SOME THOUGHTS ON APPOINTMENTS from a friend:
Bill Hagerty has the creds and integrity to take on the job. He will be an easy confirm.
A good man with international business experience and a understanding of Asia.
Not a flashy guy no baggage, no drama. Exactly what we need.The test of Musk influence and the influence of DOGE Committee will be the Sect of Agriculture choice and the Farm subsidies that depend on decisions made at that level.
Stay tuned.
GET WOKE, GO…: Jaguar hits back at critics of new DEI rebrand ad that doesn’t feature any cars.
Copy nothing. #Jaguar pic.twitter.com/BfVhc3l09B
— Jaguar (@Jaguar) November 19, 2024
Posting the video to their social media site, the ad shows a group of models dressed in bright and flamboyant clothing.
The ad occasionally pops up with text reading ‘create exuberant’, ‘live vivid’, ‘delete ordinary’, ‘break moulds’ and ‘copy nothing’.
As it does so, the characters can be seen grabbing at sledgehammers, painting over the screen and posing for photographs in sync.
Social media users, including the likes of Elon Musk, have been quick to point out that the ad offers no suggestion that the company sells cars.
Responding to one user who posted on X asking ‘where are the cars in this ad? Is this for fashion?, the company replied: ‘Think of this as a declaration of intent’.
Others used posed similar questions, which was met with replies including: ‘The story is unfolding. Stay tuned’, and ‘Consider this the first brushstroke’.
Musk, who owns electric car company Telsa, said: ‘Do you sell cars?’, after seeing the clip.
Jaguar responded: ‘Yes. We’d love to show you. Join us for a cuppa in Miami on 2nd December? Warmest regards, Jaguar.’
Another person added: ‘Bye Jaguar, it was nice knowing you, to think, you were once the pinnacle of British motor engineering.’
One other commented: ‘Didn’t you get the memo?
‘Woke is dead. (And so is Jaguar, by the look of this turd).’
Since everybody who’s ever been in show business is being digitally reanimated these days, from Peter Cushing to Leonard Nimoy, Jag missed a golden opportunity to employ ILM to bring back its greatest saleswoman ever:
In all seriousness, it’s going to be fascinating which pop culture and consumer aesthetics emerge from the corporate boardrooms after this election, in which all things woke received a thorough thrashing from voters. I’m assuming that Jag’s ad campaign and new car rollout were months in the making, and they either misread the American presidential election, or didn’t care about it. But I do wonder how their newfound aesthetic choices will sell the product:
As former Activision CCO Lulu Cheng Meservey tweets:
It’s possible a marketing exec read too many think pieces about how millennials shop based on values and forgot that people want cars that are really well built.
On top of that, instead of choosing a clear lane, Jaguar’s brand has meandered further into no man’s land. Literally — this is NOT for men. While men have been an important audience for Jaguar historically (it’s a favored ride for James Bond and Bruce Wayne), the latest campaign features six women and two people of indistinguishable gender (one appears to be a man but I don’t want to assume).
Read the whole thing from her, including this exit quote: “Someone on the Jaguar marketing team has greatly overestimated the size of the ‘vegan barista who wants to roll up to the drum circle in a luxury sports car’ market I fear.”
UPDATE: Found at Ricochet: Mister, Jaguar could use a man like Dudley Moore again!
THIS JUST IN: Trump breaking the old-boy GOP mold again.
JustTheNews reporting that “Trump taps transition co-chair Linda McMahon as Education Secretary.”
“It is my great honor to announce that Linda McMahon, former Administrator of the Small Business Administration, will be the United States Secretary of Education,” Trump posted to his Truth Social. “As Secretary of Education, Linda will fight tirelessly to expand [Universal School Choice] to every State in America, and empower parents to make the best Education decisions for their families.”
His cabinet picks are going to change The Swamp forever.
OPEN THREAD: Party on.
TYLER O’NEILL: Cancel Culture: SPLC Targets the Real-News Partner of The Babylon Bee.
Still smarting from the loss of its access to Washington as President-elect Donald Trump gears up to reenter the White House, the Left’s cancel culture enforcer has trained its sights on Not the Bee, the real-news partner of the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left smear factory that gaslights its donors and engages in routine defamation against mainstream conservatives and Christians, targeted Not the Bee after Tesla Founder Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022. One of Musk’s first directives at Twitter was restoring The Babylon Bee’s speech on the platform, and it seems likely he bought the social media platform in part for this reason. Twitter had silenced the Bee for the crime of disagreeing with transgender orthodoxy, one of the key issues on which the SPLC will brook no dissent.
In fact, this connection may explain a secondary motive behind the SPLC’s attack.
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon revealed the SPLC’s forthcoming attack in a post on X Tuesday.
“The discredited, scandal-ridden smear factory known as the SPLC is about to publish a hit piece doxxing several of our ‘Not the Bee’ writers who wished to remain anonymous so they could speak freely, without fear,” he wrote. “The SPLC extracted sensitive information from our site, then used that information to contact our writers directly.”
Dillon said the SPLC went digging for the information “because they’re left-wing activists masquerading as journalists.”
“They did it because they lack principles,” he added. “They did it because they’re vindictive bullies who’ve admitted their aim is to ‘completely destroy’ individuals and organizations they disagree with by making them pay a steep price for speaking freely.”
Dillon admitted that since he’s a public figure, he accepts that getting attacked “comes with the territory.”
“What I won’t accept is the doxxing and smearing of our staff because they said some things the SPLC doesn’t like,” he added.
Read the whole thing.
Fortunately, the management and programmers of the new BlueSky app are much more tolerant of diverse ideologies than the SPLC. Oh wait, no they’re not:
SHUT THEM DOWN, THEY’RE PRE-EMPTED: The California Coastal Commission’s ruling to limit SpaceX launches threatens national defense.
JOE BIDEN REALLY MAKING THE MOST OF HIS LAST 62 DAYS IN OFFICE: Biden approves antipersonnel mines for Ukraine, undoing his own policy.
President Joe Biden has authorized the provision of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine, two U.S. officials said, a step that will bolster Kyiv’s defenses against advancing Russian troops but has drawn criticism from arms control groups.
The move comes in the wake of the White House’s recent authorization allowing Ukraine to use a powerful long-range missile system to strike inside Russia — part of a sweep of urgent actions the lame-duck Biden administration is taking to help Kyiv’s faltering war effort.
And this come after yesterday’s news: Biden Gives Ukraine the OK to Use Long-Range US Missiles (Using US Targeting Information) To Strike Targets Deep Within Russia; Putin Announces He Is Changing Russia’s Nuke Rules to Allow Using Nukes Against Ukraine.
Underneath his “Scranton Joe” aw-shucks facade, Joe’s always been an incredibly angry man, but I didn’t realize the former opponent of the Vietnam War would risk dumping WWIII on his successor’s administration.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Senate Democrats Launch Eleventh-Hour Campaign To Kneecap Jewish State.
In the Biden-Harris administration’s eleventh hour, Senate Democrats are launching a campaign against the Jewish state aimed at drumming up support for blocking arms sales to Israel.
Led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), the congressional offensive consists of three Senate disapproval resolutions that call for an immediate pause in American arms sales to Israel and accuse the United States of supporting mass war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Sanders—along with Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), Peter Welch (D., Vt.), and other top Democrats—held a press conference on Tuesday touting the measures. Around the same time, anti-Israel protesters stormed a Senate office building, demanding lawmakers back the measures.
Libs of TikTok has invoked the I-word:
BREAKING: Insurrection happening right now in the Senate building by pro-Palestine protesters pic.twitter.com/7eBzDrmOuj
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 19, 2024
YOU’VE BEEN TRUMP’D! Newsweek Becomes Punchline By Fact Checking Future-Predicting Prank Painting.
To the non-journalistic eye that’s a fake image. But, Newsweek said, ‘No so fast! This involves Trump! We must warn the public!’ What proceeds is a floundering ‘news’ outlet falling for a twist on the popular Deez Nuts meme.
They actually ran with it: Fact Check: Did Deitz Nuutzen Painting Predict Trump Dinner With RFK Jr?
Looking at the “painting” it looks AI-generated. The composition exactly matches the photograph, down to the person in Musk’s position having their hands on their thigh with four fingers visible, the gold bar as the base of the table, and the figures in Kennedy and Musk’s position both wearing modern leather dress shoes, not typical of the early 18th Century.
Deitz Nuützen is a homophone of “Deez Nutz,” an internet slang term for testicles (these nuts).
The meme has its origins in rapper Dr. Dre’s 1992 album The Chronic. It has a track called “Deeez Nuuuts” in which rapper Warren G tells a joke to a woman on the phone, the punchline of which is “deez nuts.”
In March 2015, Instagram user @WelvenDaGreat posted a video of himself calling his friend asking whether something came in the mail today, because he was expecting “deez nuts” before letting out a screeching laugh and yelling “gotteem.”
That video became a viral sensation and internet meme. Musk himself has posted at least two “deez nutz” memes on his X account this year.
As Warren Squire of Twitchy notes, “You have to feel sorry for the ‘journo’ who got drafted to do this. Someone, please feed this kid a sandwich. He looks starved.” Maybe RFK Jr. or Trump can give him a few of their Quarter Pounders and Big Macs:
Up until 2010, Newsweek was owned by the Washington Post, who published it as a magazine with largely American staffers reporting mostly on American news. But along with Nicholls, both the person whom Newsweek employed in late October to remind their readers that the “photo” that Trump tweeted depicting him with massive biceps and a taut waist in a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform was “81 percent likely to be constructed by AI,” and the person who ran a health inspection from afar on the Pennsylvania McDonald’s where Trump served fries and worked the drive-up window for a few hours were Brits. Just out of curiosity, is there some make-work program that Newsweek has with British universities to hire their J-school students and let them write up their first articles on the cheap covering American politics? Is Newsweek the Fleet Street farm team?
ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: ‘Don’t Call Me Stupid!’ Cenk Uygur Ignites Powder Keg of a Segment When He Slams ‘Deluded’ Election Forecaster.
Exit quote: “After Lichtman declared, ‘I will not sit here and stand for personal attacks, for blasphemy against me. You don’t need to do that,’ Uygur questioned, ’Blasphemy against you?! Who the hell are you? Are you Jesus Christ?’”
I am not joking when I say this is one of the greatest clips I've ever seen on a cable news show.
Cenk completely destroys Alan Lichtman by pointing out that his keys to the White House were wrong and Lichtman responds by accusing him of blasphemy.😂pic.twitter.com/4G1YF3cxTy
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 19, 2024
Related: The ‘foolproof’ election forecaster who predicted Trump would lose – what went wrong?
Why did he think Harris would win, and what went wrong? “The keys are premised on the proposition that a rational, pragmatic electorate decides whether the White House party has governed well enough to get another four years,” he explains. “Just as this kind of hate and violence is new, there are precedent-shattering elements now to our political system, most notably disinformation.
“There’s always been disinformation but it has exploded to a degree we’ve never seen before. It’s not just Fox News and the rightwing media. It’s also rightwing podcasters and we have a brand new player, the $300bn guy, Elon Musk, whose wealth exceeds that of most countries in the world and has heavily put his thumb on disinformation.”
Musk’s Super Pac reportedly spent about $200m to help elect Trump while his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, amplified rightwing propaganda. Musk was a leading Trump surrogate and has since become a near-permanent fixture at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Along with the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, he will now head an effort to reduce wasteful government spending.
Lichtman continues: “It’s been reported that the disinformation that he disseminates has been viewed billions of times. The disinformation extends to every aspect of our society and our economy. Many people are living in an alternative universe and that calls into question the fundamental basis of political decision-making in this country.”
That includes disinformation about inflation, jobs, employment, the stock market, growth, hurricane aid, the Ukraine war and undocumented immigrants, falsely portrayed as dangerous killers when in fact they commit crimes at far lower rate than native-born Americans.
Martha Raddatz could not be reached for comment.
BLAST FROM THE PAST: I know, I know, it’s rather tacky to say “I told you so.”
But I told you so.
Reading the news that Catherine Herridge might be spending time in the pokey reminded me of this article I wrote…back in 2013. (h/t to Mark Tapscott for his light-handed editing).
SEISMIC PRECURSOR: Mysterious Signal Preceded The Most Powerful Eruption of Modern Times. “The fracture also caused a Rayleigh wave, a type of acoustic wave that moves along a solid surface – in this case, Earth’s surface. The wave was detected 15 minutes before the main volcanic eruption on January 15, 2022, from about 750 kilometers (466 miles) away.”
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: How Trump will keep the left on defense — in transition and beyond.
My guesstimate is that it would take the, ah, disappearance of a dozen people or less (maybe even as few as five) for the spark to finally hit the powder. Block deployment of IRGC support forces, and there would be a boom today.
One of the largest factors preventing the boom is our current Regency, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the mad mullahs. And to fund them. This has been Obama policy from the start, in defiance of facts, logic, morality, and more.
Why? One can surmise either an incredibly naive belief in the stabilizing influence of Iran as a regional power, or that a significant number of our policymakers have been on the payroll of (or blackmailed by, or both) Iran, or its patron, China.
SPACE: SpaceX launches sixth Starship but aborts booster landing. The booster, though, did successfully put the Starship upper stage, known as Ship 31, onto a suborbital trajectory. During its time in space, SpaceX briefly reignited one of the vehicle’s Raptor engines, a test of that capability needed for deorbit burns on later missions.”
I REMEMBER WHEN IV VITAMIN C WAS CONSIDERED A QUACK TREATMENT: High-dose IV vitamin C plus chemotherapy found to double survival time in advanced pancreatic cancer.
PAGING MARCO RUBIO–THIS SHOULD AFFECT STATE DEPARTMENT HIRING: I Saw How Georgetown’s Prestigious School of Foreign Service Coddles Violent Anti-Semites—Who Are Plotting to Transform US Policy From Within.
The trouble started with a required course for all students in my program, “Globalization: Inter-Societal Relations.” Georgetown’s course guide describes the class, which was “DEI certified,” as focusing on how European states expanded globally and “the impact of that expansion on peoples with different political and social traditions.” More simply put, this was a class about the negative effects Western expansion had on the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Georgetown solicited online feedback about the course, and I submitted a public review on a Google document set up by school staff for the purpose of collecting student appraisals. I argued that we deserved “a serious history class” focusing on the West, rather than a course that dwelled on the evils of imperialism and colonialism (this line of study has consumed American academia, especially on elite, private school campuses). Diplomats need to understand their own history, I wrote. “In order for you to represent, as a global leader and foreign service officer, you need to know what you represent and why.”
Not a day passed before an anonymous student slapped back at my review, decrying “circumstances where people the most privileged—namely white men—come together to intellectually masturbate to lionized accounts of the West.”
As comments became increasingly heated, school administrators had the whole Google document evaluation taken down. A few days later, the master’s program’s leadership team sent a program-wide email decrying what they said were “racist comments and hurtful responses.” Though my name was not explicitly mentioned, it was widely understood that they were referring to my remarks.
NO, NATE, THE TRUMP ROMP WASN’T HARD TO CALL: The New Election Gurus. From City Journal:
Six days before the election, the statistician Nate Silver issued a warning to his 3.4 million followers on X: “Just Say No to analysis of early voting. It probably won’t help you to make better predictions. But you may fool yourself.” He received a prompt reply from a Utah woman, posting anonymously under the handle @DataRepublican.
“Nate, sit down,” she wrote. “You don’t know anything about early voting.”
She turned out to be right, at least about this election. While Silver and the rest of the punditocracy were calling the election an unpredictable tossup, @DataRepublican and her collaborators — an informal network on X of mostly anonymous and unpaid number-crunchers like her– were fearlessly forecasting a decisive Trump victory based on their computer models of early-voting data. They started calling Nevada and other battleground states two weeks before Election Day. By the campaign’s final weekend, they had correctly called six of the seven battleground states (they still weren’t sure about Michigan) as well as the national popular vote for Trump.
How did they do it? In interviews for my article in City Journal, they described their methods — and criticized the polling industry’s methods as well as the leftist biases of the media’s favorite experts. @DataRepublican described her mission: ““This is about me taking a dagger to the current state of punditry.”
WELL, THAT’S NICE: The 2025 BMW X3 Gives You a Lot More—for the Same Money.
CRANKY OLD MAN ATTACKS FRIEND:
In a candid closed-door meeting, Prime Minister Netanyahu shared explosive details of alleged threats he received from U.S. leaders over the past year.
“President Biden called me before the operation in Rafah and warned, ‘Prime Minister Netanyahu, if you proceed, you will be left on your own,’” Netanyahu recounted.
“My response was clear and resolute,” he continued. “‘Then we will handle it on our own.’”
Netanyahu revealed that just two days later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a follow-up warning: “You will not receive any further military aid.”
Undeterred, Netanyahu said he fired back: “We will fight with our hands and claws if we must. We will not compromise on Rafah.”
According to the Prime Minister, American officials had warned of catastrophic casualties in the operation, predicting up to 20,000 deaths. “That claim turned out to be a complete fabrication,” he said, underscoring his refusal to back down under pressure.
I’m so old, I remember when Joe Biden was going to restore our tattered alliances.
READER FAVORITE: DASH Rapid Egg Cooker: 6 Egg Capacity. #CommissionEarned
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