Archive for 2024

STANDING UP TO DISINFORMATION:

HMM: Crew-8 astronauts remain mum about post-splashdown medical issue.

NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, returned to Earth Oct. 25 on a Crew Dragon spacecraft, concluding the 235-day Crew-8 mission. But later that day NASA said that the four were taken to a Pensacola, Florida, hospital for additional medical evaluations “out of an abundance of caution.” One of the NASA astronauts was hospitalized in stable condition there, but released the next day “in good health.”

NASA did not disclose the identity of the astronaut who was hospitalized or the specific medical concern that prompted the hospital visit. At a Nov. 8 press conference to discuss their mission, the three NASA astronauts declined to discuss details about the incident, citing medical privacy.

“Spaceflight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things we don’t expect sometimes, and this was one of those times,” Barratt, a doctor, said of what he called the “medical event” after splashdown. “We’re still piecing things together on this and so, to maintain medical privacy and to let our processes go forward in an orderly manner, this is all we’re going to say about that event at this time.”

It’s probably not a space parasite, symbiote, or a rapidly mutating microbe with a crystalline structure.

AS ALWAYS, LIFE IN THE 21st CENTURY IMITATES WOODY ALLEN’S SLEEPER: Wanna Know How Devastating Kamala’s Loss Really Was for the Left? Just Check Out What Mark Cuban Did-LOL.

To paraphrase the futuristic historian in Sleeper, some of us have a theory that she might once have been a candidate to be President of the United States, but that she performed so horrendously, all records, everything was wiped out about her. There is nothing in history books.  There are no pictures on stamps, money, or what people from your century called “social media.”

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS I HAVE FORESEEN: CNN Gets Whiplash Over How Fast Trump Is Moving to Fix This Country.

Me, last week: “Like airplanes on a runway. Trump’s approach this time around should be what he should have done last time: Shock and awe. Shut down departments, fire bureaucrats, exercise emergency powers, all so fast that the establishment’s responses are saturated. Javier Millei’s whirlwind assault in Argentina should be the model, sometimes in specifics but also in general approach. Bureaucrats move slowly; Trump should move fast.”

WHEN YOU’RE A LEFTIST WHO’S LOST MAUREEN DOWD…: Democrats and the Case of Mistaken Identity Politics.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a vulnerable Democrat in a red congressional district in Washington, narrowly held her seat. The 36-year-old mother of a toddler and owner of an auto shop told The Times’s Annie Karni that Democratic condescension has to go. “There’s not one weird trick that’s going to fix the Democratic Party,” she said. “It is going to take parents of young kids, people in rural communities, people in the trades running for office and being taken seriously.”

Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the party needs rebranding. “Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone,” he said. “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”

On CNN, the Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said that Democrats did not know how to talk to normal Americans.

Addressing Latinos as “Latinx” to be politically correct “makes them think that we don’t even live on the same planet as they do,” she said. “When we are too afraid to say that ‘Hey, college kids, if you’re trashing a campus of Columbia University because you aren’t happy about some sort of policy and you’re taking over a university and you’re trashing it and preventing other students from learning, that that is unacceptable.’ But we’re so worried about alienating one or another cohort in our coalition that we don’t know what to say.”

Kamala, a Democratic lawmaker told me, made the “colossal mistake” of running a billion-dollar campaign with celebrities like Beyoncé when many of the struggling working-class voters she wanted couldn’t even afford a ticket to a Beyoncé concert, much less a down payment on a home.

And Camp Kamala sympathizes; they allegedly couldn’t even afford Alanis Morrissette tickets!

Sources close to the campaign revealed to The Post that the funds spent on these concerts have drained the campaign’s coffers. The campaign’s financial woes were hinted at earlier when they canceled a planned performance by ’90s alt-rock icon Alanis Morissette, reportedly in a bid to save money.

C’mon, you know you want to say it:

But seriously, Dowd’s column is nice, although obviously it would have had far more impact prior to election Tuesday. But when will the Times’ newsroom stop being a permanent Maoist struggle session and start reflecting the worldview of most Americans?

DO THE LETTERS “F.O.” MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU? Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton’s former interns, staffers demand apology over LGBTQ remarks.

Former staffers and interns of Congressman Seth Moulton are calling on the Salem representative to apologize for speaking his mind about pronoun usage and boys playing in girls’ sports. . . . Democrats continued blasting Congressman Seth Moulton over the weekend for sticking to his opinion that boys and transgender athletes have no place in girls’ sports and voicing his belief that pronouns in email signatures are “kind of weird.”

As criticism against the former U.S. Marine and presidential candidate kept raining down, a group of former staffers and interns on Saturday circulated a letter expressing their concerns about Moulton’s recent statements, demanding an apology.

On Sunday, Moulton appeared on MSNBC where he said party leaders wouldn’t even return his calls, proving his point that Democrats need to be able to talk about divisive issues.”

“Demand?” Get lost, guys, it’s not 2020 anymore.

Plus: “The Massachusetts Democrat, in his criticized remarks, blamed his party for the Republican red wave and President-elect Donald Trump’s victory, saying that Dems were ‘out of touch with the American people,’ especially on transgender issues.” Ya think?

WELL, GOOD: Court To Biden: No, You Can’t Have A Backdoor Amnesty. Not Yours. “The work of undoing the Biden Administration’s unlawful importation of millions of illegal aliens didn’t stop with Kamala’s defeat, and Texas and other states just won an important legal victory to help secure the border.”

MADAM PRESIDENT ASTERISK:

Taking “Didn’t Earn It” to a whole new level.

49ERS NICK BOSA FINED FOR WEARING ‘MAGA’ HAT IN POSTGAME INTERVIEW DESPITE APPEARING ON-SCREEN FOR LESS THAN 5 SECONDS:

The NFL has fined San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa for sporting a “Make America Great Again” hat during a post-game interview.

Following a 30-24 win over the Dallas Cowboys on October 27, Bosa crashed an interview on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” where several of his teammates were speaking to network reporter Melissa Stark.

Bosa ran up behind quarterback Brock Purdy, pointed to his white and gold “MAGA” hat, and ran off-screen. The entire incident lasted less than five seconds.

The star player has since been fined $11,255 by the NFL over the political message, reportedly violating league rules. Players are prohibited from displaying personal messages or political messages of any kind on game day, according to NFL rules.

The NFL rulebook states the league “will not grant permission” for any player to wear messages that “relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.”

File that away if the “woke Olympics” start up again next season in the NFL once Trump returns to office.

READY TO MAGA (AGAIN) ON DAY ONE: A look at his opening moves in the White House.

There’s a lot on his plate but this one is a biggie:

Trump repeatedly clashed with executive branch personnel and has long insisted that unelected federal bureaucrats worked to subvert his initiatives from within the administration.

“I will immediately reissue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats and I will wield that power very aggressively,” Trump promised in a policy video. “Second, we will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus.”

He further vowed to end the weaponization of federal agencies for political purposes to prevent them from targeting conservative-leaning groups. “The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, and the left’s political enemies,” he said.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Let’s Play the Blame Game! “The blame game is just getting started. Democrats are looking to blame anybody and everybody but themselves for the drubbing they took on Tuesday.”

THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN—And I suspect he might just be slightly more effective than Joe Biden’s Border Czar:

THEY COULDN’T CALL IT THE TRUMP VICTORY RALLY? The Santa Claus rally has started early this year.

Every year, starting about now, you hear about the Santa Claus rally.

Technically, it should occur in the final five trading days of the year and the first two days in January.

But since the late Yale Hirsch coined the idea, the Santa Claus Rally has come to mean something that starts in early December.

So then it is the Trump Victory Rally.

I’M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN THE PRESS CALLED HIM “WEIRD.”

JUST NBC THE MELTDOWN! ‘Unhinged’ NBC Reporter Rips Off Daily Wire Story, Nerfs It, Then Self-Immolates On X When Called Out.

The story went viral – and was eventually picked up by NBC News reporter Mirna Alsharif (formerly CNN), who proceeded to not only rip off the report without citing the Daily Wire, she completely nerf’d it — failing to adhere to basic journalistic standards despite all of that information having been reported by DW.

When she was called out for her shitty reporting, Alsharif had a complete meltdown on X — claiming that the Daily Wire wasn’t her source, and hurtling High School insults at reporters.

And while she just deleted her account, we’ve got receipts…

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: FEMA is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful federal agency I have ever known in my life!

IF THIS WERE HAPPENING IN OTHER COUNTRIES, WE’D CALL IT COUP-PLOTTING:

“We are a long way from a hard coup, but when Pentagon officials are having secret meetings to scheme how to disobey orders given to them by the supreme civilian authority, that is, shall we say, insurrection-lite. So much for norms and protecting the Constitution, guys. This sort of behavior is treasonous but not without precedent. General Mark Milley–who should be recalled and court-martialed–actually schemed with China at the end of Trump’s first term. I don’t think, from the evidence, that he committed treason, but he committed gross insubordination as the highest military officer in the land. He belongs in jail.”

These guys are manifestly better at plotting internally than at fighting or preparing for wars. Fire them and replace them with people whose focus is on their jobs.

Also, “apolitical staffers?” Nobody believes they exist anymore.

UPDATE: Day One: Fire Them All.

Pentagon bureaucrats are privately meeting trying to thwart President Trump.

A FEMA supervisor instructed employees in Florida after the hurricane to avoid helping families whose homes had Trump signs in the yard. Yes, it really happened.

The staff at the Department of Justice, particularly in the Civil Rights division, are notoriously progressive. The staff at the EPA likewise have put absurdities ahead of practicalities in balancing environmental regulation with cost and common sense.

Fire them all.

The bureaucrats have forgotten they work for the people and instead think the people and politicians work for them.

On the first day, Donald Trump should purge the bureaucracy. They need some sense of humility. They need to be forced into submitting to the will of the Chief Executive Officer of the United States of America.

Cut what can be cut. Fire who can be fired.

Yes. Also, repeal the Civil Service laws. They certainly didn’t give us the nonpartisan, expert government they were promised to. At least under the “spoils system,” you knew who was responsible.