“AS ONE APPARENTLY DOES”:  In the case of Woodland v. Hill, the great Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Lee was called upon to decide an unusual copyright case.  The parenthetical in the opening sentences of his opinion made me laugh:

Rodney Woodland, a freelance artist and model, posts semi-naked photographs of himself in different poses on Instagram.  Montero Lamar Hill, better known as the recording artist Lil Nas X, also has an Instagram account–and he, too, shares semi-naked photos of himself in varying poses (as one apparently does on Instagram these days).  Woodland sued Hill for copyright infringement ….

We affirm the district court’s order dismissing his copyright infringement claim.

Cute.

OPEN THREAD: Because I love you and want you to be happy.

AN ANTISEMITIC MELTDOWN BY THE ONLINE RIGHT’S ISRAEL FOES:

Since October 7 some of America’s most popular podcasters have congratulated themselves on their ability to “just ask questions” about Israel’s war aims that the legacy media will not; in the process of doing so, they have given platforms to revisionist historians, Holocaust distorters, and Christian antisemites to, they say, provide counter-narratives to the Israeli lobby that has so desperately tried to engage the U.S. in “forever war.”

Israel attacked Iran last night. As expected, the same people who were “just asking questions” revolted against Israel in support of America’s enemies.

Darryl Cooper, whom Tucker Carlson lauded on his show as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” said on Thursday that America should “commence airstrikes on Tel Aviv immediately.” Dave Smith, Joe Rogan’s favorite comedian-turned-foreign-policy expert, accused Israel of launching “a dangerous, preemptive war of aggression” that “should be condemned by the US government and US citizens alike.” Smith also denied claims that Cooper was an antisemite; Cooper just had “nuanced” views, Smith said.

It may be easy to disregard such online-right opinions as fringe, but their millions of followers and the billions of views they receive suggest otherwise. Nick Fuentes said “this is the final battle in Israel’s 50 year reign of terror to destabilize & destroy every country that resists their rule.” Candace Owens called Israel’s “bloodlust” demonic. Matt Stoller doesn’t think Israel’s “bloodthirsty insanity” should be “our problem.”

Still though, Fuentes is making real progress in the Middle East!

DISPATCHES FROM THE STAR WARS CANTINA: The Week in Woke.

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME:

THE ART OF THE MISDIRECT:

I know some people are so broken they will never be able to muster a compliment for Trump, but the level of misdirection and coordination with Israel on this Iran attack was brilliant. Trump used his public platforms to lull Iran into complacency while privately coordinating with Israel. Trump and Netanyahu went so far as to meet privately this week to finalize things while publicly both leaking that Trump was urging restraint.

The problem here for the press corps is that so many of them hate Trump so much, they cannot nuance the cleverness of this. They must either approach it as Trump is a failure who even Israel does not respect or Trump is a liar who lied to everyone to get Iran.

The reality is everyone honest knows Iran has always been the liar, claiming it had no nuclear ambitions even as it plotted a bomb. The Obama/Biden policies helped Iran, which embedded agents within the Biden Administration. And Trump has turned the tables on it all, including probably taking advantage of Iran’s embedded agents to amplify his misdirection.

And now Iran has been set back significantly and the world is safer today.

But scream about Orange Man Bad if you must. The press corps that does not deal with the truth of what happened is just going to further discredit itself. They couldn’t detect Biden’s decline and cannot accept Trump’s calculated misdirection.

It’s amazing what allies can accomplish when they actually act like allies.

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Called 911 After Trying to Pay for WHAT? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn when not to call 911, how not to dine and dash, and all about California Man’s weird smuggling operation.”

DATA REPUBLICAN FOLLOWS THE MONEY SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO:

Full text:

🔍 I tracked funding from federal sources to final recipients, prioritizing direct paths (not via DAFs) whenever possible.

👉 IMPORTANT: most paths still went through Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs)—the black box of the nonprofit world. Unfortunately, it’s a common and opaque funding structure that deserves scrutiny.

💥 Explore it for yourself:
Click on “Federal Grant Flow” for any NoKings organization to open any visual flowchart, tracing dollars from origin to destination.
🖼️ Also, you can save any graph as an SVG and take it wherever you need.

📌 I’ll keep updating the database as more EINs come in. Got a group to investigate? Send it my email address with an EIN.

🧠 Let’s shine a light on influence laundering.

Here’s the link to her full report.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: