Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy, 09/18

[SVPete]

After my first, why-would-anyone-voluntarily-use-steroids sleep in a couple of weeks, starting light:

Jim Jordan Gave the Most Epic Eyeroll in Congressional History

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/09/17/jim-jordan-gave-the-most-epic-eyeroll-in-congressional-history-n4943834

If there was ever a moment that captured just how unserious House Democrats are, it came during Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s bizarre tirade against FBI Director Kash Patel during this week’s Judiciary Committee hearing. If you watched it, you may have thought you were watching an SNL skit, save for the fact that it was actually funny to watch.

For several minutes, Crockett unleashed a rambling, incoherent monologue that made her sound more like an unhinged teenager than a sitting member of Congress. She accused Patel of being “the least qualified FBI director in history,” bizarrely claimed only “white supremacists” feel safe in America, and even managed to suggest that the FBI under Patel is little more than a reality show sideshow. Patel calmly interjected when she flat-out lied about his résumé—correcting her with a firm “that’s false”—but Crockett barreled ahead, uninterested in facts or reality, just her usual grandstanding behind those hideous glasses she was wearing.

At one point, she bizarrely tied Patel’s leadership to Republicans receiving death threats during the speaker’s race, as if he were somehow responsible. It was nonsense on top of nonsense, layered with sanctimony and victimhood politics. By the time she was ranting about HBCUs and “The Apprentice,” it was painfully obvious she wasn’t engaging in oversight—she was performing.

But, the funniest part wasn’t merely her absurd rambling. It was watching Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the committee, reacting to her yapping like a lunatic. At one point, he literally rolled his eyes and was tapping like he was just anxiously awaiting for the fingernails scratching the chalkboard to stop.
...
When Jordan spoke, his reaction was priceless.

“Does the gentleman would like to respond to… any of that?” he asked. His disdain for Crockett’s nonsense was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Though Patel didn’t choose to respond, Jordan did.

“Well, I mean, I'll respond,” he said. He then coolly dismantled her smear by laying out Patel’s extensive credentials: public defender, prosecutor, senior congressional staffer, senior national security official, Department of Defense chief of staff, and now FBI director. In other words, the very opposite of “unqualified.”

It's good that Jordan set out Patel's IRL qualifications. Even in W'pedia's bio it's clear that Patel is impressive, education and breadth/depth of experience. One thing I did not realize that that bio mentioned is that Patel was born in the US to immigrant parents, who had fled racial oppression in, IIRC, Uganda. They came to the US legally, BTW.

[SVPete]

‘Eliminate the Jew’: MIT Lab Fired Researcher Because He Is Jewish, Lawsuit Claims

https://freebeacon.com/campus/eliminate-the-jew-mit-lab-fired-researcher-because-he-is-jewish-lawsuit-claims/

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher endured anti-Semitic harassment for months until he was ultimately fired "because he is Jewish and Israeli," according to a lawsuit against the elite university.

During the fall 2024 semester, students working alongside the Israeli postdoctoral associate, referred to in the complaint as "John Doe," "began tormenting and shunning him based on his Jewish and Israeli identity," and treated him "like a pariah, spewing anti-Semitic slurs and refusing to acknowledge his presence," according to the complaint filed Wednesday.

Doe’s supervising professor never intervened. Instead, he "repeatedly vilified [Doe] in front of students for being Israeli and Jewish," kicked him out of the lab, gave him menial tasks, and eventually terminated his contract. Doe said administrators ignored his pleas for help.

The new claims were included in an amended complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law Wednesday morning. They build on a lawsuit the center filed in June alleging Jewish and Israeli MIT students have "experienced severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination," which university administrators have "knowingly failed" to address. It also accused MIT of declining to investigate linguistics professor Michel DeGraff, who repeatedly harassed a Jewish student until he dropped out of school and an instructor who served in the Israel Defense Forces.

MIT used to be a pinnacle of technical and scientific learning and research. The "hard" Sciences used to be uninvaded bastions from politicrap. The US and the world will pay dearly in coming decades from this dive into the socio-political sewer.

[SVPete]

I doubt anyone here bought the "Noble Savage" myth, but:

Aztec “Skull Tower” Contains Remains of Women and Children

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/aztec-skull-tower-contains-remains-women-and-children-180963905/

Archaeologists digging in Mexico City have uncovered what they believe to be a legendary tower of skulls, Reuters reports. Over the last two years, the team has dug up more than 675 skulls, including many skull fragments. The find is located near the ruins of Templo Mayor, one of the most important temples in the area during the reign of the Aztecs.

The tzompantli were ceremonial racks that display severed heads of victims in Mesoamerica, the Associated Press reports. While it was previously believed that such a tower would only include the skulls or male warriors conquered in battle, the archaeologists uncovered skulls of women and children as well during the excavation, challenging what the researchers know about these skull racks, Reuters reports.

The tower in question is suspected to be part of the Huey Tzompantli, which was located on the corner of the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of sun, war and human sacrifice. According to accounts by Spanish conquistadors Bernal Diaz del Castillo and Andrés de Tapia​—who both viewed the Huey Tzompantli in the early 16th century, upon on their arrival in Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztecs, now Mexico City—the Huey Tzompantli was massive. Both claimed the structure could have contained over 100,000 skulls, though contemporary scholars believe that count was significantly exaggerated.

Rossella Lorenzi at Seeker reports that the researchers believe the partially unearthed skull rack was built between 1485 and 1502, and ran 112 feet in length and stretched 40 feet wide. Parts of the skull rack were constructed by cementing skulls together to support the platform. The researchers believe that structure may have once contained up to 60,000 skulls.

AFAIK, North American Indians (old term for simplicity) did not reach this depth of cruelty and bloodlust, but many tribes' "territories" included or were what they had conquered from neighboring tribes.

[SVPete]

California City Commissioner Promotes Posts Calling Charlie Kirk's Death ‘Cause for Celebration’

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/california-city-commissioner-promotes-posts-calling-charlie-kirks-death-cause-for-celebration/

Gwyneth Gilkey, a transgender woman who serves as commissioner in Martinez, Calif., shared an article from the pro-trans outlet Assigned Media that cheered Kirk's murder. Gilkey, who lists a job as manager of Capital One's cyber threat research unit, was appointed earlier this year to the diversity and cultural commission in Martinez. The commission oversees the San Francisco suburb's "diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging" initiatives, and conducts "community listening sessions."

The article, which Gilkey promoted on the liberal social media site Bluesky, is entitled "Charlie Kirk is Dead. Here's Why I'm Celebrating." The piece, written by former Slate magazine employee Evan Urquhart, featured a cartoon of Kirk saying "When I died I pooped my pants."
...
Capital One, where Gilkey has worked since October 2023, did not respond to a request for comment. Capital One formed the cyber threat research unit after a hacker released data on the bank's 100 million customers, a massive data breach that significantly harmed the bank's reputation. The bank was fined $80 million by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency, and settled a $190 million class action lawsuit with customers affected by the hack.

Martinez mayor Brianne Zorn, who appointed Gilkey to the city commission on May 2, did not respond to a request for comment. Gilkey did not respond to a request for comment.

[Rant] Calling Martinez a "suburb" of SF is geographic ignorance. The cities are 20 miles apart, with SF Bay and a low mountain range between them. Look at freaking GoogMaps or Mapquest, Chuck Ross and Free Beacon editors! [/Rant]

Back to the point, Martinez is not SF or Berserkely, so this may not play as well in Martinez as it would in those uber-Prog cities.

[SVPete]

OhBummer! and LIEden MalAdministration cover-ups make this "old news", but revelations from the Biden-Burisma corruption and cover-up keep bubbling up from the ooze:

FBI Sources Alleged Biden Stopped Burisma Investigation ‘To Protect The Interests Of Hunter,’ New Docs Show

https://thefederalist.com/2025/09/17/fbi-sources-alleged-biden-stopped-burisma-investigation-to-protect-the-interests-of-hunter-new-docs-show/

While he was vice president, Joe Biden stepped onto taxpayer-funded Air Force 2, traveled to Ukraine, and conducted personal business with Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko. He was there “to protect the interests of Hunter Biden,” according to documents released Tuesday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the oversight of the FBI.

The new documents strengthen the information in previously released records. Last Congress, Grassley released FBI 1023 records — statements from confidential sources — alleging that when Biden was vice president, executives for Ukrainian gas company Burisma put his son Hunter Biden on the company’s board of directors to “protect us through his dad, from all kinds of problems,” according to that “confidential human source.”
...
“Regarding that investigation’s impact on its ambitions in North America, Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky reportedly said, ‘Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.’  Zlochevsky reportedly stated that he had to pay $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to Joe Biden, an arrangement he described as ‘poluchili,’ which is Russian crime slang for being “forced or coerced to pay,” according to the document declassified in 2023.

The confidential human source who provided that information, Alexander Smirnova, was later prosecuted for lying to his FBI handler and took a guilty plea, but the Trump DOJ is reexamining the case. Now, more evidence has come to light that tells a similar story to his.

[SVPete]

JB Pritzker Busted: He Claims He Never Compared Trump to Hitler, Internet Brings Receipts

https://wokespy.com/jb-pritzker-busted-he-claims-he-never-compared-trump-to-hitler-internet-brings-receipts/

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker denied this week that he had ever compared Republicans or President Donald Trump to Nazis, despite several recorded remarks and public statements in which he invoked Nazi Germany when discussing Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republican Party.

Speaking at a press conference Monday, Pritzker rejected accusations that he had labeled Republicans as Nazis.

“No, I have not. That is completely false. I have never called Republicans Nazis. That’s what [Republicans] would like to say, they’re lying. They’re lying,” he said. “Well, that’s not what I called them.”

However, recordings and public appearances show Pritzker has repeatedly drawn parallels between Trump and Nazi Germany.

How stoooooooooopid do you have to be to not know that Goog/Bing/DDG and GoogTube exist and that the Internet is "forever"?