Author Archive: Stephen Green
July 15, 2024
REPUBLICANS POUNCE: Our Awful News Media Is Worse Than You Can Imagine. “Now that the shock of Saturday’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump has worn off, the media wasted no time shifting the narrative to ‘Republicans Pounce!’ and, lucky you, I’ve collected a few of the most outrageous examples.”
Related (From Ed): NBC Frets GOP Is ‘Seizing on’ Trump Assassination Attempt, Demands New ‘Tone.’
Similarly, Newsweek and Politico were also quick to blame the victims:
And more “seizing” at the London Mirror yesterday: Trump supporters seize on Biden’s ‘Bullseye’ call as ‘coded message to shooter.’
THIS IS “THE BIG LIE” THAT BIDEN’S ENTIRE PRESIDENCY WAS PREDICATED ON:
.@MikeAllen and @Axios take the opportunity of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump to repeat the Charlottesville lie in an effort to blame Trump for being shot. We've come to expect things like this from Allen and Axios. pic.twitter.com/m4qXHWEOan
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) July 14, 2024
Mike Allen knows it’s a lie. His readers know it’s a lie. He knows his readers know it’s a lie and his readers know he knows they know it’s a lie.
But it’s a comforting lie, so they repeat it.
“THIS IS WHY WE DRILL”: Embarrassing Secret Service Response to Attempted Trump Assassination. “I spent a couple of years in my career with Broaddus Defense, a private company that helps clients prevent and prepare to respond to violent attacks. The Secret Service fumbled the response to the attempted assassination of President Trump yesterday, and every member of the assigned team and their superiors should be taken in front of a Senate committee and grilled during a session that is carried live by every single media platform. This event and the Secret Service’s response is why we drill.”
Related (From Ed): The country’s in the very best of hands:
DON’T GET COCKY; THIS IS MERELY A BREATHER WHILE THEY FIGURE OUT A NEW LINE OF ATTACK: Democrat Strategists Say the ‘Presidential Contest Ended’ After Assassination Attempt.
ANALYSIS: TRUE.
Biden made it impossible for his campaign and the DNC to continue to use its current messaging on Trump, only because he clearly didn’t have any choice after Saturday's attack.
And this is why Democrats are now despairing — they don’t have any other argument for electing Biden. https://t.co/WC8V6HIShh
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) July 15, 2024
The shame of it is — if that’s the right word — is that Biden could have brought some dignity to his campaign if he’d promised that “lowering the temperature” would start with him.
But dignity has never been his strong suit.
META JOE: The Joe Biden Experience. “This video is almost genius in its simplicity: Joe Biden as Joe Rogan, interviewing Joe Biden, all populated exclusively with actual Biden audio.”
I KNOW HOW THEY FEEL: Trillions in Hidden Debt Drove China’s Growth. Now It Threatens Its Future. “As much as $800 billion of that debt is at a high risk of default, economists say. If the financing vehicles can’t meet their obligations, Beijing could either pay for bailouts, which might create a bigger problem by encouraging unsound borrowing. Or it could allow insolvent funding vehicles to go belly up, exposing Chinese banks to serious losses and potentially spurring a credit crunch that would further erode economic growth.”
ENJOY THESE BRIEF MOMENTS OF SELF-AWARENESS ON THE LEFT BUT DON’T GET USED TO THEM: MSNBC Pulled ‘Morning Joe’ Today for One Very Smart Reason.
YES: Former NYPD Chief Kerik calls for independent commission to probe assassination attempt on Trump.
“The Justice Department is mandated to do an investigation, but I’ve got to tell you my personal opinion,” Kerik said on Newsmax. “This Justice Department, [Attorney General] Merrick Garland and the director of the FBI [Christopher Wray] are extremely biased against President Trump. That’s pretty obvious.”
Kerik said an “independent commission that oversees an investigation into the attempted assassination” should be established.
“I think somebody has to take a look, a serious look at Secret Service,” he said.
Former Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan, who has worked as deputy assistant director in the inspection division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, called for the appointment of a bipartisan commission to look into what happened in Butler and provide meaningful recommendations to Congress concerning new security procedures.
The commission ought to include at least one or two trusted names from the Twitter files, like Matt Taibbi or Michael Shellenberger.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: An Assassination Attempt on Trump Has Been the Dems’ Goal All Along. “The Democrats have done everything they could since 2016 to make last Saturday happen, dutifully aided and abetted by their flying monkeys in the mainstream media. I use the word unhinged a lot when writing about the Left, not because I have a limited vocabulary, but because it’s the most accurate description of the way that they have been behaving since Trump was elected.”
ELI LAKE: It’s 1968 All Over Again.
After 1968, a few student radicals formed the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist organization responsible for a string of bombings of throughout the early 1970s. It’s too soon to say whether organized political violence—like that of the Weather Underground or other groups such as the Symbionese Liberation Army, which kidnapped and brainwashed heiress Patty Hearst—will follow if Trump is elected. What is known is that radicals are already planning street disruptions in Chicago this year. While the Vietnam War galvanized the left in 1968, this year it’s the war in Gaza. No Americans are fighting, but the U.S. has armed Israel’s defensive war after Hamas invaded the Jewish state on October 7, massacring 1,200 people.
The Free Press attended one of the workshops planning these disruptions. The plan is to organize marshals who will stand between demonstrators and the police. These marshals, however, are not there to keep the peace. One of the organizers told activists at the meeting, “We do not dissuade or push back against direct actions or disruptions.”
The political implications are clear. A violent convention next month that reminds Americans of the horrors of 1968 will seal the fate of a damaged Democratic presidential campaign. The party is already in the midst of a political civil war over whether President Joe Biden has the stamina or acuity to run for reelection. It’s hard to imagine any candidate, let alone an 81-year-old man who looks every year of his age, surviving this maelstrom.
It’s impossible to imagine even a younger and heartier Joe Biden making the Secret Service pause so that he could shout “FIGHT!” to the audience that just witnessed his near-assassination.
JACK DUNPHY: There Will Always Be Vulnerabilities.
CHARMING: Top Democratic strategist pushed reporters to consider ‘staged’ shooting.
The adviser, Dmitri Mehlhorn, apologized for his remarks after Semafor published this story, and said his email laying out his claims was “drafted without consultation from team members or allies.”
Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, whose net worth is reportedly $2.5 billion, joked at last week’s billionaire confab in Sun Valley that he wished he had made Trump “an actual martyr.” Sunday, he said on X that he was referring to “accountability to the rule of law” and that he’s “horrified and saddened” by the attack.
The scale of Hoffman’s political donations isn’t public but Mehlhorn said on a recent private conference call that “Reid and I have invested nine figures of our own money to prevent Trump from getting back into office.” (The money appears to be largely Hoffman’s.)
In an email Saturday at 7:34 pm that appeared to be addressed to sympathetic journalists, and which was also sent to Semafor, Mehlhorn wrote that one “possibility — which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally — is that this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash. This is a classic Russian tactic, such as when Putin killed 300 civilians in 1999 and blamed it on terrorists to ride the backlash to winning power. Others who have embraced this tactic of committing raw evil and then benefitting from the backlash include Hamas on October 7. If any Trump officials encouraged or knew of this attack, that is morally horrific, and Republicans of decency must demand that Trump step down as unfit.”
The other possibility, Mehlhorn wrote, “is that some crazy anti-Trumper in this chaotic moment decided to assassinate the former President.”
More people should follow the 24-hour rule before commenting — and many others should wait 72.
SHE TRULY IS LOVELY AND I DON’T JUST MEAN HER LOOKS: Love and Empathy: Melania Trump’s Post-Shooting Plea.
July 12, 2024
OH: Former NSA chief revolves through OpenAI’s door. “General Nakasone was just appointed to the board — which doesn’t inspire confidence in the company’s ‘non-military’ future.”
It’s the intel community connection that bothers me.
CHANGE: Redbox set to close as DVD market withers in streaming’s shadow.
Redbox’s parent company, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, changed its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, filed last month, to a Chapter 7 liquidation case on Wednesday. The conversion signifies that the company couldn’t come up with a repayment plan for its outstanding debts and will soon turn to selling off assets to pay back creditors.
With the change to a Chapter 7 case, all employees will now be laid off and Redbox’s 24,000 kiosks will close. Lawyers for Chicken Soup for the Soul told the court they had worked “day and night” to find a solution to avoid the outcome, Deadline reported.
A current Redbox employee, who asked not to be identified due to uncertainty over future legal actions he said some at the company are considering, said the news has been destabilizing.
Sad.
If there are movies you love — particularly those at risk of getting canceled or altered — buy them on disc and make digital backups.
FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Is That a Maserati Or Are You Just Happy to Rob Me? It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news and this week we have the most Florida bank robbery ever, a by-the-book would-be assassin, and nudists taking on a pirate-hippie on the streets of San Francisco.
HMM: Avengers Assemble! Heavyweight New Plan to Try to Force Biden Out.
“The super friends are assembling,” a House Democrat told Politico. “There’s a group of people who are going to go make their case to whomever they can get to at the White House that he needs to step aside and we’re going to get our asses kicked if he doesn’t.”
The plan would see a group of Biden’s oldest and most senior Democratic colleagues come together to make a definitive statement on behalf of the party that it would be damaging if the president were to continue. It is hoped that team would include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, President Pro Tempore Patty Murray, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
The alleged showdown would end the perception that Democratic leaders are divided about whether Biden, 81, can serve as president for another four years.
Related: Dem Donors Hold $90 Million Hostage Unless Biden Exits the Race.
My initial impression of Biden’s press conference last night is that it was bad enough to keep the pressure on for him to leave but was good enough (graded on the generous Biden Curve) for him and Jill to keep their heels dug in.
That would be an ideal result, with a wounded Biden shuffling slowly along the road to election defeat.
But clearly the drama isn’t done playing out yet.
THE BOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE BUBBLE: Rachel Maddow Appears to Panic After Biden’s ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference.
CHANGE? CNN quietly disbands its Race and Equality team. “A CNN spokesperson pushed back against the notion that the team was “disbanded,” explaining that the reporters will now be integrated ‘fully and completely’ across the network’s platforms. Instead of the team existing within an ‘organizational silo,’ the reporters’ expertise will be utilized more collaboratively, they said.”