CHANGE MORE OF THE SAME: AOC Hit With Major Snub in Her Bid for Leadership. “Connolly was supported by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a true sign of her continued influence over the caucus despite no longer being in leadership. According to some reports, Pelosi was actively trying to sabotage AOC.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
December 17, 2024
SENTENCING SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT SWIFTLY:
BREAKING:
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov has been killed by a remotely detonated bomb placed near the entrance of a building in Moscow
Kirillov was the head of Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Defense Forces (NBC)
Ukraine charged him with chemical war crimes 24h ago. pic.twitter.com/ZlxiBxABJu
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 17, 2024
More:
Kirillov was responsible for providing Russian forces with the chemical agents the use against entrenched Ukrainian positions.
Ukraine claims that Russia has used chemical agents 4800 times since the war started.
Since 2022, more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been hospitalized with chemical poisoning, and 3 have died.
Full details here.
PAINFUL: Fortune’s Fool: Ketanji Jackson Makes Embarrassing Broadway Debut. “A Supreme Court justice by any other name still acts horribly. If there were a Tony Award for worst Broadway performance, Supreme Court justice and all-around joke, Ketanji Brown Jackson would be taking home a trophy. Yes, the ultimate DEI hire took to the stage in a one-time appearance Saturday in the Broadway musical ‘&Juliet.'”
The worst part might not have been Jackson demeaning herself and the court, but that an amateurish production like “&Juliet” is considered Broadway-worthy.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (BEIJING EDITION): China’s November retail sales miss expectations as real estate slump deepens.
The world’s second-largest economy has been contending with pressure from multiple fronts this year. Consumer and business confidence has been hit by a prolonged property downturn, local government debt risks and high unemployment.
“The stimulus effect has been short-lived,” My Bui, economist at investment management firm AMP said in an email. While the “recent fragile but upward momentum in Chinese economic data will translate into a real GDP growth rate of 5% this year,” they are unlikely to turn around weak consumption sentiment due to falling home prices, Bui added.
November industrial production rose by 5.4% from a year ago, above the expectations of 5.3% growth among economists polled by Reuters, accelerating from a climb of 5.3% in the prior month.
That industrial production increase is partly due to China trying to export its overcapacity issue. The flood of cheap exports is annoying everybody, including allies.
“FLAHERTY IS THIS CLOSE TO GETTING IT”: Kamala Harris Deputy Campaign Manager Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud.
FIRST, YOU NEVER BEND THE KNEE: Hegseth Nomination Battle Shows Republicans An Easy Way To Stop Losing And Start Defeating The Swamp.
Washington Post congressional reporter Marianna Sotomayor agreed with the assessment and said there had been a “significant shift” on the previously embattled nominee. She credited the grassroots Republican attacks on weak Republicans as particularly helpful to Hegseth’s case.
“And I think the reason why is because the moment that Trump came out and said that he is behind his pick, we did see a number of Trump allies kind of green lighting to the MAGA base, all right, start calling senators who are a little bit worried on Hegseth. Start — start to threaten, actually, a number of senators, including Sen. Joni Ernst, that she could get primaried. This is something that Elon Musk has also said publicly that he will use his super PACs to not just find candidates to go against any senator who may vote against a nominee, but also fund those campaigns.”
The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood broke the news that Ernst was waging an “aggressive” campaign against Hegseth’s nomination in the hope she might be appointed defense secretary. Her past support for pushing transgender ideology on the military was also highlighted. The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson explained the stakes of the nomination battle in his piece, “Pete Hegseth’s Nomination Is A Hill Trump Should Die On.”
Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace also agreed that Republican voters had apparently figured out how to remind senators that they mattered at least as much as their beltway friends.
“I think Marianna has it right, there was this sort of pivot point where you could see, particularly, I think, when the pressure campaign against Ernst really started to mount, that I think that took over and became the dominant focus of a lot of these senators as opposed to some of the allegations and some of the questions around Hegseth,” Pace said.
Democrat strategist Donna Brazile said controllers had unleashed “MAGA” on senators who were “waffling” on the nominees.
Second, you get ’em skeered and keep the skeer on ’em.
What Brazile is moaning about is Republicans finally working as hard as Democrats to support their nominees.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump 47 Reckoning Is Hitting the Dems From All Sides Now. “One of the many false narratives that is being destroyed now is the notion that the Trump-supporting MAGA crowd was the fringe of the GOP. It was being perpetuated the Democrats’ flying monkeys in the mainstream media, and the Never Trump crowd. It was never true at any point in this election cycle.”
SAVING THE PLANET, ONE DEVASTATED ACRE OF LAND AT A TIME:
This is not sustainable environmentalism. This is net zero corporate land grabbing. The vast majority of mass-scale solar panels plastered on prime farmland will reduce farmland acres & risk being destroyed by bad weather, damaging the soil or end up in landfills after 25 years. pic.twitter.com/qwFssGQ0c7
— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) December 16, 2024
Things used to grow there.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (TEHRAN EDITION): Iran Extends School Closures In Tehran Amid Fuel Shortages.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has been advocating for reduced fuel consumption, apologised to the nation on Monday for the shortages and promised they would be resolved by next year.
State television said, citing a government statement, that “due to persistent cold weather, schools, universities and government offices in Tehran and its surroundings will be closed tomorrow (Tuesday)”.
A gas-powered plant in western Lorestan province was partially closed on Monday because of “increased consumption of gas among household consumers”, according to IRNA state news agency.
It followed a move on Sunday by the northern province of Golestan to close plants and ration electricity, according to local media.
People have also been hit with power cuts across the country, including in Tehran.
Pezeshkian doesn’t even have the “transition to green energy” as an excuse.
IN 2017 THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED: World’s Shortest Boycott Ends as D.C.-Area Anti-Trump Waitress Fired for Discrimination.
WHO IS THIS WE, KEMOSABE? Political Violence Happens Because We Let It.
The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month appears to be what it looked like: a political attack. In this case, one motivated by hatred of the American insurance system. In a leaked manifesto, the alleged killer, Luigi Mangione, blames the insurer’s corruption and greed, and claims to be the first to face it with “brutal honesty.”
If true—and a grand jury in New York will soon decide—that makes the murder another in a string of ideologically motivated violent attacks over the past few years, including:
Assassination attempts—two against Donald Trump as well as the shootings of Rep. Steve Scalise and (further back) Rep. Gabby Giffords;
Political riots, from the BLM violence of summer 2020 to the riot in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to the pro-Hamas riots of last fall;
Intimidating protests against Supreme Court justices, or individual attacks like the assault on Paul Pelosi;
A wave of bomb threats as well as the pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats in 2018, reflecting domestic terror hitting its highest level in decades.
None of this is new. The late 1960s and early 1970s were wracked by political violence.
To be more exact, political violence occurs because those responsible for stopping it choose not to, presumably because they believe they benefit from it.
PROFESSIONAL COURTESY: Biden Granted Clemency to a Bunch of Democrat Criminals.
December 16, 2024
WHO’S THE PRESIDENT, ANYWAY?
SHOCKING UNDERCOVER VIDEO: ‘Joe Biden is Dead;’ National Security Council Advisor Inside the White House Details Biden "Can't Say a Sentence."
Henry Appel, a former spy who currently works at the Intelligence Programs Directorate for the NSC, reveals: 'We’re concerned about… pic.twitter.com/jLjifP0jm1
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 16, 2024
Not exactly shocking after what we saw at the Trump-Biden debate but still deeply disturbing.
Exit Question: What’s this talker doing anywhere near national security?
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
Clarence The Angel Takes Gavin Newsom To Florida To Show Him What California Would Look Like If He'd Never Been Born https://t.co/8rZmdcYSLl pic.twitter.com/G0OzZxt0uu
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 16, 2024
I’m old enough to remember when the California Dream was the American Dream but better — because it was in California.
But like a lot of people, it’s departed for places like Florida and Texas.
TWILIGHT OF EMPIRE: Russian military has begun large-scale withdrawal from Syria, US and Western officials say. “Without a Libyan port, and if they are forced to abandon Tartus in Syria, the Russians would be left without a Mediterranean sea port to project power on NATO’s southern flank, the official said. The loss of Tartus, even temporarily, will also make it harder for Russia to move illicit materials between Russia and Africa, the defense official said.”
THIS IS MORE LIKE THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: ULA pitches ‘space interceptor’ role for Vulcan rocket’s upper stage.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno discussed this vision at the Spacepower Conference, positioning the Vulcan Centaur not just as a launch vehicle but as a potential orbital deterrent against adversaries targeting Space Force assets.
“Our vision is the ability to have a platform that is lightning fast, long range, and, if necessary, very lethal,” Bruno said Dec. 12. “What I’ve been working on is essentially a rocket that operates in space.”
Bruno has long advocated expanded capabilities for the Centaur upper stage. In 2020, he outlined plans for an enhanced Centaur V featuring increased energy, thrust, and duration capabilities to enable complex trajectories and ambitious future missions. More recently, he has promoted a “high-performance, long-duration” version that could operate for days or weeks in support of U.S. military operations.
Related: The US military is now talking openly about going on the attack in space.
SILENCED ON YOUR DIME: Wait, the Government Spent HOW MUCH to Censor Americans?
“LACK OF TRAINING” COMES TO MIND: How Do You Miss Six Shots From Five Feet Away? “The Secret Service agent that engaged the would-be Trump golf course assassin missed six shots despite being five feet away.”
DOG BITES MAN: Joe Biden Delivers Delusional Speech at DNC Holiday Party.
BUILD MORE NUKES:
Wow:
"In 2025-28, we project ~57 gigawatts (GW) of US data center power demand, and we quantify available power capacity to serve this demand as: near-term grid access of ~12-15 GW, plus ~6 GW of data centers under construction, resulting in a ~36 GW shortfall of US power… pic.twitter.com/4PArdYY9qO
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 16, 2024
Plus this from the replies:
If they don’t soon stop shooting themselves in the foot, you have to wonder how much longer there will be any data centers in Germany at all.
WAKE UP, WOKE IS DEAD: The National Spelling Bee Goes Woke: Women Is Now Spelled W-O-M-Y-N. “The National Spelling Bee has disavowed any responsibility. According to them, all the words they used were taken directly from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. Alas, after the Merrian-Webster’s Grammar Gestapos approved of ‘W-O-M-Y-N,’ nothing more could be done.”
CHILD ABUSE: Troubled 12-year-old was ‘fast-tracked’ for hormones, mastectomy, charges lawsuit. “Sexually abused as a young child, 11-year-old Kaya Breen told a school counselor that she’d wondered if ‘life would be easier if she were a boy,’ her lawsuit states. The counselor told her and her parents that she was transgender. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and fast-tracked her for puberty blockers at 12, cross-sex hormones at 13 and a mastectomy at 14.”
ENDLESSLY INVENTIVE: Here’s Another Way California Just Found to Make Life Hell.