Donald Trump to Kristen Welker: Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive.

Donald Trump to Kristen Welker: Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive. 1

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Donald Trump to Kristen Welker: Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive. 2

Three years after John Berendt released his crime drama novel Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil in 1994, Clint Eastwood picked up the movie rights and filmed it. It featured a star-studded cast, and turned out to be one of the few movies Eastwood directed that he didn’t at least make a cameo in, let alone act in a leading role. But what he lacked in front of the camera, he made up for on the motion picture soundtrack. 

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Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen wrote Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive in 1937, and the song was first recorded by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. It has been covered a whole bunch of times in the decades that followed, but none of them as memorable as the way Clint sang it. 

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning with Kristen Welker, it didn’t take President Donald Trump very long to channel his inner Eastwood at the non-stop negativity coming from Welker and Resistance media. 

Trump is well within his rights to push back at the constant hair on fire attitude on display with the D.C. establishment that obviously can’t stand him. If you look around, things are going pretty well. He’s got a good case to make that improvements are already happening to the economy, and there’s a lot of optimism for the future. 

Just from the jobs report last Friday, here’s the analysis from Stephen Moore.

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While anti-Trump forces talk about the calamity that is the Trump-induced stock market crash as a result of his tariffs, a funny thing has happened the last 10 trading days. The Dow is back to within 2,000 of its pre-tariff high. The S&P? Well, it’s completely shaken off the dip. 

Gas is cheaper. Eggs are less expensive and more plentiful. As fuel costs continue to decline, so, too, do transportation costs built into the price of everything in our economy. China is becoming more isolated by the day, with news of Apple shifting the manufacture of iPhones into India and the U.S. And they’re not the only company, domestically or internationally, that are decoupling from China. Have you looked at the Debt clock recently? It’s calculated that DOGE-related savings in federal spending have reached nearly $400 billion. Trump has a positive story to tell. 

Perhaps the President’s desire to focus on the good was impressed on him in the days and weeks following the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year. I’ve just started the galley edition of Salena Zito’s great new book on that whole episode. It’s very real to her, because she was there and was tackled in the process of escaping the gunfire. Events like that can have a tendency of changing a person’s outlook on life. In my case, after being diagnosed three times with cancer and being told by one doctor to get my affairs in order because I’d never see the age of 50, I see life differently. I’m 58 now, cancer free for seven years, married to the most wonderful woman on the planet, and pretty optimistic about the future, happy with each new day God lets me see. 

Trump was the commencement speaker at the University of Alabama, and had this to say to the graduates. 

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Now granted, Trump positivity might not always look like Richard Simmons positivity, it might not have the same viral life as Michael Keaton’s closing message in his commencement (I am Batman), but in his own way, Trump is trying to convey to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, things are looking up. 

I’d be happy at this point in the column to point out for comparison’s sake Kristen Welker’s treatment of Joe Biden when he was president, except for the problem that the White House never made him available, and Kristen Welker never talked on the show about the White House ducking her. She was never as critical of the Biden years as she has been thus far of Trump. And the scale balance here isn’t even close to level. 

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Narrative advancing questions, one after another, and the President deftly turns the negativity on its head by pointing it out before pivoting to what’s working. 

When attempts to get a rise out of Trump on policy issues failed, she made a play for his ego. 

One last effort by Welker to get him to commit to running again in 2028. 

Even Trump haters would have to look at the President’s answers here and shrug. This is a totally normal response from any president when asked about their legacy or possible successors. 

Now Donald Trump will always have the Trump of old in him. Take the gaggle on Air Force 1 back to D.C. from Florida. 

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But compared to the first Trump administration, this White House is much better run, more focused, without question more disciplined on messaging, and unlike the Biden regency, totally in control of the government. On the trip back to D.C, a reporter tried to press him on the move of Michael Waltz from National Security Advisor to the United Nations as ambassador. Trump tried to be nice at first, but had to shake his head and smirk before launching at the reporter for attempting to make something out of nothing. 

With China starting to signal it’s not digging the tariff regime at all, enough so that they’re willing to backpedal, trade deals with India and possibly South Korea and Japan imminent, and more clarity on what the President demands in a deal with Iran, something on which the Iranians will never agree, the week ahead might very well be another eventful one. But for now, there’s nothing wrong with accentuating the positive. 

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Trump: Let’s Reopen Alcatraz

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Alcatraz stopped being a prison in 1963, before I was born. I did take a tour of it on a trip to San Francisco decades ago and I remember it seemed small and pretty run down even then. But mostly in my lifetime what I remember is the movies about it. There was The Rock in 1996 starring Sean Connery and there were two Clint Eastwood movies set there, Escape from Alcatraz and The Enforcer.

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But yesterday, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he was interested in reopening Alcatraz to once again make it a prison for the worst offenders. He posted his statement on X this morning.

…When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets. That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

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Alcatraz island was originally a military fort which became a prison in 1933 to house the worst of the worst.

“The Federal Government had decided to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons, and to show the law-abiding public that the Federal Government was serious about stopping the rampant crime of the 1920s and 1930s,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Prisoners at Alcatraz had four rights: food, clothing, shelter, and medical care –– all other privileges, including visits from family or access to books, art supplies and music, had to be earned.

For all of its infamy, Alcatraz averaged a prison population of about 260 to 275 prisoners at any given time – less than 1 percent of the total federal jail population. Most of the prison’s inmates were among those who refused to conform to rules at other federal jails or who were deemed “escape risks.”

There were many escape attempts over the years. The one dramatized in Clint Eastwood’s movie Escape from Alcatraz resulted in three prisoners leaving and never being seen again. No one knows for certain if they survived the mile-long swim to San Francisco or if they died in the attempt. That escape happened in 1962 and the prison was shut down a year later, mostly because of the cost of operating it.

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Alcatraz was shuttered “because the institution was too expensive to continue operating,” according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It said operating the island prison was nearly three times more expensive than any other federal prison at the time.

“This isolation meant that everything (food, supplies, water, fuel…) had to be brought to Alcatraz by boat,” the bureau says. “For example, the island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week.”

Reactions from California Democrats are about what you’d expect.

In California, Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, called Mr. Trump’s idea “absurd on its face” and the latest example of what he called the president’s “continuing unhinged behavior.”

A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom laughed when asked about the president’s order. “Looks like it’s Distraction Day again in Washington, D.C.,” Izzy Gardon, the governor’s director of communications, said.

The Babylon Bee’s reaction seems to have been inspired by another great movie by John Carpenter.

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Here’s Trump’s response when asked where he got the idea to do this.

Posted in Republican News

Weeks Ago, Valero Said It Was Closing Its Benicia, CA Refinery – Now There’s a Fire

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Weeks Ago, Valero Said It Was Closing Its Benicia, CA Refinery - Now There's a Fire 6

The skies over northern California have been filled with toxic smoke of one description or another this past year, from lithium-ion storage facilities to now an oil refinery fire that has just erupted this morning. 

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I read a Xweet earlier that said the area was ‘snakebit,’ and you could certainly look at it that way. Nothing but bad news, with most of it self-induced and all of it energy-related in some manner. 

Energy company Valero has been signaling for over six months that it was seriously considering shuttering two of its California refineries. The first word of their intentions came last October, and only a week after Phillips 66 announced they were going to close down their 100-year-old refinery outside of Los Angeles. All of these rather drastic moves were blamed on Gov. Gavin Newsom and the CA legislature’s hostile climate for any fossil fuel-related business operating in the state.

It was simply becoming untenable.

Little more was heard from Valero until a few weeks ago, and only then because they made it official – their company was closing the San Francisco area Benicia refinery in 2026.

Valero Energy (VLO.N), opens new tab on Thursday said it would cease operations at its 170,000-barrel-per-day San Francisco-area oil refinery next year amid worries about California’s declining fuel supplies and high gasoline prices.
The decision clarifies plans for the Benicia refinery after the San Antonio, Texas-based refiner last week announced its intent to “idle, restructure, or cease operations” there by the end of April 2026. Valero also said it had recorded a $1.1 billion pre-tax impairment related to its California refineries.

Valero CEO Lane Riggs cited challenging regulatory and enforcement environment for the decision to cease operations.

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There are some major problems with the planned Benicia shutdown, and not just the fact that it provides over 9% of the gasoline for the state and 20% of the taxes that keep the town alive.

It’s also the major fuel supplier for Travis Air Force Base, delivered via direct pipeline from the refinery to the base fuel pits. The busy military hub uses a tremendous amount of jet fuel that is not easily replaceable by CA’s rapidly dwindling sources, and that would have to be brought in by a fuel truck.

…“We need to get moving on this quickly because 12 months is not a long time given the severity of the economic impact,” said Young, noting that nearly 20% of Benicia’s $60 million budget comes from the refinery. “I think that’s part of my frustration, is how little time we have to try to plan for some kind of an alternative.”

Shutting down the facility, he added, would also be a major blow to the hundreds of residents who work there, not to mention the scores of restaurants, hotels and other businesses that provide services to those workers in this city of some 27,000 residents.

The Valero refinery is also the exclusive supplier of jet fuel to nearby Travis Air Force Base, which it delivers through a direct pipeline.

“If that is stopped, what does that mean to the base?” Young said. “Travis uses an amazing amount of fuel to fly all their planes, much more than can be easily replaced, and certainly not replaced within a year. So I think that this becomes a matter of real concern to the Defense Department and it’s potentially a national security issue.”

Valero dropped its bombshell April 16 announcement roughly six months after regional and state air regulators fined the company a record $82 million for secretly exceeding toxic emissions standards for at least 15 years. And last month, city leaders voted unanimously to impose moderate new safety regulations on the facility.

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Now you’re into a significant national security issue and one that could trigger a Trump intervention on those grounds, for the state’s regulations themselves imperiling our nation’s ability to respond to a national emergency or wartime scenario.

Newsom, of course, went into CYA mode as if this was the first he’d heard of any of it, even though the state was already hypocritically having to bolster its refined products with imports from such carbon-neutral shipping origins as Singapore. 

California is literally dependent on fuel shipments from Asia to survive, which were already in the works thanks to the Phillips closure.

…According to energy shipping specialists Poten & Partners, the refinery shutdown will increase the amount of fuel that California imports from East Asian refiners. Domestic tanker capacity is nearly at full utilization, and there is no orderbook for additional U.S.-built tankers at present, so Poten believes that additional shipments from the Gulf Coast to California are unlikely. Instead, the consultancy suggests, the replacement fuel will likely come from the place with the greatest capacity to produce it at a favorable cost – East Asia.

Not to mention, neighboring states that depend on the output of CA refineries for their own states’ fuel needs had already sent ‘What in the Sam Hell you guys THINKING?!’ letters to Newsom about the lunacy imperiling their own citizens.

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…warning him that his plan was ridiculous.  

Gavin doesn’t care about them, or us.  

He only cares about his bank account.

Newsom is smoothly assuring everyone he’s trying to quell the ‘anxiety’ over the possible fuel shortages, even as he does nothing to retract any of the regulations causing the exodus in the first place. As my friend Leslie Eastman noted…

…With the state’s ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars in 2035, new refineries are not being built, leaving remaining refineries operating at nearly 100% capacity at all times. As a result, outages at even a single refinery result in spikes in gas prices.

As a reminder, the new regulations would require energy companies to stockpile gasoline. Furthermore, our state legislature was keen on allowing wildfire victims to sue energy companies due to ‘climate crisis’ claims.

The progressives couldn’t help themselves piling on and are still, even in the face of oil companies exiting the state completely, unwilling to even take one foot off the neck of their sworn enemies and cash cows.

…In September 2023, Newsom’s administration filed a lawsuit targeting the oil industry for “lying to consumers for more than 50 years” about climate change. He signed into law a bill seeking to hold Chevron and other refiners liable for allegedly price-gouging consumers. California bill SB X1-2 authorizes the state energy commission to determine an acceptable profit margin for in-state refiners and penalize those that exceed it. More recently, bill AB X2-1 has mandated increased reporting requirements by the state’s refiners.

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Oh, well done, Gov Randall Flagg-lite and your toadies.

As for the year the state thought it had to find alternative fuel sources and soothe anxious feathers, something happened this morning that may have taken Newsom’s grace period away.

The Valero Benicia refinery caught fire this morning.

The smoke has been thick enough that Contra Costa County Health has issued a shelter-in-place order for schools in the area and if residents see or smell smokes while fire crews battle the blaze.

Now the concern turns to whether Valero repairs any of the damage to keep the refinery operational until next year. Or if, depending on how extensive the damage is assessed to be once the flames are out, they throw in the towel, like, NOW.

They’ve already taken a billion-dollar write-down on this facility this year – what are the odds they write the whole thing off?

What does Newsom do then?

What is anyone going to do when this goes away and, God forbid, there’s another ‘oops‘ at one of the few remaining refineries or they simply have to shut down for maintenance or seasonal fuel formulation?

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What then, geniuses?

What then.

Posted in Republican News

Biden’s Team Decided Not to Give Him a Cognitive Test in Early 2024

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There’s another book coming out this summer which sheds some light on Joe Biden’s mental state as he campaigned for a 2nd term in 2024. It’s titled “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America” and was co-written by three journalists from three different news outlets. Yesterday the NY Times published a preview of one story from the book about how Joe Biden’s team considered and then decided against giving him a cognitive test in February of 2024.

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The debate over whether the president should take the test occurred in February 2024, several months before the June debate against President Donald Trump, and just a couple of weeks before Biden’s White House physical exam, the Times reported. 

It was the same month that Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report about the former president’s mishandling of classified documents was released. The special counsel described Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The report was released on Feb. 8 and became a topic of discussion in the media, with many Democrats arguing it was unfair of Hur to make comments about Biden if he didn’t plan to charge him with anything. Hur’s report specifically argued that it would be hard to get a conviction in part because a jury would by too likely to believe him if he said he couldn’t remember specific events.

The next day, Feb. 9th, was the day that Biden held a press conference where he got confused about the “President of Mexico.”

When President Biden appeared at a last-minute news conference on Thursday night, he hoped to assure the country of his mental acuity hours after a special counsel’s report had devastatingly referred to him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Instead, a visibly angry Mr. Biden made the exact type of verbal flub that has kept Democrats so nervous for months, mistakenly referring to the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as the “president of Mexico” as he tried to address the latest developments in the war in Gaza…

Still, Mr. Biden’s mix-up of Egypt and Mexico came soon after a couple of slips in the last week regarding deceased European leaders. First, during a campaign swing in Nevada, he confused François Mitterrand, a former French president who died in 1996, with the country’s current president, Emmanuel Macron. Then, on Wednesday, he referred twice to having met in 2021 with Helmut Kohl, a former German chancellor who died in 2017, instead of with Angela Merkel, who led the country three years ago.

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Suffice it to say, the Biden team was on the back foot after that news conference and was probably looking for a way to convince people he was fine. Since Biden’s final medical exam before the 2024 election was released at the end of February, it seems his team was considering adding the cognitive exam to the other tests performed by his doctor. 

The story claims Biden’s team was confident he would pass the cognitive exam, but decided not to do it because it would only add to the discussion of his decline by suggesting the test was necessary. They may also have been put off by the fact that Biden’s doctor had warned he would treat Biden like any other patient, without regard to his political office. In other words, if Biden had failed the test he would not have been willing to pretend otherwise.

There’s one more tidbit in the story about David Axelrod who was one of the few “elder statesmen” in the Democratic Party who had questioned Biden’s fitness to run for a 2nd term. Back in 2002, Axelrod had said Biden looked his age and suggested he didn’t seem capable of running again. 

“The stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” Mr. Axelrod said.

That comment prompted an angry call to Mr. Axelrod from Ron Klain, then Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, according to the book. Mr. Klain wanted to know why Mr. Axelrod was fueling doubts about a Democratic president who was on track to begin a re-election campaign.

“There’s no Obama out there, Axe,” Mr. Klain told him, the book recounts. “Who’s going to do it if he doesn’t do it?”

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Those comments reflect on Biden but also on Kamala Harris. As I said several times before the election, the Democrats’ biggest problem was that the only alternative to Biden was someone arguably worse. It sounds pretty clear that Ron Klain felt that way already in 2022. He knew then the party had no better option that an aging Joe Biden. 

Posted in Republican News

Trump: Iran Must Dismantle Its Nuclear Program, ‘Nothing Less’

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Trump: Iran Must Dismantle Its Nuclear Program, 'Nothing Less' 10

Is this Donald Trump’s final word? Or did he leave room to negotiate?

Amid concerns that the US had sent mixed signals in its outreach to Iran for a peace accord, NBC’s Kristin Welker asked Trump directly about his “bottom line” with Tehran. Would Iran be allowed to pursue nuclear development if limited to civilian purposes? Absolutely not, Trump replied … mostly:

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Trump’s remarks in an “Meet the Press” interview aired Sunday are the first time he’s publicly announced the ambitious goal since nuclear talks began with Iran a month ago.

  • GOP senators, evangelical leaders and other Trump supporters have called on the president in recent days to make his position clear regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

What they’re saying: “Total dismantlement. Yes, that is all I would accept,” Trump told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

Did he make it clear, though? When Welker continued to press, Trump suggested he could be convinced otherwise:

  • Trump said he is open to hearing arguments in favor of Iran having a civilian nuclear program, which is something that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also said he supports.
  • “There’s a pathway to a civil, peaceful nuclear program if they want one,” Rubio said last month on the “Honestly with Bari Weiss” podcast.

The point of clarity would be that the US wants solid defenses against any military use of nuclear technology. That has been pretty much the US position for the last several decades, but has had wildly different interpretations. The Bush and Trump administrations demanded strict oversight and controls on their civilian development, where the Obama and Biden administrations never bothered to demand supervised compliance. We are now back to the position that Iran must fully disclose and dismantle its military development of nuclear technology in a solidly verifiable manner. 

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That is not a new position, but it it takes place in an entirely new context. Iran no longer has reliable forward defenses against Israel and the US. Hezbollah stupidly launched a war against Israel and got destroyed as a counterweight proxy for Tehran. That led directly to the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria and its alliance with the mullahs. The Iranians have far fewer defenses against punitive and/or pre-emptive strikes on its nuclear and missile facilities, which it learned even before the fall of Assad and collapse of Hezbollah after the equally stupid decision to directly attack Israel — twice. 

Tehran is worried enough to have its foreign minister go on Twitter to appeal to the radical anti-Semites in the US to apply pressure on Trump:

The world has also learned how Netanyahu is directly MEDDLING within the U.S. Government to DRAG it into another DISASTER in our region. Netanyahu CONNED the Failed Biden Team into handing over UNPRECEDENTED 23 BILLION American Taxpayer Dollars. That is a FRACTION of the cost of ANY mistake against Iran. If the goal is “The only thing they can’t have is a nuclear weapon” as President Trump just said, a deal is achievable and there is only ONE PATH to achieve it: DIPLOMACY based on MUTUAL RESPECT and MUTUAL INTERESTS. The Netanyahu-First minority, terrified of diplomacy, has already divulged its real agenda. The world should pay attention as it reveals its true priority.

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Translated: Beware the Jooooooooos.

The Israelis are definitely concerned that Trump might take a deal that does little to contain the Iranian nuclear program. The missteps made by Steven Witkoff with Hamas did nothing to boost their confidence, although they probably feel better having Marco Rubio taking over the national-security adviser position. Witkoff also clarified his earlier, friendlier remarks:

Israel is reportedly deeply concerned that the US is closing in on a “bad deal” with Iran that will not meet Jerusalem’s stated essential conditions, that Israel believes the negotiations are “very, very advanced,” and that the US is not sharing enough information with Israel on key specific issues.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long insisted that Israel will not allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons, and has been vocally opposed to any talks that don’t lead Iran to agree to a “Libya-style agreement,” under which Tehran’s entire nuclear program, both military and civilian, would be dismantled completely. …

Trump’s comments followed a series of statements from administration officials about Washington’s demands in the talks, with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who has been leading the US team in the talks, saying last month that the administration was seeking a deal that would limit rather than destroy Iran’s nuclear program, clarifying later that any deal must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”

Hopefully, the Trump administration has refocused on both the threat and the context. An Iranian nuclear weapon would threaten everyone in the region, not just Israel but also American forces and other allies. The context now gives us the best leverage in decades to put an end to that threat. This is the time for toughness rather than haste to get any kind of deal for domestic political purposes. That’s what got us the JCPOA, which Trump once correctly called the worst deal in modern American history. 

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Addendum: There was plenty more in Trump’s appearance on Meet the Press. Duane will have a comprehensive look at the rest later this afternoon. One has to note the contrast of having a president who can handle interviews extemporaneously with, er … what came before. 

Posted in Republican News

Tariffs on Foreign Films?

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Are you worried about the threat of foreign films?

For that matter, aside from Bollywood, are you aware that there is such a thing as a foreign movie industry? It sounds vaguely familiar, but when was the last time you went to see a foreign film?

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I tend to agree with the people criticizing Trump’s move to impose tariffs on foreign films–it seems unworkable in practice, and I’m pretty sure woke ideology is a worse propaganda threat than any that foreign governments might sneak into films that any American would be likely to see. 

In other words, foreign films aren’t an obvious national security threat, and tariffs aren’t going to address the much deeper threat that lefty Disney executives pose to our vulnerable youth. And if that is the case, the rationale the president is asserting to give himself the power to impose such tariffs unilaterally is pretty stupid. 

But, to be fair, Trump’s “Truth” in which he announces these tariffs suggests that his worry is not that Americans are being force-fed Chinese propaganda through the nefarious means of producing films anybody wants to see. What it is really all about is striking back at the subsidies foreign governments give to American film companies to shoot their films elsewhere. 

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In other words, Trump’s real problem seems to be that countries like Canada are luring studios to shoot movies on their shores. It’s not the movie studios who are being hurt–although he implies that in his tweet–but labor. The studios are actually being given a deal, not being hurt by foreign competition. 

Either that, or Trump is making the most idiotic claim: that the Canadians, the French, or the Chinese are outcompeting American studios. If that is the case, I’d love to see the numbers that show it. 

So let’s assume that my more rational explanation for Trump’s move–protecting laborers in the movie industry by driving studios to reshore the filming of movies back to the United States–is the real motivation, and the whole national security/propaganda is the fig leaf he is using to justify his power to impose the tariffs. Does he have a case to be made?

I don’t think so. This policy still seems stupid and counterproductive. As annoying as it is to have Canada outcompete America as a place to shoot movies, tariffs are a pretty awful way to deal with a minor problem in the grand scheme of things. Film subsidies are a thing in many US states- also a stupid policy- and if the president believes this is an issue, he should just include it as part of the massive trade renegotiations that are going on right now. 

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Let’s face it, if Trump is right that the studios are being killed these days, it has nothing to do with foreign competition. There is no French “Die Hard” or “Bourne” movie that is trashing American films because foreign governments are flooding the country with propaganda films, corrupting the minds of Americans. 

The problem is that American movies have sucked eggs for the past few years, both because the studios have run out of good ideas and because the few ideas they have are themselves unwelcome woke propaganda that Americans are rejecting in droves. The market is sending a big message to Hollywood. Chinese competition is not the problem. 

The one area in which foreign governments have inordinate influence is something no tariff can address: studios, being dependent on foreign viewers for much of their profits, are afraid to offend countries like China. Foreign governments pressure studios to avoid topics that undermine their domestic propaganda. Remember the controversy about Top Gun removing the Taiwanese flag on Maverick’s jacket? The studio hid the flag to ensure it could access hundreds of millions of moviegoers in China. To add insult to injury, Chinese company Tencent was an investor in the movie. 

Top Gun’s producers restored the flag, lost the investor, and the movie wasn’t released in China. No amount of tariffs could address this issue. It’s the American studios, chasing the Chinese market, who are inserting propaganda or failing to criticize China at times, and that is a problem that tariffs can’t address. 

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In short, the problem with America’s movie industry is American in origin, so “America First” policies won’t save the industry. Adjusting to the market here will help, and the China propaganda problem is all about dealing with the politics of accessing the Chinese market, not the Chinese flooding our market with cheap films. 

The US government can’t solve this problem. I’m not sure why Trump is trying to. 

Posted in Republican News

Romanian Elections Not Going According to Best Laid Plans

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Even against the finest machinations the political establishment can produce, sometimes those cranky, knuckling-dragging peasants still do the exact opposite of what the end result was meant to be.

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Romania is starting to look like a classic example of overcooking the goose, because, however well-meaning or even honest the intentions of the election bureaucracy and the country’s court system were, the Romanian people certainly appear to believe that they weren’t, have taken a diametrically opposing viewpoint, and are acting on it.

Particularly as they believe assertions have been made to justify drastic actions taken, with little evidence provided for the doing so.

A quick recap is in order to keep the players and offenses straight.

No matter who wins Sunday’s first round of the Romanian presidential election, it is a crisis for the country, for the European Union and for the relations of both with the United States.

This is the second attempt to hold the election. The regularly scheduled one was annulled last December amid accusations of candidate and government corruption. Cǎlin Georgescu, a Romanian nationalist, populist admirer of Donald Trump, mystical Christian and opponent of the Ukraine war, came seemingly out of nowhere to win the first round. He took 23% of the vote on the strength of a charismatic TikTok campaign, advancing to the second round against the centrist Elena Lasconi. For the first time since Communism, the country’s invincible-looking political establishment seemed to have been shut out of the presidency.

Calin Georgescu is rumored to be Soviet Union-friendly while not being of NATO as a whole.

The country’s Constitutional Court was so horrified that such an unsuitable candidate could come in so high that they ordered a recount, which found no irregularities in the voting. Romania’s Supreme Council for National Defense (CSAT) did, however, declassify evidence it said proved the Russians had set up over 800 TikTok accounts to support Georgescu’s campaign, which the Court said was enough foreign interference to annul the first election even as voting in the second part was underway.

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In early March, Georgescu was snatched up on his way to file for the latest election attempt in May, interrogated for several hours, and then banned from running for office. At the same time, another candidate was banned for not being pro-Romania’s European Union and NATO membership enough in her public statements.

A few days later, the Constitutional Court upheld Georgescu’s ban, and he consoled his followers while urging them to consolidate around someone else vice start any trouble.

Romanian far-right populist Calin Georgescu has lost his appeal against a ruling barring him from participating in May’s presidential election.

The Constitutional Court issued the final ruling on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for two hours. It said the decision was unanimous.

The Central Electoral Bureau had earlier rejected Georgescu’s candidacy for a rerun of the presidential election in May.

…”If you want to support anyone by signing new lists for the presidential campaign, please do as your conscience tells you,” he said. “It seems democracy and freedom are taking their last breath these days.

“But we need to show now, more than any other time, that our choice matters in a peaceful and democratic way,” Georgescu added.

That ‘someone’ became George Simion, most often characterized as a ‘nationalist and sovereigntist,’ who’d been the fourth-place also-ran in that first annulled election all the way back last fall and yet had expressed support immediately after Georgescu’s banning.

…Many Romanians believe he [Georgescu] is being blocked by a political elite that is corrupt and remote from the people.

George Simion, an ally of Georgescu and the leader of the far-right opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR) wrote on Facebook: “Shame! You will not defeat us. The people of Romania have awoken. They will win.“

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Simion has continued to do so and has been rising in the polls accordingly, even though he is less of a ‘character’ than Georgescu. I guess what would be considered more moderate compared to him, and, so far, devoid of any pro-Russian stigma that enveloped Georgescu. Simion was also savvy enough to attend Trump’s inauguration.

…But we do know enough about the state of Romanian voters’ minds to pass judgment on what happened with its democracy last autumn. Obviously there was a genuine wave of rebellion behind Georgescu. We can tell from the behavior of voters and candidates in the months since. In Georgescu’s absence, George Simion, a member of the Right-wing Alliance for the Union of Romanians, is well ahead of the pack in the latest polls, at around 30%. (Georgescu once belonged to the AUR but was ousted for speaking sympathetically of the Legionaries, an interwar fascist group.)

Simion has risen primarily by consolidating his party’s base. More conventionally conservative than Georgescu, more sympathetic to the war in Ukraine, less a charismatic outsider, he has nonetheless tried to drape himself in Georgescu’s cause, showing up to Easter services with him. Simion even suggested he might make Georgescu his prime minister if elected. And he attended the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington. Victor Ponta, a savvy former Social Democratic prime minister, considered an ideological chameleon — he, too, made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. The centrist candidate Crin Antonescu, former leader of the Liberal party, is probably the last, best chance for the decades-old Romanian establishment to hang on. Yet one Romanian political scientist told the French newspaper Libération that nowadays, in some of his rhetorical flights, Antonescu “could pass for a member of [Marine Le Pen’s] National Rally”. Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan, another tough-talking member of the establishment, has been trying to squeeze out Lasconi. Antonescu is thought to have the better chance of beating Simion in the second round. Shaken by the persistence of a disruptive war and the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the Romanian political landscape is changing.

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Simion went into the first round of elections yesterday, hovering at about 30% in the polls, but time must have been his friend in the months between Georgescu’s banning and Romanians then having a chance to watch what was going on in the rest of Europe aka France, Germany, and Austria/Vienna.

He came out of the ballot boxes with over 40% of the votes cast.

The rematch is going to be a true clash of concepts of European Union-central civilization.

…The upcoming 18 May vote is shaping up to be a referendum on Romania’s future: one aligned with Europe, or one leaning toward isolationism.

Simion, a nationalist and sovereigntist, capitalised on a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. For the second consecutive time, Romania’s main parties — the Social Democrats (PSD) and the Liberals (PNL) — failed to send their candidate, Crin Antonescu, to the runoff, despite heavy financial backing and support from a large network of mayors who traditionally influence voter turnout.

But now this strategy fell flat.

Simion won in 36 of Romania’s 41 counties, including that of current Social Democratic Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. Perhaps most surprising was the overwhelming support Simion received from Romanians living in Europe, while Romanians in Moldova and the United States favored Nicușor Dan.

The runoff promises to be unpredictable.

With 40% of the vote, Simion, an open supporter of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement who opposes aid to Ukraine, enters as the frontrunner. He is also expected to attract voters from former PSD leader Victor Ponta, who ran a sovereigntist campaign that brought him around 14% support.

Simion is likely to also draw additional backing from segments of the Social Democratic base, especially among those who share his views on Orthodox values, the traditional family, and resistance to expanding minority rights, particularly for the LGBTQ+ community.

In the lead-up to the May 18 runoff, “this won’t be a debate between individuals,” warned Nicușor Dan on Sunday night. “It will be a debate between two visions for Romania: one pro-Western, the other anti-Western.”

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Simion, while wrapping himself in Georgescu draperies, doesn’t see himself as ‘anti-Western,’ but as ‘anti-EU total control over a country.’ 

He is aligning himself with the Meloni-ist conservative members of the European Union.

…Speaking to Brussels Signal on May 5, George Simion vowed to vowed to maintain a defiant tone toward EU institutions.

“I come to Brussels with peace and reason, not conflict and provocation. The European Union has 27 nations, each with its own language, heritage, and challenges. A one-size-fits-all, Brussels-centered model cannot work for all. This is a very obvious, common-sense fact,” he said.

Simion went on to stress his alignment with other EU national-conservative figures: “The conservative movement within the EU, which I am proudly a part of, demands respect, not reprimand. Along with Mrs. Meloni, Mr. Morawiecki, we believe in a European Union of sovereign nations, united by cooperation, not coerced by bureaucracy,” he said.

Openly critical of European Union leadership and a vocal opponent of military aid to Ukraine, Simion lead a wave of public frustration at Romania’s political elite.

As Simion is openly critical of EU leadership, but not the EU itself, will that be enough to stave off judicial interference before the next round of Democracy, European-style?

I’m not even going to take that bet.

No, sir.

Beege ADDS: Darn it. I forgot to toss this end-of-April nugget into the mix. My bad.

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Romania’s electoral authorities are looking into the finances of the country’s far-right presidential frontrunner days before a key vote, after details emerged of an alleged contract between his party and a US lobbying firm.

Local media reported that the Alliance for the Unity of Romanians, led by George Simion, signed a contract with the US-based BGD Legal & Consulting firm to organize meetings in the US and consult on media engagement for a fee of $1.5 million.

…While Simion’s party is entitled to engage in campaigning efforts and can receive state funds to do so, Romania’s electoral authorities say they weren’t notified of the lobbying deal. They will now investigate the funding for AUR’s presidential campaign and its overall activities, the electoral authority said in an emailed statement on Thursday.

I told you I wasn’t taking that bet.

Posted in Republican News

Psaki: Cover-Up of Biden Senility? Huh? (Update)

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Come on, man. Even the media has begun to admit — grudgingly and while covering up their own part of it — that the White House covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive collapse in the White House. Don’t micturate on our heads and then tell us about all of the precipitation in the area.

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Jen Psaki left the White House in May 2022, she reminds Semafor’s Ben Smith in his podcast, so she claims to not know what took place after her departure. We’ll get back to that in a moment, but Psaki gripes about the “right wing” talking points about Biden’s cognitive status going back to 2019 and 2020. Smith chortles along with this rather than challenging Psaki about her claims, while she declares “cover up” to be a loaded term.

Psaki also claims that the Joe Biden that showed up for the June 27 debate with Trump was the first time she ever saw that version of Biden:

MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki defended the Biden administration that once employed her by suggesting they didn’t cover up then-President Joe Biden‘s mental decline, that it just happened “quite quickly.”

Psaki served as the White House press secretary during the first half of Biden’s term. In the months since Biden left office, many revelations have emerged about his mental acuity while serving as president of the United States, even before and while he was running for reelection. According to Psaki, his staff never tried to hide his mental state, but he declined rapidly.

“I left in May of 2022 — just for the facts here — and I have seen Biden once since then when I took my daughter to the holiday party this last December after he had lost. So I hadn’t seen him in person during that period of time. I never saw that person not a single time — and I was in the Oval Office every day — that was on that debate stage. I’m not a doctor. Aging happens quite quickly,” Psaki said on the Mixed Signals podcast on Saturday.

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Ahem. How does Psaki explain this sequence in April 2022, when she still worked at the White House? Biden went to talk to people on the rope line at the White House Easter egg roll, and the Easter Bunny bodily intervened:

To my recollection, the White House aide in the bunny suit has never been specifically identified. However, media did report at the time (the few outlets that bothered to report on it at all) that the aide was believed to have worked in Psaki’s comms department. Someone at the White House told that aide to keep Biden from interacting with reporters and spectators, and cared more about preventing it than they cared about how it looked. The idea that no one saw Biden’s cognitive decline during Psaki’s tenure is absurd; there is no other explanation for having a costumed aide physically block the President of the United States from interacting with the press.

Psaki insists that “cover up” is “a very loaded term,” to which Smith agrees, saying that it might just be self-delusion by Biden’s team:

Psaki didn’t entertain the notion of a political cover-up from her former colleagues.

“It’s a very loaded term, I think. A cover-up is often like a crime. People use that term when they refer to Watergate or the covering up of not sharing public information and about a war,” she said.

You better believe it’s a crime. A cover-up of a president’s incapacity is a fraud on the American people. Voters put Joe Biden in office, and if he was not the person exercising the executive authority, then someone or some others were doing so illegitimately. That would be worse than Watergate, exponentially so. It violates the Constitution (especially the 25th Amendment), and strips the electorate of their agency in choosing the person to hold and use executive authority. Not only that, but the same people tried to prop Biden up for a second term in office, so that they could continue to exercise presidential authority through fraud and deception.

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And the gripes about the “right-wing messaging” are simply ludicrous and expose Psaki as an unserious hack. The White House spent years lying about Biden’s condition and getting the Protection Racket Media to help cover it up. They claimed that Biden’s aphasiac moments on stage were due to his childhood stutter; they created the term “cheap fakes” to explain videos of his senile moments in public; they installed the short staircase on Air Force One to cover up Biden’s mobility issues.They insisted right until that June 2024 presidential debate that Biden was Sharp As A Tack and Running Rings Around Aides Half His Age. Karine Jean-Pierre was a particular locus of that propagandizing, with the American news media swallowing and regurgitating it gleefully in an attempt to get American voters to discount the evidence of their own eyeballs.

 And now that the secret has been exposed, the media has launched its new Now It Can Be Told literary genre to finally report on how Biden’s encroaching dementia sent up clues all along, with the White House covering it up. This genre notably excludes their own participation in the fraud, of course. 

This cover-up should permanently stain everyone who participated in it. But it should stain more those who want to continue the cover-up, and those who chortle along with it.

Update: VIP member Soused Shark dug up the identity of the aide wearing the bunny suit, reported by Newsweek not long afterward:

The identity of the Easter Bunny was initially rumored to be White House’s press assistant Angela Perez, who had tweeted a photo of the same Easter Bunny attending the egg roll sitting at a press office desk.

The bunny was later revealed to be Meghan Hay, special assistant to the president and director of message planning at the White House, a role which explains why the bunny was taking the liberty to redirect the president through his engagements of the day and give him instructions.

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It most certainly did not explain it, but it’s clear that the comms department felt empowered to tell Biden to stop talking to people. And Psaki pretends not to know about that? Puh-leeeeeze. 

The Protection Racket Media is simply shameless. They will never hold White House aides accountable for saddling this country with a senile president, nor themselves for enabling the cover-up and participating in it. These are “cheap fake” journalists, activists with a press badge, and the only way to hold them accountable is to support independent voices and platforms to expose these frauds. 

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Posted in Republican News

NPR’s Maher Gets the First Amendment Wrong–Again

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It wasn’t that long ago that Katherine Maher was complaining to The Atlantic Council that the First Amendment presented an unfortunate obstacle to the necessary task of shutting Americans up. 

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Maher might be interpreted as lamenting the fact that the elites, who are always right, couldn’t ensure that Americans were spoon-fed only the best information available, but she can’t even resort to that claim. As CEO of Wikipedia, she argued that getting the facts right wasn’t really the point. Misleading people in order to get them to believe the “right” things should be the task of all right-thinking people. 

In other words, don’t let the truth get in the way of getting people to do the “right” thing. Even her defense of NPR’s funding is based on a headspinning argument–that public radio will die on the vine without federal funding–that contradicts NPR’s other constant refrain that they don’t rely on federal funding because it represents so small a portion of their budget. 

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Maher, you see, is a big fan of censorship and of lying to people to nudge them in a preferred direction, and the First Amendment presents a problem for attaining that goal. (Although Wikipedia, at least, is big into silencing voices that are a bit too free for the good of the country.) Unless, of course, she needs to pretend that NPR is the key to protecting the First Amendment, in which case it is the best thing ever.  

But now that NPR and Public Broadcasting as a whole are in danger of losing federal funding–let’s see whether that really happens, since an Executive Order alone will not guarantee that outcome–Maher has discovered a use for the First Amendment after all: guaranteeing that she and her employees can continue to suck off the government tit. 

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Somehow, according to Maher, NPR has a Constitution-guaranteed right to government funding. Failing to hand money to an organization that promotes cannibalism–I kid you not, they did–is censorship. 

Far be it from me to claim to be a Constitutional scholar, but last I checked, I haven’t gotten a dime from the federal government to ensure my voice can be heard. In fact, unlike NPR, I get taxed quite a bit on the money I make from expressing them. 

I also don’t pretend that I am an unbiased source of information, while NPR insists that they are not just a legitimate news source–they are–but an unbiased one that serves the public interest. Apparently, trashing the Declaration of Independence somehow fits that description. 

NPR’s programming is indeed very popular with a slice of the population, but that slice is the wealthy and hardly representative of the general public. People who can and do throw gobs of money to the organization, and it accepts gobs of money for thinly-veiled advertisements presented as acknowledgement for grants. 

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The audience is overwhelmingly white, college-educated, mostly female, and looks very much like Katherine Maher, come to think of it. To suggest that they wouldn’t or couldn’t have a voice without government funding is about as absurd as saying that Stacey Abrams’ $100 NGO is clearly the best place to dump $2 billion in federal money to fight climate change. 

Subsidizing NPR is just subsidizing AWFLs with tax dollars from the hoi polloi, who, you will recall, should be censored by the likes of Katherine Maher and propagandized by Wikipedia, as she outlined in her TED talk. 

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting hides behind Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch to justify its public subsidies, but, ironically, its children’s programming is extraordinarily profitable for PBS. Do you think that all those toys and tchotchkes sold are unlicensed copies from which they make no money? 

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In my previous life as a pundit and activist, I spent a lot of time talking with the media and appearing on shows. I’ll let you in on a secret: there is no nicer set of studios than those at Minnesota Public Radio. Always the newest technology, the best offices and studios I have ever seen, and everything seems gold-plated. That’s fine, if tax dollars weren’t paying for it, but it all is. 

I would not like it at all if Trump tried to force public broadcast outlets into becoming propaganda outlets for the Right. I don’t want the government funding propagandistic media for anybody. 

If wealthy, white, older liberals want to keep NPR and other public broadcasters going, they are welcome to fund them. Here in Minnesota, the state, localities, colleges, and other sources pour public money into Minnesota Public Radio. We even have a slice of our lottery money dedicated to keeping public broadcasting fat and happy. 

Most states do something similar. 

Regardless of your opinion regarding the content of public broadcasting, it’s obvious that government subsidies for broadcast media (or any media) are built into the Constitution. The claim is absurd on its face, as is the claim that Katherine Maher is a brave defender of free speech. 

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She is unabashed in her support of propaganda, censorship–including that sponsored by the government through grants to “misinformation”-fighting NGOs. 

Congress–defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ASAP. 

Posted in Republican News

Israel to Gazans: Return the Hostages — Or Else

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Has Israel finally had enough of Hamas manipulation and war after nineteen years in Gaza and nineteen months of war? Their ultimatum today makes that case, assuming the Israeli government has the conviction to follow through on it.

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Next week, Donald Trump will pay a visit to the Middle East, including Israel, presumably to work on expansion and strengthening of the Abraham Accords. If the hostages have not been returned to Israel by that time, the IDF will start seizing and occupying Gaza — permanently:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet voted to scale up the offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza to the point of seizing the entire enclave and holding its territories, an Israeli official said on Monday …

Already in control of around a third of Gaza’s territory, Israel resumed ground operations in March after the collapse of a U.S.-backed ceasefire that had halted fighting for two months. It has since imposed a total blockade of aid into the enclave.

Elkin said that rather than launching raids in specific areas and then leaving them as the military had done so far, the Israeli forces will now hold the territories they seize, until Hamas is defeated or agrees to disarm and leave Gaza.

No more Mr. Nice Guy, in other words. 

The Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to conduct ‘Operation Gideon’s Chariots’ to put an end to Hamas’ control and operations on Israel’s borders. That unanimity is itself surprising in a coalition cabinet, especially with the political pressure raised by hostage families and their allies. It’s also surprising in that Israel has tried to avoid any re-occupation of ‘Palestinian’ territories, and has refused to implement any forced relocation of the populations in Gaza and the West Bank.

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Both of those positions have changed, at least rhetorically:

According to the official, “a central component of the plan is the extensive evacuation of the entire Gazan population from combat zones, including from northern Gaza, to areas in southern Gaza, while creating separation between them and Hamas terrorists, in order to allow the IDF operational freedom of action.”

“Unlike in the past, the IDF will remain in every area that is conquered, to prevent the return of terror, and will handle every cleared area according to the Rafah model, where all threats were leveled and it became part of the security zone,” he says, referring to an Israeli-held buffer zone.

The official says the “blockade” on humanitarian aid will continue, and “only later, after the beginning of operational activity and a broad evacuation of the population to the south, a humanitarian plan will be implemented.”

To the south, perhaps, but not fully south. The IDF will erect some sort of cordon sanitaire in and around Rafah, but the implication is that the Israelis will seize permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor: 

The official says the IDF’s deployment prior to the start of the major operation “will provide a window of opportunity until the end of the US president’s visit to the region to carry out a hostage deal according to the ‘Witkoff framework.’”

“In such a case, Israel will seek to retain territory that has been cleared and added to the security zone… In any temporary or permanent arrangement, Israel will not evacuate the security zone around Gaza, which is intended to protect communities and prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas,” he says.

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That has to be a reference to the Philadelphi Corridor, which is where most of the smuggling operations took place. One has to wonder what the Egyptians think of this plan. They may get angry that Israel is unilaterally changing that shared border, and will likely object strenuously …. in public. In private, they might be relieved to stop dealing with Hamas smuggling and constant conflict on their Sinai border. In fact, I’d be surprised if the Israelis have not already worked this out with Cairo through Trump and his team. 

Operation Gideon’s Chariots makes this war a truly existential question for the Gazans. For nineteen years, they stood by and cheered Hamas’ wars against Israel because they didn’t risk losing territory or their quasi-sovereignty. That is changing, or at least the risk of it changing is becoming real. The plan would be to essentially surround whatever Gazans remain in the urban areas, who will have to live under Israeli occupation in name or otherwise, while a large number get ejected out of the territory altogether. And this isn’t even the worst possible outcome; the Israelis could escalate this by seizing and/or destroying the urban centers where Hamas operates its command and control, a step that the IDF has not yet exercised.

The main question now will be whether the Israelis are serious. Hamas will likely consider this a bluff, but that’s a dangerous gamble and their populace may not want to roll the dice along with them. They are already getting very restive in Gaza, forcing Hamas to execute dissenters while hoarding aid to control the population. If Hamas calls their bluff, they may expect the West or Iran to force Israel into backing off, but those days are long gone and Hamas has very few resources left. They may not realize yet just how different this situation is, both after October 7 and after the election in the US. 

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Hamas wanted a war. The Gazans cheered them on after October 7. They may be about to find out why starting wars is a bad choice, especially when committing atrocities in doing so. 

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