Archive for 2025

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Never Mind the Weather — It’s a Bright and Sunny Day for America. “Liberty is once again on the menu and Trump has promised to serve up generous portions of it to a grateful nation. Well, the sane people are grateful, anyway. Those who aren’t celebrating his return to office are too slow to realize that they will also benefit from having a real president again”

WALL STREET JOURNAL: How MAGA Is Taking Back the Culture: In sports, entertainment and marketing, displays of conservatism are crowding out progressive postures.

Across many facets of society—in sports, entertainment, the classroom and the workplace—there are signs that MAGA isn’t just retaking the White House. It is gaining a firmer foothold in the broader culture.

Instead of taking a knee to call for social justice, NFL players are doing the “Trump dance” in the end zone at football games. Mainstream entertainers, among them the country singer Carrie Underwood and the rapper Snoop Dogg, agreed to perform at events celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration, something music stars largely shunned eight years ago.

A new generation of Trump-friendly comedians and wellness influencers is populating YouTube and other social media, while a snippet of audio featuring Barron and Melania Trump has become one of the hottest online memes, with celebrities such as Paris Hilton and brands including Frontier Airlines using it in their TikTok and Instagram posts.

“Every time I walk on campus, I see a few MAGA hats. That’s definitely new,” said Carson Carpenter, 19, a senior at Arizona State University. Conservatism, he said, “has really become intertwined in our pop culture…. It’s really showing that conservatism is cool now.”

Off campus, Americans who once hid their support for Trump now wear it on their sleeves, or their hats. Trevor Traina, a tech entrepreneur and former ambassador in the first Trump administration who lives in San Francisco, said he felt the shift when he co-hosted a June fundraiser for Trump in the ritzy, liberal neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

Instead of the expected protests, Traina said, the event drew “more than 100 people in red MAGA hats walking around Pacific Heights. And, you know, in my life, we’ve never seen anything like that. Republicans in San Francisco used to walk around with Groucho Marx glasses and scarves over their heads, you know, scurrying in the shadows.”

The preference cascade has cascaded.

THE OPERATING ASSUMPTION SHOULD BE THAT EVERYTHING IN GAZA THAT ISN’T HAMAS IS ACTUALLY HAMAS:

IT’S INAUGURATION DAY:  Dear Trump Administration folks:  Don’t forget my Agenda for Congress.  If you want to make sure SFFA v. President & Fellows of Harvard gets enforced, you’re going to need to reduce the incentives for colleges and universities to discriminate on the basis of race.  (Oh … and before I forget:  When you’re ready, I await your call regarding what should be done at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  You’re going to want to talk to each of the conservative members.)

WRECKING BALL:

Change is in the air on all sorts of things:

UPDATE:

MAKE THEM PAY FOR THIS: Democrats Now Threatening People Who Donated to Trump’s Inauguration. “Perhaps I am too optimistic about the seeming collapse of support for progressive ideas in the general public, but it sure looks like Trump’s magic has been working once again. Elizabeth Warren has always been a crazy leftist harridan, but now she seems to be a crazy leftist harridan with no ability to intimidate.”

Regardless, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennett should face a civil rights suit for this, and Congressional ethics complaints. Make the rubble bounce.

THE LEFT’S WAR ON WOMEN (CONT’D): Female inmates say they fear transgender cellmates and urge Donald Trump to overturn ‘unconstitutional policy.’

Rhonda Fleming, 58, who is a little more than halfway through a 27-year sentence for Medicare fraud, argues that she and other biological women live in constant fear of attack and stress over having to interact with and undress in front of inmates with male genitalia.

Fleming’s civil suit stated women shouldn’t be forced to share intimate spaces such as bathrooms, showers and dorms with trans women.

But the judge on the case didn’t agree, ruling against her complaint on Wednesday.

Fleming was outraged when she spoke to DailyMail.com and said: ‘What the judge did Wednesday was a farce, it was a mockery of justice. He never intended for us to have a fair trial.

‘It’s like he’s attacking the victim, telling the victim you’re in the wrong, not the victimizer.’

The inmate is hoping that Trump will change the Bureau of Prisons policy after he moves into the White House on Monday – and possibly appeal her case.

‘Trump tried to help in 2018 by changing the policy when I initially filed on this, but as soon as he was out of office, Biden overturned everything he did and brought even more men into the prison,’ she said.

It’s an open question whether Biden knew he overturned anything. It’ll be nice knowing who’s making the decisions again.