Archive for 2025
February 6, 2025
KRUISER: My Three-Letter Response to the Dems’ Caterwauling About ‘Unelected Officials’: EPA. “After listening to them scream about threats to ‘democracy’ for over a year, we’re all aware that the Democrats don’t know much, if anything, about the Constitution of the United States or how the government works, especially here in the era of hyper-regulation. One could say that congressional Dems are being deliberately obtuse when battling the Trump 47 administration, but I’m comfortable with saying that they’re stupid.”
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Donald Trump, libertarian president?
WERE THERE ANY MAINSTREAM OR LEFTWING (BUT I REPEAT MYSELF) MEDIA OUTLETS NOT GETTING TAXPAYER MONEY?
I’ll just leave this right here, @CTmagazine pic.twitter.com/5DYZSamWd3
— Pastor Mark Driscoll (@PastorMark) February 5, 2025
If there were, I bet it’s a short list.
THEY ALWAYS REGARD ALL MEANINGFUL OPPOSITION AS ILLEGITIMATE: The New ‘Resistance:’ Democrats are pretending again that an administration they oppose is illegitimate.
Politics tends to attract people with more ambition than intelligence, more charisma than industriousness. So it’s a rare stroke of luck for U.S. citizens that a few of the smartest people in the country have agreed to come to Washington and work around the clock to identify federal waste, fraud and abuse. Last year Donald Trump campaigned with Elon Musk and promised to appoint the entrepreneur to lead such an effort. Voters then elected Mr. Trump and he has kept his word. Yet many Democrats now pretend that Mr. Musk, tasked by our duly elected president to fulfill this promise to voters, is somehow illegitimate and that the real authority in our government rests with unelected bureaucrats. They even have the nerve to refer to their play for unearned power as “democracy.”
This “resistance” act is getting old, especially since the well-fed participants are mainly resisting challenges to the profligate Beltway status quo. Congressional Democrats have decided to position themselves as ardent apologists for every last misspent nickel in Washington. Witness their howling defense of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Yet a few prominent Democrats have begun to wonder out loud whether they really ought to be defending the indefensible.
Even if most voters have never heard of USAID, they are skeptical of its alleged purpose. Jason Lange reports for Reuters on a new poll of Americans finding that “56% backed freezing U.S.-funded foreign assistance programs, with 40% of respondents opposed to such cuts.”
The public’s significant opposition to foreign aid is bound to increase as people learn just how little of it makes its way to feeding and clothing the needy.
It’s just a money laundry for connected members of the Uniparty. Mostly Democrats, but with enough Republicans to provide “bipartisan” shills and cover.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: Beyond The Jetsons: New Fantastic Four trailer offers a new vision of a fantastic future that never was.
From the opening shot of the superhero team’s living area (see image below) in their skyscraper headquarters to their swept-wing rocket to an altered 1960s Manhattan skyline, we are shown a thoroughly Up Wing world. As with the The Jetsons — the 1962 cartoon that’s arguably the most influential futurist work of the twentieth century — Fantastic Four is infused with the real-world Googie aesthetic, a style that projected mid-century American optimism through Atomic and Space Age flourishes: stylized atoms, boomerangs, and parabolas.
Googie architecture emerged from 1930s Southern California’s car culture, where businesses needed eye-catching designs visible from highways. The style featured the dramatic curves and futuristic elements that by the 1950s perfectly captured the era’s fascination with space exploration and rapid tech advance. This aesthetic shaped iconic structures like the LAX Theme Building and early McDonald’s restaurants.
When people talk about a retro-futuristic vibe, they typically mean it has big Googie energy. “Googie is undeniably the super-aesthetic of 1950s and ’60s American retro-futurism — a time when America was flush with cash and ready to deliver the technological possibilities that had been promised during WWII,” explains retro-futurism historian Matt Novak.
And as architectural historian Alan Hess told Surface in 2022:
[Googie] didn’t only capture the future, but it brought it in a meaningful way to people. And you see this in interest in these futuristic ideas not only in architecture or car design, but in cartoons like The Jetsons and places like amusement parks—in advertisements, in magazines, and so forth, certainly in the movies as well. This interest, this intrigue, this appeal of living in the future just went all across the culture.
And then came the ugly, dreary 1970s, as Pethokoukis goes on to write. Read the whole thing.
In terms of production design, The Fantastic Four looks absolutely brilliant (based on his love of Googie architecture, I suspect James Lileks will be first in line at his local multiplex this summer). But will it be a decent superhero movie? The Critical Drinker is hopeful, but with a few reservations, based on both the comic book franchise’s dreadful history on the big screen, and its cast:
IT’S A DISGRACE THAT THIS IS AN ISSUE: George Mason backtracks, says female students can criticize tampons in men’s bathrooms.
Two female law students can now freely criticize tampons in men’s bathrooms at Georgia Mason University without fear of reprisal.
Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom announced a settlement in its lawsuit against the Virginia public university.
The university censored two students, Selene Cerankosky and Maria Arcara, ordering them not to talk to a peer who wanted “feminine hygiene products” available in men’s bathrooms.
Winning on the issue is nice, but $15,000 isn’t enough. There should be two more zeroes here plus a couple of fired administrators.
TRUMP IS FINDING FRIENDS WE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WE HAD: ‘Unprecedented’: El Salvador Makes the U.S. an Offer We Can’t Refuse.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “These Events Took Place in 2023—Not 1943”: Title VI Anti-Semitic Harassment Claim Against Cooper Union May Proceed.
IF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN IS GIVING UP ON DEI, DEI IS REALLY IN TROUBLE. U of M has been one of its most prominent boosters, historically.
RESULTS: Mexico deploys 10K troops to southern border, following through on vow that paused Trump tariffs.
The deployment, titled “Operativo Frontera Norte,” has Mexican soldiers going to the border towns of Juárez and Chihuahua.
Sheinbaum also intends to send troops to border towns Matamoros, Mexicali, Nogales, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Tijuana.
Trump triggered the tariffs – along with ones on Canada and China – in an attempt to force the curtailment and end illegal migration and drug trafficking, particularly the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Trump agreed to pause the tariffs for a month after making an agreement with Sheinbaum to work together on security and trade. Part of the deal was having more agents from Mexico at the border to combat drug trafficking.
There’s nothing here that Biden couldn’t have done using the same approach and even the same phone. But the former regime wanted a crisis and got one.
Related: Border Crossings Down 93%
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Rainbow Rage Mob Takes Another Hit From Trump. “While the Democrats were busy ruining the dreams of young female athletes in the name of diversity, they were also busy demonizing anyone who opposed them as transphobic bigots. Kowtowing to an extreme fringe became so important to them that the feminists who hadn’t shut their mouths for forty years suddenly had nothing to say about the rights of young women being trampled upon by males.”
DON SURBER: Trump is lapping Democrats.
Related:
Congratulations to every single person on the left who’s been campaigning to destroy women’s and girls’ rights. Without you, there’d be no images like this. pic.twitter.com/mzR7l5k1OW
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 6, 2025
Oft evil will shall evil mar.
Plus:
Democrats are terrified of DOGE and Musk because they have never witnessed this degree of competence. It looks alien to them.
I mean that literally. People with experience see in DOGE a process that is necessarily messy but 100% on target in terms of speed, talent, and energy…
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) February 6, 2025
WELL SAID:
How Steelworkers (or any number of other industries impacted by trade, politics, corporate takeovers, dispassionate & disconnected hedge fund owners & mergers) felt 40 years ago.
And ever since for that matter. https://t.co/mfnTJrahOL— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) February 6, 2025
Related: Smashing the Rice Bowls.
CHANGE: USAID employees around the world will be placed on leave Friday and ordered to return to US.
As of 11:59 p.m. ET Friday, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs,” said a statement posted on the USAID website, which is back online after going dark last week.
The statement said it is preparing a plan for personnel posted outside the United States “under which the Agency would arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days” and terminate “contracts that are not determined to be essential.”
As the name implies, a direct hire is a government official directly employed by the US government, as opposed to contractors, who make up a large part of the USAID workforce. Many of those contractors have already been furloughed or laid off. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Thursday afternoon.
The statement on the website ends with: “Thank you for your service.”
Will there be collateral damage? Certainly. But the rot runs so deep that the only fix is along the lines of “kill them all and let God sort them out.” Anything worthwhile can be reestablished later, if desired.
I MEAN, SHE’S NOT WRONG:
Why the hell should anyone pay taxes again after the criminal way our government has stolen from us to fund Democrat campaigns and gun control? You Republicans better get a big set of brass balls and abolish the IRS in addition to every agency not authorized under Art 1 Sec 8.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) February 6, 2025
Related:
There is a US agency, with a $50B budget, that was redundant to our US State Dept, but with next to zero oversight or transparency, funding all sorts of ridiculous and partisan projects and allies.
Democrats are defending this up to and including the threat of violence.
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) February 6, 2025
According to the Columbia Journalism Review, USAID supported 6,200 journalists, 707 news outlets and 279 media sector civil society organizations in 30 different countries.
No wonder the news all sounds the same.
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) February 6, 2025
DON’T GET DISTRACTED: THEY’RE NOT. CDR Salamander: The Chinese Arctic is an Actual Thing.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Tempur-Pedic TEMPUR-Adapt + Cooling 3-Inch King Mattress Topper. #CommissionEarned
THIS IS GOING TO MAKE THE USAID CORRUPTION LOOK LIKE PEANUTS: Elon Musk’s DOGE agency gains access to Medicare, Medicaid payments.
OLD AND BUSTED: With Six You Get Eggroll.
The New Hotness? With USAID You Get Liz Cheney:
No kidding https://t.co/v2ITgs7TL4
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2025
Exit quote:
BEHOLD. My shocked face. https://t.co/KmBwUMiQZi
— Sarah A. Hoyt (@SarahAHoyt) February 6, 2025
Related: Why, it’s as if:
Democrats Warn Trump’s Unelected Shadow Government Is Dismantling Their Unelected Shadow Government https://t.co/ZD1Z8wOPYp pic.twitter.com/JKCOwjdA3S
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 5, 2025
CELEBRATE:
The American people endured a century-long psychological operation meant to turn them into leftist cattle, and broke through an election system rigged from top to bottom against them to elect the most right wing leader in Modern history.
The impossible is what Americans do best. https://t.co/C4V0RN80Fh
— KG (@interstatejuche) February 6, 2025
“YOU WANT PENISES IN WOMEN’S BATHROOMS AND I’M NOT GOING TO HAVE IT!” Nancy Mace Goes Nuclear on Democrat Who Accused Her of Using a ‘Slur’ During Committee Hearing.
I think Americans are tired of kowtowing to “communities” and their definitions of “slurs.” That sort of stuff has exploited people’s good faith intent to be nice, and now people think these language police aren’t operating in good faith themselves.
GROSSMAN & SHAPIRO: “Disparate Impact: The Next Step in Restoring Meritocracy Is to Reject the Theory That Proportionate Outcomes Equal Fairness.” Yes!
If you want to understand disparate impact read Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal. It’s really shocking just how insane the original Supreme Court decision–Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971)–was. Chief Justice Warren Burger (appointed by Nixon) was as thick as two short planks.