DANIEL PENNY IS MY HERO, HE SHOULD BE YOURS TOO:  Sometimes I just have to sound off:  I was hoping that once closing statements were over every single juror would laugh in the prosecutor’s face and insist on taking Daniel Penny out for a beer.  But I’ll take the deadlock over the manslaughter charge as a partial win.  Next comes the criminally negligent homicide charge.  I’m saying a prayer that the jurors will be deadlocked on that one too.

I feel like this is America on trial.  We’re the country that is supposed to honor individuals like Penny who take action in an emergency.  Please God, give us a million more like him.

WHY THEY’RE AFRAID OF PETE HEGSETH:

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: She Fled from the Police with a Cop in the Backseat. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and this week we have the world’s worst getaway, the naked carpet cleaner, and the new King of California.”

OBAMA CANNOT FAIL. ONLY WE CAN FAIL OBAMA:

Read the whole thing. Back in 2010 at the New Criterion, the late Kenneth Minogue warned:

My concern with democracy is highly specific. It begins in observing the remarkable fact that, while democracy means a government accountable to the electorate, our rulers now make us accountable to them. Most Western governments hate me smoking, or eating the wrong kind of food, or hunting foxes, or drinking too much, and these are merely the surface disapprovals, the ones that provoke legislation or public campaigns. We also borrow too much money for our personal pleasures, and many of us are very bad parents. Ministers of state have been known to instruct us in elementary matters, such as the importance of reading stories to our children. Again, many of us have unsound views about people of other races, cultures, or religions, and the distribution of our friends does not always correspond, as governments think that it ought, to the cultural diversity of our society. We must face up to the grim fact that the rulers we elect are losing patience with us.

In accordance with the prophecy:

THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY:

This is dangerous, Weimar-era territory we’re in.

NO STOP SIGNS IN A GUNFIGHT: When To Stop Shooting. “An untrained shooter can fire four rounds per second while an elite, trained shooter is capable of firing seven or eight accurate rounds per second. This inherent delay to stop shooting generally translates into one to four rounds fired before being capable of stopping our fingers from rapidly pressing our triggers. It simply requires time to stop shooting after finally perceiving the threat is over.”

BEATS THE HELL OUT OF MMT: El Salvador’s president is triumphant after his bet on bitcoin comes true. “The adoption of bitcoin — which has been legal tender in the Central American nation since 2021 — never quite matched the president’s enthusiasm, but the value of the government’s reported investment now stands at more than $600 million.”

NIH DESIGNEE JAY BHATTACHARYA REPORTEDLY CONSIDERING FIRE RANKINGS TO EVALUATE GRANT RECIPIENTS’ ACADEMIC FREEDOM. Whether or not FIRE’s surveys end up being considered, it’s critical that NIH grant recipients provide academic freedom so they can’t warp the results you paid for in whatever way they find politically convenient. Dr. Bhattacharya, you may remember, has plenty of reason to know the importance of scientists’ ability to follow their academic consciences.

MEH. THE S-400 ISN’T ALL THAT:

It’s looking more and more like the endgame for the Assad regime. I’m not exactly sad to see Putin humiliated but whether Assad’s downfall (if it happens) ends up making things better or worse in the region, I’d wager on worse.

REMY: Pardon My Son. New video from Reason TV:

UNEXPECTEDLY: Tim Walz reveals why he’s stunned Kamala Harris lost the election in his first interview.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz opened up for the first time where he shared that he was surprised by Kamala Harris‘ devastating loss in the 2024 president.

The vice president’s running mate sat down for one-on-one interviews with two local Minneapolis TV stations where he spoke about the failed White House bid and what comes next.

Walz said leading up to the election, he felt that Democrats were headed toward a victory before the loss to President-elect Donald Trump, who ended up sweeping all seven battleground states.

‘It felt like at the rallies, at the things I was going to, at the shops I was going in, that the momentum was going our way,’ Walz said.

‘It obviously wasn’t at the end of time, so yeah I was a little surprised,’ he went on.

‘I thought we had a positive message, and I thought the country was ready for that,’ he told KSTP 5 Eyewitness News.

Yes, it’s that positive message of calling your opponent Hitler

Yesterday, V.P. Harris compared President Trump to Hitler,  “Donald Trump is out for unchecked power. He wants a military like Adolf Hitler had, who will be loyal to him, not our Constitution. He is unhinged, unstable, and given a second term, there would be no one to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses.”

The V.P.’s comment comparing Trump to Hitler indicates she doesn’t care about minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust or she is an imbecile incapable of understanding.

Her comments were based on a story in the leftist magazine The Atlantic reporting that Trump’s former chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, called Trump a “fascist” and recalled his admiration for Nazi generals. Kelly also raised concerns about Trump’s recent threats to use the military against “the enemy from within.”

…And not considering that after 80 years, voters can see through that perennial smear, particularly after the former president didn’t do any Hitler-y sort of stuff in his first term.

IT’S OK, HE WON’T REMEMBER IT: Joe Biden Just Got Some Devastating News About His Legacy. “An exclusive Daily Mail poll reveals that voters consider Biden the worst president in nearly 50 years, faring worse than Jimmy Carter, who was voted out after a single term marked by double-digit inflation and a failed attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran, and even below Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign rather than face impeachment over the devastating Watergate scandal.”