ICYMI: David Plouffe Is the Michelangelo of Play-Doh. “The thing is, Concha is entirely correct that Plouffe’s decisions on Al Smith, Rogan, Walz, and Cheney all led to disaster. What Concha misses is that, as bad as those choices were, the alternatives were worse.”
Author Archive: Stephen Green
May 14, 2025
RACISM, STRAIGHT UP:
“Helping whites people is against what we stand for.”
One of the great things about the Trump Afrikaner refugee policy is that it’s getting people, including church leaders, to say what they really think about white people. No more inferences now. It’s out in the open. Good. https://t.co/asF2erMOKZ
— RAW EGG NATIONALIST (@Babygravy9) May 14, 2025
MAKE ARMS EXPORTS GREAT AGAIN: Trump signs deals with Saudis, including biggest-ever $142 billion arms agreement.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi de facto ruler, warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital. The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun belts.
“I really believe we like each other a lot,” Trump said later during a brief appearance with the crown prince at the start of a bilateral meeting.
They later signed more than a dozen agreements to increase cooperation between their governments’ militaries, justice departments, and cultural institutions.
Additional economic agreements were expected to be inked later Tuesday at a US-Saudi investment conference convened for the occasion.
Prince Mohammed has already committed to some $600 billion in new Saudi investment in the US, but Trump teased that $1 trillion would be even better. The agreement includes a mammoth arms deal described by the White House as the largest “in history” between the allies, worth nearly $142 billion.
It’s still too soon to bring the Saudis on board as the capstone to the Abraham Accords, but I wonder if this arms deal was a sweetener.
May 13, 2025
UM…:
Face it, you cant tell if this is real or not can you? https://t.co/ezVzD85aYe
— varifrank (@varifrank) May 13, 2025
(But it is real.)
Related (From Ed): If you missed it yesterday: David Hogg’s Critique of Democrats: Men Want to Get Laid.
UPDATE (From Ed): Hogg rides the left’s intersectional Mobius Loop!
THAT’S REAL MONEY: Paxton Wrests $1.375 Billion From Google. “More good news out of the Texas Attorney General’s office: He just compelled Google to cough up $1.375 billion to settle a lawsuit over illegally using biometric data.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT [VIP]: We’re Digging a Hole to Mars… Well, Sort Of. “Humanity just took another step toward colonizing Mars but this week’s advance didn’t involve Elon Musk’s massive Starship rocket, SpaceX, some gee-whiz new rocket propellent, or even anything that humans can fly, land, or breathe. But yes, Musk was involved because, of course, he was.”
VIP members keep us in business and there’s rarely a better time than now to become one with our 60% off FIGHT promotion.
UGH: How ATF Jailed a Man for Having Two Legal Flare Launchers They Called ‘Unregistered Destructive Devices.’ “The list of false claims and fake charges used to convict former sailor Patrick ‘Tate’ Adamiak is nearly as lengthy as the 20-year prison sentence he received.”
I DUNNO, I CAN IMAGINE QUITE A BIT: Out-of-Control Green Grifting Under Biden Was Worse Than We Imagined.
A LEARNING CULTURE MATTERS MUCH MORE THAN MONEY: It’s Mormons: Low-spending Utah is #4 for education. “Utah is the best state in the union, according to U.S. News, thanks to a strong economy, a sense of community and — despite spending less per pupil than any other state but Idaho — its education system.”
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: David Plouffe is the Michelangelo of Play-Doh. “The thing is, Concha is entirely correct that Plouffe’s decisions on Al Smith, Rogan, Walz, and Cheney all led to disaster. What Concha misses is that, as bad as those choices were, the alternatives were worse.”
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: DNI Tulsi Gabbard says Biden-era domestic terrorism policy ‘must end,’ calls it an abuse of power. “Gabbard told Just the News in a statement Monday that she has ended the domestic terrorism approach of the Biden administration that was used to justify the targeting of conservative Catholics, gun enthusiasts and parents who protested school board policies.”
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS STUCK LIKE THAT: At This Blistering Pace, Burned Down Parts of L.A. Should Be Rebuilt in…Decades and Decades. “Now, however, we learn the amazing news that the City of Angels has issued a stunning total of five permits in the city limits.”
More:
When I hear that some key allies will not decouple from the PRC, but may actually strengthen those economic relations, I’ve got to ask: What do you want your future to be? Are you ready to decouple from the US and throw your lot with the Chinese Communist Party as your future?
Do you see yourself as a link in the land-baset supply chain network run from Beijing called Belt and Road? Do you believe that your future no longer lies in then Atlantic? If so, please say so loud and clear because right now we are debating what our force posture should be.
For over 20 yrs I’ve argued that US corporate elites’ greed was making China what it is today-an existential threat to our survival as a democracy and a people. Finally, Americans have awakened to the threat, but will Brussels or Berlin now walk this path to self-destruction?
As I visit Europe this time I’ve to say to say this to our friends here: It’s time to choose sides. It’s a zero-sum game: When it comes to your economic policy, you are either with the United States or with communist China. I say this as a lifelong transatlanticist – it’s real.
I understand that the tone coming from Washington is not what you’ve been accustomed to. And sometimes over the top and hurtful. But this is real: you must tell us if your elites can see beyond the rhetoric and still believe in the national security relationship with the US.
The Trump administration has shocked our allies with its rhetoric, and I would be the last to choose the harshness of the tone. But the message above the imperative of European rearmament in NATO is spot on— US administrations, Democrat and Republican called for it in the past.
Just months ago I never thought I would write such a post. But this trip made me realize how disconnected some among Europe’s elites have become from the foundational principles of the shared Western cultural DNA. So I ask: Do you still remain committed to this alliance?
When “a lifelong transatlanticist” has that kind of warning for Europe, there’s something deeply wrong with Europe.
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!
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.”