THESE PEOPLE AREN’T SERIOUS ENOUGH TO BE TRUSTED WITH THE FRANCHISE: New Theory on Why Kamala Harris Lost: Guns & Crime Made It Too Scary for Liberals to Vote!
Author Archive: Stephen Green
May 13, 2025
THIS IS EXACTLY RIGHT: Extend Trump’s tax cuts, pay for it by repealing Biden’s climate handouts.
The U.S. is on the brink of a tax nightmare, with Democrats pushing the largest tax increase in history.
President Trump’s signature legislation from his first term, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is set to expire at the end of the year, and Democrats are united in their efforts to end this successful policy and implement an automatic $4.5 trillion tax increase.
Republicans were elected up and down the ballot in 2024 with a mandate to end the lunacy of Bidenomics and make America competitive again. This means enacting bold tax reforms that go beyond simply extending the Trump tax cuts and — most importantly — preventing any tax hikes. Trump recently reminded Republicans that they cannot repeat the same mistakes that sank previous administrations. A tax increase of any kind would ruin any chance of success in 2026 for the Republicans as would failure to go beyond the tax cuts.
The tax cuts expire on Dec. 31. If Congress does nothing, an automatic $4.5 trillion Democratic tax hike will land squarely on working families, many of whom are already struggling under lingering Biden-era inflation. Less than a year from now, the average taxpayer could see a 22 percent tax hike. For a working family of four, that’s a $1,700 tax increase.
This is pretty simple stuff but it sure could use more of a populist push from Trump, plus whatever it is Speaker Mike Johnson is supposed to be doing.
MUCH MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Two Texas Election Integrity Bills Pass. “Texas hasn’t suffered from the massive 3 AM ballot drops that plagued large Democratic-run cities in 2020, but there have been election irregularities, most notably in Democrat-controlled Harris County. To help remedy the situation, the Texas legislature has passed two separate bills giving the Texas Attorney General power to reign in election shenanigans.”
CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Sometimes We Have to Take the Good When the Perfect Isn’t an Option.
Over the weekend, our friends at Ammoland published a story about what’s happening with the Hearing Protection Act in the House Ways and Means Committee. As John Crump writes . . .
The Hearing Protection Act (HPA) might be in trouble in the House Ways and Means Committee, and anti-gun lobbyists are NOT the ones holding it up.
David Kustoff (R-TN) has been actively pushing to lower the tax stamp to $5 from $200, which would be a welcome change, but the better alternative is to remove suppressors completely from the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). That would eliminate the tax stamp fee and remove all other NFA requirements.
Yes, delisting cans would certainly be better. If that’s doable.
Heavy lobbying is being done by the former head of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), Chris Cox, a paid lobbyist. Cox is working to lower the tax stamp fee to $5 and keep suppressors on the NFA!
The current NRA-ILA has pushed for the removal of suppressors from the NFA, and Cox’s actions are contrary to that stance. Mr. Cox no longer has any connections to the NRA. Mr. Cox has also lobbied for a gun company that produces suppressors, which has strongly advocated removing silencers from the NFA, and could make millions of dollars if the hearing protection item is delisted from the NFA.
Yes, this sucks. There’s no reason why metal tubes that save shooters’ hearing should be regulated like machineguns (not that machineguns should be regulated more than semi-autos either). But while I’ve had no contact with anyone involved in the HPA process at all, none of this sounds nefarious.
Politics has accurately been called the art of the possible.
Indeed. Although I’d possibly feel better about politics if the GOP Congress would at least put on a show of fighting for the Constitution and fiscal sanity.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: When Media Hacks Stumble Upon the Truth, They Bury It. “These aren’t just cases of burying the lede for effect. They know that no one reads the whole article anymore, so they’re using headlines to create and perpetuate false narratives, and then sneaking in a kernel of truth to provide themselves a little cover. It’s akin to a trial attorney saying something inflammatory even though he knows the judge will order the jury to ignore it. The damage can’t be undone.”
ABOUT-FACE: That Wasn’t Us! Germany Suddenly Drops AfD Surveillance. “AfD head Alice Weidel knows exactly who to thank, with the AfD lawyer noting that the ‘complete surrender’ of the German domestic intelligence agency was due to one reason.”
“JOURNALISM”: WaPo’s ICE Hysteria: All Panic, No Nannies.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Journalism Needs a Pugnacious Asshole Like Norman Mailer.
Mailer drew a correlation between physical toughness and great journalism. In his new book Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer, David Denby traces Mailer’s transformation from a needy Jewish kid in Brooklyn to a street-tough writer who thrived on combat and iconoclasm. Mailer was transformed during his service in World War II. As Denby puts it, “This American-style prophet brawled and head-butted at parties; at one time or another, he was decked, hammered, billy clubbed, his eye gouged, his ear bitten. He believed that physical courage was necessary equipment for a great writer (Hemingway was the model) and that Jewish men in particular had to overcome all sorts of weakness.”
For Mailer, “everything he could put his body and spirit through was a test. He was sure he needed to escape the traps not only of his soft middle-class Jewish background but also the traps of postwar America—the desire for ‘security,’ the endless consumerism, and what he took to be the country’s humiliating spiritual mediocrity. He had made himself into a novelist in the Pacific, and now he brought the war home. For the author of The Naked and the Dead, the truce never arrived.” Mailer “was fascinated by boxers, murderers, and spies.”
The physical pain Mailer went through gave him a mesmerizing voice on the page. It’s why he could write about politics, boxing, war, women and sports and be perceptive about all of them. Who’s replaced him? Peter Baker? Ezra Klein? Matthew Continetti? It’s not a problem of left and right. They’re all boring.
This is Mark Judge so read the whole thing.
RAYMOND IBRAHIM: Islam Exposed: The Ugly History They Tried to Hide. “I recently met with Winston Marshall and had my longest and most comprehensive conversation to date on Islam and the West.”
May 12, 2025
UNEXPECTED HEADLINES: Things I Learned from Saturday Night Live: When It Comes to Gun Rights, Be Like Matt.
DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE A REFUGEE:
Hey, liberals!! This is how real asylum seekers look like: COMPLETE families with women and children, and definitely not just large groups of military age males .
— booker9e1 (@booker9e1) May 12, 2025
UKRAINE HAS A WAR OF NATIONAL SURVIVAL TO FIGHT; WE HAVE LOBBYIST-CONTRACTORS — THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE:
This will be purchased at 1/100th the price of a equivalent US drone design🤷♂️⬇️ https://t.co/BgMYJvuDnn
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) May 12, 2025
EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: This Exotic Italian Sports Car Pairs a Free-Breathing V-8 with a Manual.
Between Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pagani, and countless others, Italy has a rich history of producing jaw-dropping sports cars. Now there’s another name to add to the list: Automobili Mignatta, a new startup that is based out of Valfenera d’Asti in Piedmont, around 25 miles outside of Turin. The company’s first car, the Rina, was revealed this week and pairs classically beautiful bodywork with the equally classic combination of a naturally aspirated V-8 engine and a manual transmission.
The Rina’s monocoque is made from carbon fiber, as is the handcrafted barchetta-style body, which draws inspiration from Italian sports cars of the 1960s. The curvature of the fenders, oval-shaped headlights, and lack of a windshield call to mind classics like the Shelby Cobra or Maserati 450S. The Rina has an athletic stance and perfect proportions, and small visors sprout up in front of each occupant to divert the air flowing over the long hood.
Beneath the bodywork lies a 5.0-liter V-8 that remains free from both turbochargers and superchargers. The naturally aspirated unit is hooked up to a six-speed manual transmission that delivers power to the rear wheels only.
If an Italian startup can stick a naturally aspirated V-8 and a manual transmission into an exotic sports car, surely Ford or GM could do the same for a no-frills pickup…
…if Washington would just get out of the way.
I KEEP SAYING THAT DEMOCRATS CAN’T STAY THIS STUPID FOREVER, BUT THEY SURE SEEM DETERMINED TO PROVE ME WRONG:
Excellent news for Republicans here in Semafor. To "detoxify their brand with moderates and independents," Democrat groups asked "Bulwark stars" (?/LOL) to brief Democrat donors. pic.twitter.com/g3FZaRSNiR
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 12, 2025
Some of the replies are priceless.
CDR SALAMANDER: The US Navy is Sleepwalking into Defeat.
We must put to the side the system of incentives and disincentives we use to promote our most senior leaders. This last quarter century’s process has a record of consistently producing sub-optimal performance. This isn’t just my opinion. Look at everything from how we manage our people using a Cold War framework, to program management that cannot design a laudable warship or a fit-for-purpose airwing, to the shambolic results of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the Horn of Africa.
The results speak for themselves.
No, even if we ignore that dysfunction, we have to look at the potential conflict that presents the greatest danger to our nation’s power, economy, and that of our allies—the threat that would, if it has its way, change the international order in ways that will reverse centuries of progress.
That challenge is in the Pacific.
Read the whole thing.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Child Sex Trafficking Ring Busted. “It may be a false impression, but it sure seems like the Trump47 Administration has been a whole lot more aggressive pursuing child sex trafficking crimes than the Biden Administration was, maybe because some of their precious illegal aliens were involved in it.”
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING AN AT-HOME SHIATSU MASSAGE: It Turns Out That Even More of Joe Biden’s Jobs Creation Numbers Were Fake.
BUY, SELL IS BETTER THAT WAR, WAR:
🚨 JUST IN – TRUMP: "I said [to India/Pakistan] – let's stop it. If you stop it, we'll do trade. If you don't stop it, we're not gonna do any trade… and all of a sudden, they said, 'I think we're gonna stop.' And they have."
"We're gonna do a lot of trade with Pakistan, with… pic.twitter.com/IOYS87bLQ1
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) May 12, 2025
Meanwhile: India-Pakistan ceasefire: Life returning to normal in border districts of Punjab.
IT’S COMPLICATED: Russia’s Plans Are Bigger Than Conflict With the West or Camaraderie With China. “When it comes to Russia’s relationship with China, economic and strategic cooperation has visibly intensified but falls short of a ‘partnership’ or ‘overreliance,’ despite frequent claims in Western media. Indeed, there is an asymmetry in the economic relationships that is forecast to increase. In 2023, China-Russia trade jumped to $250 billion, compared to a meager $147 billion in 2021. But there is a lot of noise coming in the other direction too, which signals Putin’s long term game plan to derisk from China. Russian businesses have been quick to voice their concerns over Moscow’s increasing economic ties with China, and remain distrustful of China’s intentions.”
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH: Berkeley Finally Learns the Truth About the Homeless Crisis… Almost.