THIRD OBAMA TERM WINDING DOWN NICELY: Israel destroyed active nuclear weapons research facility in Iran, officials say.
Author Archive: Ed Driscoll
November 15, 2024
JIM TREACHER: Here’s Why I’m Quitting Twitter or X or Whatever.
No, I’m not quitting. That headline was just to get you to click. Ha ha, gotcha!
Once again, liberals are so stupid and insane that they’re forcing me to defend Elon Musk. Twice in one week! That’s how bad it’s gotten.
I don’t know if it’s a delayed reaction to the election, or Musk’s weird new job in the Trump administration, or what, but a bunch of libs suddenly decided to quit Twitter this week. And what’s the point of finally going away if they don’t make a whole big drama out of it?
In addition to the usual suspects, there’s a bridge too far, Treacher writes:
Hell, even inanimate objects are getting in the game. A suspension bridge in the UK has its own Twitter account, and it just collapsed. The account, not the bridge:
That’s a stretch! And so was that joke.
Surprisingly, given the poor communications from the front at the end of WWII, even Hitler quickly discovered that the Clifton Suspension Bridge has collapsed its Twitter account:
— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) November 14, 2024
Curiously, while individual leftists (and bridges) are leaving Twitter, corporations, including those that produce rather left-leaning media, are returning to promote their wares: Comcast, Disney, and IBM Are Among Advertisers Returning to X After Ad Freeze.
November 14, 2024
BURGMENTUM, BABY: Trump announces North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Department of Interior secretary.
“He’s going to be announced tomorrow…I look forward to doing the formal announcement, although this is a pretty big announcement right now, actually,” Trump said during his speech at the Americans For Prosperity Gala at Mar-A-Lago in Florida on Thursday. “He’s going to head the Department of Interior and he’s going to be fantastic.”
“We’re going to reduce regulation waste, fraud and inefficiency,” Trump said. “We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken and failing bureaucracies. And we’re going to stop child sexual mutilation. We’re going to stop it because it’s time.”
The Politico, sounding a bit nervous that energy prices might come down, adds:
If confirmed by the Senate, Burgum would manage the more than 500 million acres of federal land as well as the fossil fuels and minerals that lie beneath the surface — making him a critical component in Trump’s promise to boost oil and gas output.
Heaven forfend.
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: FBI arrests Houston man for alleged ISIS ties, terror plot on US soil.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
There will be so much of this from the left for RFK Jr., who was a rock star, particularly among the left’s anti-vax cult, prior to running against Biden last year, and aligning himself with Trump. Of course, the solution to their woes is obvious:
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Javier Milei becomes first world leader to meet Trump since election win.
Javier Milei, the Argentinian president, has become the first foreign leader to meet Donald Trump as he flew into Florida for a visit to Mar-a-Lago.
Mr Milei is due to meet Elon Musk in the coming hours where the pair are expected to discuss strategies to cut government spending.
Mr Milei arrived on Thursday at Mr Trump’s Florida residence, where Mr Musk has also been holed up for several days, and will be the first foreign leader to congratulate Mr Trump in person on being re-elected US president.
The brash libertarian economist will also hold informal talks with the Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) owner. The pair will chat about their shared interest in slashing public spending and jobs.
Since taking office in December last year, Mr Milei has overseen cuts to Argentina’s bureaucracy, abolishing multiple government agencies, including entire departments, and sacking an estimated 15,000 officials.
And not coincidentally: Argentina’s monthly inflation drops to 2.7%, the lowest level in 3 years.
Hopefully Trump will have similar results.
ANOTHER SHY TRUMP SUPPORTER SELF-IDENTIFIES:
MAHA: RFK Jr. expected to be tapped to lead Department of Health and Human Services.
UPDATE: Question asked:
Rachel Levine VS. RFK Jr: Who Would You Pick? pic.twitter.com/5MOsOundbP
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 14, 2024
More:
It’s nice that for once it’s a Kennedy making other peoples heads explode https://t.co/IoFjXu7gcU
— Magills (@magills_) November 14, 2024
Heh, indeed.™
TESTING LIBERAL MANHATTAN’S TOLERANCE FOR DIVERSITY:
NYC MAGA shift is wild 🇺🇸
(Via TT: ccrizia) pic.twitter.com/abQmCejEj7
— OutKick (@Outkick) November 14, 2024
I would imagine prior to last week, NYC Trump voters used a very different method to see if someone else was also in the club:
SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Somali pirate from Minnesota sentenced for holding US journalist hostage.
In a press release on Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Abdi Yusuf Hassan, of Minneapolis, and Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed, of Somalia, received a 30-year prison sentence for hostage taking, terrorism and firearm offenses related to the 977-day captivity of American freelance journalist Michael Scott Moore.
Officials said Hassan and Mohamed played “significant roles in Moore’s captivity” and abused their positions within the Somali government. Hassan served as the Minister of Interior Galmudug providence in Somalia, where he was responsible for police and security forces.
Meanwhile, Mohamed was a serving officer in the Somali army.
Tim Walz could not be reached for comment. As for myself, I hate Illinois Nazis — and I can’t say I’m too thrilled about Minnesota Somali pirates, either.
BRIDGET PHETASY: How the Democrats Bud Lighted their brand.
In October, in a last-ditch effort to reach men while Donald Trump was doing the podcast-bro circuit, the left-wing PAC Vote Save America put out a cringe-inducing video called “Man Enough.” It featured various men, mostly white men dressed like cowboys with one black man in a weight room. It was roundly mocked and satirized. The top comment on the YouTube video is, “What’s with the dude sitting on the tailgate like a teenage girl getting her high school senior pics taken??? LMFAO”
The video began by letting us know, “I’m a man,” while leaning into the most stereotypical ideas of what manhood is. “I’m man enough to enjoy a barrel-proof Bourbon. Neat.” “I’m man enough to cook my steak rare.” “I eat carburetors for breakfast.”
“And I’ll tell you another thing I’m sure as shit not afraid of,” says a guy I swear I’ve seen in a fast-food commercial before. “WOMEN.”
“I love women,” the man sitting on the tailgate assures us, still not quite sure what to do with his manly hands. I’m dubious. The video ends with a call to “man up” and vote for Harris.
Suddenly, just like that, Democrats knew what men and women were. Suddenly, you could say things like “man up” — and it wasn’t internalized misogyny, or the patriarchy, or whatever other ridiculous problematic offense professors of gender theory invented.
Reality remains undefeated and suddenly it reasserted itself. Yet in order to appeal to one of the two genders which now apparently exist again, Democratic organizers ended up falling back on clichéd stereotypes of what men are… because they actually have no idea.
The Democrats realized too late that they had Bud Lighted their brand. You can’t be openly hostile to men for two decades and expect to retain the male vote. And judging by Trump’s gains with both genders, you also can’t be incapable of defining what a woman is and expect women to believe you care about them, either.
As David Harsanyi adds at the Washington Examiner: The lesson of 2024? Don’t be weird.
A lot of you people sound nuts.
So, it is unsurprising that a Donald Trump campaign ad featuring the tagline “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you” was effective in the 2024 presidential campaign. Indeed, a pro-Kamala Harris PAC says the spot, which featured a clip of Harris endorsing state-funded sex-change operations for prisoners, “shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Mr. Trump’s favor after viewers watched it.”
Now, one suspects most normies aren’t only turned off by “they/them” because it’s grammatically mystifying or scientifically dubious. For many, “they/them” represents the 14,000 confused children who have been mutilated by “gender-affirming care.” For others, “they/them” represents thousands of girls and women who are forced to compete with boys and men on the field.
For most, though, “they/them” is probably just a microcosm of all the weird cultural fads the Left has been trying to normalize and force-feed society. Normies tend to reject social science quackery.
Americans are generally happy to make accommodations for alternative lifestyles. That doesn’t make this stuff less bizarre or extreme. And the speed at which the Left has demanded everyone treat these unhinged notions as the norm is mind-blowing.
Exit quote:
Related: As someone who spent 2019 marketing herself as weird and in-your-face and non-stop predicting doomsday, this is another indicator of a cultural shift:
THIS WILL END WELL: ABC brass scramble to bring in pro-Trump voices to The View and other shows: ‘Panic mode.’
ABC News brass are in “panic mode” as they hunt for conservative voices to balance the rabid anti-Trump rhetoric spewed by the hosts on “The View,” as well as those on other shows, The Post has learned.
The Disney-owned network — which came under fire over how ABC News moderators grilled Donald Trump during the presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris — has been holding high-level meetings since last week’s rout by the former president, sources close to the situation told The Post.
ABC News Group President Debra OConnell and her recently elevated boss of ABC News Almin Karamehmedovic held the intense sit-downs with executive producers of the network’s various shows and other senior editorial leaders, sources said.
First on the agenda, according to one insider, is finding a pro-Trump panelist for its top-ranked daytime talk show, co-hosted by ultra-liberals Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines, as well as Republican Trump-bashers Ana Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin.
“The View is facing pressure from higher-ups,” the source said. “Viewers can expect some major changes including bringing in new panelists that can bring in a pro-Trump perspective.”
The source did not signal whether one of the current panelists would be bounced or if the already crowded desk would add a seventh seat.
“Everyone on ‘The View’ endorsed Kamala Harris. They lost. They are out of touch with America,” the source said.
“For a show about different perspectives, ‘The View’ doesn’t seem to have any when it comes to Trump. ABC bosses don’t want to alienate the pro-Trump demographic.”
C’mon ABC News, the answer here is obvious:
AMERICA’S CITIES WANT TO BE GREAT AGAIN:
Donald Trump’s decisive victory last week came as a shock to many. The president-elect looks likely to win the popular vote, having run up totals not only in the swing states but also in deep-blue strongholds. Most surprisingly, the Trump campaign put cracks in Democrats’ dominance of big cities.
In fact, Trump most overperformed in large metro counties, according to analyst Jed Kolko. Compared with his run against Joe Biden, Trump ran 9 points closer to Kamala Harris in such areas—a bigger gain than he saw in suburbs, college towns, or military posts.
It wasn’t just a few cities, either. Trump improved on his 2020 performance in cities as diverse as Chicago, Detroit, and Dallas. He won Miami-Dade County outright. He got the closest margin for a Republican in New York City in 30 years. He won a precinct in lower Manhattan; one south Philadelphia neighborhood voted for him by almost three to one.
These swings are partly a byproduct of the surprising diversity of the Trump coalition, which exit polling suggests may have included a fifth of black men and a majority of Latino men. In New York City, Trump ran up votes not just on Staten Island, but in hyper-diverse Queens and South Brooklyn.
What happened? It’s not, as some might suspect, that the nation turned far right. Rather, it’s that Trump’s campaign understood how to speak to a key constituency: the forgotten middle. These voters want their cities to be safer, their schools to be better, and their culture to be saner. And Trump’s success with them clearly marks a path for repeatable political success in cities nationwide.
We’ve descended into a bizarre hell-world in which Ezra Klein is a voice of sanity:
All the things the GOP was saying all year and these guys were denying. https://t.co/C5dgzpPz2B
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) November 14, 2024
Faster, please. As Tom Cotton wrote in 2021: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.
GREAT MOMENTS IN MEDIA CONSOLIDATIONS: Not Satire: The Onion acquires Infowars.
The Onion has successfully acquired Infowars.
The satirical news outlet purchased Alex Jones’ right-wing conspiracy empire at a court-ordered auction, the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting announced Thursday.
“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” said Robbie Parker, whose daughter was killed in the 2012 school shooting.
As part of the deal, The Onion, owned by Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and led by chief executive Ben Collins, acquired Infowars’ website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But the Sandy Hook families increased the size of The Onion’s bid by agreeing to forgo a portion of the money Jones owes them.
The Stig certainly got a nice press release out of this story, but I’m not sure how how many Infowars diehards will stick around to read the 2024 version of The Onion, especially when America’s Newspaper of Record is pumping out much better product these days. QED:
SOMEBODY SET UP US THE GAY MUSLIM FURRY BOMB:
Found via Peter J. Hasson of the Washington Free Beacon who tweets, “People forget how truly insane 2017 was.”
THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Power lesbian Corey Burke murders her father with an ice axe in Election Night meltdown at Seattle home.
A Blue Origin employee married to a prominent trans author and journalist has been accused of killing her elderly father with an ice axe on Election Night.
Corey Burke, 33, allegedly struck, stabbed and strangled her father, 67-year-old Timothy Burke, in a fatal attack at her $800,000 Seattle home on November 5.
Burke, a training manager at Jeff Bezos‘ rockets and spacecraft company, confessed to killing her father after he refused to turn off the lights, according to charging documents seen by DailyMail.com.
After emerging from the house with blood ‘dripping’ down her face, she confessed to police that she ‘freaked out,’ claiming there was ‘something important about Election Day.’
Burke reportedly told detectives that ‘she knew that she could not convince her father to keep the lights off’, so went upstairs and retrieved the murder weapon.
She then tripped her father and strangled him before attacking him with the ice axe.
Burke then bit him and hit him several times in the head and side with the blunt and sharp ends of the ice axe, cops say. His body was found in the basement.
Police say they recovered a bloody silver-and-blue ice climbing pick at the crime scene.
Burke was initially taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.
As former ABC Newsman Mark Halperin warned in October: “If Trump wins, it could lead to a profound shift within the Democratic Party, calling it ‘the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country.'”
WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF AI, UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON! Why Can’t We Be Friends? AI Music Video Provides Hilarious Glimpse of Trump and Biden as Best Buds.
Born to be friends, forced to be enemies. 😂pic.twitter.com/NyCU3YcNSV
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 13, 2024
AI Joe is far more lifelike than the real thing has been in almost a decade!
Earlier: Making video using a combination of AI and everyday video editing software.
KAMALA HARRIS DITCHED JOE ROGAN PODCAST INTERVIEW OVER PROGRESSIVE BACKLASH FEARS:
Kamala Harris’s fears of a progressive backlash killed a plan for her to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast, a campaign official has said, shedding light on a decision that infuriated some Democrats who are reeling after Donald Trump’s election victory.
The Harris campaign and Rogan, whose audience is bigger than that of many television networks, had discussed an interview for his podcast — a move some Democrats hoped would help Harris reach young men who were gravitating towards Trump.
The talks faltered because of concerns at how the interview would be perceived within the Democratic party, said Jennifer Palmieri, a senior adviser to Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff.
“There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn’t want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash,” Palmieri said on Wednesday.
* * * * * * * *
Trump’s interview with Rogan has been viewed nearly 50mn times on YouTube, while the podcaster’s interview with vice-president-elect JD Vance has racked up 16mn views.
By comparison, about 29mn people watched Harris’s speech at the Democratic National Convention and fewer than 8mn watched her interview on Fox News.
Part of the reason for the Harris camp’s decision to skip Rogan was to avoid chatting about the chronic: Rogan says Kamala Harris campaign had a condition to avoid ‘marijuana legalization’ talk for interview.
“They had, I don’t know how many conversations with my folks, but multiple conversations giving different dates, different times, different this, different that, and we knew that she was going to be in Texas, so I said, ‘open invitation,'” Rogan said. “I think they had requirements on things that she didn’t want to talk about, she didn’t want to talk about marijuana legalization, which I thought was hilarious.”
The Harris campaign had been in talks with Rogan about doing an interview, but it didn’t end up happening. Rogan revealed that Harris wanted him to travel to Washington, D.C., to do the interview and only wanted to do an hourlong sit-down.
Rogan’s guest, Adrienne Iapalucci, asked Rogan why Harris might have wanted to avoid the subject.
“Because of her prosecuting record,” Rogan said. “She put a lot of people in jail for weed.”
She sure did:
Flashback: Kamala Harris Didn’t Send 1500 People To Jail For Pot — It Was More Than That. As “Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle discovered as he fact-checked Gabbard’s claim, the number of people Harris sent to jail for marijuana violations was actually closer to 2000.”
November 13, 2024
DISNEY STARS SURE HAVE A UNIQUE WAY OF SELLING TICKETS: Snow White Actress Posts Profane Anti-Trump Rant on Instagram — Says His Supporters Should ‘Never Know Peace.’
The actress playing the title role in Disney’s upcoming live-action “Snow White” reboot posted a lengthy anti-Trump rant on Instagram in response to the election results.
Actress Rachel Zegler wrote, “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”
In the post, she complained that her infant daughter may never get to have an abortion.
“I find myself speechless in the midst of this. Another four years of hatred, leaning us towards a world I do not want to live in. Leaning us towards a world that will be hard to raise my daughter in. Leaning us towards a world that will force her to have a baby she doesn’t want. Leaning us towards a world that is fearful.”
The actress said she is “here with you,” to “cry, to yell, to hug.”
I’m not sure how alienating half the audience increases turnout, but based on the past decade, obviously they know what they’re doing at Disney…
OLD AND BUSTED: “We Are All Socialists Now.”
—Newsweek’s cover story, February 6th, 2009.
The New Hotness? “We Are All Going to Therapy.”
—Van Jones on CNN, Saturday: Schadenfreude Alert: Van Jones Melts Down Over the Miserable State of the Democratic Party.
After what the Democrats have done to this country for the past four years, I really can’t help but enjoy seeing them freak out over Trump’s victory, his administration picks, and the realization that this country is about to undergo a massive course correction.
Van Jones gave us a glimpse into the miserable state of the Democratic Party during a recent appearance on CNN. His meltdown was a mix of exasperation, self-pity, and, at times, dark humor, but his frustration was undeniable.
And I loved every second of it.
“I’m miserable,” Jones declared bluntly. “What do you want me to say? This is terrible.” His candor was refreshing, especially as he laid bare the reality Democrats are facing. “Nobody thought we would have undivided government. We thought if Trump snuck in there, we would at least have Hakeem Jeffries standing in the way to try to save it.”
Sorry bud, Trump got the trifecta.
“This is just a horrible weekend … I am miserable. What question do you have for me?” he asked before changing his mind. “Don’t ask me any questions. It might make me burst into tears. This is horrible.”
“We don’t want anyone crying on this show,” host Jessica Dean said. “But I do wonder, Van, from your perspective … if you are the Democrats, what are you going to do for the next two years? How do you recoup?”
“Therapy. Therapy,” Jones replied. “We are all going to therapy.”
Curiously, some of Jones previous statements indicated he knew what was likely coming:
● “If progressives have a politics that says all white people are racist, all men are toxic, and all billionaires are evil, it’s kinda hard to keep them on your side. If you’re chasing people out of the party, you can’t be mad when they leave,” Jones said on Bill Maher’s show in late October.
● “A bullet couldn’t stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden,” Jones said in mid-July.
● “People are scared to say anything about it,” Jones said in September of 2023, regarding Biden’s cognitive decline in September of 2023, “but I think it’s important to have this conversation now.”
So how much of Jones’ “We are all going to therapy” shtick on Saturday was performance art for the cameras?
LIFE AFTER COCAINE MITCH: Thune to succeed McConnell as next Senate GOP leader.
THE GRAUNIAD HAS A SAD: So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye! The Guardian Will No Longer Post on ‘Toxic’ X.
Exit question:
(Yes, it’s real, and it’s spectacular. Spectacularly bonkers, that is.)