Republican News

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As you know, Politifact announced their “Lie of the Year” yesterday, and emphasized that the lie was so outrageous that there was unanimity among their staff about its particular outrageousness.

“They are eating the dogs in Springfield.” The lie was so outrageous that you could practically feel the tears of rage and empathy for Haitian migrants dripping onto the keyboards of the fact-checkers. 

In a way, you can sympathize. Trump was able to refocus the country on the migrant crisis rather than the phony JOY! that the Pravda Media and Kamala Harris were trying to sell us. If I were one of the partisans at Politifact, I would be outraged, too. Despite the media and many observers thinking that Trump lost ground during the debate, it turns out that the “eating the pets” meme was the only memorable part of it, and Trump clearly won that exchange. 

Of course, the Springfield Haitian pet massacre wasn’t the lie of the year, except in the eyes of disappointed Democrats who thought they would be able to keep ruining our country. The biggest, most consequential lie is one that the Pravda Media invested a lot of time, energy, money, and sweat in propagating: that Joe Biden was “sharp as a tack.”

Hey, I found an actual lie for you https://t.co/umLl20BSBM

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 17, 2024

For years the media has been hiding the fact that the president is, for most purposes, a walking dead man. The man with his finger on the nuclear button and who is in charge of keeping our government functioning has been a vegetable, and the establishment liked it that way and wanted him to continue being in the Oval Office for another four years. 

Of course, just as the “eating the pets” “lie” was so awful for them because it focused attention back where it belonged, the “sharp as a tack” line wasn’t a “lie” because it served their purpose, at least until it collapsed before our very eyes on June 27th. 

A president with a “vacant, open to rent” sign on his forehead was an advantage for the transnational elite. Biden’s will, for the most part, was not an obstacle to their own, although every once in a while the old man went off script. But with the right amount of tapioca pudding and cash funneled to Hunter Joe was a useful prop for the technocrats who really ran things. 

To manage Biden’s limitations, White House aides controlled access, top advisers acted as go-betweens and public interactions became more scripted. The administration denied the president has declined. https://t.co/g8gXnymImR

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 19, 2024

Here are a few handpicked snippets from the story, via Richard Hanania:

Some highlights: 

“At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person. Biden’s team tapped campaign co-chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood mogul, to find a voice coach to improve the president’s fading warble.”

“Yet a sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden’s advanced age had arisen early on—in just the first few months of his term. Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes.”

“If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion, in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. ‘He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,’ the former aide recalled the official saying.”

“At some events, the Biden campaign printed the pre-approved questions on notecards and then gave donors the cards to read the questions. Even with all these steps, Biden made flubs, which confounded the donors who knew that Biden had the questions ahead of time.”

The day after Politifact’s ridiculous “Lie of the Year” piece, the Wall Street Journal has its own outlining how the insiders at the White House worked tirelessly to hide Joe Biden’s decline. It is story in the “now it can be told” style, which brings up the obvious: isn’t it the job of the media to tell us these things when they matter, and not just after it no longer does?

If you said this before June 2024 you’d get accused of peddling “misinformation.” Like there literally was an entirely new category of misinformation invented (“cheapfakes”) concerning videos of Biden’s decline. https://t.co/A1OW5YeOQr

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 19, 2024

Not anymore, at least as they see it. As part of the apparatus of governing, the media treats ordinary Americans as problems to be managed, not citizens who have the final say in how the country is run. 

I suspect most of you remember the allegations from the White House that videos showing Biden behaving erratically were “cheap fakes.”

The media rushed to repeat this claim. Look at the extent @nytimes went to say you didn’t see anything and that Biden was fine. pic.twitter.com/DFiFC6w7ZG

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) July 10, 2024

Just look at this headline from @AP.

And it only gets worse from there.

Again, your lyin eyes are the problem. Not Biden. Allegedly. pic.twitter.com/9Hs5I0WKCt

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) July 10, 2024

So in their view, “sharp as a tack” wasn’t a lie, but a Narrative™, and the right narratives are good because they get people to believe what is necessary to make them swallow what the elite is feeding us: a s**t sandwich. 

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Better late than never, I guess, but it doesn’t make regime media any less infuriating. 

Thursday morning’s Wall Street Journal features a lengthy story by Annie Linskey, Rebecca Ballhaus, Emily Glazer, and Siobhan Hughes documenting the lengths Joe Biden’s staff at the White House went to in order to cover up the President’s rapid mental and physical decline not just from the public, but from his own cabinet and advisors. In a normal world, it’s easily the biggest scandal of the century thus far. Sadly, we’re not living in normalcy, and we have not been since COVID.

As recent as June, there was only one narrative coming out of the Democratic-abetting Manhattan-Beltway media complex – Joe Biden is fine. He’s better than fine. He’s never been better. All this nonsense being peddling on right-wing sites and talk radio is disinformation. The videos we all saw were not real. They were cheap fakes. 

The New York Times on June 21st ran a headline that read, “How Misleading Videos Trail Biden As He Battles Age Doubts.” It parroted the White House line that videos showing Joe Biden addled and disconnected on trips abroad were “cheap fakes.” 

The Washington Post ran similar stories. On June 11, this piece.

In edited videos, Republican officials and allies of former president Donald Trump repeatedly tried to turn Biden’s Normandy visit into a highlight reel of senior moments and missteps, aimed at showing the president as infirm, addled or out of his depth. Trump, who turns 78 on Friday, has also repeatedly attacked Biden over his age and fitness, and regularly shares videos of the president looking frail. 

But an examination of video feeds from the events in Normandy, France, makes clear that the selected clips had been edited to present a particularly damaging — and often misleading — picture. 

Such deceptively edited videos — known as “cheap fakes” because they misrepresent events simply by manipulating video or audio, or by leaving out context — have become staples of Republican attacks against Biden. They are easier to make and disseminate than content generated by artificial intelligence and can quickly go viral, allowing Biden’s opponents to take innocuous moments and turn them into attacks on his mental acuity or physical fitness.

Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post fact-checker, which is itself ironic in this piece covering disinformation, gives four Pinocchios to right-wing media for misleading videos and cheap fakes. Here’s a bit of his analysis along with co-fact-checker Adriana Usero. Perhaps each fact-checker donated two Pinocchios each. 

“Unfortunately, some of President Biden’s right-wing critics don’t respect their readers or themselves and resort to misinformation and cheap fakes because his performance in office — fueling the strongest economic growth in the world, bringing violent crime to historic lows, and advancing our national security in the world — is so threatening to them that they feel a need to make things up,” deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. “It’s also telling that President Biden’s critics believe that giving a thumbs up to a skydiver or taking the time to thank veterans in Normandy is somehow negative.” 

The Pinocchio Test 

The use of these clips is an especially pernicious couple of examples of manipulated video — what we label “isolation” under our guide to manipulated video — because it’s intended to create a false narrative that doesn’t reflect the event as it occurred. The RNC and its avid followers in the conservative media earn Four Pinocchios.

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC famously went on a screed against anyone who dares to believe Biden has slipped. The President had never been sharper. 

Here’s the problem. It was all a lie. Every single member of regime media lied to you. And not just this year, but all four years of the Biden presidency. They all knew Biden was losing it. 

In the Journal story this morning, the reportage is just stunning. Not surprising, but stunning that they finally covered in detail what we’ve known for years. 

To adapt the White House around the needs of a diminished leader, they told visitors to keep meetings focused. Interactions with senior Democratic lawmakers and some cabinet members—including powerful secretaries such as Defense’s Lloyd Austin and Treasury’s Janet Yellen—were infrequent or grew less frequent. Some legislative leaders had a hard time getting the president’s ear at key moments, including ahead of the U.S.’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. 

Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy, with people such as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, senior counselor Steve Ricchetti and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard and her predecessor frequently in the position of being go-betweens for the president. 

Press aides who compiled packages of news clips for Biden were told by senior staff to exclude negative stories about the president. The president wasn’t talking to his own pollsters as surveys showed him trailing in the 2024 race.

Right from the outset, The Biden protection squad were deployed to keep visitors and cabinet members alike from getting too close, asking too many questions, or putting all the clues together that Chance the Gardener wasn’t just a character in Being There, he’d actually been inaugurated. 

This week, Biden has made a couple appearances, and hasn’t reassured anyone on his way out the door about anything. From the White House lawn to a gaggle wanting to know what was flying over New Jersey, here’s what the President said. 

Well, I’m sure that will calm everybody down. Joe seems fully briefed on the situation. 

Biden, for some reason, showed up on the More Perfect Union podcast with Faiz Shakir. Donald Trump spent 3 hours with Joe Rogan. Biden coughed up 13 minutes to Shakir. Here’s the highlights.

You’ll be glad to know that Joe Biden finally realizes grocery prices are still pretty high. Maybe it’s just me, but this realization seems to come a tad bit late. 

This next one made my eyes bug out. 

Come on, man. You would be hard-pressed to find a politician of either party in the last 100 years that has grifted off of his place in power, whether it be as a United States Senator, Vice-President, or the President more than Joe Biden. Peter Schweizer has written extensively on Biden, Inc. in Red Handed and documented the numerous cases of peddling influence domestically and internationally. For Biden to now feign outrage at pols who use their positions of power to game the system and enrich themselves, that actually breaks the hypocrisy meter. Why again did Hunter Biden get a blanket pardon for a time period spanning 11 years? It wasn’t just for a gun and drug charge. 

This may be the most truthful thing Biden has ever said in his entire career. Yes, I do believe we will be able to make a sharp contrast four years from now after Donald Trump’s term compared to the flaming wreckage turned in by this guy. 

Back to the Wall Street Journal piece, it makes one question this entire interview with Shakir. How many different edits and pick-up were necessary to get 13 usable minutes out of this? Who scripted the questions for him? Where were the Biden staffers to wave off the interview if Shakir deviated from the pre-approved script? 

If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether. On one such occasion, in the spring of 2021, a national security official explained to another aide why a meeting needed to be rescheduled. “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,” the former aide recalled the official saying. 

While it isn’t uncommon for politicians to want more time with the president than they get, some Democrats felt Biden was unusually hard to reach.

James Hohmann, editorial writer and columnist for the Washington Post, excerpted long passages from this Journal article on his X feed. 

The president couldn’t recall lines that his team discussed with him moments earlier. At events, aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to any average person.

— James Hohmann (@jameshohmann) December 19, 2024

If only James had access to a news organization with resources to cover the White House and report the results of their journalistic curiosity to the American people. Alas.

Why now? Joe Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump peeled the veneer off the facade that Biden was competent to be president, now or in the future. It was Joe Biden himself that forced the Democratic elite to kick him to the curb. It was the naked display of Biden’s slippage that caused regime media to briefly do stories like this one today in the Journal back in July. But once Kamala Harris was subbed in, the Biden aging angle disappeared once more from regime media. 

Again, why now? Does media harbor the fantasy that their past sins of commission and omission will be forgiven and forgotten, and their credibility will be restored in the new year now that the election is lost? Of course, not. So why now? 

Well, in short, It’s Christmas, and regime media is not feeling very merry. Chanukah happens to fall on Christmas day this year, and Jewish members of the press are not feeling very happy. They’re angry. They’re bitter. They feel used. Chuck Todd on a podcast with CNN’s Chris Cillizza pretty much summed it up with the pardoning of Hunter Biden. 

Regime media is ticked off that Joe and Jill Biden put them in this nightmare. They’re ticked because the Biden’s immediately backed Kamala Harris and they were forced to make a souffle out of that excrement sandwich. And not to be overlooked is the relationship Joe Biden and the White House has with their purported allies in media. 

Up to this point, all Democrats, media and elected politicians, including their staffs, were basically all in the same boat rowing oars in the same direction, because they’re all left-wing and they had a common enemy – Donald Trump. Now that they’ve lost, they’re not at all happy to have been treated like dirt for the last four years. Biden rarely, if ever granted interviews. When interviews were given, questions were scripted out, and if reporters deviated, staff would end the interview early. The White House Press Corps were herded in for photo ops, and promptly herded out before being able to ask questions. Press conferences were ridiculously stagecrafted and managed, if the White House held them at all. 

The Biden’s hold regime media in the same regard conservatives do, when push comes to shove, and as a long-time GOP hand tells me, it’s like a master beating his dog one too many times. The dog will take those beatings for only so long, and then eventually that dog will turn on him and fight back, and it’ll get ugly. I think that’s what you’re beginning to see, largely, and will continued throughout the remainder of Biden’s term. 

Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC appeared on So Many Issues with Lukas Thimm a few days ago, and revealed the frustration she dealt with trying to carry water for the Biden-Harris administration, compared to working with Donald Trump. Trump was at least responsive. He gave her a three-word colorful refusal when she ask to interview him, but he was accessible and took her call. It would be easier to rifle through Fort Knox than get Joe Biden on the phone unless you were Hunter with a ChiCom business opportunity. 

MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle says Trump told her to go f**k herself when asking for interview. https://t.co/Ke5nvPiFvK

— Media Research Center (@theMRC) December 17, 2024

If the President would have committed resources to the Southern Border with the same intensity as he did beefing up his White House inner circle, fentanyl deaths would have plummeted. Apartment buildings in Aurora would be safe. Jocelyn Nungaray and Rachel Morin would be alive.

Joe Biden’s legacy is not going to be a good one, and it’s not just because he was rotten on domestic policy, worse on foreign affairs, and decaying faster than the Halloween Jack-O-Lantern in November. All that is true. But the reason Biden will not age will in the history books is because deep down, he’s a nasty, bitter, vindictive, corrupt old man who has treated everyone around him akin to how Capone treated Chicago. 32 Days to go, and they can’t fall off the calendar fast enough. 

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There is a significant constituency for socialized medicine in the United States, and it seems like every progressive will tell you why it is perfectly understandable that one of their own would decide to shoot a health insurance CEO in the back. 

After all, there are people who are not getting exactly what they want at the exact time they want it. 

I’m not naive enough to think that our healthcare system is perfect–it is, in fact, a convoluted mess slapped together over the past 75 years and in desperate need of reform. I’m not even sure how we could get from here to a rationally designed system that combines free-market principles and affordable insurance, given how screwed up things are. 

But be careful what you wish for, commies, because socialized medicine is in almost all ways much worse. 

Woman waits 6 years for knee replacement. Gets surgery but has complication. Has to wait 8 days for follow-up procedure because there are no beds. Because of delay, she now needs amputation.

Can we stop defending Canada’s atrocious healthcare system?https://t.co/fgbbpzumei

— Robyn Urback (@RobynUrback) December 17, 2024

Ask any Brit what they think of the National Health Service, and they will give you a long list of horror stories, but then robotically intone their love of the NHS as an idea. They are quite proud of it as an idea, but the reality of it is almost unbearable. Few Americans would tolerate what is quite normal in Great Britain. 

Canada, though, is arguably worse since their solution to limited resources is to offer to murder you, or in this case, to chop your limbs off once they torture you with poor care. 

The story of Roseanne Milburn is bad enough to make you burn with rage, but it is not shocking at all in the context of how Canada rations care. In the US, we are used to having access to almost unlimited resources dedicated to providing healthcare, and that is one of the reasons why we are so shocked when anything is denied. Everything is expensive, pricing is opaque, insurance companies are maddening to deal with, but when push comes to shove we tend to get the care we need (or more) when we need it. 

My wife, for instance, had pain in her hip and got it checked out. The doctor said she should get her hip replaced, although she could do it now or wait until it got worse. It was up to her. She decided to go for the replacement, got a newer procedure that was minimally invasive within a few weeks and was back on her feet almost immediately. 

Smooth as silk, for the most part. We had a deductible, of course, but we always met it, and more, so the procedure cost us, net, almost nothing. 

In Canada Ms. Milburn needed a knee replaced, and she was placed on a waiting list. Six years later, she got it, but it didn’t go so well. Today, she is down one leg. 

A Manitoba woman had her right leg amputated after complications following a knee replacement surgery two months earlier.

Roseanne Milburn, 61, went ahead with the scheduled amputation last Friday, after weeks of complications stemming from a post-surgery infection.

In late November, a surgeon at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre began removing dead tissue from her right knee, with the intention of stitching her up later that day after she was seen by an orthopedic surgeon at Concordia Hospital.

She was sent to Concordia, but couldn’t be transferred back to HSC because there wasn’t a bed available for the specialist to finish the procedure. Instead, she spent eight days languishing at Concordia with a painful open wound.

Manitoba woman set to lose right leg after languishing in hospital bed with open wound

Once she finally got to HSC, Milburn went under the knife for another infection, but due to the long delay in stitching up the wound, she said she was told her leg wasn’t salvageable.

Eight days with an open wound. Eight days. So long that the leg became necrotic and had to be removed. 

At least she got the amputation at the cut-rate or for free. 

The fact is that every good we consume is a limited resource, including healthcare. It gets rationed somehow, and under socialized systems, the rationing mechanism isn’t price but time and quality. Nothing is for free. 

With all the problems with our healthcare system in the United States, we have one big saving grace: the country is extremely wealthy because we have a (mostly) free market economy. That allows us to afford to consume enormous amounts of medical care, even though that care is provided extremely inefficiently. The system is lubricated by enormous amounts of money. We spend 17% of our enormous GDP on healthcare, and even under Joe Biden, our GDP is growing faster than our peer economies by a mile. 

In fact, one of the reasons why our healthcare is so expensive is that we essentially subsidize the rest of the world–we fund the innovation through high prices, while other countries buy the pharmaceuticals and medical devices at cut rates. 

Rube Goldberg couldn’t have designed a system as ridiculous as ours, but for all its flaws, it works pretty well. Despite our uncompetitive health statistics (many of these are not comparing apples to apples, but that is another issue), the fact is that almost every metric where we underperform other countries comes down to lifestyle choices, not the failure of medical care. 

For instance, the United States has one of the highest incidence rates of cancer in the world but one of the best survival rates as well. The first is likely due to higher diagnosis rates and poor lifestyle choices, and the latter is due to excellent treatment. 

In other words, we give ourselves more disease, and medical care helps us survive despite that fact. 

The truth is that Americans would go crazy dealing with most systems of socialized medicine in most countries. There may be a country or two where government-provided healthcare works for idiosyncratic reasons (I am not a healthcare public policy expert), but peer countries look pretty bad once you dig into the data. 

In the modern world, you couldn’t design a 100% private healthcare system that would pass political muster, but Singapore has a system that is mostly free-market and is top of the pile on health outcomes. 

I don’t know enough about it to endorse that system, and even if it were ideal, I see no way to get from here to there in my lifetime. 

But the evidence is clear: the socialized systems that lefties drool over are disasters. 

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Closing the tabs in the context of tabs that close as we tab … er …

Are Democrats coconut-pilled? Some want to see Kamala Harris run again.

Senior Democrats aren’t ruling out Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate for 2028. But not all of them are fully endorsing the idea, either.

Ed: They’re all playing nice at the moment, mainly because they know this is a self-solving problem. Harris is so inept that even if she did run for the nomination, and even if she raised a bunch of money for it (a big if after blowing through $1.5B), she’d lose badly. There’s almost no need to get in front of the issue at this stage. But the Politico headline about being ‘coconut-pilled’ is a keeper!

===

Audience starts laughing when Harris asks young people to remember “the context in which you exist.”

“Yeah, I did that,” she replies laughing. “Uh huh.” pic.twitter.com/pALyWKnKPJ

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) December 17, 2024

Ed: Like I said …

===

“According to a new report, Vice President Kamala Harris believes that if she runs for president again in 2028, she would face a competitive Democratic primary process,” Meyers said on “Late Night” Tuesday.

“Not to mention an awkward one,” he added, showing a mocked-up picture of President Joe Biden in front of a “Biden 2028″ podium.

Ed: It’s a light-hearted dig, but any ridicule of Harris by late-night shows even now seems worth noting. 

===

Kamala says her humiliating defeat is just an “obstacle” as she stares down unemployment on January 20. pic.twitter.com/QHoqEVq3eh

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2024

Ed: In fairness, rolling up her sleeves could mean something other than running for another office. It’s difficult to figure out any other path for her, though, except NGO activism — and that requires executive competence, too. 

===

“I find it hard to believe that she could build support. The stories — it’s just, it’s so disappointing to see our colleagues, just as they did during the four years of the Biden administration, failing to cover the truth right before our eyes,” [Mark] Halperin said. “Is her poor performance the only reason she didn’t win? No, but it’s right up there … I think both [President] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have escaped a lot of the blame that falls to them, and that’s not just my view, but the view of a lot of Democrats — donors and members of Congress, etc.”

Ed: The reference to competition isn’t just about votes. It’s also about finding financial and political support. No one wants to rule out Harris at the moment, but Halperin’s correct. After watching her campaign so incompetently and waste so much money in such a short period of time, potential donors and allies will want to invest more wisely in future campaigns where other choices exist. That applies to the gubernatorial contest in California too, as Halperin goes on to state.

===

The only person in the room that doesn’t know Kamala Harris isn’t running in 2028 is Kamala Harris pic.twitter.com/lUmeSq1vJH

— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) December 16, 2024

Ed: In 50 seconds, Kamala Harris manages to say … nothing at all. Clearly she works hard at her power to say nothing, and on her ability to say nothing. 

===

CNN Political Commentator Karen Finney:

“[Kamala Harris] should run for president again if she believes she has the energy to do it.”

Yes please! Run again, Kamala! pic.twitter.com/jR6QDRKQtQ

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 18, 2024

===

I propose that Harris shift her gaze away from the White House and focus on a run for California governor — or some other kind of public service. Harris was undoubtedly dealt a bad hand in the 2024 election. But she is also exactly the wrong kind of figure to try to lead the party going forward in an era of populism and rapidly shifting coalitions. …

Yet despite her manifest intelligence and poise, Harris revealed few instincts for how to climb out of that hole. In an election in which she was running to succeed an unpopular president, she struggled to articulate what, if anything, she would do differently as president. The defining theme of the campaign was Americans’ negative feelings about the economy — that, despite cooling inflation, everything still felt too expensive. But Harris lacked a clear economic message that reflected an understanding of the cost-of-living crisis.

Ed: It’s not that she lacked the message. It’s that she copy-pasted Joe Biden’s message while simultaneously trying to distance herself from it without any clue as to what else to offer. It was literally the most important issue in this election, and Harris not only didn’t have any instincts for it, she had no grasp of the issue at all. And when you lose MSNBC ….

===

Damm, it looks like Kamala is back again to fight, to tell us what kind of car we need to drive.

How do the most leftist politicians are all from California?

Kamala is coming back to fight in 2028. Good grief, more word salad. pic.twitter.com/gV6b9iitO3

— Juliana@InspiredCafe2023🦩 (@ICafe2023) December 18, 2024

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Writing for the Free Press, Ruy Teixeira makes the case that despite the dismal results of the 2024 election, democrats are in deep denial about what went wrong and what they need to do to fix it. As is usually true, he makes a very convincing case.

In the wake of the Democrats’ drubbing at the hands of Donald Trump and the GOP, you’d assume the party would be all-in on a fundamental rethink, starting with some serious soul-searching on how the party came to be so out of sync with the majority of America on key cultural questions…

Well, if the six weeks since the election is anything to go by, you’d be wrong. Instead, much of the party is maneuvering to change as little as possible on the cultural front. Why? Because many of today’s Democrats are culture denialists. 

I’ve previously pointed out evidence that the Democrats’ stance on gender ideology and immigration hurt the party at the polls. But of course the left has been in denial about all of this. Their solution after any loss is to move further left. And what Teixeira sees happening now is Democrats refusing to acknowledge they need to move back to the center.

Many senior figures on the party’s left have skipped discussions of cultural issues altogether, instead publishing progressive policy wish lists. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont thinks Democrats should talk more about billionaires. Rep. Ro Khanna is betting on a “New Economic Deal” that would emphasize high-paying jobs for the middle class. Senator Chris Murphy thinks the key to a Democratic revival is advocating for the breakup of corporate power. Other Democrats suggest a relentless focus on “kitchen-table” issues. (Ah, what would Democrats do without that fabled kitchen table?) The general idea is that talking more about economic issues, typically in a populist vein, will win back the working class and obviate the need to change anything else…

The outgoing DNC chair takes things even further. Since the election, Jaime Harrison has strenuously resisted the idea Democrats should abandon “identity politics,” saying they represent how “people of color” see Democrats fighting for them. Invoking his status as a black man, he remarked: “That is my identity. . . . it is not politics. It is my life. And the people that I need in the party, that I need to stand up for me, have to recognize that. You cannot run away from that.” In other words, Democrats should double down on so-called culture war issues like race and gender that are so off-putting to voters. This is a strange recommendation since, as Democrats have become ever more associated with identity politics, they have been doing ever more poorly among non-white voters, especially non-white working-class voters. Their advantage among the latter group has declined by more than half since 2012.

They are doubling down on stupid, which is great news for Republicans. As Teixeira correctly points out, most people don’t support mandatory DEI statements or the quasi-legal employment discrimination that comes with them. Most people don’t support teaching the gender unicorn to 1st graders and they don’t support putting biological men in women’s prisons or letting them compete against women athletes. Most people don’t support allowing schools to hide a child’s social transition from parents. And most people don’t support open borders or the gaming of the immigration system or spending billions of dollars housing migrants who will never be asked to leave the country no matter what an impotent immigration court ultimately decides about their legal right to be here.

Teixeira concludes that until they learn from their mistakes, Democrats are doomed to repeat them. As of now they don’t seem to have learned much. And if past performance is any guide, they are likely to become more extreme and insistent about these fringe issues as Trump’s 2nd term continues, not less so.

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This story is nuts, to the point that I would be suspicious if it wasn’t being reported everywhere this afternoon. Brian Williams is the LA Deputy Mayor in charge of public safety. Today the FBI raided his house because he is the main suspect in a bomb threat against City Hall made earlier this year.

Agents searched the home of the deputy mayor, Brian Williams, on Tuesday. Mr. Williams, who was appointed by Mayor Karen Bass last year to oversee public safety, was immediately placed on administrative leave, the mayor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The LAPD decided it couldn’t very well investigate its own boss so they handed the matter over to the FBI.

“Earlier this year the LAPD responded to a bomb threat made against Los Angeles City Hall,” the department’s statement said. “Our initial investigation revealed that the source of the threat was likely from Brian Williams, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. Due to the Department’s working relationship with Mr. Williams, the investigation was referred to the FBI. The FBI remains the investigating agency.”

Williams was immediately placed on leave. Here’s the statement released by the mayor’s office.

NEW: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ office says they’ve placed Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Brian Williams on leave after they were notified the FBI raided his home yesterday in connection to a bomb threat he allegedly made against city hall earlier this year. Photo: @latimes pic.twitter.com/NY6mIcKXjg

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) December 18, 2024

The LA Times found a neighbor who doesn’t believe this could be true.

Peggy Names, who lives next door to Williams’ home in Pasadena, expressed shock about the investigation.

“He’s not capable of that. It’s ridiculous. They must have the wrong Brian Williams, I’m positive,” she said. “They are a wonderful family, they go to church every Sunday, they’re upstanding pillars of the community, and we’ve enjoyed having them as our neighbors for over 20 years.”

When he was appointed last year, Williams was given oversight of “the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Port of Los Angeles Police, the Los Angeles World Airport Police, and the Emergency Management Department.” That’s quite a portfolio for a guy suspected of a crime, even if it’s just a misdemeanor in California.

It’s not clear exactly when this bomb threat took place. I’ve seen one tweet suggesting it was 3 months ago but none of the stories about it published by major outlets are specific. In any case, if the LAPD determined he was likely the source of the threat right away, why is he only being suspended now? The mayor’s office must have known. Were they hoping this would all blow over? Something seems fishy here. Maybe there’s a good explanation but a political cover up doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility either.

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OMG. What a crap sammich.

Ed’s already gone through the appalling nerve of Dicky Durbin trying to boost his pay like he was a UAW or UPS worker or something.

I hate to break it to you, Senator – but there is sympathy in America when the unions start squawking. Those guys WORK, Durbin.

As I know, my intellectual heavy-weight counterparts are already chewing this thing up (See? I can be nice to David), so I thought I’d just bring the stenographer’s version of the bull*coughs*it that’s in this abomination.

So, an X friend of mine (not ‘ex’ – we still talk!) who had his own site keeping track of government waste fraud and abuse documenting bull*coughs*it contract awards long before DOGE was a gleam in anyone’s eye (RandoLand) just found a few fun infringements.

One means you go to jail for making naughty pictures even if they’re meant as parody (quibble about the meaning of ‘consent’ later) and five more years of funding for electric buses!

WEEEEEE!

That’s SO what we voted for.

Oh we’re also extending the scam electric bus program that typically costs over a million dollars for each bus.

Another five years of that. Thanks GOP! pic.twitter.com/MwG03ns01y

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) December 18, 2024

And who needs POTATUS’ pardons when Congress blocks itself from issuing subpoenas?!

YAY! MY FAVORITE!

Shifty Schiff, the whole J6 committee, and co-conspirators get Trump-proofed!

HOLY SH*T: Buried Deep within the CR, Congress is allowed to block subpoenas for “House Data”

THIS INCLUDES EMAILS. Which means this could prevent investigations into the J6 Committee

ABSOLUTELY NOT, MAKE THIS VIRAL ON 𝕏 pic.twitter.com/KsThs9TqAm

— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) December 18, 2024

But wait! There’s more. Besides the pay raise Ed raked Dicky over the coals for, now they also don’t have to get their health insurance off the Obamacare exchanges they make the rest of us schlubs use. Isn’t that neat-o?

They can go back to being the special flowers they always thought they were.

YAY! MY FAVORITE!

So I see the CR allows members of Congress to get off the Obamacare exchanges! Rules for thee… pic.twitter.com/AxbtUyVNVL

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) December 18, 2024

And all that COVID authoritarian stuff we demanded we never, EH-VAH wanted to see again because it was un Gott danged American?

Fooled.

You.

The bill makes it all even biggerer and betterer.

The CR/Omnibus also expands the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness and Response Act.

This allows for vaccine and mask mandates, vaccine passports, intentional emergency powers, gain of function research.

It also created BARDA, the agencies responsible for mRNA/GOF research. pic.twitter.com/TZU3gnzivH

— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) December 18, 2024

I mean, it goes on and on and gobsmackingly on.

But, for once, it looks as if the hotheads may prevail over the critters who came up with this.

Elon and Vivek (who is wading through every page and line of this abomination) have both come out hard against it and favor a shutdown if that’s what it takes. That, in turn, upset the usual go along to get along congressional caucus.

🚨BREAKING: Republicans are complaining that Elon’s crusade against the CR bill is causing bleeding support amongst House Republicans.

Oh no…somebody stop him… 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/p5Li3UmKZY

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) December 18, 2024

But the poison pills – which are throughout – are so completely contrary to the wishes of the voters that normally complacent GOP members of Congress are starting to grow a pair and raise the Jolly Roger.

Rep. Kat Cammack R-FL says the CR+ deal is ‘doing incredible damage’ within House GOP ranks. pic.twitter.com/LGiH5VGINM

— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) December 18, 2024

Oh, she’s a pirate now!

I know it’s hard to imagine, but knives are now out for Speaker Mike Johnson, where once a cross word was never heard before. 

Moderates see the entire exercise as a betrayal. It’s like a Democratic wet dream come true, and they want nothing to do with it.

GOP Rep. Victoria Spartz Reveals Speaker Johnson Didn’t Even Talk to Moderate Republicans Before Pushing CR

“Listen, we’re a divided government, but we don’t have to be ruled by Democrats. Speaker Johnson didn’t even talk to moderate Republicans, not just to conservatives. He… pic.twitter.com/0nFv74mbGb

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 18, 2024

…”Listen, we’re a divided government, but we don’t have to be ruled by Democrats. Speaker Johnson didn’t even talk to moderate Republicans, not just to conservatives. He usually doesn’t even care to hear us. You know, that’s unfortunate.” 

“He just made the deal, you know, with Democrats, put a bunch of slush funds, what they wanted, put little things that maybe he can try to push some Republicans to vote and try to sell it as a victory, which is really another, you know, Christmas present to Chuck Schumer. And that’s what was expected by Republicans, and he’s been dishonest in this.” 

“I think at some point enough is enough, and if we don’t start governing, the country is on a calamity course. So I hope next Congress will grow the backbone and start dealing with the swamp, because fiscally, the country is really in huge, huge trouble.” 

“The failure of this leadership to listen to every voice within the party, not just the extremes but the moderates who represent a significant portion of the population, is disheartening. Decisions are being made without transparency or accountability, fueling frustration and distrust.” 

“While certain factions within the government celebrate these deals as victories, they fail to recognize the long-term repercussions on the nation’s stability and financial health.”…

 Lots of ‘nopes, I’m out‘ on X.

I was elected to represent the people of SC-05 and fight for the American people.

We were promised a CLEAN CR and that’s what the American people deserve.

I’d rather shut the government down before considering this CRomni… pic.twitter.com/QcinMEzUgW

— Rep. Ralph Norman (@RepRalphNorman) December 18, 2024

Pressure is building big time on Johnson to drop the damn thing like the flaming bag of dog poo it is and get done what should have happened in the first place.

A clean CR.

NEW: Speaker Johnson is now considering a “plan B” for his spending bill after receiving fierce backlash from Elon Musk on X, according to Politico.

Good.

According to the outlet, Johnson is considering producing a “clean CR” and dealing with the other issues later on when… pic.twitter.com/CKcFOn4A9o

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 18, 2024

…According to the outlet, Johnson is considering producing a “clean CR” and dealing with the other issues later on when Trump is in office. 

“That would mean dropping disaster aid, $30 billion for farmers, and a one-year extension of the farm bill, among other items, at least for now,” Politico reported. 

Musk previously said he would “fight tooth and nail” to make sure the government is using taxpayer money the right way. 

He wasn’t kidding.

I lurves me the squirm from the regulars on the Hill. I don’t know that they’ve ever been THIS uncomfortable in their political lives.

House Republicans say that 𝕏 and Elon Musk had a huge impact on the CR Bill vote.

We the People don’t want ‘business as usual’ anymore

We have Trump a mandate, either tow the line or get out of the way.

Otherwise prepare to lose your job! pic.twitter.com/moWeiizSZz

— Diligent Denizen 🇺🇸 (@DiligentDenizen) December 18, 2024

The speaker had better get moving on an acceptable alternative because Trump and Vance just cut the legs out from under him. 

Joint statement from Trump & Vance on the CR: pic.twitter.com/5qTutyVcUK

— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) December 18, 2024

IF DEMOCRATS WANT TO SHUT THE GOVERNMENT DOWN, CALL THEIR BLUFF

Yo, ho, ho.

That’s the answer we voted for.

And poof!

Before local press tries to spin this, watch this video. We will be getting disaster aid but the current rendition of the CR is being pulled from the floor. It’s a bad deal for America. Was terrible to try to put on the floor in the first place. pic.twitter.com/aQKhVgysju

— Anna Paulina Luna (@realannapaulina) December 18, 2024

YO, HO, HO

This post was originally published on this site

For those of us who have been fighting in the trenches of the culture war, the past few weeks have buoyed our spirits and even sparked optimism that the woke mind virus pandemic is coming to an end. 

Corporations and universities are axing their DEI departments–although I will be curious to see whether they follow through on their promises or just rename and rebrand their efforts–and it is now cool again to speak your mind in most circles. 

It’s like we can breathe again. 

One great sign of this cultural shift is that Disney–yes THAT Disney–has moved away from Queering all the content and has even deleted a scene in an upcoming series that promoted Alphabet ideology. 

Vibes have shifted. https://t.co/XKi9mrL3IY

— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) December 17, 2024

It’s impossible to overstate how significant a shift that is. Despite making noises about pulling back from fighting the culture wars after it got its butt kicked by Ron DeSantis a couple of years ago, the company’s actual behavior didn’t change that much. They simply quit talking so much about Alphabet issues while they kept pouring out the content that outraged so many parents. 

Pixar‘s new animated series Win or Lose, set for a 2025 premiere on Disney+, will no longer include a transgender storyline.

Disney has eliminated “a few lines of dialogue” from an episode that references a character’s gender identity, we’ve learned.

Disney released a statement to Deadline confirming the change, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, saying that  “when it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”

Disney’s acknowledgment that parents, not woke activists who use their positions to become evangelists for Queer ideology, should be discussing these issues with their parents is a huge acknowledgment that the company lost its way. 

In some ways, more importantly, it is Disney’s executives taking back their company from the generation of woke activists who hijacked the power of Disney to spread neo-Marxist ideology of all kinds, beyond Alphabet ideology. 

NEW: Disney production coordinator Allen March, who says his team is committed to “exploring queer stories” and promoting “trans,” “bisexual,” and “gender nonconforming” characters, says kids are “getting all this information from the media” and “there’s a lot of power to that.” pic.twitter.com/rgxXgcIEwA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 31, 2022

NEW: Disney corporate president Karey Burke, the “mother of two queer children,” says the company has been “targeting Gen Z and millennials” with LGBTQIA+ “inclusion” content. Her son told her that “Gen Z is 30-40% queerer” and that Disney “better get with it.” pic.twitter.com/CYYD7NqKZg

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 7, 2022

Many of these major corporations adopted wokeness not so much because the CEOs wanted to, although some did, but because they were getting outside pressure from ESG activists and inside pressure from their own employees, of whom they had become afraid. 

NEW: Disney corporate president Karey Burke, the “mother of two queer children,” says the company has been “targeting Gen Z and millennials” with LGBTQIA+ “inclusion” content. Her son told her that “Gen Z is 30-40% queerer” and that Disney “better get with it.” pic.twitter.com/CYYD7NqKZg

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 7, 2022

The anti-woke consumer movement has been a force all its own, though. While the ESG pressure came from financial institutions like Blackrock, access to capital is only one component of the financial success of a corporation. Companies need customers even more than they need outside capital–after all, those investments they make are all about the RETURN on capital, and if your return on capital is small, then it really doesn’t matter that Blackrock is willing to give it to you. 

I wonder how Disney+ is doing? … pic.twitter.com/qLaoWQX22a

— Theo Jordan (@Theo_TJ_Jordan) February 5, 2023

Disney had gone so far to the left that the audience was getting left behind. The success of the company ultimately depends on parents wanting their kids to watch Disney products and go to Disney parks, and in recent years, this has been a struggle. 

This Disney Executive producer candidly explains her agenda is to insert “queerness” into each show. pic.twitter.com/BlpIGdmq2c

— David Vance (@DVATW) February 6, 2023

It’s easy to overstate how many parents have paid enough attention to these matters, but cultural wins are won on the margins. It’s not like parents were demanding that Disney queer their content–it was a fringe group that accomplished a huge win–so I feel confident that we culture warriors can claim credit. 

Not long after causing waves with the decision to pull a completed episode of Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur featuring a transgender character, Disney animation has suffered another backslide in queer representation.https://t.co/TCAplQPMNL pic.twitter.com/1IVUT3y498

— Animation Magazine (@animag) December 18, 2024

Parents shouldn’t HAVE to fight these fights in the first place, and even ones who sigh in disgust at the injecting of Alphabet ideology into kids’ content are less likely that we would prefer to gin up the energy to fight these battles. The same is true for parents fighting Alphabet ideology in the schools. Too few parents join Moms for Liberty, for example, but then again, Moms for Liberty is winning some major battles. 

That’s why it is important for those of us who are paying close attention to get off our keisters and fight, or support those who are on the front lines. They are winning the battle for the culture. 

Total & complete victory for @GovRonDeSantis over @disney. Woke Disney bends the knee, removes trans character from animated series says they recognize parents would “prefer to discuss certain subjects on their own terms and timeline.” This is what the Florida law said! Huge win. pic.twitter.com/f4ZgPaLjWo

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 18, 2024

They are the superheroes saving society. 

Interesting convo on corporate America ending DEI programs. My comment on @cnn: vast majority of Americans want to rise and fall based on talent and hard work, not on forced racial quotas. pic.twitter.com/L1J9lo34kU

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) December 18, 2024

This post was originally published on this site

Don’t you just hate when you get to the end of a whodunit only to find out that the most obvious suspect turned out to be the villain? When it does indeed turn out to be the butler who did it all along?

Prepare thusly for the New York Times’ report on Disney’s decision to pay $16 million and throw in the towel on Donald Trump’s defamation suit. Brooke Barnes dispels the notion that this has to do with meta-strategy for the next four years or a desire to bend the knee to Trump. Instead, the deciding factor was “the butler” we all suspected, and the biggest clue was also the most accurate one:

On Friday, Judge Altonaga dealt Disney another setback. She rejected requests to delay the case and ordered near-immediate depositions for Mr. Trump and Mr. Stephanopoulos. Moreover, Disney was also told to turn over “all remaining documents” related to the case — including pertinent emails and text messages sent by and to Mr. Stephanopoulos — by Sunday.

Disney responded by opening settlement talks. By Friday night, the two sides had reached a deal. The company agreed to donate $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. Mr. Stephanopoulos and ABC News published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during the March broadcast. The news network also agreed to pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million in legal fees.

Aha! It was Discovery in the Library with the Lead Pipe! Once Disney discovered that ABC would have to open its books, and especially its internal communications, they leapt into action. It only took hours for them to come up with a cash offer to get Trump to settle. That has to be some sort of record in media-defamation litigation — and it strongly suggests that the $16 million and “regret” statement would do a lot less damage to Disney than they would have suffered with the release of those communications.

As Wilford Brimley drily noted in Absence of Malice: “Wonderful thing, subpoenas.” That was from Columbia Pictures, of course, now a division of Disney rival Sony Pictures. Ironically, if there had been an absence of malice in Stephanopoulos’ remarks, Disney would be $16 million richer. The rush to settle indicates a large level of discoverable malice lurked within those communications.

But wait! There’s more! Discovery had an accomplice, as it turns out, although the accomplice is also no surprise at all. Add in Sullivan in the Hallway with a dagger aimed at the heart of the entire media industry:

In the worst-cast scenario, Disney concluded, fighting the case could lead to the Supreme Court and become a vehicle for Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. That 1964 ruling, as well as a handful of subsequent cases, made it much harder for public figures like Mr. Trump to win libel lawsuits.

Disney’s legal team, headed by Mr. Gutierrez, ultimately decided that settling, even with the inevitable negative headlines, was the best outcome — that $16 million was a small price to pay for resolving a tricky case.

Disney’s attorneys must have read recent dissents from Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch about the need to reverse the Sullivan doctrine on defamation. That in itself may have a salutary impact on media reporting, which until very recently) has been filled with dishonest impunity regarding Trump and other Republicans. These media companies can’t afford to allow the Supreme Court an opportunity to revisit Sullivan and remove their “actual malice” hyper-defense against defamation regarding “public persons,” even when those people are government officials. 

This is also amusing, given the evolution of Disney on its own home turf:

The company was concerned that a jury in Florida — a deep-red state that Mr. Trump carried by 13 points in the election last month — would side with the president-elect and potentially award him a sizable sum exceeding what it would cost to settle.

Not so very long ago at all, Disney might have fought hard to get a Florida jury involved in a defamation lawsuit. They used to own Florida in terms of public relations, at least until Bob Iger et al decided to go woke and go political against parents and Republicans in the state. They made Ron DeSantis an enemy and ended up paying a very high cost for it, both in terms of financial cost and in public affection in Florida and elsewhere. 

The fact that Iger now has to fear Florida jury pools explains a lot not just about this settlement but also Disney’s other moves, including the one that David wrote about earlier today. The world is healing, indeed. Now let’s see if Iger and other media outlets take the real lesson from this episode and start weeding out political activists from the ranks of “reporters” and news hosts — an industry trend that is actually the real villain in this case.