KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Trump Continues to Assemble Avengers to Battle the Swamp Ick. “It’s safe to say that any Anthony Fauci lackeys still at NIH — there are probably quite a few — are nervously updating their résumés on LinkedIn today. Dr. Bhattacharaya was the target of a campaign intended to discredit and quiet him for telling the truth about the almost science-free garbage being spewed by Fauci and his tyrannical ilk at NIH.”

WINNING: Walmart becomes biggest company to roll back DEI policies under conservative pressure to ‘end wokeness in corporate America.’

The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers.

Walmart’s moves underscore the increasing pressure faced by corporate America as it continues to navigate the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions. Emboldened by that decision, conservative groups have filed lawsuits making similar arguments about corporations, targeting workplace initiatives such as diversity programs and hiring practices that prioritize historically marginalized groups.

Separately, conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply.

But Walmart, which employs 1.6 million workers in the U.S., is the largest one to do so.

“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X, adding that he had been in conversation with Walmart.

It gets better:

24 hours after announcing @Walmart worked with me to end their woke policies, their stock is up 2.1% and their competitor @Target is down 3%. Our movement is a force in the market. Go woke, go broke actually has meaning now. pic.twitter.com/QzwK0R6XXl

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 26, 2024

This is no time to go wobbly.

LOSING SUCKS: Will Campaign for Food: DNC Staffers Pink-Slipped After Election.

CHANGE: Biden exits at all-time low, Trump in with highest approval.

A new Emerson College survey released Tuesday morning shows just a third of America, 36%, approve of the Democrat while 52% disapprove. The poll analysis called Biden’s rating “a four-year low for the president in Emerson polls.”

President-elect Donald Trump, meanwhile, is returning to the White House with one of his highest approval ratings ever, 54%. That is 6 points higher than his preelection approval, showing strongly that America likes what they’ve seen out of Mar-a-Lago so far.

And it’s not just MAGA. Approval of Trump is spread across a wide spectrum of the country, just like his election support.

“Trump’s favorability varies significantly by gender, race, and age,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “Trump’s strongest age cohort is among voters 40-59, with 60% viewing him favorably, compared to 48% among those over 70. Notably, his favorability has risen among younger voters, with 55% of those under 30 expressing a favorable opinion.”

He also said that 48% of women, 53% of Hispanic voters, and 28% of black voters approve of Trump.

The Biden cabal, aided by the Complicit Media and a weaponized justice system, did everything it could to discredit (or even jail) Trump and boost Biden.

Instead, Biden was booted in an intraparty coup, trust in the media has never been lower, and Trump’s approval has never been higher.

Heckuva job, fellas.

THE FAILURES WERE EPIC: Independent Commission Blames Netanyahu, Security Chiefs, and Others for October 7 Failures.

INTERESTING: Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent’s ‘3-3-3’ plan.

President-elect Trump’s nominee to serve as Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has touted a “3-3-3” economic plan that would seek to reduce budget deficits while boosting growth and energy production.

Bessent discussed the 3-3-3 plan this summer at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute. He said it would involve cutting the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, the last year of Trump’s second term; boosting GDP growth to 3% through deregulation and other pro-growth policies; and increasing U.S. energy production to the equivalent of an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day.
…
“It would be 3% real economic growth – how do you get that? Through deregulation, more U.S. energy production, slaying inflation and forward guidance on confidence for people to make investments so that the private sector can take over from this bloated government spending,” Bessent said.

We won’t get the growth without deregulation, low energy prices, and spending cuts. Government spending crowds out the private investment needed for innovation and growth.

THE TRANSITION IS GOING SPLENDIDLY: New York To Close 12 Migrant Shelters Ahead Of Trump Deportation Agenda.

AND THEY PASSED THE SAVINGS ON TO YOU: Macy’s found a single employee hid up to $154 million worth of expenses.

Macy’s announced Monday that a single employee was responsible for so many accounting irregularities that the company was forced to delay its quarterly earnings report, which the retailer had planned to release Tuesday.

The company recently discovered that the unnamed employee intentionally hid as much as $154 million in expenses over the course of nearly three years, prompting the retailer to conduct an independent forensic accounting investigation. The employee, whom Macy’s said is no longer with the company, “intentionally made erroneous accounting accrual entries” to hide small package delivery expenses.

Macy’s did not say why the employee hid the expenses.

I have a guess.

WELL, GOOD — THEY CAN REFOCUS ON DESTROYING HAMAS: U.S. Official Says Ceasefire Deal Reached Between Israel and Hezbollah.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Democrats can’t buy anything like Trump’s genuine authenticity.

CALIFORNIA IS A THIRD-WORLD NATION — CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, AND UNCONCERNED: They’re STILL Counting Votes, but Four Million Are Still Missing.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Firefly sets January launch date for first lunar lander mission.

Firefly announced Nov. 25 that it is planning to launch its Blue Ghost 1 lander mission during a six-day window in mid-January. The spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Florida.
…
The mission, called “Ghost Riders in the Sky” by the company, will last about 60 days. That includes a 45-day transit to the moon where the spacecraft first operates in phasing orbits around the Earth before going to the moon and entering orbit there. The spacecraft is intended to land near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature within Mare Crisium on the northeastern part of the near side of the moon. The lander is designed to operate for a full two-week lunar day and several hours into the lunar night.

Godspeed…

NOTHING BUT BLUESKY DO I SEE: Allow Me to Enlighten You About Your Social Media Problem, Prole. “The concern-trolling is strong in this one.”

THE PROBLEM WITH THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED IS THAT NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT IS:

The left has such a huge problem with Project 2025 that they can't even explain why…

WATCH this leftist absolutely panic when Piers Morgan gives him a chance to ask @KevinRobertsTX (president of @Heritage) whatever he wants about it…

This is GOLD. 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/IcuoZy5l4I

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) November 26, 2024

Given a second chance, he bungled it again.

IMMIGRATION: This Issue Will Define Trump’s Legacy — and in a Shock Poll, 3 Out of 4 Americans Now Say It’s a Priority.

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: Thyssenkrupp to cut 11,000 jobs at steel division in major corporate shakeup.

Germany’s largest steelmaker, a division of Thyssenkrupp AG, is under pressure from cheaper Asian competitors, high power prices and a weakening global economy, leading to operating losses in four of the past five years.

Under the restructuring, Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe (TKSE), which has a workforce of 27,000, said it would cut 11,000 jobs in total – 5,000 of which would be axed by 2030 and another 6,000 shed through spin-offs or divestitures.

The goal is to reduce personnel costs by some 10% on average in the coming years.

“Urgent measures are required to improve Thyssenkrupp Steel’s own productivity and operating efficiency, and to achieve a competitive cost level,” the company said in a statement.

Plus: “Economy Minister Robert Habeck said German-made steel should be protected, while standing by Germany’s commitment to secure the sector’s future with more climate-friendly production.”

Sorry, Minister Habeck — you can secure the sector’s future or you can impose “climate-friendly” production but you can’t do both.

TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH: The Big Lie About Education Spending.

IT WASN’T A DIVORCE, THEY JUST WALKED OUT: Academe’s Divorce From Reality.

Over the last 10 years or so, a cultural revolution has been imposed on this country from the top down. Its ideas originated in the academy, and it’s been carried out of the academy by elite-educated activists and journalists and academics. (As has been said, we’re all on campus now.) Its agenda includes decriminalization or nonprosecution of property and drug crimes and, ultimately, the abolition of police and prisons; open borders, effectively if not explicitly; the suppression of speech that is judged to be harmful to disadvantaged groups; “affirmative” care for gender-dysphoric youth (puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones followed, in some cases, by mastectomies) and the inclusion of natal males in girls’ and women’s sports; and the replacement of equality by equity — of equal opportunity for individuals by equal outcomes for designated demographic groups — as the goal of social policy.

It insists that the state is evil, that the nuclear family is evil, that something called “whiteness” is evil, that the sex binary, which is core to human biology, is a social construct. It is responsible for the DEI regimes, the training and minders and guidelines, that have blighted American workplaces, including academic ones. It has promulgated an ever-shifting array of rebarbative neologisms whose purpose often seems to be no more than its own enforcement: POC (now BIPOC), AAPI (now AANHPI), LGBTQ (now LGBTQIA2S+), “pregnant people,” “menstruators,” “front hole,” “chest feeding,” and, yes, “Latinx.” It is joyless, vengeful, and tyrannical. It is purist and totalistic. It demands affirmative, continuous, and enthusiastic consent.

People are fed up, and I don’t just mean people who voted for Trump.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Jack Smith’s Pathetic Jihad Comes to a Fitting, Inglorious End. “I didn’t vote for Trump this year just to see a revenge tour but, as Victoria points out, discouraging the lawfare insanity isn’t about revenge.”

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: No Labels goes after opponents of third-party presidential bid in court..

Leaders of the centrist group No Labels abandoned a planned third-party presidential bid in April after a successful campaign by Democratic allies of President Joe Biden damaged their public appeal and undermined their ability to recruit electable candidates.

Now leaders of No Labels are fighting back in three federal courtrooms with a sprawling legal-discovery effort aimed at exposing the secret machinations they believe led to their project’s demise. Leaders of the moderate Democratic group Third Way and of Investing in US, a political operation funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, are fighting to limit the document production.

But documents already unsealed by the courts reveal remarkable details about private proposals for a wide range of hard-nosed tactics that would go beyond public efforts like ads, op-eds and meetings to discourage the No Labels campaign. The documents include emails exchanged between various Democratic strategists involved with efforts to oppose No Labels.

“Our main focus should be brand destruction but, where possible, we also need to throw up any and all roadblocks to stop them from being successful at signature-gathering,” Lucy Caldwell, one of the anti-No Labels strategists, wrote in a document uncovered during the legal battle.

“Moderate Joe” Biden has always been a bully, and his White House team (or cabal, if you prefer) reflected that.

BAD SIGN: Radical Randi Weingarten Thrilled at Trump’s Labor Pick.

HE RECOGNIZES THE STRONG HORSE: Indonesia’s New President Makes Three Stunning Concessions to China. “In a joint statement with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on 9 November, Prabowo acknowledged Chinese maritime claims that Indonesia had long rejected. Despite leading the most populous Muslim-majority country, he affirmed China’s right to deal with Xinjiang as it pleased. He also endorsed China’s vague vision of the geopolitical order, something that Indonesia has long been wary of.”

More:

It had always been apparent that the new Indonesian president, despite his strongman image and past criticism of his predecessor’s approach to the South China Sea, would deal with China cordially. Indonesia has security concerns about Chinese maritime claims, but Prabowo’s concessions was probably economically motivated. This motivation will continue to dominate, since Prabowo is aiming to achieve 8 percent annual economic growth. Indeed, the Beijing visit came with considerable pledges for economic cooperation on green energy and tech, amounting to US$10 billion.

But economic gain does not need to come at the cost of sovereignty. Past Indonesian administrations were able to get economic benefits from China and even the Soviet Union without sacrificing sovereignty.

Back in those days, the Soviets didn’t have anything like the Pacific fleet China is developing now — and Indonesia had Moscow and Beijing to play off one another. These days, Russia isn’t a player anywhere near Indonesia’s neighborhood and the US looks like the weak horse.

RABBI MICHAEL BARCLAY: Harvard Again Shows Its True Colors. “It is profoundly sad, but I was 100% accurate about Harvard and Garber. The university and this man have shown their true colors in their actions this week regarding Jewish Studies at the university, and a Professor of Yiddish named Saul Zaritt.”

CORN, POPPED:

BREAKING: Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, is warning sanctuary cities that he will request Justice Department authority to charge officials with obstruction and harboring if they refuse to hand over illegal border crossers in their custody.

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) November 25, 2024

Do Denver first, please.

THE NEW SPACE STENCH: Astronauts Report Alarming Stench Coming From Russian Spacecraft Docked to ISS.

A Russian spacecraft docked to the International Space Station (ISS) didn’t just bring supplies to the ISS—it also brought a foul odor. The unpleasant aroma was strong enough to prompt astronauts to close the hatch connecting it to the rest of the space station and initiate anti-contamination procedures.

The Progress 90 cargo ship arrived at the Russian Poisk module at 9:31 a.m. ET on Saturday, November 23, delivering about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for members of the Expedition 72 crew on board the ISS. After opening the hatch between Progress and the Poisk module, the crew noticed a noxious smell and droplets coming from the cargo ship. The Roscosmos cosmonauts closed the hatch immediately, fearing a possible contamination hazard, RussianSpaceWeb.com reported based on communication between mission control in Houston and the ISS astronauts.

NASA confirmed the report, adding that the foul smell does not indicate a safety concern for the ISS crew. “Space station air scrubbers and contaminant sensors monitored the station’s atmosphere following the observation, and on Sunday, flight controllers determined air quality inside the space station was at normal levels,” NASA wrote on X. “There are no concerns for the crew, and as of Sunday afternoon, the crew is working to open the hatch between Poisk and Progress while all other space station operations are proceeding as planned.

The cargo ship is supposed to stay docked for about six months. Let’s hope the stench doesn’t linger with it.