You Awake? - Weekend Recap 06-06-26

Sacred Sacrifices Dying - Weekend Recap 06-27-26

Is anything sacred for Democrats when it comes to helping citizens. The short version is this: federal agents raided the home and office of LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, and multiple reports indicate the investigation is tied to LAUSD's failed AI chatbot project called "Ed," which was developed through a multimillion-dollar contract with the education technology company AllHere. Carvalho has not been charged with any crime, and the FBI has not publicly disclosed the full scope of the investigation. What happened? On February 25, 2026, the FBI executed search warrants at: * Carvalho's home in Los Angeles * LAUSD headquarters * A Florida residence connected to education consultant Debra Kerr, who had ties to AllHere and Carvalho dating back to his time in Miami-Dade schools. Two days later, the LAUSD Board placed Carvalho on paid leave. On June 21, 2026, Carvalho resigned as superintendent, though he continued to deny wrongdoing. Authorities still have not announced any charges against him. What was the chatbot controversy? The controversy centers on an AI assistant called "Ed." LAUSD unveiled Ed in 2024 with considerable publicity. The chatbot was marketed as a personalized digital assistant for students and parents that could: * Track grades and attendance * Provide academic recommendations * Translate communications into roughly 100 languages * Help families navigate school services Carvalho championed the project as a major innovation for the district. The problem is that the vendor behind Ed, AllHere, collapsed shortly after launch. Why did it become a scandal? Several issues emerged: 1. The company imploded. Within months of Ed's rollout, AllHere furloughed employees, entered bankruptcy, and ceased operations. LAUSD terminated the relationship after already paying millions of dollars toward the project. 2. The founder was indicted. AllHere founder Joanna Smith-Griffin was later charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and identity theft related to allegations that investors were misled about the company's financial condition. 3. Questions arose about how the contract was awarded. Investigative reporting uncovered connections between AllHere and consultant Debra Kerr, who had longstanding professional ties to Carvalho. Kerr later claimed she was owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions related to the LAUSD deal. Federal investigators reportedly began examining the financial aspects of the contract and the relationships surrounding it. 4. Student data concerns surfaced. After AllHere's collapse, critics raised concerns about how student information was handled and whether proper safeguards existed for data collected through the chatbot. Is Carvalho accused of anything? Not publicly. That distinction is important. The FBI searches indicate investigators believed there was sufficient reason to gather evidence, but as of today: * Carvalho has not been charged. * Prosecutors have not publicly accused him of criminal conduct. * The search warrant affidavits remain sealed. * His attorneys continue to maintain he acted lawfully and was not involved in selecting AllHere as a vendor.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

The World is Changing - Weekend Recap 06-27-26

Thank you also for not celebrating Juneteenth. I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out. America already has a holiday dedicated to liberty. It's called Independence Day. We don't need a committee meeting for freedom. We don't need Liberty 2.0. We don't need Freedom: The Sequel. July 4th already covers the subject matter. The Left has become obsessed with creating boutique holidays the way Starbucks creates seasonal drinks. Every historical footnote gets its own observance, awareness campaign, commemorative T-shirt, and eventually a federal employee day off. Pretty soon we'll have National Day of Recognizing the Committee That Planned the Meeting About the Event We Already Celebrated. Meanwhile, the rest of us are waiting for fireworks and barbecue. Speaking of fireworks... We've got a full plate of crow to serve today. And Democrats are once again seated at the head table. Last week Barack Obama officially opened his presidential library. Now, Democrats treated this thing like archaeologists had discovered King Tut's tomb. The media acted as though civilization itself had reached a new milestone. I watched the coverage and thought, "Did I miss something?" Because from where I sit, this felt less like the unveiling of a monument and more like the grand opening of a very expensive explanation. Think about it. The Obama presidency generated so much mythology that eventually they needed a building to store it all. And the event itself had all the cultural impact of finding out what happened to Jesse Jackson. In fact, quick question: Where were you when Jesse Jackson's political relevance was buried? Exactly. Neither do I. The media keeps trying to manufacture nostalgia for things the public already moved on from. It's like watching somebody hold a high school reunion for a graduating class that never actually liked each other. We'll get into that story because there were moments at that event that were so awkward they deserve their own documentary. Then there's Jeff Bezos. And ladies and gentlemen, we may have witnessed something rare. A billionaire experiencing reality. Bezos apparently decided to say something that employees at the Washington Post did not want to hear: See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

Detached from Reality - Ep 26-252

Folks, I have never seen a group of people more detached from reality than today's Democrats. I'm talking about a complete separation from observable facts. The kind of disconnect where everybody in the room is pretending the emperor is wearing Armani when the poor guy is standing there in tube socks and regret. Take Kamala Harris. Because Democrats have a problem they don't want to discuss. Because if you were transported here from ten years ago and I told you that the sitting vice president became the party's presidential nominee, you'd naturally assume she'd be the frontrunner for the next election cycle. That's how politics works. Or at least that's how it used to work. But we aren't living in the old political order anymore. We're living in Trump World. Everything changed. The rules changed. The assumptions changed. The media changed. The voters changed. And Democrats still haven't figured out they're playing a different game. So Kamala Harris sits down for an interview and gets asked about running for president. Simple question. Not quantum physics. Not the origins of the universe. Not whether pineapple belongs on pizza. A straightforward question. And what does America get? We get one of Kamala's patented verbal escape rooms. [X] SB – Harris Want to believe in systems. Lost trust in systems. Debris at the end of this administration. Worse before better. She says people have lost trust in the system. Okay. Fair enough. Then she says at the end of this administration there will be a lot of debris. Debris? Debris from what? A government? An election? A demolition project? Did she accidentally switch over to The Weather Channel? Then she says it's irresponsible to talk about what we need to do. Wait. What? That's literally why you're there. Imagine going to a doctor. "Doctor, my arm is hanging off." "It would be irresponsible for me to discuss treatment." Imagine calling a plumber. "My basement is flooded." "It would be irresponsible to discuss pipes at this time." Then she says people want things to be better. Really? What an astonishing discovery. Next she'll reveal that people enjoy oxygen and generally prefer food to starvation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

Metaphors and More - Ep 26-251

You know what's funny about politics? Most of us didn't sign up for it. We got drafted. There was a time when politics occupied about the same amount of space in your life as competitive curling. You knew it existed. You assumed somebody was doing it. And every four years you'd glance up from your life, vote for somebody, and then go back to worrying about things that actually mattered. Now? Politics has become America's most invasive species. People who couldn't name their city councilman twenty years ago can now explain the federal budget, judicial appointments, international trade, election law, and the dietary habits of every member of Congress. We have accidentally created a nation of amateur political scientists. And the reason is simple. We had no choice. I'd wager that your political knowledge has increased every decade for the last forty years. Not because you wanted it to. Because reality kept forcing itself into the conversation. It's like golf. When you're a beginner, golf is wonderful. You hit the ball. You chase the ball. You lose the ball. Everybody laughs. You buy a hot dog. Great day. Then you get better. Suddenly you're studying swing planes, grip pressure, club faces, launch angles, wind conditions, green speed, and whether Mercury is in retrograde. The game stops being a game and becomes a graduate-level physics experiment conducted by emotionally unstable people wearing khakis. Politics works the same way. At first, you think elections are simple. The best ideas win. Then you learn how money works. Then you learn how media works. Then you learn how bureaucracy works. Then you learn how narratives are manufactured. Then you discover that half the game is being played backstage by people you've never heard of. That's when you find yourself staring into the political rabbit hole thinking, "Wait a minute...who exactly wrote these rules?" And perhaps more importantly... Can they be changed? For millions of Americans, Donald Trump answered that question. Not because people agreed with him on everything. Not because he's perfect. Not because he arrived riding a unicorn carrying the Constitution in one hand and a bald eagle in the other. He answered it because he proved the rules weren't laws of nature. The establishment had spent decades convincing Americans that everything was fixed. This is just how Washington works. This is how trade works. This is how immigration works. This is how government works. Nothing to see here. Move along. Then Trump walked in like a guy who had entered the wrong conference room. He started asking  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].

Crooked Optics - Ep 26-250

So Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is out there saying, “Italy and I never beg.” Strong line. Very cinematic. You can almost hear the orchestral music and see the wind machine doing its thing. But then comes the part that makes you tilt your head like a confused newsroom intern: the suggestion that the leader of the United States shows up, and somehow there’s resistance to the photo op. With Donald Trump. Now pause right there. Because in today’s political ecosystem, Trump could walk into a room, solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded, donate a million dollars to charity, and the headline would still somehow be: “Man With Opinions Causes Mild Atmospheric Disturbance.” So when Meloni says she doesn’t understand why the President behaves this way toward allies, and that it’s “a pity he doesn’t show the same determination with the enemies of the West,” I have questions. Not rhetorical ones. Real ones. The kind that come with raised eyebrows and a slow sip of coffee. First, “behaves this way” is doing a lot of emotional lifting there. That phrase is like a diplomatic suitcase stuffed with assumptions, interpretations, and at least three editorial board meetings. Because what exactly is the behavior? Is it negotiating aggressively? Is it not doing the usual global handshake ballet where everyone agrees on everything in public and contradicts it in private? Or is it simply that Trump doesn’t perform the “everyone is my best friend” theater that global politics has quietly standardized? And this is where the irony starts doing gymnastics. We’re told constantly that Trump is unpredictable, brash, difficult. Yet somehow he’s also the only president who manages to trigger simultaneous confusion and moral disappointment across continents for not behaving like a polite bureaucratic suggestion box. Meanwhile, the idea that leaders might not always be thrilled about photo ops with him gets treated like breaking news. As if international diplomacy is supposed to be a yearbook signing session where everyone writes, “Stay cool, best ally ever.” But let’s step back into Meloni’s critique: why not show the same determination with the enemies of the West? That’s the part that sounds noble until you realize the assumption baked inside it. It assumes everyone agrees on who the enemies are, how you “show determination,” and what counts as effective action versus performative action. Because in modern geopolitics, “determination” can mean anything from sanctions, to speeches, to carefully worded statements that are strong enough to trend on social media but soft enough to survive translation. So here’s the quiet question underneath all of it: are we talking about real policy disagreement, or are we talking about style disagreement dressed up as moral clarity? Because style is where things get interesting. Trump operates like a geopolitical highlighter. He doesn’t just underline the sentence, he circles it three times and writes “FIX THIS” in the margin. That’s not subtle. That’s not delicate. But it is unmistakable. And unmistakable is something global politics often pretends it doesn’t need, while secretly relying on it when things get messy. Now add the media layer, and the whole thing becomes a hall of mirrors with press passes. One leader says something. Another reacts. A third interprets the reaction. Then analysts interpret the interpretation. And somewhere in there, the original sentence has evolved into something that barely resembles its birth certificate. So when headlines suggest tension, disagreement, or “pity,” what I hear is something simpler: different expectations colliding in a very public room with very expensive lighting. And let’s be honest, photo politics matters more than people admit. A picture with a world leader is no longer just a picture. It’s a signal. It’s a caption waiting to be written by someone who already knows the ending they want. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy [https://art19.com/privacy] and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info [https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info].