I hope Laura is wrong, but I don't think she is. In addition to the rest, the Woke Right is doing everything it can to throw the election, and, at least with people who are highly online, is quite successful. They'll blame real conservatives for this vigorously after, if so.
Show more
Trans violence is violence.
And as many have predicted and explained over the years, the suite of factors that constitute and underlie trans ideology, including its selection bias to disordered individuals and the irreversible damage it causes, plus the sheer unreality, do this.
Show more
I have a little to add to this that I think is important.
I am also against credentialism, with all emphasis on the ISM, exactly as my friend Cynical Publius says here. Totally concur.
I want to talk about what they took from us, though.
Credentials and credentialism aren't the same thing. Credentialism is a fallacy or even a snotty ideology about holding credentials; that having credentials makes you better or even necessarily more expert, or that society should be run by people who hold credentials.
The problem, and the point I want to make, is that credentials are a symbol, and that's all they are.
Credentials are SUPPOSED to represent something, but they do not necessarily represent that thing.
For example, Joe-Bob Corrupt might award a credential to be a professional whatsit to his nephew Joe-Bobby Corrupt even though Joe-Bobby doesn't have any of the required skills. Joe-Bobby, with that credential, can work as a whatsit, even though he isn't actually capable, which is a problem.
That is, the credential can and should certify real competence, but like every other symbol, it can be corrupted from that purpose by giving credentials to people who don't actually deserve them.
Direct nepotistic corruption, like Joe-Bob hooking up his nephew Joe-Bobby, is one way illegitimate credentials can be given. Other ways exist, and academia is FULL OF THEM.
Some degrees and even entire fields of study shouldn't even exist, along with any jobs that will hire from them (mostly academic sinecures and nonprofit or government pseudo-jobs).
Grades are padded. People are admitted, passed, and graduated who never should have been, not just because of, say, financial corruption, but because of perverse business incentives on the universities, weak administrations, and ideological idiocy like "equity grading."
States have actually watered down degree requirements as well in order to produce more graduates, as though more graduates is what the economy and society needs (instead of more genuinely qualified professionals).
Etc.
So, in a sense, the problem of credentialism is intrinsically tied to the problem of corrupt pathways to undeserved, thus bogus, credentials.
Now, this is where it gets important (and where I make my point).
CREDENTIALS ARE VERY VALUABLE AND IMPORTANT.
(but they only work in a high-fidelity, honest society where they represent what they claim to represent)
What credentials accomplish is a kind of societal shortcut. You don't have to see if your dentist actually knows how to work on teeth or if he's just some random guy who opened a shop because the licensure (a credential) and education (another credential behind it) are supposed to validate this for you at a certain expected minimum standard. That is, the credential is supposed to indicate "the person who is doing this job is capable of it at least to a certain minimum standard."
Obviously, when the credentialing systems, thus the credentials themselves, are corrupted, this whole program doesn't work.
Why would we want credentials, though, and what a sane person ten years ago might have called a "good side to credentialism," abusing the language a little?
Because it's a huge shortcut. It takes a TON of time and energy (that is, resources) to validate competency, especially in high-skill, specialist endeavors (e.g., dentistry, nuclear engineering, air-traffic control, piloting, surgery, etc.). The credential is the shortcut. If the only people who can get the credential are verified to be above an acceptable minimum baseline of competence, you save a TON of resources in the checking.
Obviously, you still have to check, by the way, even when you do hire a credentialed person when credentials work. The person might be marginal. They might have slipped since earning their credential. Whatever. But the credential is a huge shortcut, not a guarantee. It saves tremendous amounts of resources.
Because good credentials save tremendous amounts of resources when they are trustworthy and trusted, they are an enormous efficiency multiplier. We want enormous efficiency multipliers just like we don't want to find out the hard way we hired Joe-Bobby Corrupt instead of Charlie Candoit. Multiply this across millions of hires and jobs a year, and you get the idea.
There's a reason we check for certified and licensed professionals on every job that matters. That reason is because the thing the credential is supposed to represent matters.
The problem we find ourselves in, which Cynical Publius here is pointing at, is that we have at best medium-trust credentialing going on in our country now, no longer high-trust. One might say that this represents a fall from first-world status, and that would be right. The efficiency multiplier is already largely broken, and caveat emptor (let the buyer beware!) rules in a way it hasn't in a long time.
DEI was probably one of the biggest credential murderers in our society ever, but, as I noted above, it's not alone.
It's not just our universities, either. Our credentialing and accrediting agencies have been mostly conquered by DEI, ESG, and the stupid destructive ideologies and mind-rot behind them. Almost all of our accrediting bodies, many of which operate as monopolies into the professions, are captured or at least tainted. Our institutions, corporations, and best-practices are shot through with this stuff and with small armies of worse-than-useless "credentialed" political officers who aren't just a drain but a poison. Everything is tainted by this bogus credentialism problem. Everything.
There's more. An additional trouble is that we all kind of have to act like this didn't happen. We don't have an alternative solution in place. We don't have alternative institutions in most cases. We don't have many, if any, alternative universities. We have few, if any, different accreditation pathways, many of these being literal, not just effective, monopolies over their professions. We have few, if any, corporations free from "corporate responsibility" programs. We have few, if any, alternative pathways to licensure. We have a contaminated workforce, contaminated educational pipeline, and contaminated certification apparatus.
That is, our only practical alternative is to limp around on this broken leg and hope we can make it through the situation and maybe restore or replace what's broken along the way.
In the meantime, we still need lawyers, doctors, engineers, pilots, air traffic controllers, teachers, and all manner of other professions, all of which work on the far side of credentials that are too-often dubious in their worth against the paper they're written on.
The craziest part of this is that even if MOST of the credentialing system is actually still pretty effective, the problem is still unbelievably severe. Why? Because you lose the efficiency multiplier effect if even a small but sizeable minority of credentialed people are not actually competent, which necessitates checking virtually everyone by more onerous methods, qualified or not. (This isn't to be confused with the usual checking that must occur; it's much more severe.)
Therefore, while I'm very much an anti-credentialist, I am a huge fan of having credentials that means something and using them like they mean what they mean. This is a societal crisis, frankly.
Thank you for your time and attention. Doomsday will now progress as previously scheduled.
Show more
Was Burritogate the opening salvo in an op to push right-wing youth towards socialism? It happened the day before Tucker's weird agitprop "announcement" pushing the same goals, and it's been a full offensive press since like we haven't seen in a while.
Show more
This single political move is about to trigger a massive shockwave across the nation, and nobody is prepared for it. What starts as a simple state referendum is hiding a dark truth that will completely dismantle everything you thought you knew about your future. Kiss your basic rights goodbye if this terrifying policy makes its way into your city. From speech restrictions to extreme legal penalties, the harsh reality of what’s being proposed will leave you sick to your stomach. Watch until the very end before they pull this video down for telling the truth.
Watch the full episode on my YT channel! Link is in the comments 📷
Show more
@ConceptualJames This just means Tyler's defense is complicit...
...is what I would say if I were not a mentally competent adult.
“Power levels” is a Dissident Right concept related to their subversive communication strategy of changing their level of honesty to suit an audience.
Grok:
“Power levels” in dissident-right online spaces is a tongue-in-cheek, ironic metaphor for how explicitly, radically, or unfiltered someone states views that mainstream culture treats as taboo, high-status-risk, or socially radioactive. Higher “power levels” = more open advocacy of ideas that would normally get someone deplatformed, fired, or socially ostracized (racial realism, explicit opposition to certain demographic changes, strong critiques of particular ethnic/religious lobbies, traditionalist hierarchy, etc.). Lower power levels = coded, euphemistic, or mainstream-conservative framing that stays within safer bounds.
The phrase treats political speech as analogous to anime/manga power scaling (e.g., Dragon Ball Z power levels) or video-game character strength: most people run at “civilian” levels; online dissidents deliberately dial theirs up or down depending on the audience, platform risk, and desired effect. It is frequently used self-mockingly (“I’m running at like 30% power level here”) or as a warning (“he just went full power level in that thread”).
Core usage and connotations
Calibration and risk management: Speakers “lower their power level” when talking to normies, family, employers, or mainstream conservatives so the ideas land without immediate rejection. They “raise” it among trusted peers or anonymous forums.
Irony and signaling: Claiming high power levels can be bragging, gatekeeping, or humor. Accusing someone of low power levels implies they are still halfway in the Overton window or LARPing.
Related concepts: Often appears alongside “redpill,” “blackpill,” “normie,” “based,” “cope,” “optics,” and discussions of entryism vs. pure messaging. It overlaps with the older idea of “saying the quiet part out loud.”
Specific examples of typical usage
“This article is written at like 20% power level—good for getting normies interested without setting off alarms.”
“He dropped a 90+ power-level take on the Jewish Question and got banned within an hour.”
“I’m deliberately running at low power levels on Twitter so I don’t lose the account; the real discussion is on the private Discord.”
Mock self-deprecation: “Sorry for the midwit power level, but here’s the basic version of HBD for people still reading the New York Times.”
Critique: “Your power level is still stuck in 2015 civic nationalism.”
These appear across anonymous imageboards, certain Twitter/X circles, Telegram channels, and dissident-right blogs/podcasts that discuss strategy, messaging, and “optics.”
History of the usage
The metaphor draws from Japanese pop culture (especially Dragon Ball’s scouters that display numerical “power levels”) and was already floating around online gaming, anime fandom, and early imageboard culture as a general joke about strength or intensity. It migrated into explicitly political dissident-right discourse in the mid-to-late 2010s, during the rise of the broader alt-right ecosystem, Gamergate aftermath, and the popularization of “redpill” framing on platforms like 4chan’s /pol/, certain Reddit communities (before mass bans), and early Twitter dissident accounts.
By roughly 2016–2018 it had become a recognizable piece of in-group slang for managing how far past mainstream taboos one was willing to go in a given post or conversation. Usage intensified as platform moderation tightened: people needed a shorthand for “this is the version I can say publicly versus the version I say privately.” It remains current in those circles as both practical advice and memetic humor, though like most such slang it is sometimes overused or deployed ironically to the point of self-parody.
In short, it is not a formal ideological term but a practical, half-joking descriptor of rhetorical intensity and risk tolerance when discussing ideas outside the prevailing consensus.
Show more
Wow, this is incredible. It's also a really bad day for Candyland, that is the cult of Inspector Ratchet and her crew.
🚨BREAKING: Tyler Robinson’s defense filing is out, submitted by his attorneys on August 11, 2026, following the preliminary hearing.
And the entire filing is absolutely ludicrous.
🚨I’m providing the entire filing in this thread …with my summary.
Tyler Robinson’s defense is essentially arguing that yes, Charlie Kirk was deliberately targeted, yes, one shot was fired directly at him, and yes, Robinson allegedly admitted, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I took it” - but somehow the State is reaching too far with the additional charges and aggravating factors.
Their argument against the “great risk of death” aggravator is almost absurdly simple: Robinson fired ONE shot. He intended to hit Charlie. He hit Charlie. Nobody else was hit. Therefore, according to the defense, he did not knowingly create a great risk of death to anyone else. Never mind that this happened at a crowded public event. Never mind that he was allegedly firing a high-powered rifle from a rooftop toward an area filled with people. The defense argues that because the bullet traveled downward, hit its intended target, and did not strike anyone else, prosecutors cannot establish the required risk to another person merely because people were nearby.
They even attack the significance of the shooting targets recovered from Robinson’s apartment. Their argument? The State supposedly cannot establish when those targets were shot, what firearm was used, or whether Robinson personally fired every shot. They similarly dismiss the screwdriver found on the roof, arguing that its existence doesn’t prove Robinson took the rifle apart or reassembled it.
Then we get to witness tampering.
Robinson told Lance Twiggs to “ask for a lawyer and stay silent” if police questioned him. The State charged Robinson with witness tampering based on the allegation that he was attempting to induce his roommate to withhold information. The defense says absolutely not. According to them, Robinson was merely giving Twiggs perfectly innocent constitutional advice. Their position is that because Robinson also allegedly said he intended to turn himself in and told Twiggs to be polite to police, this was altruistic advice - not an attempt to interfere with an investigation.
Then there are the children.
Children under 14 were at the event. The defense doesn’t dispute that. Instead, they argue that prosecutors cannot prove Robinson KNEW THEY WERE THERE. Their reasoning is that Robinson was approximately 400 feet away and allegedly spent only 35-44 seconds positioned on the rooftop before the shot. They literally distinguish this from shooting at an elementary school or daycare, where someone’s knowledge that children were present could reasonably be inferred. Because this happened on a college campus, they say the State cannot establish that Robinson knew children were in that crowd.
And then we arrive at perhaps the most ridiculous argument in the entire filing: political motivation.
Charlie Kirk was one of the most recognizable political activists in America. Robinson wrote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I took it.” He also said, “I had enough of his hatred.”
But according to the defense, that’s still not enough.
Why? Because Robinson apparently didn’t provide prosecutors with a neat little itemized list explaining precisely which Charlie Kirk political position he hated.
That is essentially their argument.
Show more
“All therapy is conversion therapy.”
“There’s no such thing as value-free therapy.”
“The DSM is already political (cites homosexuality).”
“We’re already doing social-emotional learning.”
Show more
This is the champagne socialist standard.
Many of the loser children of my wealthy friends who see no way to emulate the success of their parents, have gravitated toward Mamdani-ism and found community and a sense of purpose by rejecting capitalism as a way to cope with their own failure. Please note they have nor however rejected their trust funds or living subsidies while pursuing their “passions” in NGOs, dabbling in the arts or trying to invest their parents money in “VC”.
Show more
More Woke idiocy dominating the universities.
Oh wow 😬
University of Michigan will HIDE first-semester grades on transcripts for students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
It’s to “curb the mental health crisis”
AND
The policy is mandatory for all students bc “covering an individual’s grades will inadvertently become equated w/them not doing well in a class”
Show more
Correct. NYC is not making mistakes. They're running a dedicated Communist playbook to inflict massive pain and shift to state controlled "democratic centralism" that can take decades to fix.
@benshapiro Drive off the landlords, have the government seize the properties, give the control over to a NGO ran by close friends or political allies and the apartments deteriorate over time because the NGO is more concerned with greed than providing safe living conditions.
Show more
Dude is a total psychopath. Democrats are still like, yes.
Hasan Piker—surrogate for Abdul El-Sayed and Francesca Hong—has a total meltdown; declares how much he hates American voters.
"I don't want to read this, because I will f*cking k*ll myself with a gun in a video game... I want to put boomers in the machine, in the contraption. And not just boomers—anyone that says that."
"Nothing triggers me to no end like a guy who's like, 'I really like Francesca Hong's policies, but I'm also a stupid guy who sh*ts in his diapers, and I will be Soylent Green one day because I'm so f*cking dumb.'"
"You're gonna catch me f*cking sh*tting on voters."
"Oh Gd, I'm about to start talking about what we deserve, I swear to Gd. You know the story about teaching a monkey the brain of the median American voter?...The monkey hanged himself. I'm the monkey. And I've been staring too much at the median American voter for the last couple of months."
Show more
California city tries to block In-N-Out Burger drive-thru because of global warming:
"Officials say that banning new drive-throughs is consistent with the goals of a Culver City planning document that went into effect in 2024, which calls for the city to take steps toward broad environmental goals like reducing greenhouse gas emissions..."🙄
Show more
President Trump needs to take action against this. It's obvious this is not happening "organically"... Bad actors are trying to destroy our nation.
This is the biggest pile of steaming horseshit yet.
🚨Tucker Carlson, for the first time, opens up about his “trajectory” over the past three years - to, of all people, Hunter Biden.
Tucker describes Trump being raided in 2023 as proof that Trump was an outsider “being actually persecuted by the uniparty.” Therefore, he concluded, “he is their sincere opponent.”
This, Tucker says, led him to throw his full support behind Trump: “I thought I can have an effect.” He claims that “my goal from that moment until February 28th , I don’t want to go to war with Iran.”
An effort, he calims to valiantly preserve the “post-war order” - an order Tucker himself calls “ridiculous” and has openly sought to undermine.
Yet Tucker now says his ultimate failure was a wake-up call: a lesson in his own limitations and the hubris of believing he could meaningfully change American foreign policy.
Conveniently leaving out is his full-throated effort to promote Qatar as an American ally, his insistence that Islam poses no threat to America, and his broader campaign to demonize not only Israel and Zionism, but Judaism itself, supporters of the Jewish state, and Jews more broadly.
Also absent is his argument that America should cede its position of global primacy and accommodate China, Iran, and Russia as equal powers in what he has described as a “New World Order.”
And then there is Tucker’s newfound humility. Claiming to have been humbled by the limitations of his own influence - just days after releasing an episode in which he all but proclaims that he has the program to save America.
The scariest part of it all is that Tucker genuinely appears to believe what he says.
Show more
The language of the communist is the lie.
Polls are a weapon of propaganda. They game them, constantly, specifically to manipulate you with a false impression of perceived acceptance. The KGB called this "normalization", and it's the end phase of the communist revolution.
Show more
They were never “standards of care.” That was merely a label they gave their made-up, non evidence-based guidelines. They must be held accountable for the unspeakable harm they have caused.