DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA:
INSANITY: California judge rules a man who allegedly raped women in prison must be referred to as ‘she/her’ during trial because he 'deserves dignity' pic.twitter.com/lISInd1xc4
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 23, 2024
The victim, not so much.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Greenland Seems Like a Wonderful Stocking-Stuffer. “Trump’s big Greenland tease during his first term was a real palate cleanser in the midst of all of the turmoil back then. It was also impossible to tell back then if he was serious, but who cares? The entertainment value is in the swagger. That whole, ‘Maybe I’ll just buy it,’ attitude reminds of of Rodney Dangerfield’s Al Czervik character in ‘Caddyshack.'”
THEY HAPPILY DUG IT THEMSELVES: New research shows the massive hole Dems are in.
In a trio of focus groups, even voters who previously backed Democrats cast the party as weak and overly focused on diversity and elites, according to research by the progressive group Navigator Research.
When asked to compare the Democratic Party to an animal, one participant compared the party to an ostrich because “they’ve got their heads in the sand and are absolutely committed to their own ideas, even when they’re failing.” Another likened them to koalas, who “are complacent and lazy about getting policy wins that we really need.” Democrats, another said, are “not a friend of the working class anymore.”
The focus group research, shared first with POLITICO, represents the latest troubling pulse check for a party still sorting through the wreckage of its November losses and looking for a path to rebuild. Without a clear party leader and with losses across nearly every demographic in November, Democrats are walking into a second Trump presidency without a unified strategy to improve their electoral prospects. And while some Democrats blame Biden, others blame inflation and still others blame “losing hold of culture,” the feedback from the focus groups found Democrats’ problems are even more widespread and potentially long-lasting than a single election cycle.
More:
“I think what the Democratic elites and their politicians believe is often very different from what the average Democratic voter is,” said a Georgia man who voted for Biden in 2020 but Trump in 2024.
Living in a mainstream media/social media bubble will do that.
CHANGE:
"Bitch, new laws."
A looting suspect in Seal Beach, Orange County, CA expressed disbelief to an alleged co-conspirator that they were facing a felony theft charge.
Prop 36, which passed through a referendum, increases penalties for repeat & group thieves.pic.twitter.com/zJsxdN72UD
— Andy Ngo 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) December 23, 2024
Incentives matter, and California voters changed them.
I’M NOT GETTING MY HOPES UP BUT I AM ENJOYING THE SHOW: Don’t Look Now, but Iran’s Islamist Theocrats Are in Deep Doo-Doo.
The petition initially went viral on social media after a number of high-profile politicians shared it with their followers, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick.
However, a recent burst of energy from disgruntled voters helped tip the petition past the three million milestone.
Despite going to the polls five times in the last decade, millions of voters want another opportunity to elect MPs to the House of Commons.
I can’t imagine why:
Wow. Seriously?
Christmas in London 🇬🇧 📍
A mob tearing through the city on bikes under the Christmas lights putting up Palestinian flags 🇵🇸
How and why is this happening? pic.twitter.com/uQkxOgsxnP
— Kosher🎗🧡 (@koshercockney) December 23, 2024
ROBERT SPENCER: Canada, the Panama Canal, and Now Greenland. What’s Behind Trump’s Expansionist Rhetoric? “The left’s propaganda arm, also known as the mainstream media, loves to portray Trump and his supporters as angry, bitter, ignorant people lashing out against the people who know better what’s good for them. Trump has never gotten credit for his sense of humor, despite the fact that he is easily the funniest man to occupy the White House since Ronald Reagan, and may even surpass the Gipper.”
Make imperialism fun again!
The Trumpire shall extend from Greenland to Panama. Then Imperator Barron will press toward Tierra del Fuego. https://t.co/18vTTUmGV9
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) December 23, 2024
THE OSBORNE EFFECT: How Not To Make A Pistol. “Or you can produce a really good pistol, and then announce that you’ve got a better version coming out soon. ‘Hudson H9, another darling of Shot Show, highly anticipated. [It’s] a really nice pistol, it did everything it was supposed to, [but] was a little more expensive than a lot of people would have liked when it came out.’ Then they announced they were just about ready to come out with a lighter aluminum-framed model. ‘And all of a sudden everybody who had been considering spending $1,200 on a Hudson H9 decided ‘Ah, I’m just going to wait for the aluminum framed version.’ Their cash flow dried up and the company went bankrupt.'”
THE FAT LADY ISN’T SINGING BUT SHE MIGHT BE WARMING UP: Don’t Look Now but Iran’s Islamist Theocrats are in Deep Doo-Doo.
SMART:
Finland plans to open 300 gun ranges, promoting firearm safety & proficiency as part of national defense. Imagine if the U.S. embraced a similar approach. Could we ever shift to a model where the gov’t encourages responsible gun ownership? Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/6wlDwMACsL
— ABetterWay2A (@ABetterWay2A) December 22, 2024
Edward Luttwak adds: “In the US there is no need to disseminate gun skills in society but the Finnish example is totally relevant for Taiwan whose 23 M inhabitants could easily outnumber any invasion force in any part of the Island with a mere 10% home guard participation.”
SHOTGUN WEDDING: How Will a Merger of Honda and Nissan Affect the Auto Industry?
NANNYSTATERS: Denver City Council approves ban on sales of flavored tobacco products.
The Denver City Council voted 11-1 to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in the city on Monday night.
The ordinance includes bans on e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, vapes and other flavored nicotine and tobacco products.
Advocates for the ban said leading up to Monday’s meeting that it would keep nicotine products out of teenagers’ and young adults’ hands. Those against the ban said it would destroy small local businesses and, in some cases, businesses would even go under.
Zack Shadi-Kingsley owns three convenience stores in Denver where nicotine products currently make up for about 55% of his inside sales.
“This would hurt,” said Shadi-Kingsley before Monday’s vote. “We spoke about moving out of the city, if this passes, selling all three of our locations in Denver and moving out of the city.”
That’s a small price to pay for the city council (particularly Councilmember Darrell Watson, the measure’s sponsor) to signal its virtue.
REAGANESQUE: You Want Peace? This Is How You Get Peace.
The concept of dark energy emerged to reconcile observations of distant supernovae. These celestial explosions appeared farther away than expected if the Universe’s expansion were consistent with a purely gravitational model. Physicists theorized that a repulsive force, dubbed dark energy, was driving the acceleration. This idea became a cornerstone of the ΛCDM (Lambda Cold Dark Matter) model, the standard framework for cosmology.
However, recent observations have raised questions about the accuracy of this model. The “Hubble tension”, for instance, reveals discrepancies between the current expansion rate of the Universe and its inferred early expansion from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Additionally, data from advanced instruments like the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that the ΛCDM model struggles to account for evolving patterns in cosmic structures.
Researchers at the University of Canterbury, led by Professor David Wiltshire, offer an alternative explanation that removes the need for dark energy altogether. Their timescape model proposes that the appearance of an accelerating Universe is an illusion caused by the uneven effects of gravity on time.
The theory hinges on a key principle of Einstein’s general relativity: gravity can distort the flow of time. In regions of space with strong gravitational fields, such as galaxies, time runs more slowly compared to vast, empty voids in the cosmos. These differences in time dilation mean that clocks in galactic regions would measure billions of years less than clocks in cosmic voids.
Previously: Maybe ‘dark matter’ doesn’t exist after all, new research suggests.
I’m no astrophysicist but dark energy and matter always felt a bit like cheats.
NIFTY: 3D-printed long-range solid rocket motor aces testing, can give edge to US. “Ursa Major’s Lynx 3D printing technology was used to manufacture the solid rocket motor. This, in combination with Raytheon’s digital engineering capabilities, enabled the partners to accelerate development times and cut production costs, according to a statement.”
BILL WHITTLE’S HOT MIC: When Pork Flies: 7,000 BC — December 19th, 2024.
“AT THIS POINT, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?” AS ANOTHER CRMINAL ENABLER ONCE ASKED: Was It Really Joe Who Just Spared Death Row Killers?
BIDEN’S PARTING GIFTS: Biden commutes death sentences of child killers and mass murderers 2 days before Christmas.
MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES… BUT MAYBE PICK A SIMPLER DESIGN AND KEEP IT ON SCHEDULE AND ON BUDGET: France’s most powerful nuclear reactor comes on stream after 12-year delay.
THE CHAINSAW ISN’T DONE CUTTING:
🇦🇷 MILEI: IN 2025, WE’LL SLASH EVEN MORE REGULATIONS AND TAXES
"We’ve made our first big cuts, and now we’re going deeper.
In 2025, we’ll continue removing regulations, pushing economic freedom further.
This year, we jumped 70 points in economic freedom—going from the bottom… pic.twitter.com/Myi1OJT3yq
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 23, 2024
It can be done. And it must be done.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Democrats Are Finally Coming to Grips With Joe Biden’s ‘Stutter.’ “Having a man who can’t tie his own shoes holding the most powerful political office in the world is terrifying. Now that the Dems don’t care anymore, we’re finding out just how bad it’s been.”
ANTITRUST: Google’s counteroffer to the government trying to break it up is unbundling Android apps. “Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ’s filing considers, Google’s proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They don’t address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.”
EXCLUSIVE: J6 Prisoner Explains DC Event This Jan. 6.
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