Author Archive: Stephen Green
November 13, 2024
INDEED:
I am tired of these un-American fools posing as the voices of moral authority.
They are craven, partisan ideologues and should be treated as such.
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 13, 2024
TV is hardly an ideal medium for news analysis and never was. Hack sources like MSNBC are infinitely worse.
NEW BLOOD NEEDED: Scott Jennings Gives Masterclass In Shutting Down Lib Outrage Over Trump’s Defense Sec. Pick.
And video:
"He's got 20 years in service. Afghanistan, Iraq. Two bronze stars. Princeton, Harvard. Yeah, he's on TV, but so are the rest of us."
Scott Jennings defends the @PeteHegseth pick for Sec. of Defense as CNN guests watch in shock 🔥 pic.twitter.com/iIrLaarCMe
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) November 13, 2024
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I do think it was probably a mistake to announce a purge of senior military officers before taking power. We’ll see how insurrection-y the Democrats can get here. That said, I’ve written elsewhere about the various structural reasons why a coup in the United States would be exceptionally difficult.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Democrats Are at a Dead End, Unless They Learn From Trump.
Make no mistake: Any Republican other than Trump would also have been branded a “fascist” and woman-hater, but unlike a typical politician, Trump never tried to soften his image to please his enemies.
Biden could only compete with Trump because he reminded voters of the days before Democrats went woke.
They wanted to believe they could still vote for the party of Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, a patriotic party with a focus on blue-collar workers, not just the financial interests and identity-politics obsessions of the college-educated elite.
Biden challenged Trump for Trump’s own voters, even if in truth Biden wasn’t so different from the politically correct yuppies who’ve run the Democratic Party since the 1990s.
Biden was too infirm to fight a second election, yet Democrats had no one else — and no one on their horizon today looks ready to compete with the populist Trump-Vance version of the GOP.
This leadership crisis began with Barack Obama.
What’s true for kings is true for presidents as well: Success depends on producing an heir.
Republicans could stand to keep that last part in mind, too.
WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL: ‘Morning Joe’ crew reads Maureen Dowd column ripping identity politics: ‘Democrats are realizing woke is broke!’
Brzezinski, who kicked off the reading of the piece, said:
“I think a lot of people have already been talking about this. We have a lot of calls about this piece. It’s an interesting message for Democrats … It really crystallized how some Democrats are waking up and realizing that woke is broke.”
As Brzezinski began to read, clips flashed on the screen, illustrating Dowd’s words, such as a clip of Trump on the campaign trail lamenting not being able to call women “beautiful” and another clip of a CNN contributor criticizing the “trashing” of campuses in political protests.
It certainly took them long enough to admit it but, then again, the Party told them to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: As Team Trump 47 Takes Shape, Lefties Lose What’s Left of Their Minds. “Hanging out and letting their emotions spew forth in a volcanic eruption of politically-induced lunacy. It’s the best cheap entertainment on the planet right now.”
THERE HE GOES AGAIN, WRECKING NATO BY CONVINCING ITS LARGEST EUROPEAN MEMBER TO [CHECKS NOTES] INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING: German poll shows approval for more defense spending as NATO steels itself for Trump 2.0. “The bullish public sentiment on defense expenditures could come in handy for German politicians, who are likely to come under heavy scrutiny once Trump returns to office in January.”
THE DENIAL IS STRONG IN THIS ONE: Oprah: ‘I Was Paid Nothing, Ever’ by Harris Campaign… So What Was That Million Dollars?
BRILLIANT:
This is a great idea which will wake up our elite universities from their stupor. https://t.co/y7iu9fmsK8
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) November 13, 2024
It’s much better than my suggestion that annual returns on endowments that don’t get spent on maintenance, construction, or (preferably) student aid, be taxed at 100%.
PROBABLY NOT VERY: Is Putin happy with Trump’s comeback?
When Donald Trump won the presidential election last Wednesday, one leader’s message of congratulation was conspicuously absent. It took the Russian president Vladimir Putin more than twenty-four hours to pass comment on Trump’s win. He eventually praised the president-elect as “courageous” and said he had “nothing against” Trump trying to resume contact with him. Putin, however, wouldn’t be calling him.
Well now it appears Trump may well have made the call. It has been reported that last Thursday, the president-elect picked up the phone to Putin, warning him “not to escalate the war in Ukraine” and reminding him of the American military’s “significant presence” in Europe. The two are also said to have “briefly” touched on the idea of a possible peace deal that would see Russia hold on to some of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies.
Intriguingly, this morning the Kremlin denied the call took place. Speaking to journalists, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the reports “completely untrue. This is pure fiction, this is simply false information.” Such denials should, as always though, be taken with a pinch of salt.
Trump enters office with a reputation as a peacemaker and without Biden’s baggage of empty warnings, counterproductive demonization, and aid that’s usually been too little/too late — not to mention likely graft.
If anyone can negotiate a decent both-sides-win-a-little/both-sides-lose-a-little deal, it’s him.
NOT ROLLING OVER LIKE NORM COLEMAN DID IS GOOD: Election Irregularities Prompt GOP Senate Candidate to Consider Contesting Results.
November 12, 2024
NEED A NEW PAGER, BRO?
This is Mojtaba Amani!
He is Iran's ambassador to Lebanon.
What do you notice? pic.twitter.com/CCHbeFnLoZ— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) November 12, 2024
Posting this on the off chance you needed a reminder that Hezbollah (and Hamas) is Iran.
AFTER ALL THOSE MONTHS SPENT NOT GETTING COCKY, NOW IS THE TIME TO GLOAT: Best Smug ‘Trump Can’t Win’ Videos.
CHANGE: Boeing’s head of quality for commercial planes, Elizabeth Lund, is retiring.
Lund has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She rose steadily over a long career at Boeing and led various major jet programs, including the 777 and 747 programs, as well as the commercial airplanes supply chain.
In late 2021, she was appointed senior vice president and general manager of all airplane programs.
A month after the Alaska Airlines fuselage blowout, Lund was tapped to lead the quality organization after the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix its management of product quality.
Interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board in June, Lund admitted that a major push in 2019 to cut the number of Boeing quality inspectors by Ernesto Gonzalez-Beltran, then head of quality at Commercial Airplanes, had been a mistake.
“We are undoing much of what was done there,” Lund told the NTSB. “We have undone it, and I don’t think that we appropriately controlled and looked at all the risks when they did it.”
Later that month, Lund made a misstep at a press briefing when she commented on details about the Alaska Airlines incident that had not previously been publicly disclosed. She was rebuked by the NTSB for breaking strict disclosure rules about ongoing accident investigations.
As a result, Boeing was sanctioned and its access to the NTSB’s investigative information on the incident was withdrawn.
It isn’t clear exactly why Lund is leaving but her new position can’t have been very fun or rewarding.
SEEMS A LITTLE INSURRECTION-Y: Election Denier Bob Casey Still Won’t Concede Senate Race.
HMM: Qatar denies expelling Hamas despite Biden administration claims.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry emphatically denied reports of Hamas’s expulsion from Doha, after U.S. officials said that Qatar demanded the Palestinian terrorist group depart.
“The media reports regarding the Hamas office in Doha is inaccurate,” the Qatari Foreign Ministry statement from Saturday reads. “The main goal of the office in Qatar is to be a channel of communication between the concerned parties.”
On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be much reason left for Hamas to stay*: Qatar ends mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas, citing lack of good-faith negotiations.
*Aside from their personal safety, of course.
INDEED:
Abolish the Department of Education. pic.twitter.com/TajM1qPNKW
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) November 11, 2024
Save this chart for the next time somebody mentions how much we spend per pupil because virtually none of the increase in school spending this century has gotten anywhere near the classrooms.
PLEASE, STOP — THEY WON’T LET ME VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN: Trump’s National Security Team Is Pro-India, Pro-Israel, and Very Anti-China.
SARAH ANDERSON: Nancy vs. Bernie: The Ultimate Democrat Showdown (and What It Means for the GOP). “I enjoy kicking back and watching the infighting. It’s fun to be on offense for a change.”
WE COULD SURE USE A PROCUREMENT WIN: The B-21’s Price Is Decreasing With Over $5 Billion Saved for the First Five Lots. “The B-21 budget for the first five production lots went from the $19.1 billion budgeted by the U.S. Air Force in 2023 to the $13.8 billion budgeted for 2025. The decrease amounts to a 28% discount, or $5.1 billion, for the same number of bombers to be acquired between 2023 and 2027.”
RUSSO-UKRAINE WAR: Here Comes the Russian Counter-Counteroffensive?
HEY, MAYBE THAT “WHITE DUDES FOR HARRIS” THING WASN’T SUCH A JOKE:
You look at the precincts Trump won in LA County.
Strong Jewish, Iranian, and Armenian populations. pic.twitter.com/4RjhxQijWm
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 11, 2024
“Jewish, Iranian, and Armenian” doesn’t exactly fit the “rich old people” stereotype of the GOP. And it seems to be mostly upper-middle-class white women going on social media to shave their heads.
SOMETHING DOESN’T ADD UP: Oprah: ‘I Was Paid Nothing, Ever’ by Harris Campaign… So What Was that Million Dollars? “Does 94 minutes of unscripted, live television, produced on a small set, really cost a million dollars to produce?”