A COUP IN FRANCE?

We're now 48 days afterwards and Macron and his government are still running the country, they've basically ignored the election results which is unprecedented in the history of the French 5th republic. pic.twitter.com/V7ostiA2Ec

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 24, 2024

Plus: “Let’s see what Macron ultimately does but we’re truly witnessing something extraordinary that demonstrates how undemocratic France has become: the people voted and the result of their vote is so far simply rejected because those holding power don’t like it.”

This is the in-your-face version of how the Obama cabal hamstrung the Trump administration.

AT AMAZON, Shop the Labor Day Sale. #CommissionEarned

MESSAGING: Harris Features Trump Border Wall in Campaign ad to Great Mockery.

THE ALICE COOPER YOU DON’T KNOW: If politics is downstream from culture, then you know where that puts cultural icons like heavy metal/hard rock icon Alice Cooper. Heavy metal isn’t the musical force it was back in the 70s, but Cooper still sells beaucoup albums and his presence can be as startling as it ever was.

But did you know Alice Cooper — former drug/booze/sex addict — is today an articulate follower of Jesus Christ? Regardless of your own views on faith, or heavy metal for that matter, this (lengthy, 30 minute) interview with Pastor Greg Laurie offers an unusually deep, candid and inspiring look at what it was like then backstage and how radically things are different today for Alice Cooper.

Do not miss his account of his bottom — alone with a fifth of whiskey, a huge rock of cocaine and a pistol — and why it proved to be the great turning point in Alice Cooper’s incredible life.

And the fact that Cooper is today a Christian just might also be an indicator of huge cultural and political shifts to come. Feel free to just skip right on through the deluge of Democratic fund-raising appeals, too!

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: It Would Be Super Great If Tim Walz Could Tell the Truth About Anything. “I’m surprised that Trump hasn’t started calling Walz’s lies “Walzhoods,” which I think that I may start using now.”

SPREADING MISINFORMATION AT THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION: “And multiple speakers delighted the crowd by alluding to the fabricated viral claim that Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, wrote in his memoir about having sex with furniture.”

PUT A STAKE THROUGH ITS HEART: Did DEI die?

BATTLESWARM BLOG: Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia.

The biggest fallout of the Kursk incursion is a dog that didn’t bark. “Nukes haven’t flown. Throughout this war, the Russians have, at every stage, identified a series of red lines, saying that if you cross this line we’re going to nuke Washington and Warsaw, Berlin and Paris and London and the rest, and at every stage it’s turned out to be a bluff. Well, now the Ukrainians have crossed the international border in force. They have castrated the Russian military in the area.”

“The Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to that level, and that tells me that the conservatism in Western capitals about challenging the Russians is about to evaporate. Because if the Ukrainians can do this without that sort of counter reaction, then pretty much every Russian threat to this point is meaningless.”

Much more at the link.

REMEMBERING BIDEN’S BIGGEST FAILURE, WHICH THE PRESS HAS MEMORY-HOLED: Kabul’s Child Sacrifice – Three Years On: The fault, shame and humiliation are all ours; all red, white, and blue.

In a defeat of choice in a complete collapse of competence at the most senior levels of our civilian and military leadership … we did. In our panicked retreat we had our deadliest day in 11 years. Our Marines, Sailor and Soldier filled with their bodies the gap in intelligence, planning, and leadership by – what we are all told – are the very best, most credentialed from the finest institutions and selection processes to produce competent leaders for our nation of 330+ million souls.

They physically stepped in the real-world breach created by the wholesale failure of our intelligentsia and its rent-seeking nomenklatura.

They did their job; everyone whom they trusted with their lives in DC and Tampa did not.

That is the first lesson here; our self-described “best” that claim to be the ruling class are not our best. They are not good at their jobs. Their ideas are garbage. Their ethics are fetid to the core. Their morality sold for a farthing’s worth of power, fame, and influence.

Yep. Plus: “At the tactical level, from the C-17 aircrew to the leaders on the ground, they did the best they could with the ROE, restraints, and constraints that were put on them from DC. The American military from field grade officers to the 20-yr old E3s did an exceptional job – but there was only so much that could be done inside a structure of incompetence and politicized uniformed nomenklatura that we allowed to rise to the top over two decades.”

FRACTURED: Sanders reacts to Harris’s strong military talk at the DNC: ‘Enough is enough.’

EARLY OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

WOEING: Starliner to return from ISS without astronauts on board.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Second Amendment Roundup: 8th Circuit Rules in Favor of Pistol Brace Owners.

THIS WOULD BE A SIGNAL TO START A LITERAL REVOLUTION: Could Elon Musk actually be arrested and X cancelled? “With each passing day, as the forces that control our nation and the world get more surreal and foreboding, the ‘unthinkable’ suddenly morphs into the ‘inevitable.’ At least for me. As someone who pays close attention to the politics and the media in the United Kingdom and Europe, I began to notice a shocking narrative emanating from a growing number on the left there calling for the arrest of Elon Musk as well as the cancellation of X, the social media site he owns.”

The governments of the West decided a few years ago to go to war against their own citizens. I’m not sure exactly why, though I have ideas.

FASTER, PLEASE: Gen Z Men Are Turning to Trump From Harris.

THIS IS PITCHED AS A STORY OF INDEPENDENCE, BUT IT SOUNDS MORE LIKE IT’S ABOUT THE CONSTRAINTS OF HYPERGAMY: One Husband Is Enough: Women in Their 60s See No Need to Remarry.

Plenty of American women are finding that they don’t need a husband to enjoy their golden years. Both men and women in their mid-60s or older are more likely to be divorced or never married than at any time in the past three decades. But the women are much less likely than their male counterparts to get remarried.

Part of the reason is that women have a smaller pool to choose from. They on average live about five years longer than men, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . . .

After a divorce or bereavement, younger women are more likely than men to find a new partner. That trend shifts after age 35. By age 55 to 64, men are twice as likely to remarry, and more than three times as likely when they are age 65 and older. . . .

Rosemary Hopcroft, a sociology professor emerita at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, found that higher-income men are more likely to get married and remarried than men who make less money. For women, the effect is the opposite, at least for remarriage: Higher-income women are less likely to get remarried than other women.

“As women get older, the group of men they find attractive gets smaller and smaller; whereas for men, as they get older and more financially stable, the group of women they find attractive gets larger and larger,” said Hopcroft.

So independence, sure, but set against worse options.

CONGRESS LACKS THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER TO REGULATE ABORTION: Trump would veto legislation establishing a federal abortion ban, Vance says. “Donald Trump’s view is that we want the individual states and their individual cultures and their unique political sensibilities to make these decisions because we don’t want to have a nonstop federal conflict over this issue.”

Flashback: Taking Federalism Seriously: Lopez and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Wayne County Michigan: Only 50 Republicans Hired as Poll Watchers. “In a recent development in Wayne County, Michigan, more than 700 Republicans applied to be poll watchers for the upcoming elections. However, out of the 2,350 poll watchers hired, only 50 of them were Republicans. This stark contrast has raised concerns among the Republican community about fair representation and transparency in the polling process.”

OUT: QUALITY IS JOB ONE. IN: DIVERSITY IS JOB ONE:

The Department of Homeland Security put out its Information Technology Strategic Plan for 2024-2028. Guess what @DHSgov’s #1 goal is…

It’s not to protect America and it’s not to advance our capabilities to beat our enemies. Nope.

Their #1 stated goal is advancing DEI. Insane. pic.twitter.com/twTGHDKAPr

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 24, 2024

2024: Donald Trump Sensed a Trap by the Left and Didn’t Fall for It. “He explained his decision by expressing concern that Democrats would leak classified information and then attempt to accuse him of being the source of the leaks.”

ICYMI: MATT TAIBBI: Note to Philip Bump: The Washington Post columnist speaks on CNN; a brief reply.

Bump says the Twitter Files stuff has been “debunked a thousand times over.” In fact it caused Washington Post editors to append numerous corrections, including to Bump’s own work.

ON SUNDAYS I DO A PROMOTION POST FOR (MOSTLY) INDY AUTHORS: Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

There is also a vignette challenge, and I swear the writers get more inspired the weirder the world gets.

I CAN — I KNOW IT WILL SHOCK EVERYONE — USE FACT-FREE SNARK SOMETIMES, SIMPLY BECAUSE I’M ANGRY. I RECENTLY FIGURED OUT IT TENDS TO WORSEN PROBLEMS: Arguing vs. Venting Emotions.

Look, I’m 61. This adulthood thing is sometimes still a work in progress. Or maybe it’s the times we live in.

I’M SORRY… HER NAME IS KICK? WHAT HAPPENED TO NORMAL NAMES LIKE MOON UNIT OR TECHNO MECHANICUS? Ben Affleck has been hanging out with RFK Jr.’s daughter Kick Kennedy amid Jennifer Lopez split: source.

PAY NO ATTENTION, EVERYTHING’S UNDER CONTROL WITH KAMALA AND JOE ON WATCH:  Houthis burn Greek oil tanker in Red Sea, mock US by posting video of blaze.