Last month, a Texas district court judge ordered Smith and Cole to pay $3.2 million in damages to Vann after a civil trial last year found that they had fabricated the entire story and “intentionally inflicted severe emotional distress” on the innocent teen. Also, of the $120,000 donated to Smith, only $1,000 went to her […]
On January 23, 2026, Adam Presser became CEO of TikTok’s newly formed U.S. joint venture following the forced sale that separated the platform from Chinese ownership. Within 48 hours, censorship reports exploded. Pro-Palestinian creators watched their reach plummet. Gaza journalist Bisan Owda, an Emmy winner with 1.4 million followers, found her account banned. Then a […]
Ever since I started researching “controversial” topics, I have found myself irritated — whether at a certain conferences or on Twitter — by the same thing happening over and over again. No matter how logical my argument nor how much data I present in order to make sense of, for example, the reasons for the […]
I came away from watching this firmly believing that yes, there is a pedo ring of very well-connected, powerful, and usually wealthy people who used code words centered around pizza and grape soda for sex and perhaps much worse with children. (More than 850 references to pizza in the files, many implausibly related to actually […]
Dying young. It turns performers into legends and politicians into footnotes. For proof of that, just compare James Dean (1931-55) with John Smith (1938-94). Seventy-one years after he died in a car-crash, the actor James Dean is still famous, still at the heart of a devoted cult. Thirty-two years after he died of a heart-attack, […]
So rules my North Star, The New York Times This week’s illegal immigrant poster boy is 5-year-old Liam Ramos. According to ICE, when agents approached the boy’s father outside his home, he fled, abandoning his son. The boy’s mother refused to take him, so the agents had to assume custody. The father was soon arrested, but insisted that his son come […]
Latest Epstein files release unleashes wave of antisemitic conspiracy theories on social media “This is the synagogue of Satan we are up against,” wrote far-right streamer Candace Owens. A bank account named for an ancient god in Israel. A “synagogue of Satan.” References to “goyim” that hint at a Jewish-run global cabal. The mystery of […]
In 1964, Ayn Rand told Playboy magazine that any free nation had the moral right to invade Soviet Russia or Cuba. “Correct. A dictatorship — a country that violates the rights of its own citizens — is an outlaw and can claim no rights.” Instead, she preferred waging economic warfare against these rogue governments. “I […]
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