NOT PRECISELY MAKING IT INTO THE CONVENIENCE STORE IT SHOULD BE, BUT I’LL ALLOW IT: Brandon Herrera for Director of the BATF?
Archive for 2024
November 13, 2024
THE FED GOV’S SES PROBLEM: Never Underestimate the Power of Unfinished Business.
POOR SEATTLE: Another Dispatch from Seattle.
YES, WE DO KNOW YOU’RE POLITICALLY HOSTILE TO US, BUT WHAT YOU DID WAS ILLEGAL. ALSO IMMORAL: FEMA Supervisor Who Allegedly Directed Staff to Avoid Homes With Trump Signs Claims it Was a Widespread Practice Due to ‘Political Hostility’.
PEOPLE IN DANGEROUS JOBS, INTERACTING WITH STRANGERS, SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO HAVE WEAPONS FOR SELF DEFENSE: Lyft’s Driver Disarmament Policy Strikes Again.
I love Lyft and Uber, but you know it’s going to eventually end in someone getting murdered, and the companies losing all their drivers. This is nonsense. And all for a virtue signal.
November 12, 2024
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Kamala Harris Campaign Gave $500k to Al Sharpton’s Nonprofit Weeks Before Glowing Interview With Anti-Semitic MSNBC Host.
As John Podhoretz tweets, MSNBC will likely do absolutely nothing, since they’ve been paying Sharpton protection money since 2011:
OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.
TRUMP TAPS FOX NEWS HOST PETE HEGSETH FOR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE:
President-elect Donald Trump has selected Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as the next secretary of defense.
Hegseth’s appointment, which is sure to attract the ire of Democrats* given his long-standing association with Fox, will require confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Before joining Fox in 2014, Hegseth served as an Army National Guard captain in Afghanistan and Iraq and earned the Bronze Star medal for his service in the latter.
“Pete Hegseth has been an exceptional host on FOX & Friends and FOX Nation and a best-selling author for FOX News Books for nearly a decade,” Fox News Media said in a statement. “His insights and analysis especially about the military resonated deeply with our viewers and made the program the major success that it is today. We are extremely proud of his work at FOX News Media and wish him the best of luck in Washington.”
The Princeton and Harvard graduate has been most vocal advocating on behalf of veterans, serving as executive director of Vets for Freedom from 2007-2010. He was even considered by Trump to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs during the former president’s first term in office.
Few had Hegseth on their radar for the prominent role, as Trump seems set on wasting no time filling out his cabinet ahead of his second term in the Oval Office come January.
* Well, not all Democrats. Bill Kristol and S.E. Cupp offered their support for Hegseth over a decade ago, and there’s no reason they’d renege on it now, would they?
BYLINES OF BRUTALITY: ABC News and Fox Sports employee Michael Strahan rips London Daily Mail journalist’s iPhone out of his hand: Furious Michael Strahan explodes when asked about Fox Sports national anthem controversy.
A raging Michael Strahan lashed out at a DailyMail.com reporter on Tuesday and grabbed his cell phone when asked for a comment on the furor surrounding his national anthem faux-pas.
The 52-year-old Good Morning America star is yet to answer questions about the controversy that led to fans calling for him to be fired from Fox Sports for not holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem on Sunday.
Strahan stood with his hands folded in front of him next to his Fox Sports co-stars at Naval Base San Diego as the national anthem was played.
He was the only man in the line-up not to place his hand over his heart – and quickly drew criticism from viewers, some of whom called it ‘cowardly’ and ‘disrespectful’.
While Fox Sports is standing by him and others have leaped to his defense, Strahan is yet to address the controversy directly.
But when calmly asked for his comment on Tuesday after arriving home from co-hosting ABC’s Good Morning America, he immediately exploded.
‘Don’t come to my house, man!’ he yelled, grabbing the reporter’s phone.
He then tossed the phone into a nearby bush, before making his way into his $20million townhouse with his girlfriend Kayla Quick.
* * * * * * * *
A source told DailyMail.com that his ‘peers have his back and understand that he wasn’t making the moment about himself.’
Except that he was — and is — doing just that.
(Classical reference in headline.)
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese commercial Lijian-1 rocket launches 15 satellites.
THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS, YANKEE: Philadelphia chain Wawa crowned the best convenience store in America — beating Gen Z favorite Buc-ee’s.
Yes, but did America’s Newspaper of Record do a video on the wonders of Wawa, complete with a cameo from RedState’s Kira Davis? I think not: Californians Move to Texas, Episode 5: Buc-ee’s!
More here: Watch: Hilarious Babylon Bee Take as Californians Discover the Wonder of Buc-ees.
TAKE IT FROM A METROPOLITAN LIBERAL — WE ARE WHY TRUMP WON:
Even the more common-sense types on the liberal left, the ones not totally captured by ideology, will tell you that ‘the trans debate is difficult’. It is not. There are two sexes, men and women. In very rare cases, a person of either sex might have gender dysphoria. If you’re a grown-up, have had an adequate amount of therapy to rule out other possibilities and you want to live as the opposite sex to the one you were born into, fine. But self-identification is a terrible idea for numerous reasons. Two of the biggest are that it, one, allows people who might have psychological problems to identify as trans by mistake (with massive, irreversible medical complications involved), and two, that it allows any man, including some with less than pure intentions, access to women’s spaces. That’s before we get to the fact that offering the option of changing one’s gender to children is an even more terrible idea.
See, not hard. What’s amazing is that the above viewpoint would have been considered the stridently liberal position even 10 years ago. Now, it would get you cancelled from every metropolitan liberal-left dinner party (which doesn’t worry me, I never got invited to them anyhow).
* * * * * * * *
A lot of young men voted for Donald Trump. And while I am not a fan of Trump myself, I get it. I think the whole ‘toxic masculinity’ narrative has been a total disaster for the centre-left, more so than even the trans stuff. Young men are being told constantly that they do not matter, that they should shut up, that they have privilege, that many of the things they like to do for fun are somehow ‘problematic’. This is why people like Andrew Tate have such a seemingly inexplicably large following – who is creating a positive view of masculinity from a liberal-left perspective?
This has created a gaping space for Trump that he has happily driven into and parked the bus. Call me naïve, but when you expend all your political energy pissing off both men and women, what’s left? There really aren’t enough nonbinary folks out there to make up the difference (sorry).
Read the whole thing.
AFTER SEC V. JARKESY THIS SHOULD BE EASY: NCLA Amicus Brief Asks Fifth Circuit to Overturn Currency Comptroller’s Violation of Jury Trial Rights.
Reminder/Disclosure: I’m on the NCLA’s Board of Advisors. At this point these are probably redundant, I guess, but. . . .
PERSONNEL IS POLICY:
🚨BREAKING: Donald Trump selects Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) pic.twitter.com/SbEhcNb5bi
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 13, 2024
TRUMP PICKS FORMER INTEL DIRECTOR JOHN RATCLIFFE TO HEAD THE CIA:
John Ratcliffe, who served as President-elect Trump’s principal intelligence advisor during his first presidential term, will serve as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency when Trump moves back into the White House.
Ratcliffe is one of several appointees announced in the past week who will fill key positions during Trump’s second term.
“From exposing fake Russian collusion to be a Clinton campaign operation, to catching the FBI’s abuse of Civil Liberties at the FISA Court, John Ratcliffe has always been a warrior for Truth and Honesty with the American Public,” Trump said in a statement. “When 51 intelligence officials were lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop, there was one, John Ratcliffe, telling the truth to the American People.”
Exit quote:
one of John Ratcliffe's best moments was demolishing Peter Strzok, the FBI head of counterintelligence who colluded to destroy Donald Trump
Critical to have someone like this at CIA director, to stop the next russiagate 2.0 hoax pic.twitter.com/pW5weJlMZA
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) November 12, 2024
ROARING 20S OR WARRING 20S? How disruptive would a Chinese invasion of Taiwan be?
BIG NEWS:
Huge decision holding that CEQ never had authority to issue the National Environmental Policy Act regulations that have been used for nearly half a century https://t.co/8Jn5TF4kT5 pic.twitter.com/KRn0ZDIbIS
— James Coleman (@EnergyLawProf) November 12, 2024
This will open up all sorts of previously-regulated projects. If the Supreme Court lets it stand, there will probably be calls for new legislation, but if the GOP plays its cards right it can fix this for a long time.
PERSONNEL IS POLICY:
🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump names John Ratcliffe as Director of the CIA pic.twitter.com/IgngKnRawI
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 12, 2024
I MEAN, WHY WOULDN’T YOU, THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE WARSHIPS: CDR Salamander: Arm the Auxiliaries: Just Make it Happen.
Due to program management that progresses at the speed of smell and creates more board seats for recently retired four-stars than actual assets that displace water, we’ve run out of time for theoretical ‘offsets’ or the latest flavor of magic beans.
Nope. Time to walk away from the intellectual habits that painted us in this corner and look at what we can do to take action NOW to enhance the combat utility of what we have, with what we have.
We don’t have to look far. One of the first steps we must take is to arm the auxiliaries. In the generations after the Vietnam War, we were lulled into accepting the ‘green-eyeshade’ logic of saving money by converting former USS ships to USNS, leaving them unarmed. What pennies we may save in peace from that mindset will cost of bricks of gold at war.
The seas are no longer ours, if they ever really were. Our few replenishment ships have always been High Value Unit, it is time to start treating them like one. We cannot afford to lose any of the few that we have—but we seem to be inviting that exact event.
There’s been a lot of criminal negligence regarding our naval posture. We need to fix it as much as we can, as fast as we can.
NEED A NEW PAGER, BRO?
This is Mojtaba Amani!
He is Iran's ambassador to Lebanon.
What do you notice? pic.twitter.com/CCHbeFnLoZ— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) November 12, 2024
Posting this on the off chance you needed a reminder that Hezbollah (and Hamas) is Iran.
USA Today reported, “Former Kamala Harris aide says Joe Biden should resign so she can serve as 47th president.”
Sure, go ahead because then we will not have to hear Democrats demand we elect their next candidate simply because she is a woman. Trump can sell more hats that read 45 and 48.
Democrats need to go back and read the Rules for Radicals because all these impeachments, indictments and lawsuits are getting old. Rule No. 7 says, “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
Democrat supporters must be tired of losing by now. It looks like Warren and Raskin want to give them another L. . . . Trump continues to amaze and amuse his supporters. I don’t know about anyone else but I feel better today than I did 8 years ago, and I was pretty happy then, too.
Heh. Indeed.
I LOVE A STORY WITH A HAPPY ENDING: Home Invaders Meet Their Match When TX, FL Armed Citizens Fight Back. “What’s most striking to me about these defensive gun uses is that in both cases the homeowner was able to contact 911 and alert law enforcement that a crime was taking place, but as quickly as officers and deputies responded it would have been too late to save the residents from harm. The phase ‘when seconds count police are minutes away’ isn’t meant as a knock on police. It’s just a simple fact. . . . The reality is that if someone’s breaking into your home, you are the quickest first responder… and being able to defend yourself can all too easily be the difference between life and death.”