Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 10/8

[SVPete]

ABC News Was Forced to Nuke Their Latest Hit Job on Trump's Sons

https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/10/08/abc-news-was-forced-to-nuke-their-latest-hit-job-on-trumps-sons-n2684328#google_vignette

I couldn’t read this story, but it was another case of the fake news media stepping in and deleting it before they could be dragged over the coals. The problem is, no one is that quick, and Donald Trump Jr., who ABC News targeted, is doing a victory lap. Basically, ABC News was running with shoddy trash reporting that defense companies in which Eric and Trump Jr. are invested are getting contracts. Well, yeah, that’s what companies do, guys. Before I could read the story, ABC News nuked it, albeit with no explanation, editor’s note, or clarification.

Here’s a preview:

ABC News reported that AI defense company Anduril Industries, a company in which Donald Jr.’s 1789 Capital has a major investment, was awarded a multi-billion deal announced by Trump on Tuesday, and had been awarded 135 other contracts with the government.

The analysis found that defense companies backed by Donald Jr. and Eric, including Vulcan Elements, Firehawk Aeropace and PsiQuantum, had been awarded more than $6 billion in active or promised government contracts, since the two invested in the companies.

From an embedded X post:

This post shows you have literally zero financial literacy.

1789 Capital does not have a "major stake" in Anduril.

It's  false to say Vulcan, Firehawk, and PsiQuantum are "backed by Don Jr and Eric Trump."'

Here's a small lesson, that I also explained to ABC, the "reporter" who is a complete idiot conflated raising funds with investment by 1789. Those are two separate actions.

Meaning the "investments" mentioned were actually the total number raised for a funding round, that MANY companies contribute to.

Another thing that the reporter buried the lead on was that many of these companies have gotten government contracts during Biden AND Trump, which completely negates the assertion by ABC that Don Jr and Eric Trump are doing anything wrong.

Anduril has been working with the US government on multiple project since 2017, in both Trump Administrations and in the Biden Administration. ABC Skews lied by omission to gin up a faux scandal, IOW, MSM SOP since summer 2015.

[SVPete]

Sophie Cunningham Trolls Trans Activists with ‘Woman’ Hat at Mizzou Football Game

https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2026/10/07/sophie-cunningham-trolls-trans-activists-woman-hat-at-mizzou-football-game/

Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham apparently made to troll transgender activists by wearing a hat with the word “woman” on it at the Mizzou football game on Saturday.


Cunningham, a Missouri grad, attended Missouri’s homecoming game wearing a ball cap that read “No Cis Just … Woman.” The first part appears in smaller letters on the side of the cap, and “Woman” is in large letters on the front, the LA Times reported.

To bring the message home, when Cunningham was announced from the booth over the PA system, she entered the field to applause, and she pointed with both hands to the cap.

Cunningham has repeatedly said that she has no hate for transgender people. But she also feels that men claiming to be women should not be allowed to compete in sports against women.

I'm guessing that this very public trolling means she isn't backing down or apologizing.

[SVPete]

Murder Suspect in San Francisco Belonged to Notorious 'Smash and Grab' Retail Theft Gang

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2026/10/08/murder-suspect-in-sawn-francisco-belonged-to-notorious-smash-and-grab-retail-theft-gang-n4958097

A family in San Francisco is grieving today. Ulysses Tykee Davis, a 47-year-old security guard known to friends, his wife, and his six children as “Bear,” was shot in the back in a chaotic scene at the Warwick Hotel, where a reality TV show was filming. Davis's wife and two of his children witnessed the shooting.

Shakia Vanderbilt, a member of a notorious "smash and grab" retail theft ring known as "The Rainbow Crew," was arrested and charged with homicide, discharging a firearm into an occupied building, and possessing a firearm as a felon, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told the San Francisco Chronicle.

In the 2010s, Vanderbilt was a member of what was first called "The Rainbow Girls." They were doing smash-and-grab robberies at high-end retail stores before the practice became national news. Authorities claim the crew stole more than $1 million worth of goods.
...
Vanderbilt was arrested in 2014 for an alleged theft at a TJ Maxx store in Daly City, where she stabbed a security guard on her way out of the door. "She was also arrested along with other crew members in 2017 following an hours-long chase in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that stemmed from a robbery earlier that day in Los Angeles, and the suspects were found with $15,000 worth of stolen property in their vehicle," notes SFist.

SFist reported in 2016 that "16 members of the crew had been charged in San Francisco in connection with 23 retail thefts totaling around $200,000."

Vanderbilt never went to prison. Her criminal cases are still "pending."

The articles about this that I saw placed the shooting at The Warfield theater, which is about 4 1/2 blocks from the Warwick Hotel.

Had San Mateo County (Daly City) or Los Angeles County bothered to prosecute this female's many thefts, she might not have been on SF streets killing this father of 6.

[Ptarmigan]

‘Y’all Want A Piece Of Me?’: Bodycam Captures 6-Year-Old’s Chilling Admission After Shooting Teacher
https://dailycaller.com/2026/10/07/unsealed-bodycam-richneck-first-grader-shoots-teacher/

Recently unsealed video shows bodycam footage of officers responding to a six-year-old boy after he shot his teacher.

The video, released by Newport News police Tuesday, shows officers and sheriff’s deputies arriving at the first-grade classroom in 2023 to find the child, referred to as J.T. in court records, The Virginian-Pilot reported.

Officer Brian Torrez, whose body camera captured the footage, entered the room and found J.T. being held by the class’s reading specialist, Amy Kovac.

Talk about disturbing.

[SVPete]

Connect the dots. The boy and his druggie egg donor are black; he didn't learn that defiance and language from Elmo or Big Bird. The teacher and aide who warned the vice principal about the boy possibly having a gun are white. The vice principal who did nothing is black.

The teacher has limited use of one of her hands and a bullet lodged in her body because the boy was taught to be racist and the vice principal believed the white teacher and aide were racist false accusers.

[SVPete]

ABC News Was Forced to Nuke Their Latest Hit Job on Trump's Sons

https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/10/08/abc-news-was-forced-to-nuke-their-latest-hit-job-on-trumps-sons-n2684328#google_vignette

From an embedded X post:


Anduril has been working with the US government on multiple project since 2017, in both Trump Administrations and in the Biden Administration. ABC Skews lied by omission to gin up a faux scandal, IOW, MSM SOP since summer 2015.

Tech Titan Goes Scorched Earth Over Hit Job on Trump's Sons, Even CNN Suspects Dirty Pool

https://redstate.com/kyle-becker/2026/10/10/tech-titan-goes-scorched-earth-over-hit-job-on-trumps-sons-even-cnn-suspects-dirty-pool-n2207978

RedState covered the election-season hit job earlier this week for a brief overview.

It's in this context that we get a story from ABC News that accused Trump's sons of having invested in a company that was awarded a major government contract (until the story was abruptly taken down). [...]

And tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, who founded Anduril Industries, unleashed a scathing rebuttal to an ABC report that was subsequently deleted on X.

Luckey unloaded on the deleted report on X.

@ABC is refusing to correct this lie.  @ByNathanLee's "analysis" is totally bogus, and he knows it, because Anduril provided him with the actual numbers - 1789 Capital has only invested a total of $50M in Anduril, and this so-called "major stake" is about 1/1000th of the company.

The claim of $6B+ in "active or promised government contracts" is also a lie.  Most of that amount is in hypothetical contract ceilings, which are (by design) larger than the government or the contractor expect to transact. 

The problem for Nathan and ABC, which they also know, is that a bunch of people, including the Governor, assumed they were telling the truth and acted on it.  Admitting they got this wrong would make a legal judgement against them trivially easy.  And so they lie.

ABC News does not appear to have issued any public retraction or correction to this story, according to a search of its affiliated websites.

This is something that was noted by CNN senior politics reporter Andrew Kaszynski, prompting further pushback from... Brian Stelter?
...
"This is absolutely wild per Status — ABC News completely retracted this story like two days ago just totally nuked it," Kaczynski remarked. "No note, no explanation , no comment. It had been shared by tons of top lawmakers and democratic officials."

"I'm told the article was 'published prematurely.' More to come, because that is obviously not a sufficient explanation," Stelter added.

'Fessing up would probably end ABC's embarrassment fairly quickly, but they'll probably protract it by ignoring it and/or denying their obviously intentional false accusation.

[SVPete]

More about the ABC Skews failed hit-piece:

So, We Know What Held Up ABC News' Hit Piece on Trump's Sons

https://townhall.com/news/mattvespa/2026/10/12/so-we-know-what-held-up-abc-news-hit-piece-on-trumps-sons-n2684461

Last week, ABC News posted something outrageous about Donald Trump’s sons. I couldn’t read the hit job in full because the outlet took the article down. From the bits and pieces, it seems ABC News got all excited over Don Jr. and Eric having major stakes in a defense company that got billions in contracts. Yes, this would be the first time ever the Pentagon and a defense contractor did business. It’s a throwback to the shoddy, nothing-burger Russian collusion bombshells that imploded in less than 24 hours.

It was a black-bag operation: no editor’s note, nothing. The article just vanished. Now the article has been reposted, but with entirely different copy, and the headline is, well, totally overhauled. The backstory is that this piece was published prematurely as reporting was being finalized. ... They posted what they wanted to say, but had to redo it once their assumptions proved to be trash. They hit post by accident, but we saw the sausage being made ... .

If you take ABC Skews's "explanation" at face value, that a draft of the story got published prematurely, it is as ugly for ABC Skews as the "draft" being shredded with reality. The draft revealed what ABC Skews's "reporters" believe and want to be true, regardless of facts. Whoever composed that utterly counter-factual draft should be taking fryolator training.

I'm still inclined to believe a simpler explanation - Occam's Razor applied. ABC Skews knowingly published a blatantly false accusation and only took it down and rewrote it when they got called out very publicly.

Given the time to the midterm, expect one or two more such blatantly false hit-pieces, though from different skews sources.