Republican News

This post was originally published on this site

Well … at least it’s not Disney, where intellectual properties go to die via DEI. But will Amazon be much better? I’m shaken, not stirred.

The BBC reported yesterday that the Broccoli family — which has controlled Ian Fleming’s James Bond character and stories since 1964’s Dr. No — has decided to step back. They will remain a partner in the Bond franchise, but Amazon MGM Studios will now make all of the creative decisions, with the Broccolis’ blessing (via Instapundit):

The Bond films were launched by Albert “Cubby” Broccoli in 1962, before his daughter and stepson took over.

The pair will now give creative control to Amazon MGM Studios, which was formed when Amazon bought Bond’s parent studio in 2022.

The new deal comes after mounting speculation about the fate of the British spy, four years after his last outing in No Time to Die, which was also Daniel Craig’s final appearance in the role.

Amazon will now decide which actor will take over the famous character, but there is still no timescale for when that that will happen or when the next film will be made.

The good news for Bond fans is that this guarantees that the franchise will continue. The potential bad news for Bond fans is that … the franchise will continue. Amazon doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to retaining the canon and spirit of intellectual properties that come their way, especially those from an era where wokery doesn’t play a role.

Take for example Rings of Power, which John warned in its first season looked like a mediocrity that had discarded JRR Tolkien’s sensibilities. The issue wasn’t so much Amazon’s attempts at DEI, which John noted wasn’t all that troublesome, but that the writers clearly didn’t know the canon very well. That led to a number of complaints from Tolkien fans about insipid story lines, including last season’s attempts to make the Orcs into families. 

Er … wut?

Orcs just want a safe place to raise their kids, be evil, and practice their corrupted form of life in peace.#TheRingsOfPower pic.twitter.com/KTYGCZA2if

— Nerdrotic (@Nerdrotics) August 29, 2024

Jack Butler held this up as evidence of ‘sacrilege’ last fall:

The rest of it is full of what Patrick McKay, one of the show-runners, euphemistically called “discovery,” which is “one of the joys of creation,” as he put it in an interview with Deadline. What he means by “discovery” is “making things up.” And it turns out that the people behind Rings of Power are not as good at that as Tolkien was. Some of their inventions can be interesting, such as the almost Stranger Things–esque manner (to borrow a friend’s comparison) in which Sauron survived an apparent demise in a prior guise, which is shown in the opening moments of the season. But this moment is, again, only possible because of something Rings of Power has made up: Adar (Joseph Mawle in season one, Sam Hazeldine in season two), one of the first elves to become an orc, who contests with Sauron for leadership of the forces of evil. (Something tells me this Adar fellow is not long for Middle-earth.)

There are also awkward mash-ups of invention with superficial lore fidelity. Isildur (Maxim Baldry) is lost in Mordor? Hey, Shelob ends up there, doesn’t she? Let’s have them fight. Hey, eagles are a thing, right? Let’s have one show up in Númenor for a few seconds, as an omen that is drastically misinterpreted by those who see it in a way that exacerbates the island’s ongoing political tensions. Hey, Tolkien sometimes hints that orcs are, for example, scared of the Nazgûl, right? They must be more human than we give them credit, so let’s provide a bizarre and (I hope!) pointless glimpse of an orc family. Maybe these moments were meant as fan service (along with forced callbacks to Jackson’s trilogy). As executed, however, they’re sacrilege.

If you prefer a more direct and unvarnished critique, the Critical Drinker provided it a few months ago:

Can’t wait for CD’s take on today’s news. He might end up drinking himself into a stupor.

All of this takes place in the context of the search for a new 007. Daniel Craig aged out of the role gracefully, after offering perhaps the best version of a rebooted Bond since Sean Connery hung up his license to kill (and went on to much better performances as a result). When Craig announced his intention to retire, the woke activists began suggesting a black Bond, a female Bond, a black female Bond, a South Asian non-binary Bond … you get the idea. (I still think Idris Elba would have made a great Bond, because he’s a fine actor with a dynamic screen presence.)

These days, however, the pressure to make those choices may be ebbing, even in Hollywood. The problem, however, isn’t so much DEI in casting than mediocrity in writing. That can express itself through casting, too, with writers needing a crutch to tell stories, but it’s really the stories and the dialogue that matter. Disney stinks on ice in those areas because of their obsession with overlaying contemporary cultural ‘sensitivities’ onto fantasy properties. The Bond franchise isn’t a fantasy property, but the mediocre execution of a slam-dunk IP like Tolkien doesn’t bode well for 007 either. Perhaps the feature-film format will force better discipline on writing and execution, but … how well is that working out for the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days?

Like I said, the good news is that this guarantees at least one new Bond adventure in the future. We’ll have to see whether the Broccolis just gave Amazon a license to kill. 

This post was originally published on this site

California high-speed rail is not dead, but modern Van Helsing Sean Duffy, Trump’s Transportation Secretary, is bringing out the wooden stake and hammer getting ready to pierce its heart. 

At least, I hope so. 

Over a decade and $16B of taxpayer dollars wasted with zero results on this rail project. If protestors want to shout at someone, they should direct their outrage at Governor Newsom and complicit Democrats who have enabled this fraud and waste for a train to nowhere. @USDOT will… pic.twitter.com/KsXKhYczll

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) February 20, 2025

This project, like all modern American rail projects–be it light rail, Amtrak, or other high-speed rail boondoggles–is nothing but a money sink. They exist for no other purpose than to soak taxpayers and spread the money around. There are a few subway systems in the country that actually serve the purpose of providing public transportation–limited to older, very dense metropolitan areas like Boston and New York City–but anything that wasn’t built before World War II is likely a huge boondoggle. 

Today I joined U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy to announce an investigation into CA High-Speed Rail, which could claw back $4.3 billion in federal funds. Amusingly, a few protestors showed up in support of the boondoggle.

The High-Speed Rail disaster is the worst… pic.twitter.com/0sHYSVjCJc

— Kevin Kiley (@KevinKileyCA) February 20, 2025

California’s project is a particularly egregious example. Already decades in the making and costing many multiples of the initially estimated cost, there is no way in hell that the train line will ever get built. At most, section of the track from one city in the middle of nowhere will connect to another city in the middle of nowhere will be built, serving nobody but some buzzards and lizards in the middle of the desert. 

For us in the Central Valley, we have had a first hand front row seat to the mismanagement and failures of the California High Speed Rail Authority. What is happening now is not what was told to Californians in 2008. It’s a complete bait and switch. This failed project needs to… pic.twitter.com/ES1myO00pQ

— Vince Fong (@vfong) February 20, 2025

No sentient human being believes that this project will ever be completed, but that makes it absolutely perfect for the grifters. They eke out a billion here and a billion there to keep the project going and their consultants fed. It is a graft machine at a scale unthought-of before. It makes the building of the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier look timely and efficient, and the Space Launch System look inexpensive. 

California’s high-speed rail has to be one of the worst infrastructure failures in US history.

The public was told it would cost $33 billion & be done in 2020. Today not a single segment is complete & the project’s CEO has said he needs another *$100 billion.* Wild. https://t.co/wbPllulOoO

— Billy Binion (@billybinion) February 20, 2025

Unlike the pyramids, which consumed enormous resources and produced no earthly goods, the rail project won’t even serve to bring in tourists. It will rot in the desert as a testament to the voracious appetite for other people’s dollars and the sheer selfishness of a California and national political class who show absolutely no respect for the taxpayers they serve. 

Duffy’s announcement of an investigation into the project is necessary because contracts have been signed, so he will likely have to show that requirements set forth in those contracts have not been met. 

That should be easy enough to do, and the hammer can finally fall. 

This post was originally published on this site

Closing the tabs …

Pete Buttigieg is abandoning ship on DEI, admitting that it often amounts to “making people sit through a training that looks like something out of Portlandia.”

Buttigieg is like a LibBot2000, fine-tuned by McKinsey consultants. The tide is turning.pic.twitter.com/5IFC5zqb3V

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 20, 2025

Ed: I hesitate to believe Pete Buttigieg has been red-pilled. He’s not wrong, however, in assessing that Democrats have now become the Portlandia Party and are creating Trump voters with every struggle session they impose. And even though East Palestine Pete is about the lightest of political lightweights, he has figured out that diversity means equal opportunity and dignity rather than the basis for redistribution. 

===

The simplest and fairest tax code of all is a consumption tax, but it would be very foolish to introduce a consumption tax without first repealing the 16th Amendment. Otherwise, we will have two parallel systems of taxation, and the government will take up to 40 percent of GDP, like in much of Western Europe. We are stuck with the income tax—absent radical political change—so we should try to make it as fair as possible.

It’s doubtful that we could ever achieve a completely flat tax—there will always be some progressivity. But flattening it a bit would go a long way toward fairness and economic growth.

Ed: The signals from the Trump administration hint at an end to the income tax altogether. They believe that tariffs can make up the difference, once DOGE erases enough spending. However, the only way to end it for good would be to repeal the 16th Amendment — and if Trump can unwind the IRS, perhaps there will be the votes for that in Congress. If not, Jared Dillian’s warning should be heeded.

===

For those who don’t like to squint, here’s a dirty cut and paste of the text of the editorial, using the internet wayback machine:

>EDITORIAL: Secrecy, deception erode public trust
>By THE PRESS REGISTER

> Your Clarksdale Press Register will be the first to say that a sin tax… https://t.co/ZZtW9rio0T

— (((Aaron Walker))) (@AaronWorthing) February 20, 2025

Ed: Read all of this. The judge who signed this order should be removed from office. But in a sense, this is exactly the kind of censorship that the Biden administration and the bureaucrats in DC attempted with their “misinformation” hysteria. They shut down speech and debate that turned out to be true in the end, mainly because that speech and debate offended people in power. Which is why …

===

[Enjoying the Final Word posts? Want to participate in the discussion in our comment section? There’s no better time to sign up for our VIP, VIP Gold, and VIP Platinum memberships! As David wrote earlier, we aren’t getting gold bars at taxpayer expense to keep our operations afloat like the Protection Racket Media does, nor do we want it! We keep fighting to keep independent voices and dissent alive in the face of enormous pressure, and our members are right there on the front lines with us. Please join the fight! Become a HotAir VIP member today and use the code GOLDBARS for 50% off and get the media deal of a lifetime!]

===

     Section 1.  Purpose.  It is the policy of my Administration to dramatically reduce the size of the Federal Government, while increasing its accountability to the American people.  This order commences a reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.  Reducing the size of the Federal Government will minimize Government waste and abuse, reduce inflation, and promote American freedom and innovation.

     Sec. 2.  Reducing the Scope of the Federal Bureaucracy.   (a)  The non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law[…]

Ed: Presidents have issued declarations about this intent before. Trump seems very inclined toward action. Note well that the EO recognizes that many functions are required by statute, which Trump pledges to honor, but only to the extent the statutes require. We’ll see how this plays out in court, but this is a signal that Trump really did do his homework before taking office this time. Also, keep this EO bookmarked, since it will come up often over the next few months, presumably. 

===

NEW: Rep. Jasmine Crockett says she does *not* support the DOGE dividend, says she doesn’t know what an extra $5000 is going “to do for you.”

They’re falling right into the trap. Remarkable.pic.twitter.com/eTiuUGUuzj

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 20, 2025

Ed: There was no money for them when Congress created three rounds of stimulus checks either. Congress was very much in the business of printing money as handouts at that time, including in March 2021 when it was no longer necessary. And if Crockett doesn’t know what $5000 would do for you, what did she think $1400 would do? I’m actually opposed to this dividend idea because it’s likely to be inflationary and it should go to debt and deficit reduction, but at least the money has already been printed. 

==

The National Science Foundation went beyond the staff cuts demanded by the Trump administration in a move that set off a frenzied backlash at the science funding agency.

NSF fired about 10 percent of its staff at the end of Tuesday, removing 168 people who included most of the agency’s probationary employees and all of its experts, a class of contract workers who are specialists in niche scientific fields.

The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness, a top NSF official told staffers in an emotionally charged hybrid meeting Tuesday morning at its Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters.

Ed: Nonsense. They fired the experts to create a narrative that Trump fired them. They know the media will blame him for it, even though Trump never ordered it. You can watch the narrative hatch in real time here. 

===

After suffering through more than three hours of “Saturday Night Live” unfunnyness on Sunday night, I’ve come to the sad realization that “SNL” was never that funny. There were moments — Belushi, Radner and a few others — but mostly the sketches were heavy on physical comedy and light on thoughtful humor. The 50 year anniversary had almost no funny moments.

My criticism goes deeper. The 50 years of “SNL” mediocrity helped to destroy really funny, laugh-out-loud comedy as practiced by such masters as Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, George Burns, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Woody Allen, Elaine May, Bob Newhart, Don Rickles, Alan King, Jackie Mason, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Red Skelton, Danny Kaye and George Carlin.

Maybe it’s just a matter of taste or generational preference. But I really don’t think so. By anything close to objective standards, comedy has gone downhill since “SNL” became its dominant platform.

Ed: I wonder if Dersh is right about this. I have some good memories of laughs in the early days, but also some nagging thoughts about how there were only a handful of real laughs in each episode. There are still good stand-up comedians too, but that seems more despite SNL in the last couple of decades than because of it.

===

All of which is to say that it’s fine that Cynthia Erivo, an actor and black queer person, was picked to play Jesus Christ in a staging of the musical Jesus Christ, Superstar that’ll open this summer at the Hollywood Bowl. When it was announced that Erivo got the role, conservative media erupted. This response from John K. Amanchukwu was typical: “With all due respect, and humbly submitted, Cynthia Erivo is too BALD, BROWN, and BI to play Jesus. Casting a woman as Jesus Christ is an intentional form of blasphemy that Hollywood would be fuming over if done to certain other religions.”

Conservatives forgot to ask the basic question that’s fundamental to their philosophy: Is Erivo the best person for the job?

The answer is yes—or at least one of the best. 

Ed: Mark and I batted this back and forth a bit in private. Neither of us convinced the other, but I will agree that it’s not really anything to get heated up over either. I just think that there are good roles for women in that musical, and that casting Erivo means a male actor who needs the exposure more than the incrediblly talented and already celebrated Erivo does these days won’t get a chance at it. Plus, the choice is transparently performative in the woke Hollywood sense, but to Mark’s point, what’s new about that? It’s not even transgressive these days. Meh. 

This post was originally published on this site

This just happened today, and it’s kind of wild.

Florida has a new attorney general, in case you haven’t heard. Our fabulous Ashley Moody was picked by America’s finest governor, Ron DeSantis, to fill the Senate vacancy left when Marco Rubio was nominated for Secretary of State.

DeSantis then chose his chief of staff, a young lawyer and political campaign strategist named James Uthmeier, to become our 39th Attorney general of Florida.

He was sworn in three days ago.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday named his former chief of staff, James Uthmeier as Florida’s attorney general, handing the state’s top law enforcement role to a trusted aide who has helped orchestrate and defend some of his most divisive initiatives.

Uthmeier was sworn in Monday during a ceremony in Tallahassee. The 37-year-old becomes one of the youngest state attorneys general and the latest person to benefit from the political shuffle sparked by President Donald Trump ’s drafting of Sunshine State Republicans for his new administration. Uthmeier is poised to spearhead Florida’s legal battles to bolster Trump’s sweeping conservative agenda, at a time when the state’s leaders are eager to pass new laws and challenge legal precedent to demonstrate their allegiance to the president.

Uthmeier succeeds former Attorney General Ashley Moody, whom the governor tapped to fill the U.S. Senate seat of Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick to be U.S. secretary of state.

DeSantis said Uthmeier was a “bulldog in our administration” who will not shy away from a difficult fight. The Republican governor praised Uthmeier’s work in his administration, including fighting federal mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic and combating diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education.

Classically, for a DeSantis team member, he got right to work. Today, he – representing the state – along with Stephen Miller’s America First Legal and a few others, announced they’d filed a class action lawsuit against Target Corporation that could pretty much rock that retailer’s world.

YES!
Do you know how many rants I have gone on about public companies sacrificing shareholders for DEI??
“Florida is not afraid of a fight”
We have another champion. https://t.co/C0i2CB8miH

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 20, 2025

…Target’s efforts to sexualize children caused its stock price to plummet, harming Florida’s retirement fund and putting the retirements of our teachers and first responders at risk:

It’s not going to do much for any firms who are clinging to their woke notions in hope of currying favor with progressives and the like, particularly if they’re large enough public corporations that their stock is held in public portfolios for state retirement funds.

If you’ll remember back to May of 2023, Target was having a heckuva time taking incoming from outraged parents while causing further and extensive self-induced wounds by doubling down on the indignant virtue-signaling. It started with parents discovering ‘tuck suits’ in the children’s bathing suit section – in case a tiny child had any transgender impulses, they could indulge them at the pool or beach – and posted them on X or TikTok. And then rapidly escalated into a full-blown scandal complete with online pitchforks and torches when it turned out some of their pride designs – again for children – had been designed by a British Satanist.

…Not that they weren’t kinda pissed off at Target already…

…in a “Bud Light meets child groomers” sort of way.

Ahead of June’s so-called “Pride month,” the retail giant Target is displaying some options being referred to as trans-friendly for customers, including a line of swimsuits with “tuck-friendly construction.”

Comedian Chrissie Mayr shared the discovery after a recent trip to the retail giant. Taking to social media, the podcast host tweeted, “Thanks to [Target] I found the perfect swimsuit for creeping out all the women and children at the pool this summer. Can’t wait to tuck my cock into this little number while sipping a Bud Light!” (RELATED: DAMAGED: The Transing Of America’s Kids)…

…Now, I haven’t been to the Target around the corner from me in months, and I was going to check this out because it’s entirely too whacked out a story to even be true. Plus, if they’ve had the nerve to stock this in a Target on our redneck of the Riviera, someone has probably already lost their collective mind on management (and wouldn’t I have paid good money to see that).

As it’s been a while since I was a crime statistic from the criminal end, I thought I’d hold off. “Prudent” thy name is Beege.

Lucky thing I did, too, or I might have missed how super woke Target is compounding their Pride Month merchandizing ills.

It’s turns out one of the designers hired for rainbow gear month was a pretty well-known British transgender Satanist.

British.

Transgender.

SATANIST Yeah.

ERMAGERD – ISN’T THAT, LIKE, THE MOST WOKE THING YOU’VE EVER HEARD

But it was cool with Target because he was a TRANSGENDER British Satanist, so…they were like, ‘BACK OFF, TRANSPHOBES!‘

See, Target had its Minnesota values, and they couldn’t give a rip about yours.

By August, as the stock and sales were tanking, the CEO held the traditional earnings call to explain what happened and their plans to rectify the situation.

See, they didn’t have any other than yelling, ‘BACK OFF, HATERS.’

…Now, they mentioned the brouhaha about transgender Satanists designing baby Pride clothes during the call. Not to forget the blowback after Target’s flirtation with “tuck-it” bathing suits – ever so helpful when one’s still fully intact dangly bits get in the way of making that ultra feminine bikini look smooth and sleek on a male body.

But, being woke af Target, they defended it and doubled down, having only removed “some items” in the interest of “employee safety.”

…And Target faced backlash in late May over its collection of merchandise celebrating Pride month, including some items it later pulled after threats to employees. The decision to remove certain items sparked more criticism.

Cornell said “negative reaction” to Target’s Pride collection had a material impact on sales. But he defended the company’s response and said after Target removed some items in June out of concern for employee and customer safety, it “saw things normalize.” He said it will continue to have a collection for Pride month and other heritage months.

We’re gonna keep doing it and “Pride” is a “heritage month.” Take that, cretinous peasants.

That was when AFL went after them the first time. That case is still in the courts.

The new AFL statement for this latest class action lays out exactly what happened to Target’s bottom line when their in-your-face ‘Pride Month’ merchandise hit store shelves and consumer backlash blew the doors off of stores.

…The lawsuit alleges that Target violated Sections 10(b) and 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by failing to disclose known risks of customer backlash to its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mandates, which culminated in its radical and extreme 2023 Pride Campaign. It further alleges that Target actively misled investors by claiming to monitor the social and political risks posed by its DEI and ESG initiatives. In reality, Target was only monitoring its alignment with left-wing activist groups.

The fallout from Target’s unlawful conduct was swift and catastrophic. Following the launch of Target’s 2023 Pride Campaign, Target’s stock price plummeted — wiping out $10 billion in market value in just ten days and erasing $25 billion in shareholder value over the course of six months, its worst performance and longest losing streak in 23 years.

This is the second lawsuit brought by AFL, Boyden Gray PLLC, and Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC against Target for securities fraud. The first case, filed in August 2023, remains ongoing after a federal judge denied Target’s motion to dismiss the case in December 2024, ruling that the company may have violated federal securities laws.

With this new lawsuit, AFL, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and the State Board of Administration of Florida are taking decisive action to hold Target accountable for violating federal law, defrauding its investors, and prioritizing radical activism over financial responsibility to shareholders.

The FL AG says the company flat-out lied.

…Florida accused Target of betraying investors and its core customer base of working families by making false and misleading statements in financial reports and proxy statements about its DEI mandate and environmental, social and governance mandate.

It also accused Chief Executive Brian Cornell of downplaying the intensity of customer boycotts following a “disastrous” and “exceptionally offensive” May 2023 Pride Month campaign, prolonging the decline in Target’s share price.

Even though Target has recently – and reluctantly – pulled back from it overt woke policies and DEI initiatives, it’s too little, too late as far as the state of Florida and others are concerned. They believe, and federal securities laws may well support them, that major public corporations have a duty to stockholders to maximize profits, not pursue divisive policies and causes that jeopardize the business’s bottom line.

Interesting case. I agree with Friedman, but would also say it’s not for the govt to decide what is in the best interest of shareholders – they have votes. But in the case of Target, largest s/h are institutions which may not be representing views on DEI of underlying investors.

— Evan (@KSU_Evan) February 20, 2025

This is much the same argument and line of reasoning that DeSantis used when he and the state legislature – and other states as well – pulled their retirement funds out of any investment firms that practiced ESG. The focus wasn’t on the return for the fund, which is the fiduciary responsibility of the fund manager. It’s also what began the big bank exodus out of such arrangements. They could well be liable for damages when the green, ESG, etc. businesses they were concentrating on and dictating compliance terms went belly up on their investors’ retirement money.

No bueno.

This is also bad news for Target on a broader scale, as Walmart reported earnings today that were better than expected but said that profit growth was going to slow. It sent Wall Street into a bit of a swoon. 

Walmart continues to see higher income households showing up in their stores..
This is always a sign of a weakening economy.. pic.twitter.com/JJt2lI6eGR

— Frog Capital (@FrogNews) February 20, 2025

Where there’s a problem for Target is that thanks to the wonders of #Bidenomics, their higher-end customer has been shopping at Walmart more often.

If consumers have the extra cha-ching to spend, they might be in the mood to forgive and forget.

If times get tight, they’re not coming back, and remembering how the company dissed them will take some of the sting out of it.

I’m sure folks aren’t convinced Target has sincerely changed their rainbow stripes anyhow.

This post was originally published on this site

A second attempt by government unions to block the firing of government employees by the Trump administration has failed. A federal judge in Washington concluded that the unions did not have standing in the case.

A federal judge on Thursday declined to issue a temporary restraining order pausing President Donald Trump’s moves to fire thousands of employees who are on probationary status or deemed nonessential, clearing a roadblock for the new administration as it attempts sweeping changes to downsize the federal government.

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled against the National Treasury Employees Union and four other labor organizations that requested a temporary halt to the mass firings. More than half a million federal workers could lose their jobs through the Trump administration’s firings and a separate program of deferred resignations, or buyouts, the unions said in legal filings.

Judge Cooper said the unions would have to take their complaints first to the federal agency that handles such things:

Judge Cooper said that he was denying the unions’ request that he block the Trump administration from continuing its downsizing efforts because the matter should be first addressed with the agency that adjudicates labor disputes between federal employee unions and management, known as the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Judge Cooper noted that if the unions lose in that venue, they could resume their court battle through the federal court of appeals.

The unions who filed the lawsuit last week in hopes of gumming up the works claimed it was just a “temporary setback.”

The union said in court filings that at least 1,250 dues-paying members had been fired and that the union stands to lose “up to half of its revenue and around half of the workers that it represents” if the terminations proceed.

The union stands to lose half it’s revenue? That certainly sounds…terrible. How will they continue to support Democratic politicians with only half their revenue? And yes, in case you were wondering, the NTEU gives almost exclusively to Democrats ($528,000 vs. $10,000 in 2024). Other unions behind the lawsuit are similarly part of a Democrats’ campaign fund apparatus.

Other plaintiffs include the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW).

In any case, they vowed to fight on.

“Already too many federal employees and their families have been devastated by these indiscriminate layoffs, and soon their local economies will feel that pain, too,” the union’s statement said. “There is no doubt that the administration’s actions are an illegal end-run on Congress, which has the sole power to create and oversee federal agencies and their important missions regarding public health and safety, national security, economic growth and stability, and consumer protection.”

I’m not convinced firing probationary employees, who have limited protections to start with, or offering buyouts, which tens of thousands of employees chose to accept, are ever going to be reversed by a court. I guess we’ll have to wait and see but so far judges don’t seem to be over-eager to help.

Last week a federal judge in Massachusetts lifted a restraining order he had briefly placed on the federal buyout offer after concluding the unions did not have standing to bring the case. That judge was a Clinton appointee. So it seems the unions just aren’t making their case despite having friendly judges hearing these cases.

The unions have been doing their best to prevent anyone from accepting the buyouts, claiming the offer itself was illegal or that the Trump administration couldn’t be trusted to follow through on its promises. It was pretty obvious from the start that their real goal was to prevent a diminishment of their own power base. 

This post was originally published on this site

Ghastly. Absolutely ghastly. In a violation of the current cease-fire and hostage-for-prisoner exchanges, Israeli investigators discovered that the body of Shiri Bibas was not returned as Hamas claimed. The casket contained an unknown person, not any of the known hostages:

However, the third body at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute was not that of their mother, Shiri Bibas, says the Israel Defense Forces. Specialists at Abu Kabir were not able to identify the body.

The authorities, using forensic evidence and intelligence, assess that the two young boys were ‘”brutally murdered” by terrorists in November 2023, says the IDF. Ariel was 4-years-old and Kfir was 10-months-old when they were murdered.

“This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is required by the agreement to return four dead hostages,” says the IDF. “We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our hostages.”

That’s not all the Israelis found in the caskets, either:

I can’t believe I’m about to type these words:

When Israeli officials opened the caskets containing the remains of the four murdered hostages, they found propaganda materials that had been placed there by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza.

— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) February 20, 2025

Technically, these acts would be considered perfidy, a deliberate and cruel violation of an agreement between belligerents. In every other sense, these are considered as inhumane and evil as, well … the same terrorist group that everyone else in the world wants to keep engaging and create a state for them to control.

Meanwhile, it appears that Hamas or one of its affiliates bombed several buses in central Israel, including Tel Aviv. They all turned out to be empty at the time, which may be more about incompetence than humanitarianism:

Several buses exploded in various locations across central Israel on Thursday evening in a planned mass terror bombing attempt by Hamas-affiliated terrorists in the West Bank.

At least three bombs exploded buses in the area of Bat Yam, Israel Police said. …

Explosives weighing four to five kilograms were found, intending to explode on Friday morning in order to kill hundreds of civilians, the Tel Aviv Police District Commander Asst.-Ch. Haim Sargaroff updated late on Thursday evening.

And not too long afterward, a Hamas affiliate in the West Bank claimed credit for the attacks:

Security officials later established that those responsible for planting the explosive devices came from “terrorist infrastructure” in West Bank refugee camps.

“The revenge of the martyrs will not be forgotten as long as the occupier is present on our land. This is a jihad of victory or martyrdom,” Hamas’s Tulkarm battalion published in a statement, hinting at responsibility for the explosions.

Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t waste any time ordering the IDF into action:

Following the attempted string of bus bombings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the IDF to embark on a massive operation in the West Bank against terrorist hubs, according to his office.

He also instructs the police and Shin Bet to “increase preventative activities” in Israel’s cities to prevent further attacks.

So … is it safe to say that the cease-fire is over? Secretary of State Marco Rubio certainly says so:

On October 7, 2023, terrorists in Gaza abducted a mother, her child, her infant son, and an 83 year old man and murdered them. More than 500 days later, Hamas returned them to Israel in coffins. We extend our deepest sympathies for the victims’ families who have suffered the…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) February 20, 2025

We extend our deepest sympathies for the victims’ families who have suffered the unimaginable.

Hamas is evil – pure evil – and must be eradicated. ALL hostages must come home NOW.

It’s time to deal finally and forcefully with Hamas’ billionaire boys club in Doha. No more ‘safe zones,’ and no more cheap talk. These people run the Iranian proxy army that killed dozens of Americans on October 7 and kidnaped several more, using them as leverage against Israel and the US. The only message Hamas and all of the other Iranian toadies will understand is utter destruction. So let’s quit pussyfooting around and give them a demonstration that they will never forget. 

This post was originally published on this site

We all know that there is ferocious resistance to Trump’s policies within the federal bureaucracy. 

But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of support for Trump’s goals as well. It’s just that the people who control the levers of power are in a position to squelch the support of those who do. 

Leland Dudek learned that lesson the hard way: he decided to work with DOGE despite his boss’s opposition, and he was suspended for doing so. But a funny thing happened in Trump’s federal government: Dudek wound up with the top job while the bosses who were impeding him were shown the door. 

“I confess. I asked where the fat was in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”

Dudek is an example of how there are some fiscally conscious career feds, and how DOGE can maximize impact through people who know where the bodies are buriedhttps://t.co/O3Duk3yKgV

— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) February 19, 2025

It doesn’t usually work this way. Nice guys finish last. The bad guy gets the girl. Backstabbers climb the ladder fastest. 

You know the story as it usually happens. But not this time. 

Leland Dudek was an obscure bureaucrat at the Social Security Administration who dedicated his career to stopping fraud. But when he worked with the Department of Government Efficiency to do just that, he came close to being fired.

“At 4:30pm EST, my boss called me to tell me I had been placed on administrative leave pending an Investigation,” Dudek wrote on LinkedIn. “They want to fire me for cooperating with DOGE,” he wrote in a now-deleted post obtained by The Daily Wire.

Then, a stunning reversal occurred. It was Acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King who was out of a job. And Dudek was reinstated with a big promotion — taking her job leading the massive agency on an interim basis.

The Washington Post reported that King exited the agency after refusing to let DOGE access agency data and was replaced by Dudek. But it has not been reported that managers at the agency had moved to punish Dudek as he cooperated with the efficiency czars.

The LinkedIn post said “I confess. I helped DOGE understand SSA. I mailed myself publicly accessible documents and explained them to DOGE. I confess. I moved contractor money around to add data science resources to my anti-fraud team. I confess. I asked where the fat was and is in our contracts so we can make the right tough choices.”

“I confess. I bullied agency executives, shared executive contact information, and circumvented the chain of command to connect DOGE with the people who get stuff done,” it continued. “Everything I have ever done is in service to our country, our beneficiaries, and our agency.”

Dudek isn’t going to stay in the top job forever. Trump has a nominee to fill the role, but he jumped over dozens of more senior figures who toed the line against working with the president’s DOGE team. 

According to people familiar with his employment, Dudek was a senior General Schedule employee at SSA, a status that is below the agency’s Senior Executive Service—meaning he bypassed dozens of members of the agency’s leadership when he was appointed acting commissioner.

One person familiar with Dudek described him as someone who could be unconventional or willing to skirt the rules to get results, but was passionate about the work of fighting fraud.

Dudek told staff in an email Monday night that he will lead the agency “in an open and transparent manner,” saying his first call went to the SSA’s Inspector General’s office. “Transparency is at the heart of good government,” he said in the email reviewed by the Journal.

Since Dudek’s ascension, DOGE officials have had access to the agency’s Enterprise Data Warehouse, according to people familiar with the matter. The EDW is a centralized database that includes records on individuals who have been issued a Social Security number or have applied for or received Social Security benefits, including wage, tax and bank account information.

Bureaucrats tend to view their fiefdoms as inviolable. If a man’s home is his castle, a bureaucrat’s bureau is his kingdom. When the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration warned that millions of people on the books clearly didn’t or no longer lived, the agency waved the problem away as insignificant. 

Nobody could tell the bureaucrats to clean up the books!

MSNBC: The Social Security Administration made ~$72 billion in improper payments over an eight-year period, according to an Inspector General audit.@jdbalart: “$72 billion — and that’s without a comprehensive search! I mean, that’s significant.” pic.twitter.com/9D621F29Zf

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 18, 2025

Do we have any idea how much goes out the door fraudulently? Only in vague terms. It could be as little as $10 billion/year, or as much as … the sky is the limit, because the data is so bad. 

We could save one trillion dollars a year, yet the Democrats are fighting it! Democrats hate America! pic.twitter.com/zLixng3J0M

— Kelly (@kellytx2) February 12, 2025

As I wrote earlier in the week, Washington bureaucrats are terrified. Searches of criminal defense attorneys on Google have skyrocketed in DC by 4-500%, making the city the epicenter for such searches in the country. 

Does that imply mens rea? It sure IMPLIES that people think they did something wrong, but perhaps these people are just being cautious. After all, going after your political opponents is what the Democrats did…

This post was originally published on this site

Love him, hate him, fear him — Republicans and Democrats alike could not afford to look past him. Mitch McConnell finally stepped down from his Senate leadership role last year after it became clear that the years were catching up to him, and perhaps that his party had shifted in a new direction. 

At the time, it was largely understood that the seven-term Senator from Kentucky had essentially started his valedictory lap in Washington DC. Today, on his birthday, McConnell made it official, announcing his intention to retire at the end of his term next year:

BREAKING: Longtime Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who turns 83 today, has announced he won’t seek reelection after his term ends in 2027.

“Seven times my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate … I will not seek this honor an eighth time.” https://t.co/bcK6MyRd23 pic.twitter.com/ufUeQPkdub

— ABC News (@ABC) February 20, 2025

“I figured my birthday would be as good a day as any to share with our colleagues the decision I made last year,” McConnell said on the day he turned 83. “Representing our commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time.”

McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984, announced his plans to step down from Republican leadership nearly a year ago. Throughout his decades in the chamber, McConnell played a key role in steering the Supreme Court to its current conservative tilt and has maintained a traditional Republican view of foreign relations as others in the party shifted toward a more populist view in the Donald Trump era.

McConnell has publicly battled health issues in recent years, including a fall outside the Senate chamber earlier this month, which a spokesperson attributed to the “lingering effects of polio,” which he overcame as a child.

Just a quick note on that point: it’s almost certainly true. The few people I have known who recovered from polio in their youth had troubles later in life with the effects. The more concerning medical episodes had to do with the disturbing freezes that took place in front of the press on a couple of occasions. McConnell has demonstrated that he retained the capacity for office, but also that his frailties suggested that he might not be able to keep up for much longer — as opposed to Chuck Grassley, who’s almost a decade older but still robust enough to handle the job.

McConnell may have outlasted his welcome in recent years, too. He appeared ready to work with Donald Trump and the populist faction of the GOP at the start of the first term, but grew increasingly distant from them since. The White House seethed over McConnell’s opposition to Robert Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard this year, but that rift has been widening for a few years now. McConnell’s institutionalism became too much of a hurdle to Trump’s clear intent to reorder the Beltway by any means necessary.

That has understandably angered many people in and out of the GOP, and fair play on that. At the same time, we should appreciate all the battles that McConnell fought and won for the GOP and conservatives during the Obama and Biden administrations. McConnell made Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and Dick Durbin pay over and over again for the 2013 “nuclear option” — which is why RFK, Gabbard, and Pete Hegseth got confirmed at all, and why Kash Patel will now take over the FBI. McConnell fought hard to hold the Supreme Court seat open after Antonin Scalia’s untimely death, which gave us Justice Neil Gorsuch rather than Justice Merrick Garland. And McConnell then double-tempoed Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg too, although that was somewhat easier. 

McConnell did all of that, and with a sense of humor, too. When a crank Senate candidate tried to smear McConnell and his wife over a 2014 drug bust by calling him “Cocaine Mitch,” McConnell leaned into it rather than vent:

Thanks for playing, @DonBlankenship. #WVSen pic.twitter.com/TV1ETgQdmu

— Team Mitch (Text MITCH to 47137) (@Team_Mitch) May 9, 2018

How can anyone not appreciate that?

Anyway, McConnell gets to leave on his own terms, and Republicans in Kentucky can look to the future. This adds an open seat to the midterms in which the GOP already faced a numerical disadvantage, and Kentucky isn’t necessarily a slam-dunk in statewide elections for Republicans. The GOP has a five-point registration advantage as of last month (47/42), and Trump won the state last November by a far wider margin, 65/34. Rand Paul also handily won re-election to the Senate in 2022 by a 62/38 margin, but Democrats keep managing to win the gubernatorial elections there. Andy Beshear won in 2023 by five points over Daniel Cameron, who might be tempted to run for McConnell’s open seat next year. 

The good news is that Kentucky Republicans had to be anticipating this, and hopefully have already started working on developing candidates for the 2026 midterms. It will bear watching, though, and no small amount of hard work and investment. 

This post was originally published on this site

We’ve actually known this was coming for a week now. Last Thursday Bloomberg reported that both Coca-Cola and Pepsi were planning to comply with President Trump’s executive orders on DEI.

Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., both government contractors, are preparing to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to people familiar with the matter.

Coca-Cola, which provides beverages on military bases and in other government facilities, will adhere to the administration’s directive, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. The company is likely to disclose any changes in forthcoming filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the person said.

Today, Robby Starbuck revealed the contents of a memo sent to employees by email. Here’s his bullet point summary of what is changing:

• @PepsiCo will no longer have a DEI Officer.
• PepsiCo will no longer have a DEI team.
• PepsiCo will END DEI representation goals.
• PepsiCo will no longer participate in the woke @HRC CEI social credit system survey. Woke trans agenda activists at the HRC are losing influence and power by the day.
• They will END ALL DEI trainings.
• ALL PepsiCo sponsorships must align with their business going forward.
• Instead of supplier diversity, PepsiCo is now focused on growing their small business supplier base.
• There will now be centralized management of ALL employee groups to ensure that their activities align with the core business.
• Going forward their strategy will be about GROWTH and how they drive growth to the business.

He adds that Pepsi owns a number of major brands that go beyond soft drinks.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t just affect Pepsi. PepsiCo owns the following brands: Gatorade, Quaker Oatmeal/Cereal, Chewy Bars, Starbuck’s coffees in glass that’s sold at grocery stores, AMP Energy, Rockstar Energy, MUG Root Beer, Mountain Dew, SoBe, Cap’n Crunch Cereal, King Vitamin Cereal,  Sabra Hummus, Aunt Jemima, Tropicana, Rice-a-Roni, Cheetos, Doritos, Lays, Ruffles, Tostitos, Chesters, Cracker Jack, Frito-Lay, FunYuns, Grandma’s Cookies, Miss Vickies, Rold Gold, Stacy’s Pita, Sun Chips, Mist Twist, Crush, Lipton Teas, Aquafina, Propel Zero and more.

PepsiCo has 318,000+ employees and a market cap of more than $200 BILLION dollars. Those employees will now have a neutral workplace without feeling that divisive issues are being injected and this corporate neutrality will also extend to their many suppliers who will no longer feel pressure to endorse these policies.

Here’s his post on X which includes images of the actual memo plus a graphic showing some of their brands. Starbuck usually makes a video describing the details of these DEI walkbacks but in this case he says he won’t be doing that because he’s sick.

MASSIVE news: I contacted PepsiCo to let them know that I planned on doing a story about their woke policies. When I contacted them, they were ready to make some BIG changes. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing:

• @PepsiCo will no longer have a DEI Officer.

•… pic.twitter.com/RnjhVuPnVR

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) February 20, 2025

Coca-Cola hasn’t made a public announcement yet possibly because it was already being targeted by the left over false claims that it turned over a group of employees to ICE for deportation. A coke and ice do go together but in this case those claims, which circulated on social media a week ago, were false.

An Instagram post showed a man saying that the beverage company called its employees who were illegally in the U.S. into a room for a meeting and then they were “all cornered by ICE.”…

Other videos in Spanish also claimed that the company’s directors had apologized to its employees affected by the supposed deportations. 

However, we found no reports in the news database, Nexis, on The Coca-Cola Co.’s social media, nor statements of apology on the company’s official website…

We also did not find any reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at Coca-Cola factories in recent history.

This was all BS but it just happened to coincide with an attempt by activists to target Coke (and other companies) who have announced plans to step back from DEI:

A growing backlash against national retailers that have started eliminating or rolling back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs now includes Latino leaders calling for a boycott of those big stores.

The movement, known as the Latino Freeze, includes activists like civil rights leader Dolores Huerta heading the charge.

“If you don’t respect our community, then you shouldn’t have our dollars,” Huerta said.

You can see the full list of the companies being boycotted here. Will this effort work? I sort of doubt it. Amazon, Target, Walmart, Coke, Pepsi, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Ford, Toyota and McDonalds are all on the list. Targeting just one of these companies would be a big goal. Targeting all of them at once seems unlikely to make much of an impact. 

That’s especially true because, as the last election showed us, the Hispanic community is not monolithic. Trump won a majority of Hispanic men. I don’t think it’s likely that a big majority of those same voters are going to go all in for DEI. But I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, if you feel inclined to undermine the pro-DEI boycott, order a Pepsi or a Coke. Better yet, pick them up at Target or WalMart.

This post was originally published on this site

Jason Furman is a left-leaning economist who currently works at Harvard but who previously served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Obama. So his recent takedown of Bidenomics is coming from an ally of the party not an outsider. 

Furman’s analysis starts with the fact that voters rejected Biden and Harris because in their view Bidenomics was not a rousing success. If you had to point to a single cause for widespread dissatisfaction with Biden’s tenure, it would probably be inflation.

Although there are many explanations for Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, voters’ views of the U.S. economy may have been decisive. In polling shortly before the election, more than 60 percent of voters in swing states agreed with the idea that the economy was on the wrong track, and even higher numbers registered concern about the cost of living. In exit polls, 75 percent of voters agreed that inflation was a “hardship.”

He goes on to state the obvious, that Biden’s economic record over his whole term was mixed at best, and not the unqualified success that Democrats tried to claim it was.

The U.S. economy has bounced back much faster than it did after previous recessions, and its post-pandemic performance has also outpaced that of many peer countries in terms of economic growth. But the recovery has been uneven, frustrated by inflation at least partly induced by the administration’s own policies. Inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and government debt were all higher in 2024 than they were in 2019. From 2019 to 2023, inflation-adjusted household income fell, and the poverty rate rose.

The core problem was inflation, and on this point Furman goes into detail to argue Biden entered office with a plan to spend far more money than was needed at the time.

In 2020, toward the end of the first Trump administration, Congress passed $3.4 trillion in fiscal support; in December, $900 billion was authorized to fund $600 stimulus checks for most American adults. Despite the ravages of the pandemic on public health, many households had never been in better financial shape, with overall debt service payments representing the lowest share of disposable income in decades, delinquencies and defaults remaining low, and record amounts of money sitting in checking accounts across the income spectrum. Economists hoped that as the rollout of vaccines proceeded, so would the economic recovery. In fact, when Biden came to office, the $1.5 trillion of excess savings that Americans had accumulated from the federal largess of 2020 and their suppressed spending was waiting to be unleashed by the reopening—perhaps obviating the macroeconomic need for yet another large stimulus bill…

Against these hopeful prognostications by many mainstream economists, however, the incoming Biden administration moved aggressively, proposing a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan even before coming into office. With U.S. GDP three percent below pre-pandemic forecasts as of the fourth quarter of 2020, an additional $650 billion in stimulus—about a third as much—would have been sufficient to fill the hole in the economy.

…economic ideas also played an important role. Policymakers decided to run the economy “hot”: that is, to support high demand to jump-start the economy even if it meant risking higher inflation. The Biden administration believed that the surfeit of demand this would produce would benefit a broad group of workers by increasing their bargaining power and, by extension, raising their inflation-adjusted wages. The administration dismissed dissenting voices who expressed skepticism about this approach, such as the economist Larry Summers, who warned that it would lead to high inflation.

When you add together high inflation and the denial of economic reality the Biden administration engaged in, you get an unappealing combination that doomed Biden and Harris. Furman doesn’t even mention Biden’s age which was arguably an even bigger drag on Biden in particular, but his argument is effectively that Biden was doomed by his own economic choices, even if he’d been 10 years younger than he was. And that’s partly why Kamala Harris, who didn’t suffer from the same age problem, still couldn’t manage a win.

So why didn’t the Biden administration get this at the time? In an interview at Politico about the piece, Furman said he knew economists who shared some of his concerns but who remained silent for fear of being attacked as traitors to the cause.

There is, in general, too much inhibition in people’s conversations about economic policy. There were a lot more critics of the size of the American Rescue Plan privately than there were publicly, and same thing on student loans. I knew many economists that thought it was terrible what was happening on student loan relief, but they were afraid to be yelled at on Twitter, or didn’t have a platform, or didn’t want to risk a future job in a Democratic administration. And so, people get a mistaken impression of what it is that economists think on any given topic because there is so much self-censorship.

Now, I have the luxurious position of a secure job at Harvard, and I had a great government job in the past, and I’m not trying to pursue my next government job. So in some ways, it’s easier for me to do this.

In other words, no one wanted to speak the truth about some of Biden’s economic plans for the same reason no one wanted to speak the truth about his age. There was no upside to bucking the party and plenty of potential upside to keeping their views to themselves. In some sense, the Biden administration became a victim of it’s own success at silencing critics. Because while the critics held back their real views in many cases, the voters ultimately did not.