OPEN THREAD: Ring in the weekend.

HUH. I ALWAYS ASSUMED IT WAS LIKE A HARD RESET: Electroconvulsive therapy’s ‘hard reset’ effect: Brain wave discovery challenges long-held assumption. “ECT, or electroconvulsive therapy, uses brief, noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain to induce a seizure. Despite an outdated pop culture moniker (electroshock therapy) that often paints the treatment in a negative light, ECT has been proven to be a safe and highly effective treatment, offering rapid relief from severe symptoms when medications have failed.”

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest did a lot of damage.

But not all cinematic depictions were as sinister:

DEMS KEEP TRYING TO REBUILD THEIR DEATH STAR:

Their failure in 2024 has only emboldened Dems like Rep. Crockett to act out more than ever before, breaking the united front Democrats were once famous for holding, and lashing out at anyone who tries to silence them.

That’s not landing well, either. In fact, it only becomes a throw-away line for Trump in a press conference.

So the Dems are taking a page out of the GOP’s playbook, kind of.

They want to find their own Joe Rogan.

There’s just one or two problems with that idea, though.

Rogan wasn’t found. He made his show what it is today virtually by himself. He began podcasting when people thought the format was a flash in the pan in the late 2000s. But he kept plugging, exploring his own varied interests through fascinating guests and introducing his listeners to new ideas and ways of thinking. He built his empire by catering to nobody but himself, not by reading on air the latest missive from Cory Booker.

The second problem, and the arguably larger one, is that a Democrat Joe Rogan doesn’t exist. Rogan, while not a Democrat or a Republican, has the brand of being physically strong, emotionally stable, and deeply-rooted in family values.

The Democrats don’t have anyone like that. It’s actually impossible to be a Democrat that vaguely resembles Joe Rogan. If a liberal had a whiff of any of Rogan’s traits, they’d be labeled as a MAGA supporter and deserted by their party.

The mantra of the Democrat Party is inclusivity, diversity, acceptance, and, frankly, non-traditional family values. You’ll never find a genuine person that isn’t mentally unwell who is willing to embrace every radical idea that floats their way to meet those standards. Again, it’s impossible to recreate what Joe Rogan has built in a liberal fashion.

The bizarre recent interview of Tim Dillon by a sleepy Elle Reeve of CNN does illustrated on how utterly fixated 2025 Democrats are with Rogan, just as 2017 Dems glommed onto “fake news” and “Russian collusion” to explain their previous loss to the Bad Orange Man.

 

BOMB CANADA, THE CASE FOR WAR: CBC Brags About Shutting Down Popular Political Clips YouTube Channel.

A rising Canadian YouTube channel that had been pulling major traction has suddenly been banned following an aggressive report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which labeled the channel a “content farm” and reached out to YouTube directly. Not long after, the channel was gone.

“It’s just one example of what experts refer to as the ‘content’ or “engagement” farming phenomenon, in which individuals or organizations tailor their content to tap into the algorithm of the platform and boost their popularity,” the CBC explained in an article, as if this isn’t something that most YouTubers do.

Real Talk Politiks, the creator behind the now-deleted account, took to X on Sunday to reveal what happened, pointing the finger at government-aligned media and tech collusion.

“CBC, Canada’s state-funded media just got YouTube to terminate my channel — not for breaking rules, but for having the wrong political views,” the post read.

Evergreen:

(Classical reference in headline.)

DIGITAL FRONTIER OF JUSTICE: Judge rejects claim AI chatbots protected by First Amendment.

A federal judge has decided that First Amendment protections don’t shield an artificial intelligence company from a lawsuit accusing the firm and its founders of creating chatbots that figured prominently in an Orlando teen’s suicide.

Judge Anne C. Conway of the Middle District of Florida denied several motions by defendants Character Technologies and founders Daniel De Freitas and Noam Shazeer to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III. Setzer killed himself with a gun in February of last year after interacting for months with Character.AI chatbots imitating fictitious characters from the Game of Thrones franchise, according to the lawsuit filed by Sewell’s mother, Megan Garcia.

“… Defendants fail to articulate why words strung together by (Large Language Models, or LLMs, trained in engaging in open dialog with online users) are speech,” Conway said in her May 21 opinion. “… The court is not prepared to hold that Character.AI’s output is speech.”

Skynet might have something to say about that.

TANNED, RESTED, AND TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden Responds To Book: “I’m Mentally Incompetent, I Can’t Walk, And I Could Beat The Hell Outta Both Of Them.”

REPORTER: What has this been like for your family? Obviously, this is also an emotional time. This is the ten-year anniversary of your son Beau’s passing. You received this diagnosis just two weeks before that.

BIDEN: Well, we’re all optimistic about the diagnosis. Matter of fact, one of the leading surgeons in the world is working with me. And he had diagnosed the same exact thing 32 years ago. He’s alive and well and doing very well. So we’re optimistic. We’re optimistic.

REPORTER: There’s also been a lot of discussion recently about your mental and physical capabilities while you were in office.

BIDEN: You can see that I’m mentally incompetent and I can’t walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them.

REPORTER: Do you want to reply to any of those reports, and also to the fact that there are some Democrats who are now questioning whether you should have run for reelection in the first place?

BIDEN: Why didn’t they run against me then? Because I’d have beaten them.

REPORTER: Do you have any regrets?

BIDEN: No, I don’t have any regrets. Look, there’s a lot going on, and I think we’re in a really difficult moment—not only in American history but in world history. I think we’re in one of those inflection points in history where the decisions we make in the next little bit are going to determine what things look like for the next 20 years. I’ve been talking about that for a long time. And I’m very proud. I’d put my record as president against any president at all. You notice that 12 of the 10 leading presidential historians rated me pretty good up on that list—and the guy I ran against, I rated him last. So, we’ll see.

Biden in 2028! He’s absolutely ready to exploit his opponent’s youth and inexperience!

More seriously, it’s a great moment of projection, as America will be cleaning up the many disasters created during Biden’s tumultuous single term in office.

Also watch the video above for the truly creepy way that Biden gets in a female journalist’s face, despite her not having actually asked a question. I’m sure her hair must smell awesome.