee, South Carolina, is about 55 miles west-southwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, or about 170 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia.

At this time, no charges have been filed. The investigation remains active.

Self-defense is a human right.

NYC Democratic Socialist Leaders Living Capitalist Dream

From the New York Post we get a completely predictable story of hypocrisy. DSA leader sold luxe NYC triplex for nearly $2.5 million, used profits to buy pad in Brooklyn

Limousine liberals. Nepo Babies. Hypocrites.

Two NYC Democratic Socialists of America leaders have been caught living the ultimate capitalist dream, with one quietly collecting millions in real estate flips and another nesting in a sleek $500,000 Brooklyn apartment, The Post has learned.

The two are Labor Coordinator Olivia Gonzalez Killingsworth and DSA Steering Committee chair Julie Swoope. Swoope has a half-million-dollar pad in Brooklyn. Gonzalez Killingsworth sold an Upper West triplex for $2.4 million back in 2022.

Not exactly the proletariat.

Hat tip to Clayton Cramer: This Brings Back Memories

I was taking first semester American History at Sonoma State University. Another student asked a question that degenerated into an anti-capitalist diatribe. At the break, I approached him: "Is your Dad a banker or a CEO?"

"Banker. How did you know?"

Police Response to Antifa Terror Attack on Texas ICE Facility

The Other McCain has an interesting review of the entire incident and its aftermath. Police Bodycam Video Shows Response to Antifa Terror Attack on Texas ICE Facility

Why did I begin this post by talking about the red van that officers stopped near the Prairieland shooting? Because when these Antifa terrorists were sentenced to decades in federal prison — including 100 years for Benjamin Song — their defenders insisted that they were merely “protesters” exercising their First Amendment rights.

Except of course that violence directed at government agencies is not a first amendment guarantee.

It would have taken at least 45 minutes of driving to get to the scene of their “protest,” and that van was packed with weapons, yet the Antifa comrades didn’t have the faintest clue that Song was planning to shoot up the place? God knows what might have happened had it not been for Lt. Gross’s excellent marksmanship, firing a shot that disabled Song’s rifle.

Click thru.

The Lanterns Show Is Typical Woke Slop

From Marvin Montanaro at Geeks + Gamers, we get the update. REVIEW: Lanterns Episode 3 is a Race-Baiting Betrayal of Green Lantern Lore—Possibly the Worst Thing DC Has Ever Produced

The article contains spoilers, in case anyone is worried about watching this drek.

Lanterns Episode 3 “OutKast” replaces willpower with a nonsensical fear test, turns John Stewart’s childhood into an abusive social experiment, and rewrites Green Lantern mythology around one of the ugliest racial messages ever forced into a superhero adaptation.

Marvin M. is a reviewer/editor at That Park Place and Geeks + Gamers. I like his take on pop culture.

I don't think we have viewer numbers that anyone trusts yet. Nielsen takes several weeks. There is probably some data available, but I'm not interested enough to go looking.

More proof that Hollywood hates heros in general, superheros in particular, and want nothing more than to pull the genre down into the dirt. Well, that, and the fact that most of them can't write worth a damn.

Monochrome

I'm never sure how I feel about BABYMETAL. They are a Kawaii Metal band. Kawaii Metal is sort of a mixture of J-Pop and Metal. It has everything that makes it good on a Monday Afternoon.

Here is a link to the lyrics translation. Click on "Romanization" under "original lyrics" for a more useful experience.

This is "Monochrome" by BABYMETAL. It was released as a single in late 2022 from their early 2023 album The Other One.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Georgia

But then I thought it was. Judge dismisses charges in Decatur Library shooting, rules shooter acted in self-defense - On Common Ground News - 24/7 local news

DeKalb County Superior Court Chief Judge Shondeana C. Morris ruled that Medicus Brown, 44, acted in self-defense in the shooting that took place on Feb. 2 at the Decatur Library, loThe Decatur Library, located at 215 Sycamore St. in downtown Decatur.

The 5 p.m. shooting at DeKalb County’s main library branch sent shockwaves through the community and prompted the temporary closure of the library as officials assessed the incident.

Decatur, Georgia is about a 5 mile drive east-northeast of downtown Atlanta.

Details of the case seem to indicate that this charge should never have been brought. There were 5 witnesses called in the hearing, and they all agreed on what was going on.

The librarian, library security guard and the library patron testified that the victim had Brown in a chokehold just prior to the shooting. They also testified that Brown appeared to be in imminent danger of receiving a serious injury or death.

So why did the grand jury bring charges? Because Prosecutors hate self-defense, and they control everything a grand jury sees about a case.

The DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said it does not plan to appeal the ruling or seek additional charges in connection with the shooting.

Translation: One loss is enough.

UN Employees Took Part in Terror Attack

I usually call them the Useless Nitwits, but that is not severe enough for this. USAID report finds more than 100 UNRWA employees participated in Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7

The United States' Agency for International Development's Inspector General's office announced Wednesday that it has referred more than 100 current or former employees of a United Nations relief agency to the State Department over their participation in the October 7 terror attacks in Israel.

The referrals include three people they suggested be debarred by the department, including a former United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees school teacher and Hamas operative who allegedly received and held civilian hostages beginning on October 7, 2023.

Trump and DOGE did shut down USAID, but the administration held on to all the records. In March 14 UNRWA employees were linked to Hamas in some way.

Hat tip to The Geller Report: Trump Bombshell: More Than 100 UN Terror Employees Referred for Taking Part in Hamas’ October 7 Atrocities

The UN is an arm of the global jihad.

And we need to stop funding it.

Americans Are Turning Their Backs on Gun Control

From Shooting News Weekly we get the details. Hoplophobe's Hell: More Americans Are Rejecting Gun Control

There’s more good news for the people who still believe that God, guns, and guts made America great. Rasmussen reports forty-eight percent of likely voters said America needed stricter gun laws. Two years earlier it had been fifty-one.

The decline wasn’t a landslide, but represents a consistent trend downward for America’s gun control industry.

The Rasmussen report is behind a "pay wall." I'm not sure that you have to pay, but you do have to sign up and provide an email address.

So, why the change?

Twenty-nine states now have constitutional carry. A law-abiding adult can carry a handgun without begging for a government permission slip. The constantly predicted bloodbaths from the shrieking harpies at Brady, Giffords and Everytown never happened. In any of these states. It never does.

People kept going to work, to church, to Friday-night football. The sky didn’t fall. There weren’t shoot-outs over parking places. The only thing that fell was violent crime rates, nationwide. The FBI’s 2025 report put the murder rate at 4.1 per 100,000—tied with 1955 and 1956, a seventy-year low.

Click thru.

Update on The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

From The Silicon Graybeard It's hard not to talk about the NGRST launch

So the telescope launched successfully on Sunday.

I started this off saying that it's easy to get used to how smoothly and flawlessly these missions are tending to go these days. That's leaving out that part of that "smoothly and flawlessly" is things like landing the boosters back on the Cape, and that has been at industrial scale for only a few years. It's so easy to take success like that for granted.

There are some highlights from SpaceX below. The entire SpaceX video (just shy of 2 hours) is at this link.

Falcon Heavy launches @NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from pad 39A in Florida, beginning its more than three-month journey to its destination where it will generate never-before-seen photos of the universe pic.twitter.com/L3gHrBiQ08

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 30, 2026

Falcon Heavy's two side boosters land at LZ-2 and LZ-40 pic.twitter.com/j4XAR6rGZq

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 31, 2026

A Miles Davis Musical Interlude Courtesy of Miguel Gonzalez

Miguel Gonzalez has a musical interlude every Sunday. Sunday Repose.

Click thru for a song I have not heard in a long time, "All Blues" by Miles Davis from the 1959 album Kind of Blue. There was a time I listened to lot of 1950s and '60s jazz in general, and Miles Davis was a lot of that. I'm not sure why I drifted away from it.

You should be reading Miguel Gonzalez Substack, and not just for the music. Which is usually very good.

Self-Defense Is Legal in Florida

University Professors hate that. Judge dismisses murder charge in DJ Shy Guy killing under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law

First the case in question.

A judge has dismissed the second-degree murder charge against a man who admitted shooting and killing Tampa DJ Dedrick Sykes during a traffic confrontation in Ybor City.

The judge ruled Joel Moreno Cobo acted in self-defense under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law when he shot Sykes, known professionally as DJ Shy Guy, in November 2025.

Ybor City is a neighborhood in Tampa, Florida.

As for the university professor...

Elizabeth Berenguer, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who has written several scholarly articles about Stand Your Ground, said the phrase describes multiple interconnected Florida laws.

The most familiar part eliminates the duty to retreat. A person who is somewhere they have a legal right to be does not have to try to escape before using force in response to a perceived threat.

While I have not looked at Florida, in general the Duty to Retreat was invented by the courts. No legislature ever passed such a law. (See below.)

Stetson University is in DeLand, Florida, which is in the Deltona–Daytona Beach–Ormond Beach metropolitan area, on the Atlantic coast of Florida. Deland, Florida, is about a 40 mile drive north of Orlando.

As for The Duty to Retreat: Consider the case Runyan v. State, Indiana Supreme Court May of 1877

Indeed, the tendency of the American mind seems to be very strongly against the enforcement of any rule which requires a person to flee when assailed, to avoid chastisement or even to save human life, and that tendency is well illustrated by the recent decisions of our courts, bearing on the general subject of the right of self-defence.

It seems like the Left is gearing up for a fight on Stand Your Ground. I've seen a few stories like this in the recent past.

Stupid Criminal Brags About Crime Online

Confession. Signed, sealed, and insane. VIDEO: WOMAN ROBS GAS STATION, SHOOTS EMPLOYEE, AND THEN BRAGS ABOUT IT | CHARLOTTE ALERTS NEWS

Shantay O’Donnell, 46, robbed a gas station in Howard County, Maryland in April 2026, video shows. Shantay then made a video bragging about the robbery and told the world about her plans to rob a Starbucks and burn the DSS building.

Howard County, Maryland, is about 5 miles southwest of Baltimore, and about 15 miles northeast of Washington, DC.

She also mentioned that she robbed a Starbucks of $40. (Doesn't she know that the Starbucks' customers are beyond cash?)

Apparently she didn't think cops looked at the internet.

Shantay was later arrested charged with robbery and attempted murder.

If this was Chicago, or NYC, she would probably be back out on the street in less time than it takes to do the paperwork. I have no idea how Howard County handles such things, but it is in a blue state...

Echo Chamberlain on the Death of Star Trek

It didn't die of natural causes. They Killed Star Trek - Echo Chamberlain's Substack

Carthage, 146 BC: Rome destroyed the city, enslaved the surviving population, extinguished it as a centre of civilisation and salted the earth.

Baghdad, 1258: The Mongols killed thousands and destroyed palaces, institutions and libraries. Books turned the Tigris River black with ink.

But nothing in history has been more ransacked, pillaged and desecrated than Star Trek.

Like most Sci-Fi and Fantasy today, including the stuff coming out of Marvel, it is written by people who don't like the source material, who don't understand the source material, and don't like genre.

After several years of covering modern entertainment, I’m still stricken with the same question: how can it be this bad? How can things be the absolute worst version of themselves? How do the makers not register how pathetic the content is? How could things take their precisely most aggravating and disappointing form? How can it be, with almost preternatural exactness, the furthest measurable, and travelable, distance from the point of the franchise’s ideal form?

When every franchise has been, and continues to be, destroyed in similar ways, it is not a coincidence. It is an assault on the very idea of heroic entertainment.

Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker are no longer heroic figures, but bitter old men, who were never doing things right. Tolkien's Orcs are not the embodiment of chaos and destruction, but are just a misunderstood minority. Sauron is not the embodiment of evil, but a hottie who Galadriel has a thing for. It is the systematic destruction of Western literature, and Western civilization.

Or that is my opinion. Click thru to see what Echo Chamberlain thinks.

Saturday Roundup of Link Roundups - 29 August

The Right Way - Top of the News

TRUMP VICTORY: ALL IRANIAN MINES CLEARED From Strait of Hormuz—Lay Another and Your Ships Will Be Destroyed - Geller Report via ANCIPIENT NEWS

Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 08.27.26 (Early Evening Edition)

Dana Loesch: The Pharisaitical Approach of False Shepherds Makes Modern Feminism Worse
Don Surber: A story the media won’t cover

EBL - Tim Curry, RIP

Instapundit: Page Six: Tim Curry dead at 80. RIP
Very good actor and he will be missed. Sad, right on the heels of Dolly.

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 28 August 2026: Claudy With A Chance Of Meatballs Edition

Hugging Face has announced a new robot duck. (The Register)
$13 billion for this?

Small Dead Animals - Wednesday On Turtle Island

Conman Carney’s Canada: Elbows Up Canadians don’t worry about deficits. The wonderful life of diplomats. Colluding. Canada’s Muslim Brotherhood. Carney’s Muslim values.
Stories You Won’t Find At Carney’s CBC: Muslim values. Can I be a migrant?

Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog - LinkSwarm For August 28, 2026

The Supreme Court hands President Trump a huge win on voter integrity.
Democrats need to cheat to win. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
California passes the Don’t Investigate Democrat Fraud Act

Gates of Vienna - News Feed 8/28/2026

Iran’s currency plunged to a record low this week, crossing two million rials per U.S. dollar on informal markets as households rushed to convert their savings into hard currency ahead of additional U.S. sanctions.

A View from the Beach - Flotsam and Jetsam - Lake America

Bloomberg, US Aims to Revive Civil War-Era Court to Claim Iran Oil as Prize. Eric S. Raymond @esrtweet, "Prize courts? For real, prize courts?" Quote Ben Penn @benjaminpenn, "SCOOP: Justice Dept. plans activating long-dormant maritime war court

The Glibertarians - Friday Morning Links

Antifa Networks Panic After Trump Administration Sanctions Their Secret Tech Collective
Trump Admin Ramps Up Haiti Deportation Flights

Again from Wombat-socho - In The Mailbox: 08.27.26 (Evening Edition)

Flopping Aces: Abdul El-Sayed’s goals would end the US, also, El-Sayed teams up with Piker against Jews
Gates Of Vienna: So You Can Beat Up Women — That’s Brave

Vlad Tepes - CBC policy revealed: Full on deception to cover for Islam and more: Links post 1 for August 27, 2026

1. CBC Memo: 911 hijackings MAY NOT be referred to as a “terrorist Attack”.
[SNIP] But in this one case I do half agree with them. The 911 attack should be called islamic Jihad.

Flopping Aces - The Week in Radical Leftism, 08/28/2026 – Back to The Economist!

Welcome back to Day 586 of America’s liberation from the Biden*/Harris occupation! Let’s go back across the pond to see what the Limeys have to say!
The Unwelcoming States of America

Political Hat - Quick Takes – Nature Rights: Endorsed By National Geographic; Legislation Presented In The U.K.; Rejected By Oregon Voters

Remember when National Geographic was about tribal boobies? Now they’re all in on “Nature Rights”.
A bill has been introduced to the U.K. to establish “Nature Rights” as “foundational”

Wombat-socho again - In The Mailbox: 08.28.26

Shark Tank: Byron Donalds Secures 17 More Sheriff Endorsements
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Role of the Church Militant

Cafe Hayek - Some Links

David Henderson challenges Rob Schneider’s case for military conscription.
Mike Munger exposes the faulty reasoning of today’s critics of Milton Friedman.

Maggie's Farm - Wednesday morning links

Massive Study Says Vaping Really Is The Most Effective Way to Quit Smoking – But There's a Catch
Who Knew? The WNBA Actually Matters Now!

J.J. Sefton at Ace of Spades HQ - The Morning Report — 8/ 26 /26

'Medicare for All' means Medicare fraud for all of Dearborn.
Abdul El-Sayed Served as Advisor to Muslim Medical Firm Accused of “Exploiting Medicare” in “Scam”

Doug Ross - Larwyn’s Linx: Secretary Rubio Suspends all Visa Reviews Pending Total State Dept Retraining Effort

Communist China Has Its Eyes on Your Hospital Bed - Rick Scott
The Oil Premium Breaks on New Sanctions - Vaughn Cordle, CFA

I leave you with Wednesday Memes … from MaddMedic, Midweek Memes from Granite Grok, Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #4102 from 90 Miles from Tyranny, and Friday's Political and Current Event Memes from Wirecutter.

Prosecutor Hates Self-Defense

Is anyone shocked? Self-defense cases rise in Jackson County; prosecutor wants reform

Jackson County, Missouri, in the extreme western part of the state, and it is home to Kansas City, Missouri.

Missouri has a stand your ground law.

Prosecutor Johnson's office declined to charge in 12 cases in July and 46 for the year, citing self-defense statutes.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Justice is blind, because it is not perfect.

"More people in our community are using force, very often deadly, and feeling justified in doing so," Johnson said. "It is not our goal to remove anyone's guns from their home or possession. We are just trying to limit instances in which deadly force is justified in our community."

They don't want to remove the guns. They want to remove your ability to defend yourself. (Hat tip to Keep And Bear Arms.)

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Silicon Graybeard has some info on a space telescope being launched on Sunday. Some background on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

I've mentioned a couple of times that NASA's next big telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is launching Sunday morning on a Falcon Heavy at 7:26AM EDT, but I suppose I was quietly assuming that everyone has an idea about what that telescope is.

I knew NASA was developing a new space telescope, but I didn't know the name of it, or that it was launching tomorrow.

Here's where it gets wild. The September launch for the NGRST is eight months ahead of schedule, and under budget. When's the last time you heard something like that? I'm not sure I ever have.

Government contracting under budget? Surely that is a sign of End Times, or something.

Anyway, click thru for the details on the telescope, the mission, etc. 7:26 AM on Sunday is a bit early for me, I will probably watch it in replay. SpaceX usually has the videos live on X, and leaves them up for later viewing. I haven't checked to see if they are on YouTube, but any launches carried by the news networks usually end up there.

Cassandra Complex

Surf Rock is an enduring genre of music. While it was fairly popular in the 1960s, there are bands still producing it. Or there were about 10 years ago.

This is "Cassandra Complex" by The Mystery Men? Yes, the question mark is part of the name. It is from the album Sonos Delirium which came out in August of 2013.

Friday Links - 28 August

William Teach at Pirate's Cove starts things rolling with NICE Arrested Over 1,300 Illegals In D.C. Area

Yes, Democrats will attempt to protect even those illegals. Are all of them hardened criminals? No. But all are unlawfully present in the U.S.

Take It Outside by Alice Jones Webb - Basecamp Dispatch: Worth the Sit

My weekly check-in from the woods, the homestead, or somewhere else with spotty cell service

Miguel Gonzalez - When the ACLU misses its own point.

“Elegible voter” being the key words here. Do you know what disenfranchises ELEGIBLE voters?

Pixy Misa at Ambient Irony - Daily News Stuff 26 August 2026: CNO Orrery Edition

SpaceX is building a new spaceport in Louisiana. (Tech Crunch)

Price tag $100 billion.

Learn a trade.

Again from William Teach - NICE Arrested Almost 50K In July

Keep those numbers going, folks!

The Other McCain - Did You Know That @ElonMusk Has Reinstated the @X Accounts of ‘Noted Neo-Nazis, Anti-Semites, and More’?

Mike Rowe - Off The Wall: Letters like this means a lot

Letters like this mean a lot. Not just to me and my team, but to the many individuals and companies who support mikeroweWORKS. Without their help, we couldn’t have assisted you, and I know the people who support my program appreciate hearing from people who have benefited from it. So thanks for writing.

The Tactical Hermit - The Surveillance State: Dispatcher resigns over Flock camera misuse

This is just ONE example of how easy it is to misuse these cameras and step all over your first amendment rights.