Just another tabbic Monday, ohhh-ee-ohhh ...
This is bad news.
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 20, 2025
America is in trouble. pic.twitter.com/RGD4P64OSL
Ed: The good news is that these are still the fringe. The bad news is that the Protection Racket Media and the entertainment industry will paint them as So Courage Much Brave Revolutionaries, in the model of Robespierre. And the long-range good news is how Robespierre ended up.
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Tom Knighton: Saturday was yet another “No Kings” series of protests. Organizers claim 7 million people were protesting, which I don’t buy for a second, since that’s more than two percent of the entire population.
Still, even if it’s true, the whole idea of leftists opposing kings strikes me as more than a little amusing.
Trump trolled them aplenty, of course, but we all know he’s no king. If he were, he’d have done something about the shutdown by now and a whole lot of annoyingly loud idiots would be in prison.
But they’re not.
Ed: It's a good read from Tom, so click over and check it out. I was amused that the first business day after No Kings, the Ninth (!) Cirucuit reminded everyone that the original No Kings movement repeatedly called out militias to protect and reestablish federal authority, just as Trump has done in LA, DC, and soon Portlandia.
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This shutdown is a different world for Trump than the 2018-19 shutdown. He's in a much better spot.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 20, 2025
His net approval is up slightly during this shutdown vs. dropping during 2018-19.
Why? The % who blame him a great deal for the shutdown is down significantly now vs. 2018-19. pic.twitter.com/WHEqHaqo4M
Ed: David wrote about this earlier (that dirty thief!), but I'll offer a quick take here. What is remarkable is how impotent the Left and the media have become in the past eight years. They effectively derailed Trump's first two years in office in that first term. They have put on a full-court press this time too, but they have done no damage at all to his political standing this time around. Everyone's seen this trick already, and no one's buying it. No Kings is the Russia Collusion of Trump II, and it's a non-sequitur to the electorate.
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College Fix: Harvard Medical School allegedly canceled at the last minute a pro-Palestinian vigil organized by a pair of student groups, citing rules regarding “distributing and posting event flyers without authorization.”
According to The Crimson, the med school’s Student Alliance for Health Equity in Palestine and Student Human Rights Collaborative initially were given the green light for the event, but were informed just “five hours before it was slated to begin” that it had been scrapped.
Dean of Medical Education Bernard Chang, Dean for Students Jennifer Potter, and Director of Student Affairs Sheryl O’Brien noted in an email that both groups had “repeatedly violated policies on event promotion, on-campus gatherings, and collaboration with unauthorized student organizations.”
Ed: Harvard's still at war with the White House, but this suggests that they understand the precariousness of their position. Even without cooperation, Trump is forcing changes on the campus.
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NO KINGS PROTEST: A recap from @WillieNelsonTV , who was on the ground in Huntington Beach, CA — from public meltdowns to threats of violence, the anti-Trump protest was filled with unhinged attendees outraged that President Trump is in office. pic.twitter.com/9YQDFlS9Br
— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) October 20, 2025
Ed: I used to live in Huntington Beach, and it's still one of the more conservative parts of The OC. I'd bet that most of these protestors came from other parts of SoCal. The last line is *chef's kiss* perfect.
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Variety: Kenny Loggins has spoken out against Donald Trump using his song “Danger Zone” in a bizarre AI video of the president in a fighter jet bombing No Kings protesters with what appears to be fecal matter.
“This is an unauthorized use of my performance of ‘Danger Zone.’ Nobody asked me for my permission, which I would have denied, and I request that my recording on this video is removed immediately,” Loggins said in a statement shared with Variety on Monday.
Ed: I've seen the video at Truth Social, and ... well, I don't blame Loggins for being annoyed. On the other hand, given the hysterical and demagogic nature of the No Kings protest, the imagery at least is warranted. Maybe they could have found a better song -- say, "Free Fallin'"? Or would that be too ... Petty? Or maybe "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood for something more upbeat?
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I've been holding back on this, but I'm just gonna let loose...
— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) October 20, 2025
So many of these "protestors" in Asheville NC have had their lives DRAMATICALLY improved from a year ago by President Trump.
This city didn't even have RUNNING WATER a year ago.
Trump's DOT gave the LARGEST… pic.twitter.com/6DHEVmqFHe
Ed: Quite the collection of kooks there. It's an odd protest indeed when you have people dressed like Winnie the Pooh and the villain from the "Scream" franchise. And yes, to Swol's point, few have benefited more directly from the change of administration than people in North Carolina, who were largely being ignored by Biden's FEMA.
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Tina Brown at The Free Press: How could Buckingham Palace somehow signal to the public that the priapic dunce Prince Andrew is even more deplorable than was previously thought? That was the creative task King Charles faced last week, after the release of a mortifyingly chummy email from Prince Andrew to Jeffrey Epstein (“We’re in this together. . . .We’ll play some more soon!!!”) in 2011 that proved Andrew’s well-creased pants were on fire when he asserted in the calamitous Emily Maitlis BBC interview that he had “honorably” cut off contact with the convicted pedophile in 2010.
The release this week of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, the former Epstein sex slave who said she was trafficked to Andrew when she was 17, promised to make this hot mess even hotter. Throw in yet another incident of bad judgment in his eager meetings with an alleged Chinese spymaster and it’s clear Andrew requires the equivalent of house arrest without the anklet.
But how do you disappear a 6-foot-tall, 190-pound, 65-year-old man in robust good health who has an ironclad contract to live in the Queen Mother’s former mansion, a short neigh from Windsor Castle and just four miles from the new “forever” home of Prince William and Kate, who can’t abide him?
Ed: Maybe a No Kings movement makes more sense where royals actually live, eh?
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NEWS: Trans and nonbinary identities are indeed in free-fall in college age Americans.
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) October 20, 2025
Prof. Jean Twenge @jean_twenge found new survey data that supports @epkaufm's much disputed claim from last week.
Twenge also found data indicating that trans identity increased… pic.twitter.com/aoif85NsJB
Ed: That's bad news for next year's No Kings protests, no?
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Elizabeth Stauffer at Legal Insurrection: The Democrats’ much-ballyhooed “No Kings” protests on Saturday turned out to be more fizzle than fireworks. As details of the day roll in, they paint an unflattering portrait of a political party in disarray, struggling to force a phony message upon an electorate that’s grown increasingly skeptical of them.
Perhaps the most incisive take came from Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online. Replying to a post that called the Manhattan rally “more of a scheduled appearance than a real grassroots movement” — one that went “from packed to sparse in record time” — Benz said Washington, D.C., had fared no better, dubbing the event a “coup d’flat.” ...
The real story came through in the words of the attendees. In the clip below, a young participant tells a reporter that “Trump’s a b*tch.” Asked to elaborate, he said, “I don’t know. We don’t like him. That’s the word around here.”
Asked if there were any particular reason why he doesn’t like Trump, the protester replied, “No clue at all. I’m just going with [what] everybody else is saying.”
Ed: The word around everywhere else is that George Orwell pretty much predicted this with his "two-minute hate" sessions in '1984.' Trump is the Emmanuel Goldstein of AmSoc.
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This is a very BASED take on the No Kings Protests.
— AmericanPapaBear™ (@AmericaPapaBear) October 17, 2025
"Freedom doesn't mean you get your way. It means I get to call you out for being this ridiculous."
"Freedom Fighters? What I see is cosplayers with Amazon Prime signs and oak milk rage."
"You post resist tyranny from a… pic.twitter.com/MMiOEIvwQn
Ed: Now THAT'S a final word.
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