OLD AND BUSTED: Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants.”

The New Hotness? Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Vegetables: The WH Briefing When April Ryan Tried to Get a Meeting Between Biden and Stevie Wonder.

TheGrio’s April Ryan to KJP: “I had an in-depth conversation w/Stevie Wonder last night who is —[REPORTERS LAUGH]–AGAIN, IT’S A SERIOUS QUESTION — I had an in-depth conversation w/Stevie Wonder last night, who is…requesting a meeting w/the President. He’s very concerned about the black agenda falling along the wayside and issues like laws of 50 years ago that are now being abolished or gutted, to include issues like the Voting Rights Act, what happened in Arkansas last wk, affirmative action — Supreme Court — as we’ve seen it, ban on books, and he’s also even brought up issues of the Congo and the lack of information from the WH. Is the WH amenable to sitting down with Stevie Wonder who has met with presidents, um throughout history to include Ronald Reagan? He was one of the major impetuses for getting the holiday for Dr Martin Luther King Jr and also he was one of those who worked with President Obama in his efforts to become President. Is this President amenable to meeting with Stevie Wonder who has these concerns?”

* * * * * * * *

Even April Ryan’s colleagues don’t take her seriously anymore. Shouldn’t someone demand a picture of her and Wonder together during their “in-depth discussion?” If it’s good for a pie, it should be good for a music legend, too. Ryan is supposed to be a reporter, not a personal assistant.

Well, she’s been failing as a reporter for years;  perhaps she’ll have better luck as Wonder’s PA.

‘NOW AND THEN:’ How the Beatles Created Magic on Their New ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ Albums, Via a Little MAL-ware.

A deep dive into the Beatles’ “last” single and their reworked new greatest hits album, over at Ed Driscoll.com.

GREAT MOMENTS IN CANCEL CULTURE: Deadspin Tried to Destroy a Kid for Wearing ‘Blackface,’ Then the Real Story Came Out.

If you are one of the last people on earth who still requires proof that the press is full of objectively evil people, I come bearing gifts.

The story starts with a young Kansas City Chiefs fan. I don’t know what his name is, and I wouldn’t share it if I did because it’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is that the sports and political commentary site Deadspin decided they needed to destroy him.

What was the grave injustice that was perpetrated? According to Carron J. Phillips, who wrote the piece, the kid was seen wearing “blackface.” I’d highly encourage you not to click the following link lest you reward the writer’s tactics, but I’ll provide it nonetheless.

Here’s the “blackface” in question:

Naturally of course, having this pointed out to him, Phillips has doubled down on his attempt to destroy a preteen NFL fan:

“For those pointing out that my argument was stupid, rest assured that I am capable of making an even more stupid one if pushed.” https://t.co/aQLmGE3LX2

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) November 27, 2023

DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY: Cringe: Biden Official’s Attempt to Channel Ronald Reagan Goes Stupendously Wrong.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

"I think it was President Reagan who said, 'We're from the government. We're here to help!'"

Here's the actual quote:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." pic.twitter.com/Hgxpt2Xdoh

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 27, 2023

As another man on the government payroll might have said, “Missed it by that much!”

¡NO PASARÁN!: Note to Google Blogger: My Controversial Post on Blogger Was Not Reset to “Draft” Status; It Was Entirely Removed.

TWO BLOOMBERGS IN ONE!

Shot:

Gasoline prices across America have fallen for 60 consecutive days. It’s the longest downward streak in more than a year and one which has arrived just in time for the holiday shopping season. Now that drivers aren’t forking over so much cash at the pump, retailers are hoping they’ll hand over the savings at the mall instead. A gallon of gasoline now costs $3.25 on average, more than 60 cents below the year’s peak in mid-September and about 30 cents cheaper than this time last year, according to data from the American Automobile Association. In 14 states, average prices are now less than $3 a gallon. Cheaper pump prices aren’t exactly good news in the struggle to slow global warming, but they’re likely welcome by President Joe Biden, whose reelection campaign has been based in part on the economy’s resilience through the pandemic, record low unemployment and steadily slowing inflation. While some polls indicate that last bit has yet to register with most consumers, lower gas prices are about as high profile as it gets. And one sign that cash is already flowing from gas stations to PlayStations came this weekend: US consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online during Black Friday.

—“Cheap gas for Christmas,” Bloomberg Evening [Email] Briefing, today.

Chaser: The Earth Wants Biden to Keep Gas Prices High. There’s one bold move President Biden could make to curb climate change: Find a way to put a $5-a-gallon floor on gasoline prices.

—Headline, Bloomberg.com, July 20th, 2022.

Flashbacks:

● 2008 L.A. Times headline: “The joy of $8 gas.”

● “Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket…”

In other words, Obama administration retreads are following the same playbook as the original Obama administration: “We’re going to keep at it to ensure the American people are paying their fair share for gas,” is the perfect Kinsley Gaffe for an Obama administration retread like Biden:  As Steven Chu, Obama’s then-incoming energy secretary, told the Wall Street Journal in the fall of 2008: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

So despite Biden claiming last year that high gas prices are Putin’s fault, is it fair to ask if Biden himself is on the payroll of Putin? As Walter Russell Mead wrote in 2017:

If Trump were the Manchurian candidate that people keep wanting to believe that he is, here are some of the things he’d be doing:

Limiting fracking as much as he possibly could
Blocking oil and gas pipelines
Opening negotiations for major nuclear arms reductions
Cutting U.S. military spending
Trying to tamp down tensions with Russia’s ally Iran.

“Yep,” Glenn added in late 2019. “You know who did do these things? Obama. You know who supports these things now? Democrats.”

● Biden praises high gas prices as part of ‘incredible transition’ of the US economy away from fossil fuels.

● Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Irish Green Party Sen. Pauline O’Reilly boasts, “We are restricting freedom, but we are doing it for the common good:”

Irish Green Party Sen. Pauline O’Reilly defended a controversial bill that could jail citizens for merely possessing material that criticizes gender identity.

The Irish Criminal Justice Bill purportedly targets “hate speech,” but some critics have compared it to the concept of punishing people for “thought crime,” a term popularized by George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”

The text of the “Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022,” notes that a person can be imprisoned if they “prepare or possess” material that is “likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics,” one of which being “gender” identity.

The Catholic Herald observed in past months that the legislation could lead to criminalization of Catholic teaching and religious expression in general, “The Catholic Church has long-standing objective positions on issues, which, if they are to be uttered in public (and that may include the pulpit), may cause the priest or other adherent to be made subject to prosecution.”

O’Reilly defended the bill in a speech on Tuesday as she debated its merits with her peers, even as she condemned some of their rhetoric on “gender or sexual identities.” After suggesting social media has “fueled hatred” and revealed the “dirty, filthy, underbelly of hatred in Irish society,” O’Reilly argued that hate speech legislation is merely another necessary law to restrict freedom for the “common good.”

You went full Hillary, Sen. O’Reilly. Never go full Hillary: “We are going to take things away from you for the common good.”

Finally, George, what are your thoughts on the above story?

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Atlanta Rioter: ‘My Gender Is a Loaded Gun Pointed at Capitalism’s Heart.’

Rioters with the “Stop Cop City” movement in Atlanta face domestic terrorism and racketeering charges for repeated attempts to stop the lawful construction of a police and firefighter training facility, including the use of Molotov cocktails to harm police officers and damage construction equipment.

The newly revealed journal of Manuel Esteban Páez Terán, an agitator who reportedly opened fire at police before officers fatally shot him on Jan. 18, reveals how climate alarmism and leftist grievance motivated a written desire to become “ungovernable” and kill police officers. Among other things, he wrote, “My gender is a loaded gun pointed at capitalism’s heart.”

I’d do the usual mock queries about why this story wasn’t plastered over the DNC-MSM, but at this point, I think we all know the answer:

GOODER AND HARDER, DC: DC’s City Council Slashed Police Funding. Now, Its Members Want More Cops as Shootings Plague City.

Washington, D.C.’s city council in the summer of 2020 voted to slash millions from the police budget. Now, as homicides surge in the nation’s capital, liberal council members want more cops.

After D.C. saw 13 homicides in just the first five days of August, left-wing council members Brianne Nadeau and Phil Mendelson touted their efforts to secure more resources for police, with Nadeau especially stressing the city’s “hot spots.” Those efforts mark a stark turnaround for the council members, both of whom voted to cut $15 million from the city’s police budget at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. Nadeau at the time endorsed “calls to defund MPD” and “get police out of schools,” while Mendelson praised a 2021 police reform report that lamented D.C.’s “harmful over-reliance on policing and incarceration” and called for a “realignment and reduction of MPD’s size, responsibilities, and budget.”

Nadeau and Mendelson’s sudden support for additional policing reflects the political toxicity of the “defund the police” movement, which swept liberal cities following George Floyd’s death but has since prompted backlash. City officials in New York and Los Angeles, for example, cut funding for police in 2020 only to restore law enforcement budgets a year later, citing spikes in violent crime.

D.C. Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton said the council’s “flip-flop” reflects an effort to avoid blame “regarding exponential increases in violent crime.”

And exponential increases in shoplifting and car thefts as well, as the hits just keep on coming:

6248 cars stolen to date in DC, including one stolen in my neighborhood Thanksgiving Day….#DistrictofCrime pic.twitter.com/dAGLtxM6Dd

— ANC6B10 (@Anc6B10) November 26, 2023

NAPOLEON REVIEW: Blunt-force charisma from Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s dark, epic biopic.

Spanning 32 years, from the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 to its title character’s death on St Helena in 1821, it casts Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise, reign and downfall as both a prickly psychodrama and a sweeping military epic, in which the intimate lives of its central players and the fate of France itself become instantly and anxiously entwined.

Napoleon himself is played with startling blunt-force charisma by Joaquin Phoenix, who is working again with Scott for the first time since 2000’s Gladiator. Phoenix’s undisguised soft Californian accent is one of a number of details that might irk historical sticklers – television’s Dan Snow has already chimed in with a list of inaccuracies, to which Scott’s not unreasonable response was “get a life”. But on screen it’s oddly ideal, reinforcing the idea that this Corsican roughneck can never fully settle into the role for which history has him picked out.

We get the measure of the man almost instantly at the Siege of Toulon, as the French Republican forces lay siege to the British-occupied harbour fort. In the dead of night, as Napoleon leads the advance, a cannonball tears through the shoulder of his horse – the film earns its 15 certificate fast – though almost before he hits the ground he hurriedly barks “I’m OK,” and strides on, shaken but resolute, and smeared with the blood of his steed.

The whole sequence is astonishing – mounted on a scale and pegged out with a clarity that makes the filmmaking itself feel like the work of a supreme military tactician. But extraordinarily, Scott keeps on bettering it.

I saw Napoleon on Thanksgiving afternoon in Fort Worth, with a rather intimate crowd about ten other people in the theater besides Nina and I. Fortunately, globally, the film is doing quite well, because it wasn’t going to make back much of its rumored $200 million budget from that multiplex! I’m surprised to see the film is getting far harsher reviews in America than in England (the above passage is from the London Telegraph). Yes, like Scott’s Gladiator, Napoleon is first and foremost a movie, and like most historic-themed epic films, it plays very fast and loose with the facts. (For example, yes, Napoleon was sent to Egypt, but no, he didn’t shell the pyramids for kicks and grins along the way). But it’s definitely an epic well worth seeing on the big screen while you have the chance. (Though I’m looking forward to the four-hour plus cut that’s allegedly coming to Apple TV next year.)

RIP: Marty Krofft, co-creator of H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost, dead at 86.

REDSTEEZE, OTHERS POINT OUT WHY ‘PRO-HAMAS’ RIOTERS IN NYC ARE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH IT:

The pro-Hamas mob smashed the window of a New York kosher restaurant. Because, you know, terrorizing Jews in America will #FreePalestine. pic.twitter.com/WUEDQsgTVg

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 26, 2023

The past couple of months of anti-Semitic protests are also a glowing testament to the left’s decade+ obsession with “anti-bullying” in the education system:

The fifteen years – and billions in public funds – we spent on “anti-bullying” and empathy education were clearly a smashing success. https://t.co/VUR75ei4xN

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 26, 2023

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: What Makes Hamas Worse Than the Nazis.

In October 1943 Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, delivered a notorious speech to 50 of his senior lieutenants in Posen. “I want to speak frankly to you about an extremely grave matter,” he said. “We can talk about it among ourselves, yet we will never speak of it in public. … I am referring to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. … It is a page of glory in our history that has never been written and is never to be written.”

By total contrast, the Hamas killers 80 years later attached GoPro cameras to their helmets so they could livestream their atrocities over social media. Although the Nazis burnt Jews alive in barns on their retreat in 1945, they did not film themselves doing it. There are plenty of photographs of Nazis standing around death-pits full of Jewish corpses, but these were taken for private delectation rather than public consumption.

When on January 27, 1945, the Red Army reached Auschwitz, they only found 7,000 living skeletons there out of a normal camp population of 140,000, because the Nazis had marched the rest westwards, partly in order kill the death-marchers but also because they did not want evidence of their crimes to be uncovered. Gassing operations there had ended in November 1944, and attempts were made to destroy the gas chambers. “Killing installations had been dismantled,” writes Sir Ian Kershaw in his book The End, “and attempts made to rase the traces of the camp’s murderous activities.”

The sheer glee with which Hamas, by contrast, killed parents in front of their children and of children in front of their parents, was broadcast to the world. Nazi sadism was routine and widespread, but it wasn’t built into their actual operational plans in the way that Hamas’s sadism has been.

Read the whole thing.

Related:

Photos of the hostages have been placed on the train tracks leading to Auschwitz. Then as now, Jews were ripped from their home and sent to their death. pic.twitter.com/uICSujgt6F

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) November 26, 2023

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Salon Magazine Warns of ‘Democracy’s Last Thanksgiving’ If Trump Becomes President.

[Salon politics writer Chauncey Devega] even argues that Trump is faring better than Biden in the polls because Americans are stupid.

“Journalists, pundits, the mainstream political class, other experts, and everyday Americans who follow politics and current events closely assume that the average member of the public does so as well,” the Salon author writes.

“There are decades of research by political scientists and other experts, however, that shows this to not be true.”

“In reality, most Americans are politically disengaged, lack a sophisticated understanding of political matters, are imagistic and emotional, have a difficult time retaining and understanding complex information, do not pay close attention to elections until they decide to vote, and more generally are civically illiterate,” he continues.

“More than half of the American public reads below a sixth-grade level.”

“In all, the average voter also makes political decisions based on “calculations” and concerns that mainstream professional politics watchers — especially liberals and progressives — would find ‘irrational.”

Devega even claims that foul play will tip the election in Trump’s favor.

“Given the Electoral College, voter nullification and voter suppression, gerrymandering and other structural failings in American “democracy” there is a very real and growing probability that Donald Trump will return to power in 2025,” he notes.

Devega goes on to lament that the media and ‘experts’ have failed to persuade the public into believing “Dictator Trump” is fascist.

“The sum effect is that these discussions and warnings about America’s ‘democracy crisis’ and ‘fascism’ are often ignored or filtered out by large portions of the public as being just more ‘partisan bickering’ and ‘politics as usual,’” he writes.

—The Daily Fetched, yesterday.

It’s a bit late for Salon to pretend to be anti-“fascism” based on their previous fever swamp wishes, such as these greatest hits over the years:

● Democrats have a massive opportunity with Capitol riot committee: Shove it down the GOP’s throat.

—Salon.com, July 27, 2021.

● “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.”

—Salon.com, March 6, 2013.

● “Let’s nationalize Fox News: Imagining a very different media…Excerpted from ‘Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA.’

—Salon.com, January 18, 2014.

● “Like [the late communist Pete] Seeger and the FDR cargo cult, Salon also harbors turn-the-clock-back fantasies of their own: Last month, the publication called for the nationalization of the news media because it was uncomfortable with the glut of right-leaning news and opinion led by — you guessed it! — Fox News. (Hmmm — I wonder if someone in the FCC read that article?) Now the Website wishes to turn the clock back on the film industry because of a perceived glut of independent films.”

—Easy Riders, Raging Stasists, Ed Driscoll.com, February 22, 2014.

● “Let’s nationalize Amazon and Google: Publicly funded technology built Big Tech. They’re huge and ruthless and define our lives. They’re close to monopolies. Let’s make them public utilities.”

—Salon.com, July 8, 2014.

As Charles Cooke asked the left in 2016, “Herewith, an under-asked question for our friends on the progressive left: ‘Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?’”

And as far as ‘Democracy’s Last Thanksgiving,’ that concern was raised and acquitted a few years ago:

● Give it a rest, Republicans — no one wants to take away Turkey Day. The imaginary “war on Thanksgiving” is just Republicans grasping for post-Trump bulls**t to rile up the base.

—Salon.com, November 24, 2020.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Hunter Biden Disappointed To Learn White Powder All Over White House Just Fake Snow.

HARVARD PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939: Harvard Crimson’s antisemitism disturbingly echoes Oxford in the 1930s.

On a cold February evening in 1933, the students of the Oxford Union debated and passed the motion “That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.” The debate, which took place a week or so after Hitler was named chancellor of Germany, became an international sensation.

The students’ pacifism and lack of patriotism was viewed as emblematic of the degeneracy of an ungrateful and self-indulgent young intellectual elite. Winston Churchill called the vote “abject, squalid, shameless,” and “nauseating.”

The Oxford Union debate was not simply an academic exercise. At the time, many observers claimed it reinforced the view in Germany that the English were soft.

Alfred Zimmern, professor of international relations at Oxford, wrote to the former Oxford Union president who organized the debate: “I hope you do penance every night and every morning for that ill starred Resolution. … If the Germans have to be knocked out a second time it will be partly your fault.” Churchill would later write that as a result of the “ever shameful” motion, “in Germany, in Russia, in Italy, in Japan, the idea of a decadent, degenerate Britain took deep root and swayed many calculations.”

In our own time, just 18 months ago, the academic aristocracy at the Harvard Crimson endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that targets Israel. The BDS movement arose in 2005 as a policy advocated by Palestinian civil society groups to delegitimize and isolate Israel, similar to the anti-apartheid fight against South Africa.

And speaking of higher education partying like it’s 1939: The Shame of Academe.

Nor is it only geopolitics that resembles the interwar period. The intellectual climate does, too. As Allan Bloom observed in his 1987 classic The Closing of the American Mind, German universities in the 1920s and 1930s were seedbeds of fascism. The most prominent German philosopher of the age, Martin Heidegger, belonged to the Nazi Party. He never apologized for his affiliation or behavior. Heidegger’s abstruse thought laid the foundations for the postmodern “critical theory” that has dominated the academy since the early 1990s. The result: Two generations of students cannot tell right from wrong, good from evil, justice from terror.

Also, they are functionally illiterate. The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at the University of Virginia wrote on Instagram that it “unequivocally supports Palestinian liberation and the right of colonized people everywhere to resist the occupation of their land by whatever means they deem necessary.” Whatever means? Does that include rape and baby-killing? Is that what they teach to international-relations majors in Charlottesville? Suffice it to say that none of these young adults have ever read a book on the laws of war. They are too busy mainlining Islamo-fascist propaganda on Tik-Tok.

All the way to the big guy himself: Osama bin Laden’s infamous ‘Letter to America’ after 9/11 promoted by TikTok influencers, goes viral.

HOW IT STARTED: Defunding the Police Is Not Nearly Enough.

—New York magazine, June 12th, 2020.

How it’s going: Over 2,500 Cops Have Quit The Job In Blue City Just This Year.

—The Daily Caller, yesterday.

WHY IS THE AMERICAN LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF ANTISEMITISM? Attack on Israeli-Owned Business in Merrimack, NH Denounced by Both Parties.

If the antisemitic activists of Palestine Action US were hoping to rally support in the Granite State with their attack on an Israeli-based defense contractor in Merrimack, it appears they miscalculated.

Elbit Systems of America’s parent company – Israel-based Elbit Systems – is the largest defense contractor for Israel. Palestine Action US, which previously launched an attack on Elbit Systems’ Cambridge, Mass. location just five days after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack, says its mission is “dismantling Elbit Systems and the Zionist War Machine.”

The group brought that mission to Merrimack on Monday around 8 a.m. when, according to local authorities, reports began rolling into the police and fire departments of an issue at the Elbit facility on Daniel Webster Highway. Protesters were blocking the entrance, and smoke was billowing from the roof. According to a Merrimack Police Department press release, “Officers discovered the front of the building had been spray painted with red paint, windows had been smashed, and at least one of the main lobby doors had been locked shut via a bicycle anti-theft device.”

Protesters also lit flares and took them to the roof, where more damage was later found.

Palestine Action US immediately took to social media to celebrate its success in temporarily shutting down the facility.

“Elbit NH has been hit. Actionists are currently on the roof. More to come,” it posted in X, later adding, “THIS is direct action. New Hampshire wasn’t ready.”

Perhaps not, but state and local police quickly had three protesters in custody.

Sophie Marika Ross, 22, of Housatonic, Mass., Cala Mairead Walsh, 19, of Cambridge, Mass., and Bridget Irene Shergalis, 27, of Dayville, Conn. They now face charges including criminal trespass, riot, and sabotage. They were held on preventative detention overnight.

Say, one name there rings a bell: New York Times sweetheart Calla Walsh turns violent.

It’s not often that the New York Times has a prophetic vision. In 2021, the paper ran a fawning profile of Calla Walsh, a high-schooler leading an “army of sixteen-year-olds” against Massachusetts’s Democratic establishment. Now all grown up, Walsh has become a general to a violent group of diligent protesters.

Walsh, now a committed communist, was arrested on Monday morning at a defense contractor facility in New Hampshire along with two other women. The three were arraigned on Tuesday on charges of riot, sabotage, criminal mischief, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.

The women, along with a larger group of pro-Palestine protesters, had surrounded the Elbit Systems facility, which is allegedly involved in Israel’s military campaign. Police said protesters badly damaged the building, including smashed windows and spray paint that read “free Gaza” and “genocide profiteers.” Police noticed smoke coming from the roof, where they found the three women with an incendiary device and smashed skylights and HVAC equipment.

Exit quote:

“Fascism is alive and well and unbothered in Boston?” It sure is; it sure is.

WATCH: Nancy Pelosi’s Daughter Caught on Hidden Camera Admitting January 6 Was a Hoax.

TWO BIDEN ADMINISTRATIONS IN ONE! Biden Calls for Unity as his White House Released Thanksgiving Guide on ‘Crazy MAGA Nonsense.’

“We have to remind ourselves how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on the face of the earth,” the president said. “Today is about coming together, giving thanks for this country we call home. And thanks to all the firefighters, police officers, first responders and our troops, some of whom are stationed abroad.”

“We can have different political views, but … we have one view — the one view is we’re the finest, greatest nation in the world. We should focus on that … We have to bring the nation together and we have to treat each other with a little bit of decency and so — and I think that’s who the vast majority of the American people are.”

Jill Biden said it was “important that we all commit to an act of kindness today” and asked Americans to “call someone and wish them a Happy Thanksgiving or do something kind.”

It was boilerplate and it was adequate. It would have not be noteworthy except for the fact that the Biden-Harris campaign went the opposite direction. Before Joe and Jill attempted to do the right thing, the Biden-Harris campaign released “Your handy guide for responding to crazy MAGA nonsense this Thanksgiving.” According to the post on X, it went out at 7:58 a.m. Thanksgiving Day.

Your handy guide for responding to crazy MAGA nonsense this Thanksgiving

A thread pic.twitter.com/rf0hFRXa80

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) November 23, 2023

There is no way that Joe and Jill didn’t know such a guide was posted. There is no separating them from the campaign. Joe Biden is a puppet president who is too dazed and confused to know what is happening from hour to hour. Those around him, including Jill, are controlling the narrative. Remember the dramatic blood red background when Biden went all Dark Brandon on us and demonized Republicans in a televised speech?

And remember when Joe Biden called Tea Party members “terrorists” in 2011, only months after his fellow Democrats were on a “new civility” tear in their attempt to blame an attack on Gabrielle Giffords and a Reagan-appointed judge by an apolitical lunatic on Sarah Palin and her clip art? Nothing has changed among Joe and his fellow Obama-associated cronies since.

MARK JUDGE: The Unforgettable Avalon Theater.

It was a little later that dad met my mother. He was having a drink at the Chevy Chase Lounge, a tavern just a few doors down from the Avalon. He looked up and was smitten: here was a woman who looked like Gene Tierney. Like Tierney, my mother Phyllis was “black Irish,” gorgeous people of Irish descent who have jet black hair and blue eyes. Both mom and Tierney also had a slight overbite that only added to their appeal.

“Wow,” my dad said. “You look like Gene Tierney.”

“You look like an asshole,” mom replied.

A year later they were married.

Read the whole thing.

CHINA IS ONCE AGAIN PARTYING LIKE IT’S 2019: Here We Go Again… W.H.O. Is Concerned About a New Respiratory Virus in China.

DEREK CHAUVIN NEEDED ‘LIFESAVING MEASURES’ TO KEEP HIM ALIVE AFTER PRISON STABBING, LIBERALS CELEBRATE:

Many on both sides of the aisle believe that Chauvin deserved his sentence and that his actions caused Floyd’s death. Nevertheless, those celebrating what some are calling “Shanksgiving” should be ashamed of themselves:

* * * * * * * *

I will let readers decide what they think of Chauvin, but I think we can all agree that the prison system is obligated to keep him safe—and they utterly failed—and that celebrating the stabbing of a federal prisoner is deranged. Their celebrations bring to mind all the disturbing pro-Hamas protests we’re seeing—where people are literally revering savagery.

Is this what we’ve become?

For many, yes; those who failed to realize that Tom Wolfe didn’t write Radical Chic as a how-to guide for leftists throughout America.

PAULA BOLYARD: A Dirty Little Secret About Drudge.

Many of you will recall that Drudge at first did everything he could to promote Donald Trump. Then something happened, some sort of falling-out that no one ever really got to the bottom of, and Matt Drudge turned on the president. That was in 2019, a year of big changes for Drudge. There were rumors (still unconfirmed) that the site had been sold. Drudge changed its ad provider, and it began to lean more liberal and more favorable toward mainstream media. That same year, PJ Media became part of the Townhall Media family and the links stopped—abruptly. Literally on the day of the sale. Whoever was running Drudge at the time, whether Matt or some minimum-wage intern, apparently had some sort of grudge against Townhall and he/they even dropped us from the blogroll at the bottom of the page. Petty, vindictive, and, if I’m being honest, rather costly to our bottom line.

Now, if you go to the Drudge report you’ll find links to a bunch of left-wing UK sites, and well-funded mainstream media sites like the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and the New York Post. Good for them, I guess. For whatever reason, Matt Drudge, who was reportedly apolitical and more interested in the success of his site than anyagenda, decided to tank the site. A comparison of Similiar Web (a site that ranks websites based on various metrics)  shows that Drudge was listed as #41 in the nation with 164 million visits in October 2018. Currently, the site ranks at #145 with 51 million visits in October 2023. That’s a major, major drop.

I’m not losing any sleep over any of this, and I trust you’re not either.

Not at all, but I’d love to finally get to hear the actual story of what turned Drudge into a zombie Website; a mere shadow of its former greatness. Flashback: Where’s Matt Drudge? “The Drudge Report reminds me of MTV in the early 2000s, a channel I returned to sheerly out of habit based on its greatness from decades before.”

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Populist Surge Edition.