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FAIL, BRITANNIA:

BREAKING: The UK will scrap five warships, dozens of military helicopters and a fleet of drones to save money despite growing threats from Russia and a war raging in Europe.
John Healey, the defence secretary, announced the dramatic move in parliament on Wednesday, saying it…

— Deborah Haynes (@haynesdeborah) November 20, 2024

More: “How can the UK talk tough on defence while at the same time failing to ensure sufficient funding for the military to at the very least be able to mothball “outdated” warships, helicopters & drones? A key lesson from Russia’s war in Ukraine has been that old equipment brought out of deep storage is better than no kit.”

But as CDR Salamander noted, Britain’s decline is bipartisan:

Vote for Labour, get Labour.

…but to be fair, the “Conservative” party was not much better…and really, husbanded much of the decline.

This is inertia more than anything.

From its military, to its culture, to its freedoms, to its demographics, we are watching a nation… https://t.co/5SL9nkuyLn

— cdrsalamander (@cdrsalamander) November 20, 2024

Indeed.

POLITICAL AD FODDER FOR 2026: WATCH: Dem Rep. Jasmine Crockett Goes Nuts During Hearing, Starts Shouting About the ‘White Man.’

HERE LIES THE AAUP: A once-great org that abandoned its principles in favor of partisan expediency.

PERHAPS A RETURN TO TAR AND FEATHERS IS IN ORDER: ‘Corrupt Tyrants’: Bucks County Citizens Go After County Commissioners.

LESSONS UNLEARNED: Democrats Are Going to Get Younger and More Radical.

TO BE FAIR, I GET CONFUSED BY THIS STUFF SOMETIMES, TOO: Self-Own: Fetterman Says Trans Rep. Can Use HIS Bathroom.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: The real Jewish vote: And why it matters.

For me, it’s: Did we put our own survival at the top of the issues pile? Did we see clearly who are friends are and who they are not? Did my people learn lessons? But also to show the outside world: look, we did.

I had anecdotes. Liberal Jewish friends who leaned in over dinners and whispered “I’m voting for him.” One after another made the confession. One couple in particular, lifelong friends of mine, shocked me into silence when they said they had voted Trump. They were committed Democrats (MSNBC watchers! Howard Stern listeners!) who had spent years arguing with me. I knew they didn’t trust Kamala Harris on Israel and I figured they would sit it out. They live in New York, they don’t have to vote. But they did. And they voted for him.

I felt the sea change when Lizzy Savetsky, a Jewish influencer, tipped to Trump. I generally don’t believe that endorsements matter that much. If Oprah and Taylor and Beyoncé couldn’t swing it, who could? But I took Lizzy’s seriously. She’s an important figure in the Jewish world, she’s beautiful and smart, focused on her family and very outspoken. I saw her as representative of a specific voting bloc that I saw emerging: women who are normally repelled by Trump but set that aside to do what’s best for the country. It wasn’t just that she was voting for Trump, it was that she was admitting to it on Sid Rosenberg’s extremely popular New York City morning radio show. Lizzy Savetsky being out with her Trump support, despite the fact that it would hurt her, and cost her followers, made me think something was moving. She wasn’t like Taylor and Beyonce, they took the easy position. She was like Travis Kelce and Jay-Z, neither of whom made endorsements. But Lizzy did.

Anecdotes aren’t data, yes, of course, but data can be bad too. It’s why people recoiled so hard from Ann Selzer’s flawed Iowa poll in the closing days of the presidential election. Her “gold standard” poll showed Trump losing Iowa to Kamala Harris by 3 points. It didn’t make sense. People on the ground in Iowa were dumbfounded. Trump would end up winning Iowa by 13. Her poll was data, not anecdotes, and it was wrong.

Yeah, anecdotes are, in fact data. All facts are data, if you know what to do with them.

UH UH. IT’S NOT JUST THE  TROOPS, THEY ALSO HAVE TO BE EQUIPPED AND SUPPLIED:  Europe preps for WWIII as secret German docs reveal plans for 800K troops in case Russia invades NATO.

WHERE THE BUOYS ARE*:  Texas drops more migrant-blocking buoys into Rio Grande: ‘We won’t back down’.

*Movie reference.

‘PEOPLE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON’? THAT’S BEEN THEIR BRAND FOR YEARS:  MSNBC staffers ‘in a panic’ as NBC-parent Comcast plans to spin off channel — and possibly change its name.

THE CAMPAIGN AS VIEWED FROM ABROAD:  Anatomy of Trump’s triumph.

SO THE SOONER WE START, THE SOONER WE’LL BE DONE:  Part 3: Fixing our bloated federal government and the administrative state is going to take decades.

ALL OUR INSTITUTIONS PRETTY MUCH:  It’s bureaucratic rot up and down the line.

AND TILTING AT WINDMILLS IS RUNNING A SALE:  Here.

LISTEN TO ME: ALL THIS DIVERSITY HIRING AND PROMOTING HAS TO STOP:  Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson Headlining Event Featuring Educators Who Backed the October 7 Massacre.

GOOD:  Syria: Israeli Airstrike Reportedly Hits Weapons Depot Linked to Iranian-Backed Terror Group.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR TRUMP’S PICKS!  Trump’s FCC Chair Pick Wants to ‘Dismantle’ Big Tech’s ‘Censorship Cartel’.

IT SEES LIKE, YES:  European Officials: Baltic Undersea Cables Cut in Apparent Act of Sabotage.

BUT SOME ODD SIGNS OF SANITY AS WELL:  President of Azerbaijan Boldly Asserts that Oil, Gas Are ‘Gift of God’ at Climate-Cult Conference.

Bravery too.

THE RACE TO EXTREME STUPIDITY IS WORLDWIDE, IT SEEMS:  A cult of ‘Saint Stalin’ has appeared in the Russian Orthodox Church, with the Soviet dictator being hailed as a saint or even a secret Orthodox bishop. In reality, Stalin closed or destroyed nearly all churches in Russia and had 85,000 Orthodox clergy shot in 1937 alone.

OH, FOR THE LOVE OF BOB:  Why do our enemies make us look so badass?

As for “men” I’m so used to being called a White Mormon Male I no longer fight it. I just note I do have a great er…. figure for a male. As for vicious, I’d not encourage trying us.

THE UK IS NOT AHEAD IN THE RACE TO 1984.  GERMANY IS:  Tweeting the poop emoji at a cabinet minister, quoting politicians inexactly, calling a Green fat & stupid – all of this is criminal speech in the freest and most democratic Germany of all time.

THEY PUSH ABORTION, INFANTICIDE AND THE STERILIZATION OF CHILDREN, BUT SHE DARES SAY THIS?   Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin blasted for ‘deranged’ rant claiming Republicans ‘want to kill your kids’.

IT’S BREAKING UP ALL OVER THE WORLD:  Of Fractals And Fractures.

UNLEASH RFK JR.: Shake up HHS. The department, exposed during the pandemic for its incompetence and groupthink, is in desperate need of reform—which Robert Kennedy Jr., whatever his flaws, will pursue. As Jeffrey Anderson points out,  RFK rightly criticized the public-health establishment for protecticing Big Pharma by promoting remdesivir, an expensive drug with no proven effectiveness against Covid, while ignoring evidence that low-cost ivermectin might be effective — and bizarrely launching a public-relations campaign to convince the public that  this widely used drug was suitable only for horses.

Yet the FDA wouldn’t even grant that ivermectin was suitable for humans, let alone that it could help fight Covid-19. Channeling its inner Snowball from Animal Farm, the FDA effectively insisted that when it comes to ivermectin, “Four legs good, two legs bad!” The mainstream media then dutifully bleated out the same.

That wasn’t the end of the public-health establishment’s Covid-era depredations. Bureaucrats and officials denied natural immunity, defiantly insisted that masks work, refused to admit that masks undermine human social interaction and cause other harmful effects, and groundlessly asserted that rapidly developed, experimental mRNA vaccines were almost entirely safe and effective in stopping the spread of Covid-19. None of these claims was true.

These examples illustrate that our public-health establishment needs to be shaken up, whether by RFK Jr. or someone else. It is high time for the CDC’s, FDA’s, and NIH’s arrogant rule by “experts” to come to an end.

Read the whole thing.