Author Archive: Stephen Green

ANALYSIS: TRUE. No one is entitled to work at CBS or anywhere else.

I worked as a writer, reporter, and editor for various publications for more than ten years. So, I’ve worked inside newsrooms and, before that, in the business world. And watching the Pelley spectacle, I keep coming back to the same thought: The rules that apply in every other profession apply here, too.

You have a boss. What the boss says goes. You do the job you were hired to do, or you find another job. What you do not do, if you want to be taken seriously, is hijack a staff meeting to scream at your new executive producer, question his qualifications to his face in front of 50 colleagues, accuse leadership of “murdering” the program, and then act shocked when you are shown the door. What you especially do not do is immediately leak the whole episode to the New York Times and then performatively engage in public grief sessions about the consequences.

Pelley was paid millions of dollars to work at CBS. He had a 37-year run at the network. He is not a sympathetic figure. He is a very well-compensated professional who made a scene, got fired for cause, and is now treating his termination as a national tragedy and some kind of attack on journalism.

No matter the profession, if the new boss has new rules, you can either get on board or get lost.

JAW, JAW IS BETTER THAN WAR, WAR: ‘They Should Have Made a Deal,’ Trump to Seize Iran’s Oil Infrastructure.

UPDATE: Nope. Trump, according to the WSJ, now says he’s canceled the strikes “after Tehran’s leadership and other parties negotiating a deal to end the conflict approved ‘discussions and final points.'” Echoing what I wrote below, whatever went on behind the scenes, Trump’s threat seems to have gotten what he wanted — even if what he wanted was for the talks to drag on while Iran’s economy continues crumbling. But do read the rest of the column because it includes some fun tidbits.

CRUELTY DISGUISED AS COMPASSION: We knew students were unprepared, and we sent them on to fail. “It’s no surprise to Elizabeth Statmore, who teaches at San Francisco’s Lowell High, the largest single feeder to the UC system. Every year, she finds herself teaching very basic math — fractions, the distributive property, exponents and roots — to her high-achieving students, she writes in Voice of San Francisco. These holes in their knowledge will sink them in college STEM classes.”

DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: Commie Jihadis On The Grassy Knoll. “It used to be that Fifth Columnists funded by foreign interests operated from the shadows, holding clandestine meetings while trying to undermine the nation. Today, however, Islamist organizations linked to both communist China and global Jihad networks openly proclaim their hatred for the United States right here in Texas.”

ORWELL DIDN’T WRITE 1984 AS AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL: Britain Goes Full Airstrip One. “Britain looks more and more like Airstrip One as Parliament considers a bill opening up everyone’s smartphone to government supervision — and jail time for tech execs who don’t submit.”

MAKE THE CAPITOL BEAUTIFUL AGAIN:

HMM: Will the FCC’s Anti-Robocalling Rule Also Ban Burner Phones?

An FCC effort to stop robocalls is raising concerns that it could also ban burner phones and force US consumers to hand over more data to telecommunications companies.

404Media is highlighting the privacy implications of the agency’s new Know Your Customer (KYC) rules for voice providers. In April, the FCC voted to kick off a rulemaking that calls for stricter screening for new and existing customers to help block phone calls from scammers.

The problem is that the FCC’s proposal threatens to outlaw burner phones and other privacy-focused voice services due to a potential requirement to “verify customer identities—including name, address, government ID, and alternative phone numbers—before enabling service,” according to the commission’s press release. “Criminals continue to leverage the anonymity provided by phone calls and texts to defraud Americans and exploit communications networks to further other crimes,” it adds.

Much as I despise robocallers, this “solution” could prove worse.

NICE: ‘Secret Mission’: Trump reveals 100M barrels of oil have cleared Strait of Hormuz.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that more than 100 million barrels of oil had made their way through the Strait of Hormuz as part of a “secret mission” he gave the U.S. military to support oil tankers moving through the waterway.

“Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” he posted on Truth Social. “Today, I am pleased to announce that this effort has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil making its way through the Strait, and into the Open Market. More than 200 Commercial Ships have safely traveled through the Strait.”

“This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran. Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost. It’s over for Iran! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he added.

But maybe the best part of the ongoing not-quite-a-ceasefire is the Gulf states finally getting serious about bypassing the Gulf for their exports.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

IT CERTAINLY SEEMS SO: Protracted Iran-War Parleys: Is It Part of U.S. Strategy? “Is Trump deliberately delaying a deal to bring Iran to an economically and logistically weak state where it has no option but to drop insistence on some of the so-called ‘red lines’? Three of these lines are very obvious; not surrendering the already enriched uranium with the enrichment facilities, control over the Strait of Hormuz and sanctions relief. At present, only the last two appear to be somewhat negotiable. The first one is considered by the theocracy as contrary to affirmation of its sovereignty and consequently tantamount to the loss of legitimacy of the regime.”

YOU’VE BEEN ROBBED:

The Russian connection is the *chef’s kiss* after years of Russiagate bullshit against Trump.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Jasmine Crockett’s Gaping Maw Is Still Belching Up Filth. “It’s always weird and irritating when Crockett attempts to pretend to be down with the struggle in any way. She was educated at a ‘Country Day’ school and an exclusive all-girls Catholic high school. It wasn’t exactly a mean streets upbringing. She’s also owned a law firm and been a member of Congress. Her rough edges narrative is really weak.”

SALENA ZITO: ‘It’s only a matter of national security.’ America Workforce Academy’s mission to fill the workforce gap.

Some raw facts from the American Builders and Contractors Association are even more chilling: 39% of electricians in this country were 45 years old or older. Another disturbing stat: for every five plumbers leaving the workforce, only two apprentices are entering. As Baby Boomers age out, the industry faces an estimated shortage of up to 550,000 plumbers, according to the Merrow Report.

Same with auto mechanics. Currently, the United States is facing a shortage of 600,000 auto mechanics, according to that same report.

All of these shortages are creating a downward and slippery slope for both consumers and builders alike, including higher costs and growing safety risks. And it creates wait times for services that extend beyond days into weeks, months, and even years for larger projects.

Dina Powell McCormick, president of Meta, said that she first saw the impact of this escalating problem when she joined her husband Sen. David McCormick, a Pittsburgh Republican, when he was running for office in 2022 and 2024.

Just off the top of my head, maybe student loan forgiveness for those willing to learn and pursue a trade.

Also, read the whole thing.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH:

Related: Tolerance was tested both by the “migrants” and various governments, and limits found.

Which is how we got here:

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: One day after discovery, Meta pulls facial recognition code from its smart glasses.

One day after WIRED revealed that Meta had quietly embedded an unreleased face-recognition system into an app installed on more than 50 million phones, the company removed it, according to a WIRED analysis of the latest version’s code.

The most recent version of Meta AI, a companion app for its line of smart glasses, strips out the unactivated software components that powered the system Meta internally called NameTag. The version published the day of WIRED’s report included several code libraries explicitly named for face recognition. Friday’s release includes none of them.

Andy Stone, Meta’s vice president of communications, told WIRED on Monday that the feature is purely exploratory, adding: “No final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything.”

Take off and nuke the entire code from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

ON THE RIGHT, “LET IT BURN” IS METAPHORICAL:

Gooder and harder, California.

INDEED: