Wednesday, July 29, 2026

The Public Saw the Articles. Not Influence Operation Behind Them.

The names come from Natalie Winters’ investigation matching public DOJ FARA filings (on CUSEF and its PR firm) with archived CUSEF newsletters & reports that documented the trips.

The names include:

- Ezra Klein, New York Times columnist - Matthew Yglesias, Vox co-founder - Ronald Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst - Bradford Plumer, New York Times reporter - Marjorie Miller, former Associated Press vice president

- Steve Clemons, former The Hill editor-at-large - David Rohde, MS NOW senior national security reporter - Jonathan Alter, NBC News and MSNBC political analyst - David Sweeney, former NPR managing editor - Daniel Gross, former Yahoo Finance columnist

- Marilyn Geewax, former NPR senior editor - Kathleen Deveny, former Newsweek editor - Tom Omestad, former U.S. News & World Report correspondent - Steve Chapman, former Chicago Tribune columnist - Bruce Stokes, former National Journal correspondent

- Craig Gilbert, former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Washington bureau chief - Tony Semerad, Salt Lake Tribune reporter - Shikha Dalmia, former The Week columnist - Jonathan Broder, former Newsweek senior writer

- Cristi Kempf, former Chicago Tribune associate managing editor - Jon Healey, Los Angeles Times deputy editorial page editor - Julian Pecquet, former Foreign Affairs reporter

Trip organizer CUSEF was founded by Tung Chee-hwa, a former senior official in the CCP’s United Front system, the influence apparatus Beijing uses to cultivate foreign elites and shape institutions outside China. The access went far beyond conference rooms.

Then came the coverage.......

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Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Like Don Quixote on a Three Legged Donkey

It seems so long ago Joe Biden raised his hand and bold face lied to God and the entire nation that he would faithfully carry out the duty of defending the Constitution and Country from enemies both foreign and domestic. He did neither.  His pack of rabid neo-marxist, racial identity adherence yelling "our democracy is in danger" placed in positions of power did not go unnoticed by anyone paying a least bit of attention.  

For the last decade or so a cottage industry had been building around the demand for analysis demonstrating how the Republican Party had become too extreme. By the time Vox got around to the subject, the American electorate had delivered control of every seat of power in Washington to the GOP. For all the lectures about how Republican voters had supposedly sequestered themselves in self-radicalizing cloisters, the self-righteous left were just as disinclined to look at themselves in the mirror, intentional or not. 

Democrat voters, fed a constant diet of how bad America is, are increasingly adopting a brand of extremism all their own. Some dem politicians seeking their party's nomination seem perfectly willing to tailor their policy preferences to their party’s ascendant minority of marxist extremists.

Bernie & AOC have devoted precious time on the campaign trail to stripping “socialism” of its stigma. Senator Lizzy  advocates changes to the criminal code and make illegal entry into the country no more serious than spitting on the sidewalk. The dems socialist 2026 bench appears so committed to radical one-upmanship that they embracing policies that have the support of no constituency whatsoever, like making D.C. the nation’s 51st state, an idea that most everyone opposes regardless of ideology, party affiliation, or region.

Convinced just months ago they finally had the country just outside their grasp because of the incompetence of the present administration, even with the media carrying their feces, dems are now in pillow biting mode over the DNC being dead broke and marxist rabble they let fester in their midst, and privately said to be entertaining the possibility they may not make the large anticipated gains in coming mid-terms'.

The dems most visible problem right now is NYC Comrade Zohran Mamdani. The premise of Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote maps cleanly onto politics and Mamdani's marxist makeover of NYC.

A person (or movement) becomes immersed in an idealized narrative, in Mamdani's case utopian blueprints with underlying islamo-marxism. Don Quixote's reality was windmills become giants, inns become castles, flocks of sheep become armies. In Comrade Mamdani and the New Left politics, the equivalents are institutions, opposing voters, economic data, or bureaucratic processes that get recoded as existential threats or pure evil.

Like Quixote, Mamdani charges forward with sincere conviction, often dragging along more pragmatic useful idiots (Sancho figures) who half-believe, half-enable, and sometimes exploit the quest. The results are soon to be a mix of farce, collateral damage, occasional unintended good, and eventual collision with unyielding facts.

Opponents are no longer fellow citizens with different preferences but caricatures (giants, enchanters, traitors). Symbolic victories or rhetorical purity are pursued even when they demonstrably worsen the concrete problems the movement claims to care about. Followers and institutions adapt to the fantasy rather than correct it, because the story confers status, solidarity, or power. Some quixotic campaigns expose real injustices that complacent realists prefer to ignore or just don't give a shit. Others simply multiply chaos while congratulating themselves on their purity.

Having grown up in Europe I have seen all this before. Mamdani is a fool on a fool's errand.

Whenever political discourse treats a preferred story as more authoritative than observed outcomes, the windmills are probably nearby.

And all y'all Rayssist!  

~ Thank You WHATFINGER NEWS for the Linkage! ~

Sunday, July 26, 2026

Sunday Soothingness

Just for you, because your Blog Editrix loves each and every one of you, a bit of Soothingness for your auditory nerves, a choice morsel drawn from your Beloved Editrix's personal digs.  A beautiful track from the 1967 landmark album "Surrealistic Pillow" that unleashed the Jefferson Airplane on the world, I give for your Sunday Soothingness "Embryonic Journey"Written and performed by Jorma Kaukonen.......

Take a Deep Breath and Enjoy your Sunday. 

Thursday, July 23, 2026

Yes My Friends, It's The Return of Your Official Almost Semi-World Famous Irredeemable Big Ass Open Thread

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! 

Friends, Patriots, Countrymen. It is proclaimed this day, the Twenty-Fourth Day of July in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Six by Your Beloved Blog Editrix Who Loves Each and Everyone of You, this hour of this day the opening of Your Official Week Ending Almost Semi-World Famous Irredeemable Big Ass Open Thread! All in Favor say "I".

It's been a year since the last Big Ass Open Thread and lots has happened since. So Your Beloved Blog Editrix, Who Loves Each and Everyone of You, knows y'all done got more smarter than last time we got together and knows you're anxious to share it with us all, and the the opportunity to leave your mark on history and possibly, but not likely, be admired by future generations for your wisdom.  Not to mention you're probably bursting with a backlog of accolades and tribute for your Beloved Editrix after her absence.
-------------------//--------------------
This week Your Glorious Exercise in Free Speech
 is Sponsored By: 
The Downtown Majestic Mart Psychiatry Associates (aka The Psychonaughts) Specializing in Woke Psychosis, Liberal Hysteria, Acute Trump Derangement Syndrome. Zero Gravity Biopsychosocialyzing and the widest array of Psychotropic Meds available. (Free Delivery)

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Saturday, July 18, 2026

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

Imagine being wealthy in your mid-30's, rallying up a contingent of blue-haired, skinny, mentally handicapped commies? All the while enjoying all the creature comforts provided in a western nation?

DSA podcaster Hasan Piker delivers Hitler-style rant in a Mao Zedong suit

Friday, July 17, 2026

Nazis and Guys in Dresses. WTF is going on in Maine?